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Sun Debuts JavaFX As Alternative To AJAX
r7 writes "Internetnews is reporting on Sun's introduction of JavaFX at JavaOne today. Looks like a combination Applet, Flash, Javascript, and AJAX with a friendly programming interface. Does this really spell the end of AJAX? I sincerely hope so. Nothing built on Javascript will ever achieve the security, cross-platform reliability, and programmatic friendliness that Web 2.0 needs. Proprietary solutions and vendor lock-in are also dead ends. JavaFX has the potential to satisfy this opportunity even better than did Java over a decade ago. Along with AJAX, let's hope JavaFX also puts paid to Microsoft's viral Active-X and JScript, and, more importantly, that it really is a web scripting language that developers can grok."
There's 2 seconds different from what I said and what you said, how the hell isn't that "about".
It's still a shitload shorter than the 20 to 30 seconds it takes for the JVM to start up.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Java is a statically typed language, has only just recently implemented generics in any form and suffers from stupidities like not having its basic types (eg int) be objects.
Javascript has a logical implementation of OO based on prototyping, allowing for "duck typing" (if it looks like a duck...).
It's a functional language, allowing for closures and other very useful programming structures. Once you've understood them and used them, you won't go back and you'll feel like you're programming in a straightjacket in any language that doesn't support them.
It suffers from browser limitations with incompatibilities in the DOM model (something that applies to any language that runs in the browser) and Microsoft's inability to implement CSS correctly. The other limitation is being single threaded within the browser, which can cause problems with XMLHttpRequests and other background tasks.
These limitations could be fixed, and there are libraries that provide cross-browser compatibility and workarounds transparently (eg prototype).
Java and C# are the "toy" languages, with their hand-holding of programmers. OO is a useful paradigm, but static typing leads to bloat and incomprehensible templating efforts. But they have the library/IDE support that Javascript doesn't.
Vendors don't like Javascript because it doesn't "lock in" programmers to their server-side implementations. If you want to see what can be done with Javascript when it does have full library support and isn't "sandboxed", then look at Firefox. Most of the UI is Javascript driven.
"That's not cross-platform. Does it run on a PS3 or a Wii? How about on cell phones?"
First, it DOES run on cell phones (http://www.sun.com/software/javafx/mobile/).
Second, PS3 or Wii? WTF? Set an impossibly high standard so nothing meets it LOL?
Mr Ballmer, stop posting to Sladot and get back to work whipping your Microserfs into fixing that flawed Vista 1.0 reelase. Accept or deny?