Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Re: Java Issues & Directions

He mentioned Macromedia Flex on one slide and showed some code. I was surprised at how similar the MXML code looked to ASP .NET.I somehow feel like Flex is not going to be mainstream for web applications. It's very rare to see a web app use Flash/Shockwave for its front-end.

So what is MXML? Some eg? How different is XAML? What will be the features?

I agree that as of now we are used to HTML etc. But everyone knows that they are very limited. Personally i feel that Flash is the best alternative out there. Especially for Java as it is cross-platform. There are a lot of examples of Flash overuse, but what I saw in the stream was just amazing. Plus it can very easily put an end to all AWT vs SWT vs Swing. The only reason why Flex will not take off coz Macromedia controls it. If it will be opened further, it could become very widely used.


He said some stuff about Java's lack of acceptance on the client. AWT vs SWT vs Swing. Goes back to the easyness thing I mentioned in a previous post. There should be one standard that makes it easy for devs right out of the box

There are a lot of competing technologies in the Java Community. In a way I feel this is very healthy. Ease of development I feel is a different issue. Java is not as close to the stuff like what i think MXML might be. Though tools are improving very rapidly and also the lang after Java 1.5. Btw this is how the latest SWT looks like. It doesn't look native but would you use it?


could you explain the entire array of Java technologies that are out there. J2EE, J2SE, J2ME and how they differ from Java 1.1, Java 1.2 ... Java 1.5. Now they have Java 5.0 right? Also, what about JSP, EJB's and servelets and how are they connected to the versioning?

This article should explain most of the stuff. One part I noticed is that there is no EJB equivalent. Isn't ADO for database connectivity? What is COM+ ? Is it a part of .NET? EJB is one huge API which a lot of dev's feel is bloated and un-necessary. There are alternatives to that too, though I am not aware how they work. I wanted to know how .NET works in that layer. This might be a major advantage of .NET. Also do .NET dev's feel some std stuff needs to be changed? Any voices of dissent?

When Java 1.x is mentioned it means J2SE 1.x. Java 1.5 is now called Java 5.0 because of the major enhacements in the lang. Remember Java 1.2 was called Java 2. JSP, EJB etc are all part of J2EE. Each component has a separate versioning system and J2EE as a whole also has it's own versions. May sound a bit confusing at first. When there are major revisions to the individual componets, a new J2EE version is declared.


Rahul - Couple of slides on Metadata/Attributes - Might explain better than just reading about it.

Ya.. The video was very helpful. One part i did not understand was about was the advanced generics stuff, Factory etc. So need to lift my lazy ass and start learning soon.


During his Concurency talk, he mentioned a bug that has been in Java since the first version in "volatile".

Firstly I have to say that I appreciate what Eckel had to say about Java. Those were facts and can't deny anything. Everything he said about Generics, Erasure, ease of use I could take. But Cooncurrency did really hurt. .NET has helped Java as well. I hope that things get better and fast.

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