I'd like to start this blog with a bit of a disclaimer. I have been developing in Java for over a decade and so I was very interested when I found out that Sun was developing JavaFX as their solution for building Rich Internet Applications. With that said, I am trying to take a look at JavaFX for what it is and what it is not and not necessarily just for what I hope it will be.

In order to put JavaFX into some sort of context, let me give a brief summary of Java and its sorted client side past. Sun themselves have put together a nice web page about Java's history at (http://java.sun.com/features/1998/05/birthday.html). To summarize from that article, a team of 13 people "was chartered by Sun to anticipate and plan for the 'next wave' in computing. Their initial conclusion was that at least one significant trend would be the convergence of digitally controlled consumer devices and computers."  This team of 13 called the "Green Team" came up with an "interactive, handheld home-entertainment device controller with an animated touchscreen user interface." This device, named *7 ("StarSeven"), used an entirely new language called "Oak".

After Sun was unsuccessful at finding a target market for the *7 technology, John Gage, James Gosling, Bill Joy, Patrick Naughton, Wayne Rosing, and Eric Schmidt had the idea to target the Internet with the underlying software that was used in the *7 platform and so from the ashes of Oak, Java was born. Originally the team created a Java based browser called HotJava browser and then Netscape integrated Java Applet technology into its browser and so Sun started their journey down a path to a more rich web experience.

Shortly after the Netscape integration, developers from around the world clamored to attempt to unleash this new power available to them and develop a new more interactive web. Even Microsoft jumped on the Java bandwagon and they bundled their own version of the JVM into their OS and integrated Java Applet technology with their Internet Explorer browser. Things looked very bright and shiny for Java. Unfortunately daemons were lurking in the shadows of Java ready to pounce and change the direction of this rising star.

The first problem that Java started to experience in its attempt to take over the Web was due to the fact that Java was still a relatively new and somewhat quirky technology. In addition developers were not really sure what to do with this new Java Applet technology and so many of the initial applets that were created were really not much more than eye candy or simple games and even those applets pushed the limits of the relatively new JVM and the common PC hardware of the day.

Another early problem for Java on the client side was a widening rift that was forming between Microsoft and Sun over the Java technology. Specifically Microsoft was busy adding custom extensions to their own JVM and Sun demanded that Microsoft stop making those custom extensions. Eventually Microsoft decided to stop supporting their JVM and Java Applets in Internet Explorer just at a time when applets were starting to garner more attention. This rift along with the performance issues and other bugs and quirkiness with Java Applets were causing developers to abandon their efforts to use Java Applets. At the same time as this drop in popularity for Java Applets, Java on the server side was just beginning to become more popular and so Sun decided to focus their attention to server side Java and Applets soon withered on the vine (although never exactly died out completely).

Fast forward to today. Since that possibly premature death of the Java Applet (or if not death then at least a very prolonged hibernation or near death experience) other technologies such as Flash/Flex, Ajax, Silverlight, etc. have been developed and either have or are beginning to flourish in the growing RIA space. So now Sun, not wanting to be left out of the RIA world, has decided to try to resurrect and even put a new face on its aging Java Applet technology and so JavaFX was born. Sun themselves may possibly disagree a bit with this particular point as it appears that Sun sees JavaFX not just as a new face for Applets but rather as a platform that unifies the various Java Web, Desktop, and Mobile GUI platforms but for the sake of this blog let's just focus on the JavaFX's potential to revive the Applet.

So what exactly is JavaFX. According to Sun's website at http://java.sun.com/javafx/script/index.jsp

"JavaFX Script is a highly productive scripting language that enables designers and content authors to create rich media and content for deployment in Java environments."

And

"Although JavaFX Script makes it very easy to create simple GUIs, it is designed to be capable of supporting GUIs of any size or complexity.

...

JavaFX Script optimizes the creative process of building rich and compelling graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for scripters, designers, and content authors, leveraging Java Swing, Java 2D, and Java 3D APIs. These rich interfaces and next-generation services can be proliferated across virtually any device securely and without local installation."

It is clear from this description that Sun has realized a fundamental truth in the RIA space. RIAs require involvement from designers, content authors, and developers to be truly functional and appealing. Up until fairly recently (at least in my opinion) almost all tools have been heavily weighted to either designers or developers and did not do a good job at bridging this divide.

Probably the most dominant player in the designer world is Adobe with technologies and tools like Flash, Photoshop, DreamWeaver, Illustrator, etc. In the developer world the behemoths have long been Sun with Java/J2EE technologies (and the many third party tools and technologies that are based on Java) and Microsoft with their .NET platform and their Windows based OS and development tools and technologies. Both Adobe and Microsoft have already grasped the idea that they need to bring designers, content authors, and developers together and both already have technologies to support this concept. For instance, Adobe's Flex technology is more geared to developers but is based on their already established Flash technology that has long been a favorite for designers and content authors. Microsoft too has developed Silverlight technology based on their already well established developer centric technologies in an effort to make their solutions more palatable for designers and content authors.

Sun is now attempting to follow suit by creating the more designer focused JavaFX technology which is based on its already well established Java developer focused technologies. The first thing that Sun has done to try to bridge this gap is to create the JavaFX Script language. Although JavaFX Script is somewhat similar to Java, Sun has created a new language that is attempting to mimic some of the features of JavaScript or dare I say maybe even ActionScript both of which are languages that designers and content authors typically have more familiarity with than Java. To get the sense of what the JavaFX Script language is attempting to do, take a look at this excerpt of the current version of the JavaFX Script reference as of the time that I wrote this blog which can be found at http://openjfx.java.sun.com/current-build/doc/reference/overview.html:

The JavaFX Script programming language:

    * Uses a declarative syntax for specifying Graphical User Interface (GUI) components, allowing a developer's code to closely match the actual layout of the GUI.
    * Uses declarative data binding and incremental evaluation, making it possible to easily create and configure individual components. Application data and GUI components are automatically synchronized.
    * Is statically typed, having most of the same code structuring, reuse, and encapsulation features that make it possible to create and maintain very large programs in the Java programming language.
    * Works with all major IDEs, including the NetBeans IDE, the reference implementation IDE for software development with the Java programming language.
    * Is capable of supporting GUIs of any size or complexity.
    * Makes it easier to use Swing.

My initial feeling was that having a language that attempts to combine some of the features of already existing designer centric technologies really seems like a good idea, but then I tried to work with the language. Now in all fairness, JavaFX technologies at this time are really in an infant stage and probably have a lot of growing up to do but since this is all that I have to evaluate at this moment I must evaluate what I see and not what I hope will be coming.

The first thing that I noticed when working with JavaFX Script was that although it does have some similarities to Java, JavaScript, and ActionScript, it is truly a new unique language that you have to learn if you want to use it. To me that is a big detriment because I already know how to program in Java, JavaScript, and ActionScript and I really don't want to learn a dramatically different language. Also many designers and content authors have already made the commitment (more out of necessity than desire) to learn either ActionScript or JavaScript and are probably even more reluctant to learn a new language because, lets face it, they are designers/content authors and not programmers. So really all that Sun has managed to do by creating this new language is to alienate designers, content authors, and developers alike. This one decision could potentially kill the acceptance of the JavaFX before it even gets off the ground.

Another issue with the current state of the JavaFX is that currently the only way to develop in this technology is to use JavaFX Script since there are no graphical tools to help create RIAs with JavaFX. Now again I should point out that the lack of tools is due to the fact that JavaFX is so new and one would very much hope that visual based tools would be coming soon, but given the fact that Sun is already late to the RIA game the lack of such visual tools is going to be a huge obstacle to acceptance. This is especially true with the designer and content author communities since typically their preferred means of developing RIAs are by using visual tools and it is usually only begrudgingly that designers and content authors will learn a language to implement the more advanced or interactive parts of the RIA.

Another extremely important issue with JavaFX is that the underlying Java platform has seriously lagged in the audio/video authoring and even more important rendering worlds. Again in fairness Sun is desperately attempting to remedy this situation as fast as it can but again I have to state that Sun is way behind the eight ball on this one.

The final issue that I will mention is the fact that because Sun is so far behind its competitors with its RIA technologies, Sun appears to be relying on independent third parties to provide core functionality to its RIA stack. For instance, it does not appear that Sun itself is not working on a scene graph/animation/timeline/effects stack(s) for JavaFX rather Sun appears to be promoting the usage of the separate Java based Project Scene Graph at https://scenegraph.dev.java.net to fulfill this need. Personally I am usually all for open third party implementations of software but those can come at a cost. For instance, other third parties could potentially branch off the code and create several incompatible implementations of the stack or could produce completely independent implementations of a similar stack. This would require that designers/content authors/developers would have to pick a particular stack and would then have to hope that whatever stack they picked would continue to evolve over time in a way that is gracefully backwards compatible. Also an issues specific to Project Scene Graph is that is appears to be designed as a Java API that happens to work with JavaFX Script but after I personally worked with Project Scene Graph in JavaFX Script I hit a few hurdles with not being able to do something with Project Scene Graph in JavaFX Script. This forces me to have to write some of my front end code in Java instead of JavaFX Script and so again I am forced to use two different languages to accomplish a single task.

In conclusion given the fact that I am primarily a Java developer I am definitely intrigued and excited about the prospect of having a RIA technology with strong roots in Java technologies but given the fact that Sun is really late to the RIA game and the fact that they have opted to create a new language for their JavaFX technology, I find my optimism and excitement for JavaFX to be tempered almost to the point of just wishful thinking and longing.

Since its inception, the web has evolved from a repository of hyperlinked information for researchers and institutions to a playground for hard core techies and developers to a popular electronic medium for graphic artists and designers to an ongoing experiment in eCommerce and now to a brave new Web2.0 universe.

Because of this evolution, developers, designers, and content providers have been forced to forge a closer and closer relationship with each other in order to bring more functional, more interactive, and more compelling Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) to life. This reluctant relationship has been rocky at times, and some have even tried to circumvent it altogether by having developers try to do design and designers try to do development, but in order for the Web2.0 to grow and flourish, we need to bridge the gap between these differing skill sets.

The best way to bridge this gap is by providing a suite of tools that enable designers and developers alike to feel comfortable and to get their work done in a easy and timely fashion. So now let's look at some of the current tools and technologies to see how they are (or are not) meeting the needs of both designers and developer:

(D)HTML + JavaScript/Ajax

One benefit to these technologies is that they have been around since the early days of the internet and so because of that there are probably more people that know these technologies than any other. One may also make the assumption that since these technologies have been around for so long that there must be some great, mature tools for working with these technologies. Unfortunately I personally don't feel that to be the case.

Sure there have been many attempts to create such tools including everything from WYSIWYG, designer focused tools to full blown developer suites including tag and code completion. The problem is that HTML (which is the fundamental basis for these technologies) was not designed to be a rich application technology, rather it has been pushed into that role due to the ubiquity of the browser.

As a matter of fact one could argue that the tools that have been developed to work with these technologies have never really been a good fit for designers nor developers but that both have merely put up with the tools so that they could get their jobs done. Even worse, very few tools that work with these technologies make it easy for both designers and developers to work on the same application in a cooperative fashion.

In the last few years, there have been many attempts to make developing with these underlying technologies a little easier by providing tools that let users visually lay out HTML/Ajax components. Although these tools have probably made developers lives a little easier when trying to do the job of a designer the tools still don't do a good job in allowing developers and designers to work together. This ultimately leads to designers having to create mock ups of applications in their tools of choice and developers attempting to use their own tools to attempt to create a working version of those mock ups.

Adobe Flash/Flex

Flash has long been a favored technology of designers because the tools that are used to develop Flash content were created with designers in mind. The Flash authoring tools focus heavily on timeline based content creation with animation transitions between key frames. For more application like behavior, Flash relies on a programming language called ActionScript which although based on ECMAScript is not (at least to my knowledge) used outside of Flash/Flex technologies. ActionScript allows designers the ability to take on the role of a developer when they wish to add additional behavior to their Flash applications that cannot be done simply by visually manipulating elements on a timeline.

Developers have traditionally shyed away from Flash because the authoring tools are so heavily focused on designers and because they are unfamiliar with ActionScript and do not want to learn what they view is a programming langugage that is very specific to Flash. Adobe has attempted to help bridge the gap between designers and developers with their Flex technology which is based on Flash but adds some more traditional UI components such as charting and graphing and comes with a more developer friendly development tool based on the Eclipse platform.

In my opinion Flex is on the right track to bridging that gap between developers and designers but because Adobe appears to be marketing Flash and Flex as different technologies and their seems to be some gaps in being able to use both products easily on the same application, there is still some distance to go before the designer/developer gap is fully bridged.

Microsoft Silverlight

Although Microsoft attempted to break into the RIA space with ActiveX, even back before RIA was a coined term, ActiveX suffered from a general lack of widespread adoption (the reasons for which I will not get into here). Microsoft has decided to once again take a shot at this space with its Silverlight technology.

Microsoft is really attempting to go head to head with Adobe's Flash/Flex technologies with Silverlight. Similar to Adobe, Microsoft has decided to create complementary tools that are geared towards designers (Microsoft Expression Studio 2) that are more visually based and timeline based and tools that are geared towards developers (Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Silverlight Tools).

Microsoft has also given a lot of thought to how to get these different tool sets to work together. To that end, Microsoft has opted to use a form of XML called Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) as the intermediary language between the toolsets. At this point in time the use of XAML probably makes Microsoft's tools the best choice for bridging the gap between designers and developers working on the same project.

Java/JavaFX

Like Microsoft Java was an early entry in the RIA space with Java Applets even before RIA was a coined term. Java Applets also suffered from a general lack of widespread adoption and so Sun too has decided to once again get back into the RIA space with its JavaFX technology. Unfortunately at this time JavaFX is still very much a new technology and as such does not have much in the way of tools other than some integration with the NetBeans IDE. I actually have written a separate blog about JavaFX which you can read at http://www.riaspot.com/blogs/entry/Will-JavaFX-become-a-viable-RIA-technology-