I don't think it's a failure. The truth is that JavaFX Script is a really productive and fun way to build rich client software. However, there are some big questions marks over the technology at the moment. These include:
- Apparent slippage in the JavaFX release schedule: JavaFX 1.3 (Soma) was originally supposed to be an end-of-year 2009 release - now it may be Feb 2010; Prism (the all new high-performance JavaFX graphics system) was originally supposed to be part of the 1.3 release, now it's pushed back to the summer. - JavaFX applets in the browser are currently unusable on both Windows and Mac OS X due to horrific rendering bugs (even leaving aside the multiple-dialog box install procedure). With Java 7 slipping from Feb 2010 to Sept 2010, it might be the best part of a year before the applet situation improves (bbut hoping it's not a plug-in issue as much as a JavaFX issue that's fixed in 1.3) - Features having to be cut, even to make the delayed release schedule. For example, the integrated 2-D/3-D scene graph was originally supposed to be part of the 1.3 release, but now the scope has been reduced to take out rendering 3-D objects. - Poor performance with large scene graphs. This is promised to go away with Prism - originally, it would have just been a few weeks ago. Now it's probably at least six months away (see above). - Neither a full complement of controls, nor interactive tooling available to make building high-quality UIs fast and easy. - Apparently zero momentum behind JavaFX Mobile. While Adobe is signing up partners left, right and center for Flash on mobile, the number of announcements relating to JavaFX have been conspicuous by their absence. - No easy deployment for standalone applications; and no way incorporating JavaFX components inside a Swing app. All of the above make it impossible to justify using JavaFX for real- world projects except in a very limited set of circumstances; even for those people (like me) that really want to see the technology succeed; and most people won't even touch it yet because they think: it's so far away from being useful; and they can't build on existing Swing investments. Future milestones will be: the Soma release; the Prism release; the tooling product releases; and the Java 7 release. Hopefully the technology will become a viable choice at one of these milestones (i.e. within the next year), otherwise, I suspect there really will be some problems for JavaFX. The other thing that shouldn't be overlooked is that while Sun was probably too small to take on Adobe and Microsoft in the RIA platform battle, Oracle most certainly isn't too small. If Oracle wants to make JavaFX the number one RIA platform, it certainly has the resources to do so. I really hope Oracle delivers on the idea of increasing investment in JavaFX to: first make it usable in the real world; and second accelerate development to start bringing in time lines, rather than have them keep being pushed out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
