Sun's
answer to Flex and Silverlight will arrive in the first week of
December. JavaFX, formerly JavaFX Script, is set to hit version 1.0
shortly after Thanksgiving, said a spokesperson with the company.
Things at Sun are a bit chaotic right now, and the release may be
delayed by as much as a week if things don't come together properly.
This, evidently, has less to do with the technology than it has to do
with the major changes in management throughout the company. Either
way, the release itself will take the form of a new installer for Java.
That
new installer isn't too different from the old one: it's the basic
JavaSE desktop runtime with the JavaFX libraries included. Users who
already have Java installed should be able to automatically pull those
packages down upon the reception of a JavaFX application embedded in
either a desktop or Web app.
NetBeans is the editor of choice
for dealing with JavaFX, and this morning's release of version 6.5
quietly included all of the JavaFX tooling. No patch needed.
The
big selling point for Sun, right now, is that JavaFX can run browser
applications and desktop applications on the same runtime. Adobe's
current schizoid approach with AIR, Flex and Flash could turn out to be
an Achilles heel, if you believe Sun's pitch.
The benefit to
developers is less understood at the moment, because, as usual with
Sun, this type of thing is entirely new. The application benefits will
have to be discovered elsewhere. For now, Sun shows off an in-browser
video player, and shows that it can be quickly moved out of the browser
and onto the desktop.
Perhaps video is the neatest new addition
to the platform, here. Java has never had an embedded video codec, and
here, in JavaFX, is such a beast. It's not even proprietary: they're
licensing a standard codec.
Mac users will have to wait a little
bit, as the Java code there is Apple's. Sun expects Apple to add JavaFX
promptly upon release, possibly even the same day.
JavaFX should
be an interesting new avenue for Sun. Eventually, the company plans to
offer this language on mobile platforms, and right now, the target date
for that capability is next summer. The idea is to have one language to
rule them all.
Wasn't that what Java was supposed to be?