Simon’s Blog

Today, a technology preview SDK for Sun’ s all-new RIA platform, JavaFX, was released into the wild.  It’s been just over a year in the making. I was one of the first people to blog about JavaFX - my first blogs (here, and here) were on 8 May 2007, when JavaFX was publicly announced.   Since then, I’ve followed the development of platform closely, occasionally giving cause for the JavaFX team at Sun to scramble to clarify licensing issues.  Despite keeping myself up-to-speed on developments, however, I’ve held of trying out the JavaFX platform for myself.   The language syntax seemed to change all the time.  Up-to-date documentation seemed thin on the ground.  So, I held off trying it… until now.

JavaFX promises much. Not least, it promises to unleash the graphics power of the Java platform.   “Graphics power”?!  What?! That might seem a strange statement to those who aren’t expert with programming graphics in Java; and to those that think Java is some slow, clunky platform characterised by ugly-looking software. However, the truth is that Java is an incredibly powerful platform on which to build sophisticated graphics-rich applications.   The problem has been that accessing many of the platform’s advanced capabilities has been so convoluted that very few developers have figured it out.   So - JavaFX is designed to make it much easier to build amazing-looking applications.   In addition, JavaFX integrates nicely with Java itself.  Finally, JavaFX brings all-new rich media capabilities to the Java platform.

Today’s release of the Preview SDK was my signal to try JavaFX out for the first time. So, this evening, I installed the SDK, and set about creating a “Hello World” style application.   My verdict? JavaFX is really promising.  I like it. A lot.

Of course, this is only a preview release.  So, is it perfect? No! Is it feature-complete?  No!  Is it bug-free? No! Are there issues with non-Windows deployment?  Yes (for one thing, Sun will have to rely on Apple to develop a Java plug-in that will allow JavaFX to run in the browser on Macs)!  Is the IDE support world-class? No!  Today, though, none of that matters. Sun has shown the world the potential of JavaFX.  If the JavaFX team continues to execute well, then with a bit of luck, JavaFX can be a real contender in the world of Rich Internet Applications.  If you’re the type of developer that’s comfortable with being an early adopter of new technologies, I recommend you give it a try.  As long as you take the above caveats into account, I think you might be surprised… and impressed.