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"Sure swing still has some other issues issues (eg proper native look and feel)"

I remember reading somewhere that they had been working at improving that lately. I couldn't find the article, but here is some illustration of the improvements for the native GTK look and feel.

There is no way that Swing can ever deliver decent desktop integration. GUI technologies are evolving fast and Gnome is keeping up, with all sorts of new functionality. Swing doesn't have most of the new functionality, and what it does doesn't even come close to integrating with the desktop.

I think you should update your notions about Swing. It does have a nice integration in 1.6, it's actually possible to build applications that look exactly the same as the native environment, either on Windows, Unix, Mac or Linux.

Besides, Java now has APIs for calling default desktop applications such as browser, mail, etc.

More info: http://www.ensode.net/java_swing_mustang_screensho ts_gtk.html

Mono has a thriving community of Gnome developers and mature, completely up-to-date Gnome bindings. Java has neither of those. (Java has both Gnome and Qt bindings, but few people use them.)

And that's a weak point. If you only knew what's possible to do with Swing... it's very flexible, you can do absolutely anything you want with the application.

I'd agree with your prediction if I saw a snowball's chance in hell that Swing could work reasonably well on the desktop--any desktop--but I don't. The desktop requires a dedication to non-cross platform tools, and that is still lacking in the Java community.

It works quite well already.

Note, incidentally, that Apple has also stopped further development of their desktop Java APIs; Java on Macintosh has been relegated to specialty apps that are never expected to fully integrate with the Mac, and I think it's the same on Linux.

Apple maintains its own JDK that contain the Swing Look And Feel for the Macintosh. Since it's done by Apple itself, it should integrate well with the rest of the desktop.

No need for bindings there.

I'm glad Sun took this step, and I'll be using Java a lot more than before, but I don't think it will ever catch up with Mono on the desktop.

I think it doesn't need to catch up in any way with Mono, it's ahead of it in every way possible.

To save you the trouble, here are some screenshots
of JDK 1.6 (mustang) running on Linux under GTK. Notice how Swing
adapts to the user's desktop theme.

I wrote an introductory article on Wicket a while back. A First Look At The Wicket Framework.

I run Fedora Core 4 on an AMD 64 laptop. I had problems with OpenOffice not recognizing my JVM. After some research, I found out that OO.o is a 32 bit application and will not recognize/work with 64 bit JVMs. I installed a 32 bit JVM and was able to get OO.o to recognize it. Since Star Office is based on OO.o, I assume the problem the author had with SO and the Java installer is similar.

I wrote a more detailed article on getting OO.o to work with Java on 64 bit platforms, it can be found here

Trackit is a very interesting issue tracking software.

I wrote a brief intro/howto article about Trackit that can be seen here.

I second the motion to try Echo2. I wrote a couple of Echo2 reviews that can be seen

here and here.

I second the motion to try Echo2. I wrote a couple of Echo2 reviews that can be seen

here and here.

I always wondered why Linux is not more widely deployed in workplace workstations. With the greatly reduced threat of virii and spyware, seems like a no brainer to me, especially for IT workers.

I wrote an article about this topic a while back, it can be seen at: http://ensode.net/linux_workplaces.html

This looks like a step in the right direction towards increasing the use of Linux workstations in the workplace?

I wrote a JBoss tutorial a while back. It is for an older version of JBoss, but most of the content is still relevant today.

http://ensode.net/jboss_intro.html

Approximately 70% of the visitors to my site use Firefox. The site attracts mainly a techy crowd, though.

With well known companies like Google and IBM endorsing Linux, I wonder why it isn't more widely used in the enterprise?

I wrote some thoughts about that in my website earlier today.