Totally Agree. I recently started a new role and it was with great delight that I discovered 5 different Swing WebStart applications available from the intranet.
Having developed in Swing, MS WinForms, MS WPF, AngularJS and ReactJS, I would say Swing on NetBeans has the best speed of development closely followed by WPF with JS-based frameworks a distant third. Much of that can be attributed to the rational architecture of the Swing API combined with the ease-of-use of the NetBeans visual designer. Of course Swing is very limited from a look and feel perspective. For sexy applications JS has several advantages, Chet and Roman‘s „Filthy Rich Clients“ notwithstanding! But those advantages come with a heavy cost in terms of the NodeJS ecosystem requirements and debugging the hacky nature of JavaScript. When I want something to work, work quickly and spend close to zero time debugging it, I chose Java Swing! It has been a life-long disappointment of mine that more companies don’t use it! For the web, I do like ReactJS, and using a component library like Material-UI makes it almost as easy to design an application (even if I am missing the NetBeans visual designer), but there‘s no getting around JS‘s Byzantine control flows and object/functional frustrating hybrid DNA. I still retain a naive hope that there will be a cultural turning away from HTML/JS led by a new hipster generation of programmers who want to focus on data and functionality, over endless CSS, and who delight in the „Old School“ feel of a desktop app! TCH On Tuesday, August 21, 2018, Geertjan Wielenga <geertjan.wiele...@googlemail.com.invalid> wrote: > The Java desktop hasn't really found a place in software for small and > medium businesses -- probably because .NET is so dominant in that space. > However, that does not mean that the Java desktop has failed, since there's > a LOT more in the software world than software for small and medium > business. How about, for example, large business or let's say industrial > business, e.g., scientific data modeling (in banks, aerospace, etc) -- > that's where there's more Java desktop software. The Java desktop, again, > is not so common for the consumer marker, but all the more so for large > back office systems. > > Gj > > > On Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 4:06 PM, Miroslav Nachev < > mnachev.nscenter...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> In support of what Chuck Davis said, I would like to say that more than >> 90% of the software for small and medium businesses in Bulgaria is made on >> Microsoft .NET and MS SQL Server Express. >> For example, accounting and payroll software for micro and small >> businesses is primarily on .NET, where the Web is not used. >> >> >> On Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 4:49 PM, Chuck Davis <cjgun...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Microsoft doesn't create the desktop apps. They created a rich >>> environment for businesses to create the apps. Can you say Intuit (their >>> on-line version is not a big hit from what I've heard)? Nearly all >>> accounting packages are built for Windows only. Nearly everything used in >>> businesses is built for Windows only. I work currently in agriculture. >>> Our packing houses (and Ag is a huge industry) are run by software only >>> available on Windows desktops -- certainly not browsers. >>> >>> Small businesses are not flocking to browser interfaces to get their >>> real work done. >>> >>> If one looks only at Microsoft apps (and there are currently good >>> alternatives to those) he misses the big picture. It's the rich >>> development environment they have provided that allows businesses to create >>> the apps we need to run our businesses -- unfortunately on Windows only. >>> Java is the only viable alternative. >>> >>> I don't belong to the crowd who thinks Swing has been a failure. It's >>> been wonderful in my experience (thanks in large part to NB). But I've >>> become quite taken with FX as well (developed nicely with NB) -- for me >>> it's been a great journey to become proficient with it. It's still got >>> serious warts I hope get fixed soon but it's a great start. If FX falters >>> I'll revert to Swing in a heartbeat. Desktop development, in my opinion, >>> doesn't get any better than Java. Combine a Java desktop app with a good >>> server, EJB, JDBC and a good datastore -- good business environment. >>> >>> What mobile has done is teach people that for a good user experience you >>> need to download an app -- not a browser. >>> >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 1:29 AM Emilian Bold <emilian.b...@protonmail.ch> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> What new desktop apps did Microsoft release in the past years? >>>> >>>> They have a monopoly on office productivity apps (Word / Excel) but >>>> what other desktop software products are these 'small businesses' buying? >>>> >>>> Small businesses may be the biggest employer but they are not the >>>> biggest software (desktop) developer employers. >>>> >>>> The data just doesn't show this: where are the successful products, the >>>> companies catering to small business, the jobs? >>>> >>>> --emi >>>> >>>> >> >
