JavaOne, Day 2: In Which the Tension Between JavaFX and Groovy Becomes Palpable

Here’s the next post in my series of increasingly untimely coverage of JavaOne.

Wednesday’s theme for me was all about user experience which started with…

Extreme GUI Makeover

Extreme GUI Makeover is a JavaOne favorite. I thoroughly enjoyed last year’s version, delivered by Ben Galbraith, which covered the case study of converting a Cobol application to a Swing Application (something I happened to be actually doing at the time).

This year’s iteration of the talk was delivered by a panel of speakers, I think (but I’m not positive) all members of the JavaFX team. This year the team scaled back the ambition and tackled the unimpressive task of converting some of the elements of a Swing Email Client to JavaFX.

The team outlined how they had to roll their own components in some cases to make up for JavaFX’s lack of maturity. For example, even though Swing has a perfectly fine JTree component (and SwingX has an even better one), they replaced it with a custom-made collection of nodes that behaved tree-like which bought them the ability to add fancy tree node transition animations.

The highlight of the talk (as judged by the amount of audience clapping and time spent explaining the feature) was the button that moved an email from the inbox to the junk mail folder. Instead of simply moving the message as most email clients do, this application would launch a missile sprite from under the button, which would follow a spline and culminate in incinerating the message on impact.

The feature was clearly meant to show JavaFX’s prowess with animation, path generation, and transitions to tie it all together. I had a hard time deciding, however, if every time a missile obliterated a message, the audience giddy with delight, if it was the message going up in flames, or my faith in JavaFX’s future.

I have a good deal of respect for the JavaFX team; they have accomplished much in a short about of time. Additionally they are good speakers capable of delivering quality sessions (as evidenced by a session on Day 3 which I’ll get to in the next post).

Having said that, I find trends like those present in this session very disturbing. JavaFX is trying to gain traction as an enterprise grade language, but as long as we’re blowing up messages in our inbox I imagine it will never be taken seriously.

And note that this is coming from the guy who wrote the Orangalzer.

Creating Compelling User Experiences

If Ben Galbraith woke up one day and decided to start a conference called BenOne in which all he did was talk about his day, I would be the first in line for registration. This guy knows how to give an interesting, thoughtful talk.

A lot of what makes Ben so effective as a speaker is in the subtleties of what he says. Rather than simply barrel through a list of bullet points, he takes the time to construct an argument, and support his points from multiple angles, all the while acknowledging differing points of view.

Last year’s “Compelling User Experiences” session was the most popular of the conference, and with good reason. This year’s talk, emphasizing craftsmanship this time, was once again easily my favorite.

Unlike other sessions, where I might walk out with several action items, or technical tidbits to try out, “Compelling Experiences” leaves me with nothing tangible, but rather a increased sense of awareness about how I approach my job. It encourages me to take a step back and helps me remember why I’m doing this stuff in the first place.

The gist of his talk is available on his blog. You owe it to yourself to check it out.

Pro JavaFX or Something Like That

(sigh) See “missiles” above.

Griffon BoF (Birds of a Feather)

The Griffon guys are making great strides in this much anticipated (by me anyway) “Grails-for-Swing” framework. One of the side notes of the BoF was the herculean effort put in by Geertjan Wielenga in creating a workable Griffon plug-in for Netbeans mere hours before the conference. Be sure to check out Scott Davis’ interview with Geertjan over at Thirstyhead.

Actually, Scott Davis, known for his infectiously charismatic love of Groovy which is impossible to resist, interviewed the “who’s who” of the Groovy world while at JavaOne, including Andres Almiray, Dave Klein, Graeme Rocher, Dierk Koenig, and Mr. Groovy himself, Guillaume Laforge.

Incidentally, I had a chance to speak with many of these guys informally myself, and I was (and continue to be) impressed by their approachability, genuineness, and sense of community. The Groovy community is indeed in good hands.

Whew, so almost done. Be sure to keep an eye out for the thrilling conclusion of my untimely JavaOne coverage…