Making Applets Suck Less
With all the effort being poured into Javascript lately, it's pretty evident that that's the way forward. However, there are still some neat things you can do with applets that you can't do with Javascript. For instance, I use the microemulator applet to let people play with a simulated phone on the Hecl web site.
Unfortunately, the user experience hasn't that good. While playing around with the code for that site, Firefox crashed a number of times, and I've heard other browsers have trouble as well. No fun.
So it is with some satisfaction that I found this:
https://jdk6.dev.java.net/plugin2/
It's an updated Java plugin that seems to work much, much better than the old one. Unfortunately it doesn't appear as if it will be in the new Ubuntu, as it was released recently, but I'm quite happy to have something a bit more stable to develop with.
You can download that version of the Java SDK or JRE here:
http://download.java.net/jdk6/
It's good to see this effort, even if it may be a bit late.
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about {{count}} hours later:
Hi David,
Java 1.6 release 10 is on RC2 so it will become official soon.
Now applets can be launched with JNLP and also you can drag them out of the browser page to make them live a life on their own.
They've improved applets because they're also launching JavaFX that will run as an applet. What are your thoughts about JavaFX, is it going to fly?
about {{count}} hours later:
I'm not sure what to make of JavaFX. It seems interesting, but sort of late to the game in some ways. We already have iPhone with a big installed base. I'm rooting more for Android, because of its open model. They have phones coming out soon. And when will we see something from Sun?
It's nice that they get the idea that there should be a scripting language, but that seems to be sort of tangential to the Java efforts, which leaves me very confused about what exactly they're doing over there. Java ME is very, very widely deployed, so they have something of a base, but these things can flip quickly in the tech world.
about {{count}} hours later:
Funny that Sun, being a hardware company, never seems to sell any hardware, at least one that you and I could buy. Can't see them making a cell phone.
J2ME as a platform has been definitely abandoned. They're stuck with Java 1.4 and most of the deployed ME platforms implement a basic CDLC profile that is probably too low spec'd to run FX. They will come out with an FX platform for mobile but no idead what that might be like.
Android. I'm curious, the first phone looks a bit ugly and is full of Google Apps. You must really be a Google fan to get it, it doesn't seem to give any 'coolness', imho. Some apps look impressive by the way.
Here in Wellington (NZ) there's a company called Innaworks. One of their products lets you develop ME applications that can be deployed on an iPhone thanks to a Java to C++ translator.
{{count}} days later:
Java ME is in a weird situation. It's very, very widely deployed. And yet it has that stench of death about it, doesn't it. Maybe that's just the "next big thing" tech mentality. Actually, it certainly is - Java ME phones will be out there for years to come. However, unless Sun starts getting things moving, the future will probably be some other platform or combination of platforms.
{{count}} days later:
Hi David, I'm listening to a Java Posse interview that covers opensource JavaME and a bit of JavaFX
{{count}} days later:
Hi again, this other Java Posse interview is more specific to JavaFX on mobiles and its requirements