Peter Pilgrim :: Java Champion :: Enterprise Blog

In order to get JavaFX 2.0 to work with a Maven Repository, requires some fudge factor. Because one cannot simply redistribute JavaFX Library, you have to install the libraries manually into a local Maven repository.

This is my MSDOS command script to do it:

REM Installing Oracle JavaFX 2.0 Runtime into a Local Maven Repository
REM Based on the information from JFXtras 2.0 Project
REM http://code.google.com/p/jfxtras/wiki/ContributorGettingStarted
REM Peter Pilgrim 12th September 2011 in Crete

REM set JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_27
REM set javafx.home=C:\Program Files\Oracle\JavaFX 2.0 SDK
REM set JAVAFX_HOME=C:\Program Files\Oracle\JavaFX 2.0 SDK
REM set javafx.home=%JAVAFX_HOME%
REM set USERPROFILE=C:\Users\Peter

REM Install the JavaFX Java Library
call mvn install:install-file -Dfile="%javafx.home%\rt\lib\jfxrt.jar" -DgroupId=com.oracle -DartifactId=javafx-runtime -Dversion=2.0 -Dpackaging=jar



pushd "%javafx.home%\rt\bin"
del /f /q %USERPROFILE%\Documents\javafx-dll-temp-bin.jar
"%JAVA_HOME%\bin\jar" -cf  %USERPROFILE%\Documents\javafx-dll-temp-bin.jar *.dll
popd 

REM Install Native libraries
call mvn install:install-file -Dfile=%USERPROFILE%\Documents\javafx-dll-temp-bin.jar -DgroupId=com.oracle -DartifactId=javafx-runtime -Dversion=2.0 -Dpackaging=jar -Dclassifier=windows

REM Copy the binaries to the Maven Local Repository
copy "%javafx.home%\rt\bin"  %USERPROFILE%\.m2\repository\com\oracle\javafx-runtime\bin

REM End.

Once you have the local repository set up, once include a Maven dependency into a project like this:

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.oracle</groupId>
            <artifactId>javafx-runtime</artifactId>
            <version>2.0</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>junit</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
            <version>4.8.2</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

Thus the group is com.oracle, the artifact id javafx-runtime, and the version is 2.0.

There you go.
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I have completed all three of my Progressive JavaFX 2.0 talks in California, at JavaOne 2011, Silicon Valley Code Camp at Foothills College and Silicon Valley JavaFX User Group at Oracle Conference Center.

You get the slides deck from here as a PDF document.

The source code is a Maven assembly distribution, a ZIP file, which I concocted on the last day of California. The code is available here.

The slide deck is below (from Slide Share):

As ever if you have any comments in general, modifications, and just essentially interesting things to say, then please do not hesitate to contact me here directly. You can add to the blog entry comment and also do the social networking Twitter, Google+ thing.

Let’s us keep pushing things forward.

Best.

-PP-
  14th October 2011

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Just a quickie whilst I am still in California for a while.

Tori Wieldt from Java.Net, Java Developer Community Lead at Oracle interviewed Stephen Chin and I on the Sunday 2nd October.  Here is the interview and we are in the 1:54 to 4:10 approximately.

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Wow! What a week it has been in California at JavaOne.

[FULL VERSION – After the crash of flaming Microsoft Live Writer, I recovered and improved this blog entry.]

View from Hotel Nikko upper level looking down on the Mason Street Buzz Cafe, Chill Out Area

The biggest news of the event were the announcement of the JavaFX 2.0 release, and the new initiatives for Java EE 7 taking it to the Cloud. I spent most of my time schedule at the JavaFX 2.0 sessions, I did however hope over to see a number of the Java Performance tuning talks. I went on the Monday to Charlie Hunt’s talk on the JVM HotSpot Optimisation flags and also to Sunny Chan’s Performance Tuning for Low Latency. There was also a JavaFX performance tuning talk.

JavaOne 2011 was a very busy schedule, there is also some session that I wanted to go to, especially on Monday, when my talk on Progressive JavaFX 2.0 was scheduled. The conversations with people in the hallway were also a highlight.

Progressive JavaFX Talk

I know a number of you are waiting for my slides. I gave to the audio/visual guy at the event, but I still publish improved slides here and probably on Slide Share or the other presentation online service. The code example will be tidied. I have a couple days more in California,  before I fly back to the UK. Meanwhile, I am currently still processing some additional ideas for my Progressive JavaFX talk on Thursday 13th, Oracle Redwood City Shore office at the Silicon Valley JavaFX User Group. Stay tuned.

[R] Dave Booth with Zero Turnaround’s Duke Award

JavaFX 2.0

Oracle have listened to the JavaFX community by making a public commitment to release the entire runtime, components and library as an open source project. It is currently documented in the JavaFX Roadmap. I believe this is a fantastic result, and shows that Oracle can be trusted to deliver software when they say it is going to be delivered. This is different mantra, business operation to Sun Microsystems, who would write these fabulous JavaOne demonstrations that were so wonderful, the early rich client Java2D / AWT example of the Flickr client, springs to mind (circa 2006) and then would never release the code, or do anything production with it.

Consider the mess that is Microsoft Silverlight, which is the alternative rich user interface technology aimed for the Dot Net platform. Scott Barnes was quite scathing in his blog entry about being one of SliverLight’s original custodian. Seriously, I am very pleased that I did not fly all the way to California, to the Oracle Java mecca conference and hear that JavaFX is dead. You do not know how happy I am.

I was even more pleased to see JavaFX running, albeit with no performance or production worthiness on the Apple iPad and Android device.

[L] Adam Bein, Java Champion and author of Java EE 6 Night Hacks

I was quoted by Cay Horstman [of Core Java book fame] on the Java.net Day 4 blogging of the JavaOne 2011. Yes it is true that many years ago, Chris Oliver’s pet project, Form-Follows-Function was complete open source and so much so that a [unknown] community member did port to Android 1.x in 2008. Sun Microsystems brought the door on the runtime and controls, but kept the compiler outside and open. This is the reason that Stephen Chin and Eric Smith can continue its legacy with Visage.

Java Futures JDK 8 and JDK 9

I thought that the Mark Reinhold announcement of JDK 8 moving to 2013 and that Oracle should be aiming for more realistic two year cycle to be admirable.  In the past, JDK release have slipped beyond the eighteen months to years.

Mark Reinhold did mention that it leaves more time, if possible, for JVM convergence. In particular, if Java is going to taken serious on more than just the Desktop Profile, then the SE (Standard Edition) badly needs the following sensor API added:

1. Multi-touch screen
2. Global Position System
3. Magnetometry
4. Linear Motion and Acceleration
5. Digital Camera support
6. Multiple display screen resolution, orientation and capabilities
7. Bluetooth
8. Universal Serial Bus

If Oracle and more importantly OpenJDK project can deliver the first four then we are good. All of the above would be fantastic. Also remember that the JDK 8 is going to be modularised, the benefit being that this fictional “sensor” module can be split into high level and low level.

[L] Jim Weaver and [R] Johan Vos

The other parts of JDK 8 for me personally were less interesting. We all know that JDK 8 will bring Lambda functions and expressions; and Jigsaw. These are huge changes and it is important that the OpenJDK team member cook and brew a soup that we can all manage.

Many leading Java engineers, developers and designers in the community have looked beyond Java the programming to alternative JVM languages, some have been writing business applications in this mode, already, for several years. Consider this, that a so-called closure written in Scala, is a completely different implementation to one written in Groovy, and to one written in Clojure. Also note in the latter that I crossed the line between a static compiled language and a dynamic language. It might pay the OpenJDK members and                                                            a note to look at the various alternative JVM language implementations. Of course, Brian Goetz, probably is already doing, with Alex Buckley, because the new Lambda design reflects warmly on the Scala function object syntax.

Mark Reinhold indicated that a possible implementation of Lambdas in JDK8 looks like it can written as Method Reference Handles and therefore may make use of Dynamic Invocation byte code. 

Sadly, I did not personally attend as many Core Java talks as I wanted to. The one I did attend were on Java performance tuning.

Java EE 7 and Movement to Cloud

I think that it is great that Java EE 7 is moving to be Cloud computing and also amusing that I remember an old JavaOne keynote of Sun Microsystem’s earlier paid for utility computing cycle project  (the now defunct Sun Grid project).

Cloud computing is now no longer a laughing matter. It is big business and all of the major players in the market offer means to allow a Java engineer to write applications to deployed on proprietary cloud products.

The ideas for Java EE 7 means bringing multi-tenancy, provisioning and configuration to many traditional Java EE APIs. It is a whole new world.

[R] Sunny Chan from the Hong Kong Java User Group at his Performance Tuning talk

Java EE 7 needs a many leading cloud providers to collaborate on the standardisation to be really successful. Developers are already happy to code a specific vendor and platform, for example the Google App Engine or Microsoft’s Azure or Amazon EC2, so break this cycle now may be asking a little too much. More importantly, business have already chosen a cloud provider, because of consumer demand far exceeded the traditional clustered solutions. My fear is that ultimately Java EE 7 is that the cloud API do not cover enough standardisation for the big users, e.g. a Netflix and the range of APIs are too weak.

If we can consolidate the vesting interest of vendors, then Java EE 7 could be successful de-facto standard for Platform As A Service.

What Are My Favourite Things About JavaOne 2011?

JavaOne 2011 was more successful than last year, because the many of the track sessions were grouped to the hotel. For the performance tuning and Java EE talks were in the Hilton and the JavaFX rich user interface talks were held in the Nikko hotel.

Interested and serious look into the camera from [R] Dean Iverson and Stephen Chin [L] is gesticulating at the ScalaFX code on the slide

I also liked the hang space outside the sessions. This was a great idea, to sit or to stand and just chat to the interested. The orientation helpers also on the first day or two were priceless in a couple of occasions. I felt that I got to know some of the conference organisers and session door staff, because the JavaFX talks were co-located into the Nikko hotel. I do not know if this was the same experience for the Java EE speakers.

Audio / visual systems worked out quite well. Sound issues were a rarity. Projection of the slide deck was mostly clear.

At JavaOne 2010 conference, delegates were confused by the opening keynote that took place at Moscone. For this year’s conference, the keynotes were held in Hilton. The decision to clearly separate the operations of JavaOne and Open World was a great one. I noticed quite a few delegate had signed up for both conference, so I wonder how did that experience of double amount of sessions feel for them?

The sponsor partner keynotes left a lot to be desired, especially the Juniper Networks talk, which mention absolutely nothing about Java for 30 minutes. The Twitter and ARM guest invites left a good impression to me. If you are CTO, or even a CTO of Java strong related business then may be you should be approaching Oracle to do a keynote. Has nobody attempted to turn the table around with configuration?

Much better were the community keynotes and mini ones that took place on the last day of the conference. Making Sharat Chandler an honorary member of the Java Posse was a fun bit of the Thursday key note.

Stop Press: Oracle announced a deal where there will be 200 JavaOne 2011 talks featured on Parley over the next 12 months. The first 20 talks were immediately announced and available on Parleys.

What To Improve at JavaOne 2011?

The only speaker room in the Hilton Hotel was abysmally tiny compared to one that used exist in Moscone Centre. I am glad I did not have to depend on it all. I went back to my hotel or found an hang space. I was unhappy with the size of it and the lack of coffee and refreshments.

The lovely [L] Eileen Bugee, who is wearing a very "blingey" JavaFX tee-shirt and of course [R] Jasper Potts talking about Pixel-perfect Design in JavaFX 2.0

Some of the branding of occasion, JavaOne 2011, in the sessions room could be improved. In the photographs that I took of presenters, there were some unsightly areas, maybe I am a perfectionist, it could be a little tidier there. I do think this has to with hotel facilities and management so may be there not an awful lot that Oracle can do.

A JavaOne attendee taking a call in the upper level of the Nikko Hotel looking over Mason Street. "Well honey, I have to work today … just taking time out of the sessions …"

Rocking

[L] Ixchel Almiray and [R] Andres Almiray, what a lovely couple!

The open space on Mason Street was initially a great idea I thought and then it rained. The tents need to be a larger. My photograph from Nikko looking down showed many delegate actually taking a breather in the open area. The tents just need to be large and more extensive covering around to afford a good chill area.

I would double the size of the Buzz Cafe House, because the queues were two long to get a decent Cappuccino.

[R] Andres Almiray, I finally meet up and talk about Griffon. He was demonstrating Griffon and the Scala plug-in

The Wi-Fi worked most of the time, and it was really good that it was wide ranging. There were some DNS lookup errors, but nothing like some of the horrendous experience in the past.

Conference builder app for the iPhone / iOS devices worked reasonably well. Except when you couldn’t get service on line, or perhaps as a speaker you disable your mobile phone, then the app make a synchronisation to the server. If this communication is lacking then your app is out.

At least with the schedule builder application online one can export the sessions into a private calendar. The builder was much better than last year model, which was then unusable.

It would be great to have the Moscone Center back, may be the West Moscone.

The Shout Outs

I believe Oracle have delivered on their promise to move Java forward. The good times are ahead of us once more, so use it or lose it.

In no particular order:-

• Stephen Chin
• Jim Weaver
• Eric Smith
• Kirk Pepperdine
• Adam Bien
• Simon Ritter
• Stuart Marks
• Ixcel Almiray
• Andres Almiray
• Dick Wall
• Joe Nuxoll
• Tor Norbye
• Karl Quinn
• Joe Sondow
• Federick Simon
• David Booth
• Jim Clarke
• Cay Horstman
• Keith Commbs
• Sandra Iverson
• Dean Iverson
• James Ward
• Stephan Janssen
• Johan Vos
• Jo Voreendeckers
• Dan Hardiker
• Gerritt Grunwald
• Rags
• Nicole Scott
• Yolande Poirier
• Sonya Berry
• JDuchess team
• Clara Ko
• Regina ten Bruggencate
• Charlie Hunt
• Sunny Chan
• Eileen Bugee
• Jasper Potts
• Richard Bair
• Nicolas Lorain
• George Saab
• Martin Gunnarson
• Par Sako
• Arun Gupta
• Bruno Souza
• Martjin Verburg
• Dierk Koening
• Chris Phelps
• Carrielyn Weber Hamann
• Max Bohnbel
• Lori Kammer
• John Petersen
• Dale Davenport
• Daniel B Sline
• Michael Heinrich
• Tori Wieldt 
• Mike Lewin
• Justin Kestelyn
• Kevin Rushford

and please forgive me if I have missed out anybody.

Java Champions

We are the Java Champions

Clearing Up Controversy

I am aware of some controversy around alleged sexism comment by Adam Bien, a fellow Java Champion of note. This was not the case at all. Actually, Adam, was misquoted, actually he said, “My first version of this [talk] was try to explain to a women. This almost got me thrown out of a couple of conferences. What this meant was I try to explain it to an alien … just forget everything you know”. Adam comes from Germany and was speaking in English as a foreign language. My German is pretty rusty, it would be a challenge, now, to give a presentation in German as it is a foreign language for me. I think Adam’s words and his expression were lost in translation, but his meaning is quite clear, and he is not a bigot in any form. Judge for yourself by listening to the first 3 minutes of Adam’s talk Rethinking Best Practices with Java EE 6.

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One of the greatest technology leaders that ever lived and probably ever walk this earth. RIP Steve Jobs, Apple Chairman and former CEO http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/ ( Applause ;-D *)

Hewlett Packard –> Atari –> Apple –> Next –> Pixar –> Next –> Apple

Quotes From Commencement Speech at Reed College

“Sorry to be so dramatic: but your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking

“Most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

“Be insanely great.”

How Steve Influenced My University Days

It was now a time ago, in the late 1980’s when I attended London South Bank University. Whilst reading my the later half of my Science Computing degree, I wrote many assignments on an expensive colour Apple Macintosh IIgs computer in the, then, very dignified department only, computer lab. Especially, I loved the black and white user interface of Macintosh. It was a light years ahead of the MS DOS based IBM PC compatibles of the time. The tool of choice was WordPerfect, a proper word processing application. In those heady days, Apple Mac computers were prone to viruses and infections, and hackers even then, which meant that the administrative department gave out special 3.5 disks with a Disinfectant program.

The experience of the earlier Mac user interface, Windows Icon Mouse Pointer, borrowed from the seminal research of Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, lead to my early interest in user interface programming. If Steve Jobs had not gone for perfection, pushing his knowledge of art design, calligraphy, his philosophy, I never would have viewed this technology at university. The first impressions of a beautiful user interface, graphically proportioned and in colour for the day, left me great thoughts about a career in programming graphics and software development.

Those first impressions of quality business application with graphic user interface were not lost on me.  It lead to a job programming years later in the 1990s, on SunOS 4.1 workstations and X Windows / OSF Motif programming. Although, I never got to develop HyperCard applications ( I had no interest in that technology and there was too much work to be done on other bachelor degree assignments), the inspiration of the user interface, the slickness of the user experience left me wanting more. I took some of these inspirations also to Borland Turbo Pascal programming on MS DOS as part of the final project of my degree.  

About the time of my finals, I think in 1989 or 1990, I read two biographies one was about Bill Gates and other was about Steve Jobs. I borrowed both books from the South Bank University library. I am very sure that the latter was called The Journey is the Reward, which was published in 1987 and written by Jeffrey S. Young. It was a fascinating read and really engrossing story of Steve Jobs’ earlier career. I remember the chapter called Lobotomy, where he was ousted from the computer company that he had co-founded in 1976. On the day that he was chucked out, I think Wozniak and some other staff members were worried about his state of health and mental stability, and they cared enough. They made sure that he was ok. Steve Jobs lived quite frugally, in fact, walked bare feet in his earlier life, and lived on his own, in a big house in the valley. They need not have worried, because Steve Jobs, was never ever going to top himself. He dusted his self off, over a couple of months, and then founded NeXT computers, and helped John Lasseter create Pixar Animations.

Reading that the story of never-say-die in 1989/1990, being adventurous, being a hippie, and traveling to India, and then watching and reading to his commencement speech at Reed College in 2005, yesterday, I definitely felt touched, and inspired today and back then.  Especially right now, today, as I reflect on the “down” periods of my life. It made me say, “So bloody what! If these other people do not understand me now. It is more important that I understand myself.” That was the core message that should never be buried, lost in the ether, a lost signal in random white noise, or be enveloped by other people’s agendas. Steve Job’s core message deserves be sticky.

Stay true to your own goals, because you only have one life. Ever. And it is a precious one. One.

Miscellany

New story UK on the BBC Link

*In Italian Football, at sports ground, traditionally the fans clap instead of stay silent in order to show a mark of respect. I like this.

Watch the CNN tribute to Steve Jobs on YouTube

Business Insider published 13 most memorable quotes from Steve Jobs

The iPhone Dev Team [a group of international socially responsible hackers] who unlocked and jail broke the firmware for iPhone in various generations 1G,3G,3GS put a simple tribute on their blog

(spelling and grammar *PP*)

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At the JavaOne 2011 conference, the biggest news of the Tuesday came during the Java Strategy keynote, at the Hilton hotel San Francisco. Nandani Ramani had another of those JavaFX demos, which demonstrated JavaFX 2.0 running on a Apple iPad 2.0, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 running Android 3.1 and, get this, a Acer Windows 7 tablet.

So people, if you really want JavaFX 2.0 running embedded on iPad, or on Android then you need to support Nandani, in order to her to convince her bosses. Oracle will listen to community as they eventually did by announcing they were going to open source JavaFX, first the component and then followed by the platform also at the keynote, and most importantly publicly. In short, shout, holler and scream at me, any other JavaFX advocate (Stephen Chin, Jim Weaver), and at Nandini her self and in order to get Oracle get JavaFX on iOS and Android on the official roadmap.

JavaFX 2.0 Fish app running on Apple iPad

Missing photo???

JavaFX 2.0 running on a Galaxy Tab 10

JavaFX 2.0 Fossil Game running on a Acer Windows Tab

JavaFX 2.0 Ports

Much later in the day, I attended Richard Bair, JavaFX architecture, I dug a little deeper into JavaFX 2.0 running on the iOS devices and the other tablets. Michael Heinrich also helped answer some of my questions.

In order to run JavaFX 2.0 on iPad, the JavaFX team, used a special Java ME virtual machine CDC (Connected Device Configuration) internally. It was non-optimised and not performance tuned [as these research just-in-time software projects tend to go] and not ready for production. JavaFX 2.0 code including Java classes therefore executed on a virtual machine, which was distributed with the iOS app. In fact, Michael Heinrich said that they only managed get the demo on the iPad working one week before JavaOne 2011 and had a month or two to figure out how to do it and then make it happen. How big this app and the CDC in terms of megabytes? The answer was not clear. However, Oracle have a great European team who are used to porting, cross-compiling Java ME and CDC implementations to many strange embedded devices. The great thing about JavaFX 2.0 architecture, meant they only had to hook into Apple’s OpenGL implementation, which everyone knows is OpenGL ES 2.0 or better etc. Nandini Ramini also pointed out in the Tuesday keynote that Adobe has been at least one year doing this for a year with its own products.

On Android 3.1 based Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 there JavaFX team silly whipped out the Prism and Glass tiers in the JavaFX architecture, and replaced it with implementations that talked to the native Android graphics layer. For Android developers like myself, now, this made sense, because has Android has a rather decent array of Graphics primitives and also OpenGL graphics API support. It also already has Java 5 compilation and byte code transformer and virtual machine interpreter of its own, Dalvik Virtual Machine. In other words, this was already technically doable to the knowledgeable.

Not surprisingly, the Windows tablet demo required no changes, as the JavaFX 2.0 runtime and JVM already runs perfectly on Windows 32/64 devices.

For all of these devices, the only stumbling block is the non standardisation of any sensors or multi-touch screen API (see later on)

Myself on Progressive JavaFX 2.0 Custom Components on Monday 5:30PM (taken by Eric Smith)

Ditto above

OpenJDK

A memorable quote from Hasan Rizvin: “Oracle people have starting dressing down and Sun people have started dressing up.”

The OpenJDK is the only place to find a preview build of Java 7 (JDK 7) for Mac. According to Richard Bair, chief JavaFX architect and Oracle employee, said that the preview compiled and installed flawlessly on his Lion based MacBook Pro. JDK7 previewer for Mac OS X is available to download today.

Regarding OpenJDK governance, Simon Phipps aka Webmink had this assessment published on February this year. These differences in transparency and organisation have not prevented new companies joining the initiative, because at this year’s JavaOne 2011, Azul and Twitter both announced they were joining OpenJDK. Read the official Twitter blog entry by Chris Aniszczyk of engineering.

Twitter have a business that is depends severely on Java being tuned for performance, as you can see yourself in this job position for Senior Java Virtual Machine Engineer in San Francisco. The requirements for this full time position included MSc or PhD degree, hands-on JVM development experience, debugging, Java,C, and C++, and performance tuning skills. So it is not surprising that Twitter want to get further involvement with the future of Java, by joining the OpenJDK project, as well make modification themselves to the garbage collector (G1). Indeed, Rob Benson of Twitter said “it is important to have a runtime for multiple languages  [Java, Scala and Clojure]”.

Azul have been building pause-less garbage collector JVM implementations since the announcement at QCon London 2011 or beforehand. It was no surprise that they wanted to join the OpenJDK project.

The keynote also featured the British chipmaker, ARM, which was definitely interesting. They are looking into JVM development and helping their customers with improved support and services.

Jim Weaver talked on Monday about "The Return of the Rich Client”

Openness and Standardisation

Less welcomed was the news that Java 8 had slipped the release schedule for another year until 2013. Adam Messinger announced JDK 8 will have full platform modularisation, libraries, fully retrofitted for continuations, and giving the JavaFX 2.0 demonstrations at the keynotes. Mark Reinhold and Adam Messinger both said JDK 8 will have more time to cook, which may be enough time to a device APIs to JDK 8, e.g. GPS array sensors, accelerometer and magnetometer; and multi-touch screen. Oracle may surprise with Near Field Communication API.  (Again this is where the community have to shout they want this)

The JavaFX 2.0 Roadmap has been updated to included strategies for Mac OS X and Linux. (Hopefully we will get Solaris in there too) It is clear that Oracle want JavaFX to be open sourced, it will be under a GPL 2 and Classpath restricted license. This news was really well received by the developers.

Demo of a couple of games, Fish and the Fossil puzzle game, running with no modification on iOS and Android devices turned head. Developers are too long in the tooth to know that the devil is in the detail, and Oracle themselves have said, that this is not in the official roadmap.

Oracle’s strategy is to get Java ME, Java for embedded and Java SE to converge, because want to reduce the number of Java virtual machine Hotspot implementation to at least three codebases. With the modularisation piece in Jigsaw, and a modular HotSpot engine they can swap in and out the necessary adaptation for target devices. Seen or heard something like this before? I think some of you already have, if not then go and listen to Software Engineering Radio podcast, I suggest the episodes on Feature Oriented Software Development (Episode 172 and 173 of SE Radio with Sven Apel) and Product Lines (Episdoe 153 Jan Bosch on Product Lines Software Development)  and I also think Software Archaeology (Episode 148 Dave Thomas) may be appropriate.

JavaFX Architecture talk Richard Bair

Sessions of the Day

JavaFX Architecture with Richard Bair, which explained the underpinning construction the SDK and the Prism runtime. JavaFX application sit on a runtime that includes the scene graph implementation. Did you know there are two scene graph trees (or forests)? There is one for the applications and one dedicated privately to the rendering. Keeping the two in sync, is what the runtime does, and it means two different threads can be running in parallel. One is the rendering “Pulse” thread and the other is the synchronisation of data between the two trees (or forests). As I alluded to a above, the JavaFX architecture, under-layers, the PRISM and GLASS tiers can be swapped out. Indeed, there is a PRISM module for Direct 3D (Microsoft Direct X) , another one for Open GL and finally get-out-of-jail software rendering implementation.

Jasper Potts and Jonathan Giles presented JavaFX UI Custom Controls, which explained the latter explained how to write stylised components and use the JavaFX cascading style sheet. This session provided insight into write styled component myself. I shall be passing on the knowledge.

Kevin Rushford with Chen presented on JavaFX Mixing 2D / 3D Made Easy. This session was great for 3D demonstrations including the new DEPTH_TEST parameter flag. JavaFX supports 3D now in the scene graph with the painter algorithm, which implemented through hardware. The depth test feature always programmer to disabled, enabled or inherit for each node. Automatic support of back culling surface elimination and Z ordering of shapes is not ready in JavaFX 2.0.

Meet The Java Posse was another fun and amusing podcast live episode. It started out confused, because the audience did not get the logic about how many years have you been at JavaOne? It should have been “how many years have you been attending JavaOne? If you have been here at least one year then clap make some noise. Two years? Three years?” The funny thing was here, a lady who was part of the GP Johnson staff, the conference organisers raised her hand for 15 years. That is a long time to be attending Java conferences and she was not a techie!

Meet The JavaPosse

Parties

JavaPosse after party at the Underground Urban Tavern in the Hilton

Java Champions Party at Sens restaurant

PS: Bloody Microsoft Live Writer! Thank goodness for Igor Ostrovsky, Microsoft Parallel Computing Team for posting, How to recover a lost post in Windows Live Writer!

PS PS: I would have loved to have gone Sven Reimers’ session on JavaFX and Scala 2.9.x presentation. However I am going to get the low-down from Stephen Chin who created with Sven the ScalaFX domain specific language implementation around FX project later on. I will definitely join Sven and Stephen as a committer on that project very soon. ;-o

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JavaOne 2011 Impressions

The first news is that JavaFX 2.0 has been released as general availability [Alternative download here]. Oracle have delivered on their promised, or may be it was Sun Microsystems vision, to reinvigorate the user interface on the desktop. I think this is a fantastic result, and the entire Oracle JavaFX SDK team has to be congratulated for staying the course. It would have been so easy to give up the goal and not persevere with this project.

JavaFX 2.0 Released!

Let us remember that JavaFX was originally an alternative JVM language called JavaFX Script, that Chris Oliver created and imagineered at See Beyond way back in 2006. Oliver was the person who fundamentally thought about marrying Java the runtime, the platform and the language with a scene graph engine. It took real engineering talent to write an SDK, which was both performant and designed correctly, which interfaced the ordinary Java developer with deep tendrils into the hardware accelerated native platform. The JavaFX SDK team had to get this architecture right, just once and for all. It took two goes. Albeit these tendrils in to a rendering runtime went first into Windows DirectX 10 platform, Oracle are blowing the competition away, by investing in a Apple OS X port and a Linux version of the JavaFX SDK. [As a Java Champion, with Kirk Pepperdine, we did mention to Oracle management that they should also consider a JavaFX Solaris port]

The announcements are coming thick and through:

JavaFX 2.0 Windows XP / Vista / 7 and 32 / 64 versions

NetBeans 7.1 Beta

JavaFX 2.0 Mac OS X Developer Preview Release

JDK 7 Mac OS X Developer Preview Release

Progressive JavaFX

Of course, I had my own presentation Progressive JavaFX 2.0 which was well attended. The audience were receptive to JavaFX 2.0 demonstration, admittedly I wrote them against the last Beta release 45. I will make sure that the demos and the code is readable against the JavaFX 2.0 GA before I announce it.

In terms of my own talk, Progressive JavaFX 2.0, I had a brain wave as slept from sudden exhaustion on Monday night, after the Oracle Tech Network reception, to split my talk in the longer term in two tranches the technical side and the user experience / design. I will aim to do this for 2012.

So yesterday at keynote, Richard Bair and Jasper Potts demonstrated the amazing JavaFX Labs. The majority of this demo was written against JavaFX 2.0 final code, there was a part of the demo that leverage JavaFX 3D internal parts. The exciting part was watching Jasper Potts muck around with XBox Connect and manipulate a 3D Duke, created by designer in Maya. Seeing is believing as they say, you need watch it in order to understand. Maybe I will capture a video on Vimeo here on this blog.

JavaEE 7 and Cloud Focus

On to the Java EE side, Oracle is definitely changing tracks with the Cloud. There is a serious effort now to get Java EE the standard mechanism to standardise Platform As A Service, Elasticity, Caching, Orchestration and Web Service Definitions, JAX-RS, Context Dependency and Injection extension and include a new JSON API library.

“Oraclers”

Overall, JavaOne 2011 is still the Mecca for Java developers, despite the downtown in the economy, the reduced number of Java engineers, and the loss of the Moscone Centre central hub. It is still just worth getting out over the pond to touch base with the “Oraclers” [ This term was borrowed from the Black Eye Peas's Will.i.am, at the 2010 Oracle Open World appreciation event / Treasury Island ]. The “Oraclers” recognise that Java Champions and the community do matter. We thank them for this support.

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Good Morning from California

I am presenting at JavaOne 2011 this year. The first of three talks on my trip to California this year. Today, I will give a talk today on Progressive JavaFX 2.0 in , which is expected to be released very soon.

"Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn" – Say it loud! Say it proud! You better believe it

Session ID: 24085

Session Title: Progressive JavaFX 2.0 Custom Components

Venue / Room: Hotel Nikko – Nikko Ballroom II/III

Date and Time: 10/3/11, 17:30 – 18:30

Make sure you reach, because JavaFX 2.0 is the one successful story of the year, very personal and to my heart. Whereas Scala adoption rate has been a tremendous disappointment, especially in London, and the United Kingdom, in terms of businesses taking the necessary steps to embrace it. On the other hand, I really do believe that Java now has a fantastically brilliant framework for a graphics, media, and audio. It is called JavaFX 2.0, written in Java. Swing will no longer be innovated on from the community at large. If you considering new software development using Swing, may I make a bold attempt to dissuade you from this route, instead look at the competition and the user experience, usability ideas since 2007, on mobile devices, tablets and even desktop web. From the solid pizza base, of JavaFX 2.0, we can start to build world class components and user interfaces for the 21st century. We will ascend to new heights and exceed the boundaries of Swing and AWT UI/UX. Finally, we are on the verge of being very creative, very selective, and incredible. With JavaFX 2.0 we now have something big, exciting and meaningful, right around the corner.

Moi standing next to a large exhibit where Larry has spent some of his company’s billions of dollars

In the mean time, I am heading right now to the 37760 JavaOne Technical Keynote the second of the conference. 

Let me know your feedback on twitter: peter_pilgrim or Google+. Stay tuned.

PS: My California talk schedule is thus:

[1] JavaOne 2011 on 3rd October, Progressive JavaFX
[2] Silicon Valley Code Camp, 8th October
[3] Silicon Valley JavaFX, 13th October
[4] Devoxx 2011, JavaFX University Session

PS PS: My JavaOne 2011 Flickr Stream

Bruno Souza (L), president of the Brazilian SOUJava JUG and Patrick Curran (R), Chairperson of the Java Community Process

From L to R, Stephen Chin, JavaFX Guru; Tori Weildt, Oracle; Sven Reimers, NetBeans Dream Team

PS PS: My JavaOne 2011 Flickr Stream

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