Author: Yakov Fain

Where have you been yesterday?

I was at a concert listening to Pavarotti

Is he really that good?

Nothing special, let me sing some of his songs for you.

Since I am not there, I can only write comments on comments of people who actually heard the concert. Cay Horstmann is Java Champion and he keeps good notes at JavaOne and here “s his coverage of Day 2 .

Cay has attended the JavaFX presentation, and I can “t stop myself from commenting some of Cay “s notes on Chris Oliver “s statements.

1. rdquo; The language is interpreted; it will be compiled at some later point. rdquo;

I see two issues here ndash; until it “s compiled it “s pretty much useless ndash; I “d rather use GWT framework to generate un-compiled JavaScript. When at some later point it will be compiled, the speed of its runtime engine becomes the most important thing.

2. “It is statically typed. rdquo;

Why a scripting language should be statically typed?

3. “Any Swing component can also be included. rdquo;

And this spells big problems to me. This means that the runtime engine will stay large to be able to accommodate all Swing libraries. But the larger problem is this ndash; if you want to make a tool for development rich Internet applications, you do not take last-century-look-and-feel Swing components and bring them to the Web. But you hire the best GUI designers that start with creating modern-look-and-feel-eye-candy-light-weight-freaking-GUI-components, and then write an API to work with them on the Web.

4. Data Binding. “That ‘s how one avoids the writhing mess of listeners. According to Chris, data binding is not a part of any mainstream language rdquo;.

I really hope that Chris just said it to make his baby stand out. Cause if he did not know that data binding has been nicely implemented in ActionScript 3 programming language and MXML markup long time ago, his credibility goes down.

5. “Whatever you can do in Flash, you can do in Java. JFX gives you a faster way of expressing it. rdquo;

Wow, quite of a statement, but I have my reservations.

The consumer Java SE is expected in mid-2008. This does not sound too exciting. One very respected Java person made a really funny comment yesterday, “If only we could ask Adobe and Microsoft to stop their development for a year to allow Java to catch up to the point they are both at now (well in Flash ‘s case, to catch up to the point they are were at a few years ago!) rdquo;. Well said.

If you “ve attended one of the recent JavaOne, you “d really enjoyed the organization of this event. The general sessions usually run in a HUGE hall that can easily accommodate at least ten thousand people, the stage has HUGE monitors, the sound is excellent. This really helps to make any announcement sound really important. But in a couple of days all the amps will be unplugged, the monitors will be boxed, and we “ll need to take another and more sober look at what are we left with.

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?

JavaOne opens today and it ‘ll be interested to hear more about this renewed interest of Sun in Java on the client. While James Gosling and Rich Green have already given some details on JavaFX in the InfoWorld publication, I ‘d like to hear more technical details rather than marketecture.

So far, based on the available info, I can see that JavaFX is announced as an alternative to AJAX. One day JavaFX may start competing with Adobe Flex and Microsoft Silverlight. JavaFX will appeal to enterprise “Java-Or-Die ” developers just because it ‘ll run on JVM. As to consumer facing applications, I do not expect any serious competition to Flex or Silverlight unless the following two issues will be resolved:

1. Sun or someone else will come up with a way to eliminate the install process of the JVM that will be needed to run JavaFX on the client – any trucker from Alabama should be able to install it, and the process should be as simple as with Flash Player today.

2. The size of the JVM should become substantially smaller. Today ‘s JVM is 16MB, while Flash 9 weighs 1.2Mb, and Silverlight ‘s Dynamic Language Runtime is about 4MB.

Overall, renewed attention to Java on the client is great news and I ‘m looking forward to seeing a technical presentation of JavaFX in action.

Here ‘s a great way of taking notes published in the Cot eacute; ‘s RedMonk weblog while sitting at the keynote of JavaOne.

This is a typical first-day situation in the blogosphere ndash; you are excited that tomorrow THE SHOW will start, and you are going to be a part of it , and now you have arrived to SF. As expected, neither SF mayor not CA governor showed up at the airport, and there is no limo or red carpet either. It seems that SF citizens do not feel the importance of your arrival to JavaOne. So how to fix the situation? You blog hellip; something like this “It “s 1PM in SF, my plane has been delayed for an hour and the food on the plane was not so good so I almost puked. I decided to work on my laptop, but the battery died pretty soon “. Here “s a typical example of such a blog.

To give you yet another example of zero-info/gibberish blog, I “ll just add a link to yet another piece that I wrote about Adobe Max conference , which is a number one event for Adobe followers. That event took place last Fall in Vegas, but if you “ll replace the words MAX with JavaOne and Las Vegas with San Francisco, it can squeeze a smile out of you .

Ok, now some bits and pieces of info. This morning I “ve participated in a private briefing about some important tomorrow “s announcement. But Sun “s executive started with a statement that he could not give too much details till tomorrow, so even if I wanted to leak some info, there was not much of a substance. But let me give you a hint (as if you can “t wait till tomorrow “s keynote) – I “ve been pointing out this problem with Java on many occasions in my previous blogs and articles, and yes, Sun will announce their renewed interest in hellip;sorry I can “s say anything just yet (now I feel important too). Actually, this was a good discussion on Java issues, but I did not get a feeling that some major shifts are to be announced.

Andrew Law writes that Tim O “Reilly gave a keynote at the CommunityOne gathering. He was talking about Web 2.0, but I “m still having hard times figuring out what exactly Web 2.0 is. I guess, he refers to social engineering Web sites.

Till tomorrow…

Two months ago I purchased my new laptop, which came with Vista. I did not have a choice. The UI interface looks nicer, additional security restrictions and a firewall are annoying, but at lease you can turn them off.

But today “s “gentleman “s set rdquo; includes lots of must-have or convenient third-party applications, and these vendors are not motivated to align their software with Vista users until the number of these users will go over some critical mass.

In my case, I “m trapped with my Internet broadband provider ndash; VerizonWireless. I used to have their “broadband ” Internet service on my Windows XP laptop without any issues other that it was slow.

But now, the pointing fingers game begins. To put it simple, I “m loosing the Internet connection about twenty times a day. Or, connection goes to a dormant state and never comes back. Since I am a programmer, I know that the problem is with Vista drivers provided by VerizonWireless. The problem is that they won “t admit it, and there is no way to prove it to them either. I went through all levels of tech support, and now my case is passed to some mysterious unit the supposed to decide what to do with my issue. An interesting thing is that Verizon “s tech support does not even want to give me an ETA of this decision.

So I “m pretty much trapped twice.

1. When it comes to the “broadband ” Internet connection, VerizonWireless service is mediocre, but other phone companies suck even more. In the USA, the permits to put new relay stations or whatever they are called are regulated by the government. Verizon has the largest number of such stations.

2. I can “t say that Vista sucks, because it “s not Microsoft “s responsibility to write and test drivers for everyone “s hardware. But I “ve already installed and configured so much of various software on this laptop, so just re-installing Windows XP and all my software would take me a week.

So now coming back to my original question, how to start using your new Windows Vista PC? Take it out of the box, boot up the computer, and enjoy Vista “s look and feel for an hour. After that, reinstall Windows XP and start using it. This will save you lots of time and aggravation. After a year or two, when all third-party vendors will find time and resources to fix their software, you can try installing Vista again.

Writing about JavaOne conference without actually being there is like having phone sex. This year I “m not going there for a simple reason ndash; I can “t leave my current project for a week, even though I “ve been offered a free pass. But since JavaOne is the most important event for any Java programmer/architect/bystander/author/wannabe, I “ll be reading the blogs of attendees, watching the keynote videos and official announcements from Sun Microsystems.

I “m looking forward to some serious news regarding innovations in Java, and in particular in the area of rich Web clients. When a man does not use an organ for a while, this organ becomes non-functional. The same holds true with programming languages. Java community uses its server side organs pretty actively, while the RIA part is a bit paralyzed. I “m looking forward to one of the major announcements in this area.

I “d also love to see a breakthrough in JVM utilization. JVM is an excellent piece of machinery that “s not used to its fullest potential. Imagine, if Germany would allow only trucks on their auto bans. No small cars. This is exactly what “s happening with JVM today. It allows you to run Java only. I “d love to see smaller vehicles there as well, if you know what I mean.

Last year, I was lucky enough to be in San Francisco in person and even presented at the BOF of Java Champions. These are my last year JavaOne-related blogs:

A cost to attend JavaOne

My upcoming vacation

I an in San Francisco

JavaOne notes: registration

San Francisco is invaded with orange backpacks

JavaOne partying

How to present your software at conferences

On Monday, May 7 you can start with some of the pre-conference events listed at CommunityOne .

Next week, I “m planning to write a JavaOne blogs daily, but as the old saying goes, if you mant to make God laugh, tell him/her about your plans. Anyway, I “ll do my best.

I ‘m sitting on the bus commuting to New York. My laptop is on my laps (this is what laptops are for), and I ‘m online. Some Asian young lady sleeps next to me. Just a typical morning. Well, having a young sleeping lady next to you is a perfect morning but not a typical one. Sometimes I get a large male who ‘s awake. Got a text message on Skype from a guy from Europe. Can we talk? I ‘m responding, “No problem, because I ‘m next to a sleeping lady, let me put on my headphones with a mike. ” But I caught myself thinking that I wanted to write “…I ‘m next to a sleeping Asian lady “. Why? It was absolutely irrelevant for our conversation that she ‘s Asian. Why did I even want to mention this? I do not know.

I often hear something like, “There was this black guy… ” and then the conversation goes about something that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that that guy was black. Why do we do this? Just for the lack of better description of the person? Is mentioning a race falls into the same category as, say how tall the person is or what s/he wears? I do not know. It is what it is. ..

We spent ten minutes discussing our business. The lady did not wake up. Skype rules.

JavaOne starts next week, and most of the Java developers will be watching closely what “s new and exciting will be announced in the tried, true and aging Java. But my today “s topic is about books that will be sold at JavaOne.

It would be wrong not to start with promoting the book that I “ve co-authored this year:

Rich Internet Development with Adobe Flex and Java. We spent a year writing this advanced book, and I “m pretty pleased with the result ndash; this is not one of these shallow books that repeat API descriptions of vendors manuals. In this book we are sharing how to design and build rich Internet enterprise applications in an object-oriented way with such great and complimentary technologies as Flex and J2EE. You can get this book at the booth of Sys-Con Media. People who are into AJAX will be able to get a brand new Sys-Con “s book called “Real World AJAX rdquo;.

A well known publisher, Addison-Wesley/Prentice will sell their newest books there as well. They will also be presenting sample chapters from the books that will be released in the future. These are some of the titles that sound interesting to me:

New 3rd Ed. for “Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications rdquo;, co-authored by Grady Booch. I got the preview copy and plan to review this book next month.

JBoss reg; Seam: Simplicity and Power Beyond Java EE. This book is about accelerated Java EE Web development.

SOA Using Java Web Services, a hands-on guide to implementing Web services and SOA with Java EE 5 and Java SE 6 platforms.

Filthy Rich Clients: Developing Animated and Graphical Effects for Desktop Java Applications. This book will be officially published in Summer “07, but may be available soon as a final draft manuscript.

I “m sure O “Reilly and other publishers will be selling books there as well.

JavaOne has a book store called Digital Guru, which also runs several book signings by the authors attending this main Java conference. Here ‘s the schedule of the book signing:

Joshua Bloch [Java Puzzlers; Effective Java] on Tues. 5/8 @ 4:30pm amp; Wed. 5/9 @ 12noon;

Inderjeet Singh [Designing Enterprise Applications with the J2EE trade; Platform, Second Edition] on Wed. 5/9 @ 3pm;

David Geary [Core JavaServer Faces, 2nd Ed.] on Wed. 5/9 @ 5pm;

Brian Goetz [Java Concurrency in Practice] on Thurs. 5/10 @ 12:30pm.

Apress runs authors book signings as well:

Tuesday May 8th, 2007

* Noon ndash; 12:30pm Graeme Rocher (Grails founder/lead) of The Definitive Guide to Grails

* 1:30 ndash; 2:00pm Raghu Kodali et al of Beginning EJB 3 Application Development

Wednesday May 9th, 2007

* 2:30 ndash; 3:00pm Adam Myatt of Pro NetBeans IDE 5.5. Enterprise Edition (endorsed by NetBeans)

Thursday May 10th, 2007

* 12:00 ndash; 12:30pm Jonas Jacobi and John Fallows of Pro JSF and Ajax (endorsed by JSF communities)

* 1:00 ndash; 1:30pm Damon Williams of Pro PayPal E-Commerce

* 1:30 ndash; 2:00pm Mike Keith (EJB 3 co-spec lead) of Pro EJB 3: Java Persistence API

Even though most Java developers rely on Google in finding technical help, nothing can beat a good book. Try to allocate some budget for book purchases next week.

When Microsoft renamed WPF/E into Silverlight it was just a re-branding news. But yesterday “s news requires some serious attention. Microsoft has announced SilverLight 1.1 Alpha.

Here “s the quote from asp.net :

“Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications. rdquo;

If Silverlight 1.0 Beta was about XAML GUI with the business logic written in JavaScript, now a new runtime called Dynamic Language Runtime will be used for the RIA deployment, and the fun part is that you “ll be able to create these applications with any of the languages mentioned above. This is really breaking news. The new runtime will weigh about 4Mb (Flash Player 9 that holds two VMs weighs 1.2Mb), and expected seamless installation time is under 30 sec (similar to Flash Player 9). JIT is also there.

While Java community is discussing which language features to include in the heavy tank of the future called Java 7 , their main competitor provides support to multiple languages. JVM is a very powerful but underutilized machine, and it “s about time to run more than just tried and true Java there.

Now Adobe has to respond to Microsoft with some secret weapon besides Apollo. If I were running Adobe RIA division, I “d pick up the phone and dialed the number of Jonathan Schwartz.

“Jonathan, what do you think of this crazy idea ndash; let “s see if we can run some trimmed down version of Java in Flash Player 10 rdquo;.

Two or three years ago, when RSS readers were not as common as today, some nice guys created a very convenient Web site called javarss.com, which was an agregator of Java news and articles from major online magazines and other Java-relate sites. The interface was simple and clean, it was showing the article titles and the tooltips would show a short descriptions of the article as you moved the mouse pointers over the titles. It used to look like this . This site was saving me lots of time as I read daily many articles on Java and other software technologies. Ten days ago I went there just to find out some evil picture stating that the site has been hacked and some other text in Arabic, which I can ‘t read. Things happen, bad guys exist, and you just have to live with it.

Today I decided to revisit the site, and the hackers page is still there. As per some other sources, the hackers even contacted the javarss admin providing their emails and offered to let the site go asking for something in return. I ‘m not going to discuss here morale principles of the hackers – most likely they grew up in bad neighborhoods, were molested by their uncles, they are poor now and believe that filthy rich western pigs have to share. So the term morale is not applicable here. But the fact that a site is down for a couple of weeks tells me that the javarss folks are incapable of fixing it. It ‘s so easy to create a Web page these days as long as everything is kosher around you, but are you ready for the rainy days? In this particular case, the site was non-profit so no one is loosing money, but what if you want to create and host your small business Web site. How protected is it? Will you be able to survive these or other attacks? Can you make your monthly income dependent on a Web site that you host on your own? The answer is no freaking way. One incident like this, and not only your business of selling women ‘s lingerie is dead, but you also need to deal with lots of frustrated customers asking their money back. By the way, are you a geek that decided to write your own shopping cart application that knows how to charge customers credit cards? Sure you know Java, Ajax, have read about HTTPS, and can create a Web page where users will be able to enter their credit card numbers.

Do you want to do this? no-no-no-NO!

Leave it to the big guys like PayPal that know how to survive hacker ‘s attacks.

Running a Web business looks very appealing, but be careful – find a reputable host company and delegate the money handling routines to professionals. It ‘ll cost you more, but you ‘ll be able to sleep at night.

R.I.P. javarss.com.