Well, this seems like a stupid statement, but for me, “Flex is Java!”  We have heard a lot the last year about Java the platform versus Java the programming language, with the push to add scripting languages to the JVM and add extensions beyond the core programming language.

When you look at Flex you find that Data Services is built to run in a Servlet container.  The IDE is an Eclipse plug-in.  The only thing that really breaks from Java is that the client runtime is not a JVM, but Java has basically failed to ever deliver a viable client side runtime for browser-based applications.  So, why not consider Flex / Flash for this option?

That is actually where my statement comes from, as I think Sun should have started claiming, “Flex is Java” in 2007 as a marketing campaign, rather than starting their client side initiative, JavaFX.  Even if JavaFX ends up becoming a viable technical option, how will Sun ever profit from it?  I know-I know, I read Jonathan Schwartz’s blog and hear they are making money on Java, but in all seriousness… why doesn’t Sun promote things like Flex as successes of the Java platform? Is it just another case of “not built here syndrome?”

I found a few extra minutes and decided to read through an article I wrote last summer titled, From Java to Flex.  I hope that isn’t as narcissistic as it sounds, but I like to continue to learn and evolve and I thought I would see how much I still agree with myself.

Well, I made it to the second paragraph before I had to disagree with myself, “… developers should be considering the adoption of Flex is the maturity of the framework.”  It is hard for me to argue this point since I just blog about the Flex Immaturities. I still think Flex is worthy, and would argue that the wealth of off the shelf components for Flex makes it mature in a certain way.  The API’s are somewhat immature, but so many “UI Frameworks” don’t offer any real component library, so this is a big help in Flex.

I did a decent little review on LCDS.  Since writing the article, Adobe open sourced BlazeDS, which was an important step to give the community another open source option for remoting with Java backends.  BlazeDS does breakdown with any large scale push deployment, but this was still an important step forward.

Another thing that stands out is that I have the standard Adobe pitch in there that ActionScript is ECMAScript.  I have since concluded that this a silly pitch.  All I can figure on is that it feeds Adobe’s marketing claim on the large number of people who know their programming language (i.e. because they include all the JavaScript developers).  I think they should scrap this and start making the language better with abstracts and private constructors.

I don’t spend much time on AIR in the article.  I do see that AIR can have value, but I still see it as a weird fit for so many applications.  I guess I just don’t see it as much of a game changer as Adobe does.  I kind of like David Heinemeir Hansson’s take, You’re Not on A Plane.

I still strongly believe that Flex is a natrual extension of Java.  I am going to write a full post on that, so I wouldn’t go into that here.  I guess I still really like Flex.  I have seen more of its warts, but it still the best option I can find, as it offers a full suite of components essential for building enterprise applications.  This seems like a trival point, but I believe it is the key.  Shouldn’t all UI frameworks offer a full suite of components?

James Ward and I launched our new video podcast tonight, DrunkOnSoftware.com.  The concept is a bit silly, and of course tongue in cheek as we aren’t drunks, but one of the main things we have in common is the ability to not take ourselves too seriously.  We do love talking about software and the occasional drink.  So, we figure why not make that our niche… everybody needs a niche.  We are planning on talking about all things software, but will probably focus more on Adobe Flex than other things.

In the first episode, we talk about the Adobe Flash Player 10.  James shares about the main updates of interest to developers.

Please contact us if you are in the Denver area and would like to appear on the Videocast.  We would love to have you!

I am on a project where we are having to refactor our database frequently for any number of reasons. Hibernate has paid huge dividends in this area, as virtually our entire database is mapped into POJO’s. The net effect is that we get strong typing for a majority of our database interactions (we primarily navigate getter/setters & using Criteria queries), and thus refactoring is much-much easier. We do have a handful of SQL / HQL queries that have column / attribute names in strings – these are obviously much harder to refactor. Is there a another way for us to do update statements that modify a large number of rows, but still give us the strong typing we get by using our mapped POJO’s else where?

I have spent my week at JavaOne.  Overall, it has been a fun week – getting to see a number of new and old friends has been great!  However, the content has been quite  underwhelming.  It seems to me that Sun and Java are standing still compared to the rest of the software industry.  I may be feeling the consequences of daily following the latest software news, but it sure doens’t seem like much has really change with Java in the last 12 months.

Anyway, I just wish they would have gotten Charlie Sheen instead of Neil Young.

My boys over at InfoQ just posted the big news!!!  With JavaOne around the corner, SpringSource released a non-JEE application server. Spring founder, Rob Johnson, explained the main motivations for the release:

“Rod pointed to a number of pain points with today’s current development/production environments such as the duplication of meta data across configuration files, the fact it is common for projects to in essence deploy a server on top of a server (deploying your application along with many tools and frameworks in the same deployable unit), meanwhile they were mostly using only the web container portion of their appserver. SpringSource as a result wanted to provide a simpler platform based on today’s development needs.”

The Spring Framework was game changing when it came out and started to take over a large portion of the J2EE market,  to the point where many projects really only use Tomcat now – along with the different POJO frameworks.  So, this may be a revolution that has already happened, but it is still very interesting.   I cannot wait to see how the Java world reacts.

I just finished up a post on Flex and the Open Web for InfoQ, summarizing Adobe’s Ryan Stewart’s response to critiques saying that Flex breaks the open web. I understand that Adobe has to do their best to win over the entire software community, but I for one care little about standards. They do have a role in the industry, and I wouldn’t throw them out all together. However, I think any claim that they will lead us to the future is simply wrong. Standards can only capture the lowest common denominator, and rarely if ever lead to innovation. They are the rear view mirror of what has already happened in the industry.

We need to look no further than the JCP for an example of how standards have failed the industry. The JCP sounded amazing on paper, but the reality was countless specifications that didn’t work. Is anyone still using EJB? Of course, but they are using EJB 3.0 – the rewritten specification that captured the innovation that happened outside of the standards process. I cannot think of a truly successful JSR where that isn’t how it came to be…

So, do standards matter when it comes to Flex? I would say yes and no. First off, the Flash Player is a defacto standard and the closest thing the Internet has to a truly ubiquitous runtime on the desktop/browser (Windows, Mac, and Linux). This brings us back to the lowest common denominator. If you are building an application that has to be available on all desktop and mobile platforms, they really should be using standards based technologies to ensure all of your users can access the application on the latest and greatest. On the other hand, if you are building an application for consumption through a traditional browser (or desktop with AIR), then you really should be considering Flex or some other rich client runtime (Silverlight, Java, etc…) – otherwise your users are missing out.

As with all things, it is important to choose the right technologies for what you are building, but don’t be afraid of platforms that go beyond the standards. In contrast to what seems to be the common wisdom, it is unlikely that the platform vendors are trying to screw you by including advanced features that are outside of or beyond the standards – they are probably just trying to give you the features that you need to succeed for your stakeholders.

I just posted an interview on InfoQ.com that I did with Stephan Janssen where we discuss his latest project, Parleys.com, and the RIA landscape. He has built a pretty sweet AIR/Flex application, and is playing with a number of the other RIA platforms. So, it was interesting to learn more about what he is up to.

You can check out the interview at: http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/03/stephan-janssen-parleys-ria.

Last year at JavaOne, Sun introduced JavaFX – their new RIA platform.  Multiple people have told me that a very limited amount of time went into grabbing this from the labs and presenting it at the conference (like measured in days – not even weeks).  Combining that with Sun’s lousy track record with Java UI technologies, I quickly wrote off the release / platform.

As of late, I have started to think differently about JavaFX.  My change of heart comes from two main reasons:

• Reason one, Adobe AIR of course!  As I blogged about earlier this week, I can picture all of the cool things that our industry will be able to build as the browser and desktop merge (it’s not just about moving web technologies to the desktop – duh!).  AIR is cool and I hope to build some interesting things on it, but it does have some significant shortcomings.  First off, no JVM on the client, which means that business logic has to be duplicated in another lang. for offline features.  Second, SocketListen.  BitTorrent or peer-to-peer anyone?  JavaFX is part of the Java platform – so these will not be issues for JavaFX.

• Reason two, there are finally some interesting applications being built using JavaFX.  Last week, I got to see an alpha version of a pretty amazing JavaFX application.  It isn’t surprising that there haven’t been a lot of great examples of JavaFX applications yet, as it is still in alpha itself.  I am not typically a bleeding edge adopter.  So, seeing real applications built using the platform is a milestone to me.

All that being said, I am not completely sold on JavaFX – more than anything I would say I am hopeful.  A successful JavaFX platform could really help to propel the RIA movement and the industry as a whole.  I don’t think there are any guarantees of success with Sun’s track record in this area.  There are a lot of things that go into making a successful UI platform… here are few the keys in my mind:

• Deployment. Deployment. Deployment.

• Tooling.  Tooling. Tooling.  I am strong JEE developer, but not the world’s number one UI developer.  If JavaFX requires me to become a world class JavaFX developer to build something that works well and looks elegant, then it has failed.

• A Strong component model that works well out of the box (even includes some sexy effects/etc), but allows for extension and customization when needed.

I hope they get it right – this may be their last chance.

I attended the Java Posse Roundup in Crested Butte last week. It was interesting to hear discussions on so many different topics. My favorites were ‘Why are Open Source People Such Weirdos?’ and ‘Overview of JEE.’

There were good conversations on RIA too, but generally a lot of agreement. Agreement is good, but doesn’t always make for interesting conversations. Although, it was interesting to hear a general excitement for what is now possible with the RIA platforms (Flex/AIR, JavaFX, Silverlight, and GWT), most everyone seems to have a wait and see attitude towards JavaFX.

You can read my InfoQ.com write-up on the conference and OpenSpace format at: http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/03/javaposse-roundup-2008.