Why would a Java programmer go to a Seafood restaurant? I would not be surprised if you “d get this question during a job interview at Google or Microsoft. But my answer is simple: a Java programmer goes to a Seafood restaurant to eat seafood.

I often go to seafood restaurants with my friends, and there is always someone in our party who “s going to order steak. I just do not get it. Yes, there is a small probability that the seafood chef knows how to make steaks. But why take chances?

Microsoft is a company that makes their living by selling Windows licenses and Office automation for the desktops (I know they make steaks too). Adobe is a company that caters to designers and GUI developers (yes they make steaks too). Sun is a company that sells servers and create a software (starts with J) that runs really well on the servers. Now Sun “ve announced that they are adding steaks to their menu (JavaFX).

After reading the interviews, participating in a briefing for Java Champions and listening to several Sun executives talking about the renewed interest to RIA and the new language called JavaFX, I got a feeling that these executives have learned about this language a couple of days ago. They are not exactly sure what it is for. When Gosling says that we are not going to compete with AJAX but may find ourselves in that territory, I have no idea what he wanted to say. On the same note, Flash does not compete with AJAX either – it ‘s comparing apples and oranges.

Green states that their main goal is to get closer to the customer, but what should force a customer to throw away Flash Player that is already there and replace it with a new JVM? It ‘s possible only in one condition – the JVM and JavaFX application will prove to be superior to Flash Player. Today, Sun is way behind in this area, but who knows, may be they have some secret weapon that will change the balance on the RIA market.

People who attended the opening keynote session blog that they “ve seen a mockup of the Motorolla site done in JavaFX , and it was pretty good. I have not seen it. I just went to the blog of the creator of this language Chris Oliver. It has a demo of F3 wrapped into Java WebStart (?!). I assume that JavaFX was created based on F3. This demo could have impressed me in mid-ninetieth. You can also find the JavaFX mini-tutorial over here . On Wednesday Chris Oliver presents JavaFX at JavaOne, and I really hope that he has something a lot better than I “ve seen on his site.

Is Sun really serious about entering the RIA space, or it “s just a trendy place to be?