http://www.osnews.com/story/16496/F3_GUI_Scripting_Language_for_Java Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:25:51 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?182600 http://osnews.com/thread?182600 A better stronger typed more functional javascript? Wed, 15 Nov 2006 20:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sphinx) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182604 http://osnews.com/thread?182604 I have been waiting for this! Sun should've done this years ago! Back when Java was the language of choice for dynamic banners and ads, etc before the flash invasion.

Better late than never i guess!


Now we need Sun to push forward on the Java Media Framework (JMF) so we can have some great cross platform media players, to usurp these horrible flash players popping up everywhere. Wed, 15 Nov 2006 20:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (slashdev) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182607 http://osnews.com/thread?182607 initially i thought it is GUI specific. Actually, it seems to be a general purpose declarative scripting language but Sun will push it for GUI usage i think.Edited 2006-11-15 21:15 Wed, 15 Nov 2006 21:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ahmetaa) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182615 http://osnews.com/thread?182615 Well said.

With easier Java distribution (now with the license change), there can be better browser support, and Java will be installed by default.

Although I doubt that actual Flash creators will migrate to this, anyway. They're using easier GUI interfaces for composing their GUIs, how does ActionScript compare to F3 and Java? Wed, 15 Nov 2006 21:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bsantos) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182616 http://osnews.com/thread?182616 Hi,

is it similar to Microsofts Avalon (Windows Presentation Foundation)? Because with Avalon you can create flash like GUIs too.

Greetings

Mike Wed, 15 Nov 2006 21:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (miketech) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182623 http://osnews.com/thread?182623 XAML is not a bad technology (it is not really directly Dependant to .net or windows i assume, like Xul), would be a good thing to implement a Java version of that too. However, since MS is behind, i may expect them to tie it to .Net, windows or IE somehow. Wed, 15 Nov 2006 21:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ahmetaa) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182624 http://osnews.com/thread?182624 F3 Java
String java.lang.String
Boolean java.lang.Boolean
Number java.lang.Number
Integer byte,short,int,long,BigInteger

Wow, you've got to have respect for a language that actually has a sensible integer type. Wed, 15 Nov 2006 21:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (John Nilsson) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182634 http://osnews.com/thread?182634 Looks really really impressive.

To me, it's a much more attractive alternative to Flash, because of the following:

1. Flash is fully proprietary, Java is now GPL
2. Flash is a huge CPU hog.
3. Flash IDE/tools are very expensive, Netbeans (which I'm sure will have an F3 feature) is completely free
4. F3, running on a standard JRE, will have full access to the awesome Java APIs - Flash's APIs pale by comparisson.

BTW - with Java 6, Swing performance, LnF, and fonts are all greatly improved. Sun is starting to get serious about Java on the desktop. Wed, 15 Nov 2006 22:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JeffS) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182643 http://osnews.com/thread?182643 I have always wondered why SUN had so sacrificed the desktop... If there was a market for Flash, there was a market for that with a pro IDE and a free introductory one...

Anyway, the 'too late = failure' adage of the software industry will apply in this case as in many I am afraid. Wed, 15 Nov 2006 22:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dukeinlondon) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182650 http://osnews.com/thread?182650 Finally JAVA cloned REBOL View's VID dialect :-) Well, just in principle - something looking easy to use. I think it could become popular ...

Petr Wed, 15 Nov 2006 23:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (-pekr-) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182665 http://osnews.com/thread?182665 Now there´s a interpreter with the JRE and there are developers. They could enforce a stricter subset or use one EcmaScript 4 with type declarationt, etc. Wed, 15 Nov 2006 23:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jgfenix) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182701 http://osnews.com/thread?182701 Thought adobe gave flash to the mozilla foundation last week. Thu, 16 Nov 2006 01:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sphinx) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182704 http://osnews.com/thread?182704 Only the actionScript i think, not the Flash core. Thu, 16 Nov 2006 01:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ahmetaa) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182705 http://osnews.com/thread?182705 Although i agree it has advantages over flash, i think for this language to succeed Java2D needs more low level speed and resource usage improvements (like using simd instructions, direct access to opengl-directx pipeline) to keep up with Flash. Thats said, still i think this is a very good way of making appealing rich client applications (not browser) since it is integrated well with Java libraries. Thu, 16 Nov 2006 01:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ahmetaa) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182731 http://osnews.com/thread?182731 hmm.. from my impression,
it seems like F3 program has to be fully downloaded before it can start,
compare to Flash one, which I believe it can be partially downloaded first, and can download needed parts as it goes.

Or technically this is not a limitation ?
just only how the programmer write it ?
(i.e. F3 and Flash programs both can download program portions dynamically, if the programmer smart enough)Edited 2006-11-16 04:08 Thu, 16 Nov 2006 04:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bact) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182757 http://osnews.com/thread?182757 Wow... wow! I'm really impressed! Now that I've dropped JAVA developmnt a few years ago, now Sun comes up with what I needed in the past. Good morning!

I hope JAVA will be available crossplattform as a standard at some time, and this may lead F3 to abolish "Flash", just to mention because of the many advantages F3 would have, as JeffS stated in the post 2006-11-15 22:24:53 UTC. Thu, 16 Nov 2006 06:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Doc Pain) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182763 http://osnews.com/thread?182763 While Sun is pitching this as a competitor to Flash, I am not sure if this is really the case. Even with F3, I doubt Java will be more capable than Flash when it comes to animation. Due to the neglect of JMF, it will also be weaker than Flash when it comes to multimedia integration (Fortuantely, Java Sound is still okay).

This being said, Java with F3 could be a legitimate competitor to Flex, which is being pitched by Adobe as an Web Application platform. At least the scripting language is quite simple. However, I'd like to see some kind of visual editor which generates XUL and SMIL for UI and animation.

Finally, it appears F3 have something to do with the elusive MVM as it enables multiple F3 applications to run on the same virtual machine.Edited 2006-11-16 07:44 Thu, 16 Nov 2006 07:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (someone) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182764 http://osnews.com/thread?182764 Only the ECMAScript VM. Thu, 16 Nov 2006 07:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (someone) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182766 http://osnews.com/thread?182766 Can't you do this with Classloader in Java? Thu, 16 Nov 2006 07:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (someone) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182773 http://osnews.com/thread?182773 Not sure how flash does it, but I think the answer to your question is "yes". Also, can't Web Start be configured to work like that? Thu, 16 Nov 2006 08:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Savior) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182806 http://osnews.com/thread?182806 If they implement proper 2way code-wysiwyg editor the thing could revolutionize GUI developement in general and pour some life back to swing developement.

It looks like a prototype creator dream come true. Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dsmogor) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182890 http://osnews.com/thread?182890 Webstart/applet applications have a great problem: there is no abstraction on the data layer. There is no framework on the market to ease the development of a data/persistence layer in a similar way F3 abstracts the UI layer. There is Hibernate, which has great limitations (there is no way to use Hibernate objects from a rich client like a webstart application unless the objects are converted to session beans, which is a great work), and there is the Java persistence layer (EJB 3.0) which is even more work...and neither framework handles SQL natively.

If only F3 contained such an abstraction, it would finally unlock the problem of distributed applications...what I want is a dialect for expressing the database declaratively, as well as SQL part of the language, and of course data types created from queries... Thu, 16 Nov 2006 16:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (axilmar) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182892 http://osnews.com/thread?182892 I hope this also encourages Adobe to open up Flash a little more. Thu, 16 Nov 2006 16:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ChiliJ) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182901 http://osnews.com/thread?182901 Finally JAVA cloned REBOL View's VID dialect :-)

Actually they cloned the result of what REBOL can do with the VID dialect, not the dialecting system itself. F3 looks nice on the surface until you find out that it still takes up 20 times as much code and runs a third as fast as a typical VID program. Not very elegant at all. Good try though. Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (henrikmk) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?182968 http://osnews.com/thread?182968 Thought that was venkman and they already had one. Thu, 16 Nov 2006 22:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sphinx) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?183001 http://osnews.com/thread?183001 Good point, rebol is an amazing language and platform that receives far too little attention. I've dabbled with it and was amazed at how easy it is to "get-it-done"

Hopefully, interest will pick-up with the 3.0 release coming soon.

http://www.rebol.com Fri, 17 Nov 2006 01:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fbrathwaite) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?183004 http://osnews.com/thread?183004 I've lost faith in Flash. Part of this has to do with Adobe owenership; the rest with growing complexity to do simple things.

Flash is increasingly repeating the same mistakes that Sun made with Java in terms of complexity.

To both Adobe and Sun: KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID! Fri, 17 Nov 2006 01:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fbrathwaite) Comments