Comments on: Java goes back to the PC

James Gosling, who helped create Sun Microsystems' Java software, is working to bring it back to its desktop computing roots.
Making things easy with JavaFX
Sun looks to jolt interest in Java

[bobby_brady]

Rich interactive experience = Advertisments

It's just another name new type of ads. I'd rather surf the net with ActiveX and Java turned off!

[sjoh]

still need activex no?

don't you need activeX turned on to run Flash?

[samkass]

Java is not a desktop environment

Java, when using lightweight Swing rendering cannot:
1. Render a modern HTML page
2. Embed any heavyweight component, such as ActiveX on Windows
3. Let Windows go into a screensaver without leaking megabytes of memory (actually this bug was finally fixed in JDK6 after several years, but is still present in JDK5)
4. Do complex drawing without hitting one of many JDK-crashing bugs that haven't been fixed in years.
5. Define a UI layout in a configuration file separate from the code.

Sun apparently is making minimal investment into usage as a desktop platform (Java2D-JOGL integration was nice, but the OpenGL pipeline only works in a small percentage of the available chipsets) especially on the most popular (Windows) and second most popular (Macintosh) platforms.

[frankwick]

JVM footprint, speed, ugly

Java has limped along for 12 years now. Can we move on? It's slow, ugly, difficult to maintain. Those disadvantages outweigh the cross-platform capability.

[MSSlayer]

Outdated arguments

With the JIT compilers. well written Java code is so close in terms of execution in comparison to well written C code, it is irrelevant, especially given the cross platform and security advantages of Java over C. Not that C should be used for anything other then system programming. It is also infinitely more maintainable then C code. A Java program is hard to maintain when it is poorly written. Something all languages suffer from.

Pointing to arguments that haven't been valid in years does not bolster your case.

Limped along? In what respect? It is the development platform to beat in enterprise and network applications.

Guess what language most of the server side code for world of warcraft is written in?

Java has its flaws like all languages, but it is very easy to learn, a snap to maintain(provided whoever wrote it understands simple OO principles). Personally I think Ruby in conjunction with the Rails framework will eventually catch up to Java in the enterprise market.

As for the desktop, Java is a decent language for desktop apps. The only downside, is the SLIGHTLY longer start time due to needing to start up a JVM. That amount of time is trivial, no matter how you look at it.