Buzz around JavaFXTM Script and the JavaFXTM Mobile platform has Robert Brewin, Sun Distinguished Engineer and Chief Technology Officer in the Sun Software Group talking. In recent interviews, he discussed these latest developments as well as the JavaTM Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) 7 and a new consumer-focused JRE.

JavaFX comprises a comprehensive set of runtime environments, widgets, development tools and scripting environments. It's a simple scripting language for creating rich content and applications to run on billions of JavaTM-powered devices from mobile phones to Blu-ray Disc players to the browser.

Brewin thinks the short learning curve inherent with JavaFX Script will drive developers toward this latest development. "...if it were to take you a month to write something in Swing and Java 2DTM, but could do the same work in, say three days in JavaFX Script, it would be worth it to take a week to learn it," he surmised in an interview with David Bock hosted on O'Reilly's OnJava.com Website.

Brewin explained that JavaFX Script is an application running on top of the "VM," and he is hoping developers will help build content authoring tools to evolve this script quickly. "We want to get feedback from the community and that might require changes to the language, such as the addition of new APIs, rich media, television, streaming, audio," he told Bock. "There is a rich set of things we can do there that would require significant changes."

Sun also has introduced JavaFX Mobile, a small GNU/Linux platform with a complete Java 6 runtime. Although device manufacturers for this piece are still being aligned, Brewin said Sun wanted to give the audience a preview of where the market is moving. "If you look at the potential market for consumer devices, they far outnumber the traditional desktop. We know that providing solutions in this space is incredibly valuable, and we want to drive the solutions in this space."

Speaking with IDG News Service's Paul Krill, Brewin noted that JavaFX technology is primed to be expanded passed deployment on phones, such as in car in-dash displays. He told Krill, "I do expect that there will be other (deployments). For instance, I can easily see that we will release runtime systems for set-top boxes."

Brewin also shared with Krill that Sun is looking to implement a "superpackage" capability for improved distribution of small pieces of software in Java SE 7, which is expected to be released sometime in 2008.

"(Superpackaging) allows for more efficient distribution of Java applications as well as updates," he said.

Also on the Java agenda is to modularize GlassFishTM, Brewin said, in order to permit its use in applications like embedded systems. One example Brewin shared might be with a PDA where the application server could be deployed and allow users to work with a calendar application to make appointments and later be resynchronized with the network system. "The major breakthrough is it allows you to do things without necessarily having to be connected," Brewin summarized.

Another plan in the works is a consumer JRE. Brewin said Java 6 update 2 is expected to feature some of this new JRE that is meant to address download and installation size, cold start time, among other issues.

"Java 6 update 2 will contain the pieces that most people need, and other pieces will be lazily downloaded in the background as needed," he said, "hopefully in a way that doesn't affect normal usage patterns."

Bock posed the thought that many developers are finding it hard to distinguish between the Java platform and the Java language. Brewin clarified, "'... there is just one language, but there are multiple platforms.' We are still working on turning that around. That is one of the reasons we are doing things like JavaFX, so developers will realize 'you can code to a common set of Java APIs and know that your code will run everywhere.

"The fact that the platform itself supports all the different languages - Ruby, Groovy, Python and so on, I'm hoping that we are actually doing better...," he said. [...read more...]

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