Comments on: Java Swing Is Dominant GUI Toolkit

By: Simon Brocklehurst's Weblog

Simon Brocklehurst's Weblog — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 17:51:09 +0000

What Are The Most Popular Languages For Open Source?

My last blog entry about getting kids into programming languages got me thinking about the programming languages I’ve learnt over the years. I’ll be writing an entry about that in a few days. However, thinking about programming language…

By: Simon Brocklehurst's Weblog

Simon Brocklehurst's Weblog — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 19:55:06 +0000

Java GUIs - Lookin’ Good!

It seems there a bit of buzz at JavaOne Tokyo at the moment. Some exciting things going on around Java on the desktop. Finally, we’re reaching the point where it will be possible in Java to make fast 3-D graphics and 2-D graphics/Swing all p…

By: simon

simon — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 10:24:17 +0000

I understand your frustrations about comparing current capabilities of one platform with future capabilities of another. I should say that this isn’t what I was trying to do here. In fact, if you look at apps developed with early access versions of XAML and C#, one of the most striking things about them is that you can do so much of them today with Swing, Java2D and even JOGL. And, when Java SE 6 (Mustang) is released, performance will again take a step forard.

So, in some ways, Microsoft is very much playing catch-up with Java on the Desktop. However, there are some areas of Desktop programming e.g. rich media such as video - where innovation on the Java platform has been painfully slow/non-existent. And this is an area where Microsoft may very well trump Java big-time.

Would this matter? I think it would. My view has always been that rich media was only ever going to increase in importance with time. And when I look at software written by companies that are doing things with rich media by using XAML and C# today, I have to say I’m quite impressed. I hope the Java Desktop team is given the resources to let them compete.

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 06:21:08 +0000

I agree with what you are saying. I think in the early days swing was hurt by expectations. People expected a VB application (in glorious battleship grey) to be ugly. Whereas with swing the expectations were higher.

Those of us who did the hard yards in a more limited environment (like VB) and learned how to make ugly things look good can do even better with swing because it enables a lot more.

One thing I’ve noticed that bugs me though… is when people compare current real world offerings with things that Microsoft may or may not do at some point in the distant future.

It annoys me for instance when reviewers compare OS X 10.4 (the ‘other’ Tiger) with Longhorn’s announced feature list (which I note mysteriously gets shorter and less interesting the closer it gets to the latest (slipped) deadline… but I digress). One the one hand I sympathise with the reviewers, since OS X completely blows the current windows offerings out of the water… and a completely one sided interview probably wouldn’t be well received as being not interesting enough. In essence their job is to create news/controversy if none exists. However on the gripping hand by comparing to microsofts vapourware, they validate that vapourware. So that even though they have a history of slipped schedules and shrinking feature lists (and outright lies?) we shore up their reputation by validating them.

If we say that XAML/Avalon might be a competitor to swing then implicitly we are suggesting that perhaps people should wait until Avalon comes out before making a decision to switch to swing or not…

… of course, when it does come out it will be years later, and not nearly as good as the marketers try to make it sound now… and the theoretical switcher in question *won’t be able* to switch to swing anyway, because by sitting on the fence for a couple of years they will have had to commit to some other inferior technology (whether ms or otherwise).