Sun & Google cooperation how?

Miscellaneous Topics
#21

Here’s one from a friend last week: “it took me 30 minutes to write a graphical game from scratch using AJAX in the browser, because I got to spend all that time writing code, and none of it [messing] about with working with GUI API’s”.

HTML+CSS+AJAX is much much quicker to write good UI’s in than any standard GUI API I’ve ever seen. Developers flock to it because it increases productivity. This will continue so long as platforms like java have such poor GUI API’s. Browser development is overcoming the problems of using a browser much much faster than Sun is overcoming the crapness of their API…

#22

Can we maybe see this game to judge the beauty of AJAX for ourselfs? I realise your friend might not want to show the public at large.

I’ve yet to see a web based game of any sort where I hadn’t thought while playing it - “heh, this would be really cool if it had a proper client”

Kev

#23

[quote=“kevglass,post:22,topic:24823”]
How can you judge the beauty of something that’s not about graphics, but about asynchronous communication with the server? And it’s not about application logic either, as swpalmer said, the logic stays on the server (that may run a JVM too). AJAX is simply about sending and receiving data asynchronously, nothing more or less.

Also, don’t underestimate the power of HTML+CSS. There are lots of applications that couldn’t be built with it, but there are also a lot that could and will be in the future.

#24

What was wrong with applets exactly? They promised to do all this stuff but for some mysterious reason it didn’t work out that way (ah, wasn’t it something to do with Microsoft?)

Just think about it for a moment. An applet that was simply an object covering the entire page would give the entire power of a Java client at its disposal. But for some reason this mickey mouse HTML+CSS travesty is the current buzz. Just look at the code and think about maintenance for a minute.

It might conceivably help if Java had an HTML4.0 renderer in Swing too of course :wink:

Cas :slight_smile:

#25

[quote=“princec,post:24,topic:24823”]
Nothing was (is) wrong with applets. JRE availability is the problem, whereas browsers are everywhere.

[quote=“princec,post:24,topic:24823”]
Code maintenance is greatly improved with CSS2 and IE’s components (will be a W3C standard soon, I think).

[quote=“princec,post:24,topic:24823”]
That would be cool, although it wouldn’t solve the JRE installation issue. I personally have no problem with Swing and I prefer it over HTML+CSS, but it urgently needs an Avalon+Sparkle equivalent.

#26

See, it all comes down to that “distribution of the JVM” problem again… Imagine if that JVM had been small enough to embed in Firefox what the situation would have been like today. Or built in to IE supplied in XP SP3 or Windows Update. But no, instead some daft new thing has come along before the original idea has even had a chance.

Cas :slight_smile:

#27

What is the situation with JRE distribution nowadays anyway? Anyone got some numbers?
My feeling is that it is much much better than before. On the old JEmu a few years ago I got lots of complaints that it didn’t work because they didn’t have a recent JRE (1.3 at the time). Now I get quite a lot of feedback on JEmu2, yet only one complained that it didn’t work because of a JRE installation problem (and that one was on Linux, btw). Maybe this doesn’t prove anything, therefor I’m quite interested in numbers.

#28

non-zero loading time compared to web apge, capturing of mouse cursor, brekaing of the browser (you are no longer in browser, you are in JVM), etc.

Badly written code versions ARE a travesty, but if you know what you’re doing…it’s a decent and powerful layout and rendering engine.

Code maintenance is excellent (I say from experience; have you any?)

#29

is it not just that some things work well using AJAX (eg. google maps) and some things, (graphical games, large apps etc) dont., Java cant be used for everything. XD

#30

The RAC’s route finder applet is an example of online map software that predates Google maps by many years and I expect that it’s rather less of a headache to maintain.

Cas :slight_smile:

#31

I don’t know enough about AJAX… but HTML+CSS alone is not designed for UI at all and is a horrible hack when used for more than presentation layout. Last time I checked there is no decent structure for any sort of program logic in HTML+CSS. It is the wrong tool for the job - despite the efforts of many to shoehorn an app around it.

#32

That’s where the Javascript bit comes in, and as any programmer knows, Javascript was something that Satan pulled out of his arse. The whole idea is just a joke but you can just tell that they’re going to plug the hell out of it until the next clever idea comes along. Take a look at Canoo, which is basically the same design as the one we’ve home-grown at work. I happen to think that’s a good design :slight_smile:

Cas :slight_smile:

#33

The right tool is the one that gets your work done.

If you were to cut a loaf of bread wouldn’t you use a kitchen knife instead a battle-axe or a two-handed sword ?

True but so is Java. Or do you think Java is a brilliantly desgined programming language ? Still nothing stops people from using it with many advantages over the competition.

#34

swpalmer, et. al, the thing is that you don’t have to write your application in HTML/CSS these days.

I have written some web applications using JavaServer Faces which is dubbed as swing for servlets. I simply write my code and let JSF worry about the rendering of the pages and state management. In theory it can render my code to different devices like PDA’s as well (though I havn’t set that up).

I don’t give a crap what the HTML/CSS looks like, so long as it is valid and renders correctly – I never have to maintain that code. What I do know is that my JSF code is nice and neat. .NET has an equivilent API as well (web forms or something). Both API’s solve the problem of state management and forms very nicely.

I agree if you are writing a pure HTML/CSS app using JSP or something it sucks badly. While learning JSF takes longer than simply using JSP with HTML (assuming you already know Java and HTML), once you have learnt it you are probably about five time more efficient when building forms, and much less likely to go insane.

Applets are horrid for things like forms. A project I worked on I inherited a registration process which used a full page applet and sent data back and forward to a servlet each page of the form shudders. Personally I love Java’s rich client offerings. Combined with JWS, you have a very nice way of getting rich clients on the desktop. But, java really doesn’t belong in the browser (ok, applets definitally have their use for supplimentry things, but not hte main show). Flash is no better.

Will.

#35

All I can say is WOW, that’s a quote…
Wow.

#36

lol, lets not say things we can’t take back now, what does that make VBScript?

shudder

I think javascript is pretty good now that it’s standardised and has a decent debugger (firefox/mozilla). Like any tool though it can be used for good or evil.

Will.

#37

I suspect you say that for the same reasons that I say full-fledged applications have no place in the browser. Maybe there is something “new” happening with this AJAX thing… but I will believe it when I see it.