Sun Microsystems posted some new screenshots of its Java-based Project Looking Glass.
New Project Looking Glass Screenshots
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Eugenia Loli
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Hopefully this can be something of real use. Right now to me it just looks more cool/neat than usefull, but I bet if I pondered idea of this I could come up for some real uses for this.
Will be all in the name of inovation…
….what new functionality is supposed to give us? Oh wow, I can now spin my window around on the y-axis. That sure helps me out.
What are you doing bashing this thing? You know you HAVE to wait until Microsoft does it and THEN you can rip it a new one. 1000’s of people will automatically join you regardless of what it is, and they will then say that this is another case of Microsoft ripping off some other company’s great pioneering idea for their own horrible money making purposes.
On a less sarcastic note… I have yet to see a 3D interface that works better that plain old 2D windows, even on paper.. . and this doesn’t look much better, at least no yet.
I realy don’t think that it would be more usefull then a normal 2d desktop. but assuming the thing is
1: Stable.. It dosn’e matter how cool something is if it cant run more then a few apps for more then a few seconds without crashing.
2: Easy to use.. If it cant be controlled as easly as a 2d desktop, basicly if you have to turn it off to get any work done. iv’e messed with a few 3d desktops before that was such a pain to use that you have to turn it off to actualy be able to do anything productive.
If at least thoes 2 things are true then I would use it as would many others, sure it wouldn’t make me more productive but as long as it doesn’t make me less productive whats wrong with a little fun
Hey, i think this desktop looks promising. I think they are trying to entice the viewer with some images. Eventually they will have functionality. An alternative to any OS is a good thing. What you may not find useful can be what someone has been waiting for.
Pity it is soo ugly ………..!
It’s a clientside Java app. Quick, name one Desktop Java app that is popular with the average user. And no you CAN’T include of those crappy apps that Sun installs with their latest Java runtime. Bottom line is enduser Java apps run like a snail and aren’t popular for a reason.
Also this isn’t the first attempt at a 3D desktop. Others programs which looked fairly similar have come and gone without making a dent. People just are ready for/do not want this type of interface. Its a parlor trick, not the next step in Desktop Interfaces.
Finally this won’t be Open Source. They want to “work” with the OSS community but the product itself won’t be Open Source.
Sorry to be so negative but this project is stillborn.
Doesn’t look like it from first glance.
Gee-wiz technologies are a thing of the dot com bubble. There has to be real value somewhere in terms of increased productivity.
People and companies want tech to work for them, not the other way around.
What about Limewire? 19,907,274 downloads on CNET
I share your thoughts on the project though.
> What about Limewire? 19,907,274 downloads on CNET
Limewire may be popular, but it is awful. In fact, it alone has put me off installing any Java apps. I still like the US NIH’s ImageJ though.
Can anyone comment on ThinkFree Office?
J…
Ucedec – You should be more reponsible in your posts and should do some research before opening up your mouth.
Microsoft already had a 3D window manager project in their research long back which they finally abondned.
see the link below
http://research.microsoft.com/adapt/TaskGallery/
-Wolf
just wondering who says this is innovation. to me it looks like a feature cause id rather use the current flat desktop than that one. again its just me. id rather see them really work on a faster vm or a languange imho.
What is the point? How will this make us more productive?
Ok, at first I thought Expose was going to be pure eyecandy, but that turned out to be useful (the magnifying dock didn’t though). Thus, I will reserve judgement and wait to give this a spin when its released.
However, will I have to buy a Sun station to use it? If it isn’t available to any machine running XFree86/XIG/XServe/DirectFB/etc, then almost no one will use it except people that can afford Sun systems (and actually need them).
Any words on how its going to be released?
I think the real benefit will be in graphing apps since it’ll make 3-D graphs (such a light cones) more illustrative. 2D graphs become cluttered easily but adding a third dimension could clear things up. 3D will require a shiftin the way we think about interfaces and design them.
I think it will allow the user to be a bit more organised on his window(s) arrangement. Since it is a desktop, you should be able to organise things like you would on a real desk. Toss the less important things away and get the stuff that matters close to you. Just my 2cents
I do like how the icons on the taskbar, and system tray have the shadow underneath them. Even nicer is how they sit on a semi-transperent shelf.
I would like to see this effect ported to gnome or kde! Kde already has the ability to have a transparent taskbar (gnome?). I wonder how hard it would be to bring to either desktop environment?
My $0.02 CDN
To me, this doesn’t look any better than using a 2d desktop, however, people said the same thing about GUIs when they first came out. I am looking at this with an open eye to see if something useful develops from it. Although this implimentation looks flawed the idea of a 3d desktop does hold some merit. It will take a company with a better track record than Sun to make it a reality.
if it is running in 3d then i would i assum it would require more resources. in a sense it would deem linux as bloated yes. a very bloated one just by loading up the Desktop Manager. but i hope its not.
imho, this might have great usability values. the fact that you can make a window take less screen real-estates while still fully visible is a good direction.
the fact that the transparency, background-images and colors are plain ugly imo has nothing to do with it
i still think this is a very promising idea, and the implementation seems at least partially working. will be keeping an eye on this one.
nice work.
..oooh shiny!
eh …..if those 3d looking glass + touchable screen…then can i turn the windows?
like i navigate using my hand 
it sure cool…and nice ..
i wonder when i got hologram screen …in 3D …use my hand to tweak
I think the real benefit will be in graphing apps since it’ll make 3-D graphs (such a light cones) more illustrative. 2D graphs become cluttered easily but adding a third dimension could clear things up. 3D will require a shiftin the way we think about interfaces and design them.
From all the 3d graphs I’ve seen only a few were actually useful, moslty ploting of fields. In many cases moving to 3d actually makes the data harder to understand.
As for looking glass it seems to be mostly eye candy which isn’t to bad I guess otherwise I don’t see how it changes the current 2d desktop. Moving the drawing of the destop off to the 3d card is a good thing for new machines, not to mention MS and Apple have/are doing it.
“It’s a clientside Java app. Quick, name one Desktop Java app that is popular with the average user. And no you CAN’T include of those crappy apps that Sun installs with their latest Java runtime. Bottom line is enduser Java apps run like a snail and aren’t popular for a reason.”
Well one it isn’t available for us to try, so any proclamations about it’s speed are premature.
Two popularity contests aren’t exactly noted for their rigerous methadology. Nine out of ten dentists prefer…
Three define “average user” Average user developer? Average user who wears a suit? Average user who flys jets for a living? “Average user” is that thing that everyone tosses around with liberal abandon. Dressing it up in more significence than it deserves. So how many here are “average” joes (or Janes, or Harolds, or Jims, etc)? Or “average” tap dancers? How about “average” oil changers? And I’m certain there are plenty of “average” commenters at this site.
However, will I have to buy a Sun station to use it?
No. This is currently being tested with linux (Sun Java Desktop). Eventually both these technologies would be ported to Solaris as well. In addition, I suspect that Solaris’s popularity would get a dramatic boost with Sun’s support for AMD64 arch. Solaris is an amazing OS and with the current work being done on Solaris 10 will improve it even more. Don’t believe me? Try Solaris Express for yourself (and join comp.os.solaris)
Any words on how its going to be released?
I suspect in late Q3 or early Q4, 2004.
You must remeber that in the coming years 5,10,20??? something like this could be very usefull if we have virtual monitors. That is montirs that project 3d holigrams for our monitor. Might be ahead of its times in some ways but I bet there will be things to be learned from a project liket this.
Why anyone would just jump on the bandwagon and say this is useless I have no idea. No you may not be able to use it right now to do anything usefull, but maybe in the future it will lead to new things that will be usefull. In natrual science you often do things that don’t give you immediate benefit but in the long run those same things can cure cancer and other diseases. Sometimes it take many years though.
It’s about damn time someone did something new and different!! Sign me up, I want this. I wonder how long before apple and ms start stealing, i mean copying, it.
Java is often accused of being (snail) slow. If truly an issue then why doesn’t SUN also provide compilers for deep compilation e.g. for the CPUs? It would break with “write once run everywhere” – but it might help Java onto the desktop. Compilation as in what the JVM already does but static, from bytecode to machine code still allowing the source code to remain a trade secret and with compilation as a part of downloading and installing Java programs.
In all seriousness, I think this desktop needs an accompanying (modestly-priced) mouse-like device that works in 3 dimensions. The first thing that comes to mind is the glove Tom Cruise uses on Minority Report. It must be somewhat awkward to manipulate a 3D interface if you only have a 2D input device (mouse).
Also, think of the marketing possibilities… Sun could really show themslves as having the “Desktop of the Future”
hehe we already have that!!
http://www.3dwm.org
Ultimately, you are still displaying your desktop in 2d, so a 3d interface (no matter how gee-whiz) is only going to make things harder to work with. If I remember correctly, the video that came out several months ago was more of a means to knock at Microsoft than it was to demo something that was compelling enough to use in real life.
some people are very short-sighted.
it is the natural progression of the 2d interface to evolve to the 3d realm.
this is a start.
As other people have mentioned, a new input device would be required, and perhaps even a holographic display.
stop thinking 2 days ahead of you and think of the possibilities of 2 decades away.
please first offer blazing fast 2d-desktops, bc the screen is 2d.
develop an intelligent fleixbel file/structure/organisation system, bc current organisation structures are too inflexible…
if all this is done they could play with 3D… anyway… Let sun play with it, nobody gets hurt.
The only thing i fear, this 3D-Idea will get copied over and over bc. the existing companies THINK they have to offer it, then an avalanche of marketing-bull gets on speed again… There’s still no perfect 2D-Desktop, but they go 3D … grumble.
One interesting project is 3ddesk @ desk3d.sf.net
It makes easy to switch our workspaces, in 3d.
Well you guys are always very good at slamming things you’ve never tried. Lets see, that’s all you can do, wait and see if Sun surprises us. Right now they are looking for a way to live and a way to make java remain relevant – so maybe the desktop market is about survival for them.
In any case in May they are releasing an SDK – so all you guys who don’t like how it looks can build something that looks completely different. There will be as many diffferent styles for Looking Glass as there are for Windows XP uxtheme.dll – and a whole lot more besides. All it will take is for some of you guys to get off your butts and stop criticizing for a change – get the SDK when it comes out and finally provide some real competition to MS.
I know some of you guys have bad feelings about Sun’s refusal to turn Java over to Open source – but hey Sun are in trouble – and Java is one of their few remaining assets – an asset that incidentally adds direct value to their company. Giving away java would undoubtedly impact on the companies value – and might even ultimately spell the end of Sun itself. So try to be a little forgiving about them not giving away Java – and try if you can to give a little credit to them for trying hard to innovate.
Like they said, this is just a prototype. Its up to the development community to add the functionality everyone claims it needs.
GJ
Azerus!
Try it out!!!!!
I had the chance to see it running and it’s very impressive. beside being cool, it give another dimension to the desktop user interface by giving all of the open application an intuitive graphical place in function of the focus evolution in a succession of swift movements, zoomings or rotations. But i woonder if it could withstand the dayly use. we might soon be anoyed by all this dynamic in a same way we end up disliking web sites abusing flash and other active x controls. Let’s hope the commitment of Sun in its JDS is sincere and that, even if they find that feature not to be serious enough for the corporate desktop, they will let their new idea find its way to home users at least as an option.
erm, i think this will help hardware makers in 1st place, these 3D’ll eat my cpu & my ram so i have to buy new cpu anddd ram………………..
no i don’t need ’em …
i mean, i’m sure if some crazy company (let’s call them “pear”, for the sake of argument) ran their entire desktop through opengl (let’s call that technology “amethyst extreme”) for the sake of eye-candy (let’s say, minimising applications to the “port” in a cool slidy effect, fast user switching turning the currently viewable side on a tetrahedron) then everyone would lament how they didn’t have it on windows or x
sun is taking the idea of 3d rendering powering the desktop and thrusting it firmly in people’s faces. how much of this spinning windows crap will make any real world use? none. but the lay person wil still look & go “whoo! pretty!”, which will help capture mindshare – and a much more sober implementation can be put into use.
this is really good stuff from sun, hopefully this will take linux to the pinnacle of desktop computing. Is it OSS ?
Kidding for kids.
RE:One thing I do like….
“and system tray have the shadow underneath them.”
thats not a system tray its a wallpaper changer. the japanese guy MUST put a system tray and a clock on the taskbar.
” I would like to see this effect ported to gnome or kde! Kde already has the ability to have a transparent taskbar (gnome?). I wonder how hard it would be to bring to either desktop environment?”
gnome comes up with the transparent taskbar before kde. im a pro kde user.
looking glass itself already is a window manager or a light DE written in java. its pointless to port to other DEs.
RE:Pity it is soo ugly ………..!
some people think only mac ‘aqua drop’ or xp ‘gradient everywhere’ can be considered cool eye candy. i think kde plastik or gnome industrial or java metal or win2003 server default theme is wat a computer interface should be!
RE:usability
frankly i cant say looking glass is useful than existing 2d interface. ill use it if speed is as fast as 2d desktop why not? its 3D people!
RE:when?
the faq on the web page indicate mid 2004 so wont be too long for it to release
sun will become more hopeless if they only include LG in their own product meaning JDS or solaris. its very unlikely as i was told by a sun worker lately.
1. hardware might be a issue. its just like gaming performance.
anyway i think my centrino 1.7 1gb ram and fx5200go64ram will do the job so is my desktop.
look at the last screenshots,
and thinking of bookshelf.
the most efficient way to put books into the shelf is
let the binder side out, not the cover side.
This looks interesting, and of course my initial reaction is slightly negitive… more screen clutter… BUT I haven’t tried it yet…
yessire Expose seemed a bit, well, useless until I tried it… So, let’s give ’em credit for trying… yeah M$ tried this 3d project, but Sun may have come up with better ways of dealing with the anomolies… I like the ideas of the notes… that’s it for now.
“organizing your windows like your books”
I am waiting for Apple’s implementaion of file stacks, I think that iconizes files could benefit from that type of grouping on a 3d desktop…
ook at the last screenshots,
and thinking of bookshelf.
the most efficient way to put books into the shelf is
let the binder side out, not the cover side.
a very thoughtful and powerful point, bact’
This doesn’t seem very useful with a mouse or some 3D controller. The only way i think a 3D desktop or any 3D user interface might be useful in the future is in combination with voice interaction. That would be interesting for home users, but i don’t think that office users will use it. I suspect that real innovations like that will come from consumer electronics companies like Sony or Philips and not from Sun or Microsoft. The latter companies are imho too focused on business users to come up with real innovative solutions.
They need to speed up the 2D desktop and make it work first.
Second, this looks like the desktop is 2-3 years old.
Lastly, it would take an {Expensive} machine to run this memory intensive dated apps.
> What are you doing bashing this thing?
Exactly. To my knowledge we’ve never
had a real 3D interface with any kind of
ubiquity. How do you know what the future
can hold? Maybe you will be surprised.
People seem very consertive and risk adverse.
Progress is made in little steps
that build on each other. You might not see
an immediate massive improvement in your life,
but that’s not the point and that’s not how
things work.
It’s a step that will allow other people to
build more steps. See
“Nonzero : The Logic of Human Destiny”.
The more steps we can provide the higher we will
go.
well, it seem fascinating to me, but need to use for real for a real opinion.
my question is: witch os on hardware is needed for that?
there is a demo avaible?
tanks in advance and sorry for very bad english
Other than the cool graphics, I don’t see how this is a massive change to the current user interfaces we use. Yeah, cool graphics. But I’m not sure what’s the usefulness of flipping a window around. Or when minimize, tilting it to the right. In fact, I don’t get the idea behind having a snapshot of a window when it is minimized – it doesn’t give out information fast. The minimized window – what is it? What website is it? It barely gives out information.
Yes, it is really cool that when you click on preferences, the window flips around and the preference window comes out. But the usefulness of this? I can’t think of any. The only big change in this purpose in the industry is OS X’s dialogs (or sheets, as they call them, good thing Apple patented it)
The desktop switching seems a lot like the desktop switching in Panther – not a revolutionary idea there.
So pretty much all this is different from what we use today is the way it managed the windows? I.e. the eye candy involved? What’s the use of a window tilted so much that you can’t make out the content? This makes multi-application work a lot harder than it is today. And forgeting about monitoring a window while working on another.
Ultimately, it seriously deflated my expectations. Don’t get me wrong, there are some nice ideas here, but nothing that I would call the entire user interface revolutionary. Longhorn and Aqua’s user interface deserves to be called revolutionary more than Looking Glass.
These guys seriously need help of an artist.
Even Microsoft doesn’t dare to come up with programmer art like that.
I forgot to add this on to the other post, but I found the media application a rather stupid idea in general. In specific – the CD view. How many actually listens to music based on their CD’s playlists? I don’t know much people, the only CDs where I listen to all of their songs are gospel CDs (from the likes of Hillsongs). I rarely listen regular to more than two songs from any album, sorry to say. Perhaps it is because the rest of the songs are mere fillers, undeserving for my playlist.
Another stupid idea is the yellow stickies idea. The great thing about computers is that you can place your notes and notices in a central location in a manner that still could be noticed by you. In real life, yellow stickies is used mostly for appointment tracking – a computer does a much better job than Post-It notes because it can notify you when you need to get to that appointment. Notes on the other hand can’t remind you, and thus Post-It notes to attract your attention.
Another use of Post-It notes is for a to-do list (as shown in the screenshot too). Again, I don’t see why computers need something akin to Post-It notes because it has the ability to remind you to do errands. Just say you need to pick up your laundry, phone your mother, and pay your power bill during your lunch break. Using Post-It notes, it reminds you of those errands. However, with computers, you can easily look in [insert PIM application here] and find out what you need to do before going for lunch.
However, I don’t see how pasting notes behind windows is of any help. I can’t see any use whatsoever in it. Why? It isn’t immediately visible, thus pointless. And because it isn’t in a central location (i.e. Outlook), you can’t immediately have a looksie at your notes. In addition to that, the idea assumes the user keeps a window open for an extended period of time where he/she requires to leave notes – the only time any window open up at all time (except WinAMP, and Trillian) is when I’m working (i.e. writing a paper in Word). And I don’t forsee myself flipping around the window every so often to see what notes I’ve left behind, and to write notes.
(And that’s besides the point that Word already have a similar function built in)
Perhaps the last screenshot, on that shelf-like idea, is actually the only good idea that came out of the entire project. But then again, I don’t see much use of having miniature windows that hardly show its content lined up on my screen. But then again, the same can be said of a long list of window names and their icons. On a normal real-life bookshelf, books are best placed binder facing out. IMHO, the equilevent would be a normal Windows taskbar (or Kicker, or GNOME Panel, etc.)
Ok, here is where it might be useful to have a note pad on the back of a window.
Let’s say you’re developing 3 different web sites. You can be running your favorite editor like JEdit and with each project you switch to, there are notes on the back of the window that you are using to keep track of what you still have to do in that project. Currently I hate having to run around and find my to do list for each project each time I switch to another project. This would solve that problem and put everything in pretty much the same place.
How about I am running photoshop and I add notes about the image or mockup that I have made so that when I send the file out to the rest of my development group and 3 weeks later some one opens that file and looks at it, instead of having to go search their e-mails looking for my comments on that file, they just flip the window around and see the comments right with the file.
Sun could also make it where you don’t ‘need’ to flip the window around. They could put in a key binding like ctrl+alt+n or something and that note would pop up in your current view.
So that is just off the top of my head, so I’m sure there are more ways that this can be used for more productivity.
I have nothing against companies making money. I have nothing against new ideas, even if it is just eyecandy.
I do however abhor the idea, that this piece of proprietary software should reach ubiquity. Sun may think this could save them as this looks like a very sellable desktop solution, but we of the Open Source Community should be wary of this.
The Desktop is a core piece of infrastructure. If this piece were to become proprietary by the wholesale adoption of Sun’s Looking Glass, Open Source would lose it’s advantage (dare I say meaning?). It’s important to keep the base infrastructure Free.
For all practical purposes, I cannot endorse this product, because it has the potential of proprietizing that wich has finally become Open and Accessible to the masses.
“These guys seriously need help of an artist”
They all need artists to sit down with usabilty experts and come up with something that is usable while being pleasant to look at… it’s mostly subjective too… everyone seems to want to come up with something over the top and not elegance… The art of space seems to be clouded in most aspects of GUIs. Who’s doing it best? That’s subjective too…
At least Sun’s making a step, the art and elegance can be injected as they work on the execution of this technology…
there, I said it
but what should it be used for, unless you are producing a science fiction movie and want a cool GUI somewhere that is.
Of course it could be thougt of as an extension of the desktop methaphore where it is possible to pick up documents and make a note on the back of it. But the screen shots doesn’t seam to indicate that this was the use Sun had in mind.
So far, most attempts to produce native compilers for have failed as they tend to produce slower apps than if you run them as bytecode through a state of the art JVM.
I think the problem with java speed has more to do with the design of the class libraries than with not beeing natively compiled. Most java libraries focus on ease of use and ease of maintanance rather than speed. This is the reason why it usually takes 3 times longer to develop an application in C++ than it does in Java.
And as computer programmers time is much more expensive than faster hardware, I think Sun made the right choise. Today there is no problem running even large Java Application on modern hardware at reasonalbe speed. The slowness of java that remains is mostly in the minds of the users. As soon as they see that it is a java application they instantly think it is slow, just because java always used to be slow.
So I think that Sun would have more to gain by making the Java GUI look & feel more similar to native look & feel. That way people could not pick applications out as written in java. They would then concentrate on doing their work instead of pondering over it it is slow or not.
For me this project is only cosmetic, like MacOSX’s Aqua or MS’s Longhorn. There is no advantage for the user see a 2D Windows in 3D perspective. It is stupid in terms of hardware resources.
I will only believe in 3D desktops when we can use them with 3D monitors or 3D holograms and 3D input devices.
What is it good for? That same question was asked by my coworkers when I showed them the Mosaic beta and when I showed them quicktime 1.0 with a line drawing of a man doing flips. I didn’t have an answer then but now…..
Mosaic was one of the first web browsers.
iRate Radio is one of the best Java apps EVAR…..
Now try to tell me that java is crap….
With anything like this Sun had better polish this thing to shine before they release any demo or any code whatsoever. If the first impression of this thing is bad, I’m not sure people will give it a second chance. My advice to Sun: don’t release this until it is REALLY useful. This is something Microsoft usually understands.
this satisfys gamers, not really any operating system programmer people. We all love the eyecandy, you can’t admit i t! people will line up to buy this
That thing on way in hell was written in Java. First of all, Java can’t talk to XFree86 directly. Second, Java is too bleeding slow for something like this. Java doesn’t have structs, nor does it let you create stuff on the stack. For fast graphics you need value types. It may have a Java API, but I do not believe that it was written in Java. If I am wrong, and it was written in Java, the damn thing requires o ton of resources, and it takes forever to load. Java sucks (both the platform, and the language), and it will always suck.
if you dont like it dont use it, they arent forcing you why are u getting so upset ??
the people who do like it and want it on top of linux can have it thats the whole point of having choice in OSS and look how many distro’s are out there im sure u will like a normal desktop distro.
Snake
It could have been written in java. Sun wrote java, they know java better than anyone. Just like MS can do interesting crap in windows knowing all the apis and having access to the source code, sun can do the same to java.
Yes, I said it. Java and all of the high-level languages are extremely difficult to master and are complex. Easy syntax doesn’t translate into easy language and better coders. Far from it. In fact, unfortunately, the majority of Java coders I know suck!!!
They have little to no understanding of the VM. To be good in Java you need to understand how the VM works. It’s not necessary, but the good Java coders understand it intricately and very well.
They have little to no understanding of the structure of the class libraries, at best they only know how to use them.
They have extremely horrendous coding habits.
They don’t care about optimization and efficiency because they think the VM does everything.
They suck big time at debugging. (perhaps the most important part of programming)
They don’t look for ways to improve the performance of their apps. (Java developers just don’t care about speed)
They know little to no understanding of algorithms, when to use which and when to design theirs.
Have minimal to no understanding of how computers work at the low level.
Can’t write a library from scratch.
Can’t decipher a well designed project, class, or library from one that sucks or that is buggy! As such don’t know when to avoid using a class/library as opposed to writing theirs.
Had two semesters of Java in college, and that’s all they have for Java experience.
Fact is, good programmers go above and beyond what is thought in class or your standard college text books. Good programmers are excellent mathematicians and logicians, understand a wide array of programming concepts/theories and languages, are creative and learn very quickly. They are problem solvers and scholars by nature and by the skills they’ve acquired.
The programmers I work with today understand the syntax of the language better than the back of their palms. But when it comes to programming concepts, applied mathematics and logics, design and engineering, forget it!
I’ve used very fast Java applications but a lot more slow ones. But I can tell you, from experience, that the performance of an application is completely dependent on several factors and one of the most important ones are the dexterity, creativity, attitude and knowledge of the developers or coders of the project.
Java, however, when in the hands of bad coders(the majority of coders) and sometimes good ones, is extremely horrible with system resources, in particular RAM. But the key phrase here is “bad coders”. A Java guru the other day demonstrated a small java utility that was as memory cautious as the ones writing in C++, and even better than the ones writing in perl and python. I was both impressed and shocked.
An example of a well designed, well coded Java application is IntelliJ. I think it is the best Java application I’ve used. I just discovered it a few days ago.
But don’t blame the language, blame the dearth of committed, dextrous and experienced Java gurus, or coders. Unfortunately, many of the people attracted to Java and high level languages are usually lazy by nature. Java provides features to make your applications robust, fast, secure and system friendly, but how many people know about them or even use them.
I’ll be the first to admit I suck in Java. I understand OO, the Java syntax and semantics very well, but when it comes to the Java core or the special features of the language, I’m clueless. And thats why I don’t use it, except I’m forced to.
what about system requirements?
I agree with your post.
Any language can be slow if it’s used by bad coders.
I think that if you’re in some sort of real programming, you’ve not only have a good knowledge of the language syntax but also the framework itself, algorithms, data strutures, other language paradigms, operating systems, etc.
One thing that most Java programers think is that Java does memory management for them. It reliefs you from memory management, but you still have to care about it.
For people that have said that Looking Glass is not Java, I can say it probably is! (Sun says is Java3D)
If you’ve done some 3D graphics programming, you’ll know that much of the effort is on the GPU, not on the CPU. This is also valid for memory usage. The buffers, today, are in the graphics card memory (32MB+). Logic, texture loading, etc. are handled on the CPU.
One thing that bugs me is how the hell they can mix video overlays with 3D to get that play speed on RealPlayer!!! Awasome!
As for “Java can’t talk to X”.
Bullshit! X is a protocol! Java can talk to it over the wire or using X core libraries via JNI (this is valid for OpenGL too, which I think Java3D is based).
Again, Java is not slow. I’ve written a multithreaded client to a database that has an JTable (Swing) on it that can handle 20+x13000+ table from a database (being the bottleneck the network). Once loaded, the navigation in this table is… How should I put it?… F A S T !
You really have nice prejudices of your fellow java developers. I suppose youre the java guru par excellence.
The whole idea behind java is, that you don’t have to know about how the VM works let alone how the hardware works. (Especially if you keep in mind that java is hardware-independant anyway). Java is high level langauge as you say and therefore meant for ease of developement. You think a plumber needs to know the chemical structure of water molecules? It doesn’t hurt, but it surely is a waste of time.
So to the speed thing. Java *is* slow. Thats because the libraries, as I already said, are “tuned” for ease of use and not for speed. So its mainly not the developers fault if they use performance-wise flawed libraries. SUN did a very bad job on optimizing their libraries for speed. Even now with tiger which introduces generics, when you make an <int>ArrayList internally no int array is used, but an Object array and all ints are boxed into Integers and cast and unboxed back. What a waste of memory and CPU.
That all doesn’t mean that you cannot make fast Java apps, but you have to give up much of java’s comfort if you want to do so and write your own librariers.
Something to the subject: I don’t believe this looking glass project is written in java (as The whole Java Desktop has not much to do with java). But what I think is that it could be a very promising approach.
Inflagranti wrote:“You really have nice prejudices of your fellow java developers. I suppose youre the java guru par excellence.”
If you perused my comment diligently, you would have observed I confessed my incompetency with the Java framework in general, and the language, in particular.
Inflagranti wrote:“The whole idea behind java is, that you don’t have to know about how the VM works let alone how the hardware works. (Especially if you keep in mind that java is hardware-independant anyway)”
That notwithstanding, good coders have thorough knowledge of the framework, including the properties of the virtual machine.
Inflagranti wrote:“Java is high level langauge as you say and therefore meant for ease of developement.”
I fail to see the relationship between easy development and well tuned applications. You seem to conclude that easy development translates into efficient, secure, well written and robust applications. I beg to differ.
Inflagranti wrote:“You think a plumber needs to know the chemical structure of water molecules? It doesn’t hurt, but it surely is a waste of time.”
I agree. But your analogy is misplaced. Water molecules do not constitute a part of a plumber’s tools. The Java framework on the other hand is a tool programmers use for productivity. This is the notion of “the better craftsman knows his tools better.” adage.
Inflagranti wrote:“So to the speed thing. Java *is* slow. Thats because the libraries, as I already said, are “tuned” for ease of use and not for speed. So its mainly not the developers fault if they use performance-wise flawed libraries. SUN did a very bad job on optimizing their libraries for speed. Even now with tiger which introduces generics, when you make an <int>ArrayList internally no int array is used, but an Object array and all ints are boxed into Integers and cast and unboxed back. What a waste of memory and CPU.”
Which brings us back to my point. The developer who knows generics in Java is a system resource trade off, is more equipped with information and knowledge than one who doesn’t. Now, I don’t know if what you state about generics is true, or false, but the reason I hate Java is because of its abysmal use of system resources. And I’m sure I stated that above. I also mentioned that Java gurus, who understand Java’s esoteric framework, are able to abate, avoid, or correct this weakness because of their expertise.
Inflagranti wrote:”Something to the subject: I don’t believe this looking glass project is written in java (as The whole Java Desktop has not much to do with java). But what I think is that it could be a very promising approach.”
Excerpt from SUN’s website:
http://wwws.sun.com/software/looking_glass/index.html
”Based on Java Technology for Flexibility
Project Looking Glass is being created to work with the Solaris and Linux desktop environments using Java technology. When completed, it will work alongside applications designed for a 2D window system, without application modifications. With Project Looking Glass – as well as the new Sun Java Desktop System, StarOffice 7 office suite and Java Card technology – Sun is reinventing the way you think about desktop computing.”
So, according to SUN, Looking Glass is written using the Java technologies. I’m very sure it also takes advantage of the Java 3D APIs. What is further impressive is that common window manager flaws, like resize issues, expose lag and tearing, to mention a few, are totally absent in Looking Glass, at least from the demos I’ve observed. Shouldn’t this further dispel the myth that languages are a significant factor concerning application performance rather than skill, knowhow and experience?
After all, a good programmer is one that exploits the strength of a given language/tool/framework while circumventing its weaknesses. How can a good programmer do that without extensive knowledge of the language/tool/framework, among other things?
I’ve seen this in action. For the guy that was prejudicing it as slow because based on Java: you’re wrong, everything was swift and responsive.
Folks, you’re incredibly short-sighted. Don’t you realize how useful this could be for managing large amounts of storage (SAN environments etc.) or while working with hierarchical schematics, or for the mixed-signal analisis of such complex designs, or any application that uses 3D tables…. There are manypossibilities, the reason you can’t think of any doesn’t mean there aren’t, it just means that you don’t have the vision. I don’t claim to be a big visionary, but I am surprised at this freakish reaction here. Get a hold of yourself, folks.
What is it good for? That same question was asked by my coworkers when I showed them the Mosaic beta and when I showed them quicktime 1.0 with a line drawing of a man doing flips. I didn’t have an answer then but now…..
If you didn’t have an answer then it was your fault (and theirs for asking too).
Some things really have no use, whether you can see one or not. It should be about time someone points that out. For instance, when BG launched .NET he said it’d be the best thing since sliced bread. Some people asked ‘what is it for’?. But many saw its potential.
I have yet to find someone who sees potential in this thing.
if there’s no sucj a heavy 3D craps, less hardware sell ing ….. ;-/ .. btw i hate those 2-3CD/DVD games.. i can’t ran ’em on my machine
To all of the people who think it would be hard to navigate a 3d desktop, go buy a copy of Homeworld for $10 and discover how easy it really is.
Looking Glass is a Java Add-on to the JDS. JDS is a GNOME based desktop (polished).. Looking glass is just an addon that runs ontop of JDS. (right now)
java isn’t slow. I am working on a search engine project that can index millions of websites and run within seconds on a single server. Java is fast. What you must be thinking about us Java applications loading in microsoft’s MSJVM? hhaha.. Seriously really the only slow part of java on the desktop is initially loading the application. Once it is running it’s one of the fastest things youve ever seen.
I am a beginning Java developer. I have had 2 basic and 1 advanced Java class and have written around 50 java apps. I can tell you that Java is not slow on modern systems. Sure, a 486 can’t handle them, but as computers get more powerful you will see interpretted languages making a comeback, as it will no longer give a perceptual speed boost to compile an app. This looks great. Has anyone tried the Sun Java Desktop?
since windows are 2D and the desktop is 3D it creates a disjointed feel. A much better idea would be to make the apps and the desktop 3D – I see that the CD selection is like this – but without substatial effort most apps will be 2D in a 3D world and I really doubt this makes since to unskilled/uniterested users. When I work with people who are only interested in the basics they don’t even want to think about the desktop or the windows (what is an active window?) – they just want to get something done. I do not see this 3D interface being any more approachable for them.
As for me, I don’t like clutter and I like simple controls – I use the keyboard to switch windows not the mouse. I don’t want lots of things spinning around or a moving background. Seconds after I boot there are multiple windows covering the background and I don’t see it again until shutdown – don’t want to see it and don’t see any advantage to seeing it or moving it.
root: “If you perused my comment diligently, you
would have observed I confessed my incompetency with the Java framework in general, and the language, in particular.”
Sorry, I didn’t read the last paragraph. Anyway, your prejudices remain. And that you yourself admitably don’t know much about java makes your statements even more biased.
root: “That notwithstanding, good coders have thorough knowledge of the framework, including the properties of the virtual machine.”
The framework is something completly different. Of course good coders have to know the framework if you don’t know the framwork, you cannot do much. But its another thing with the VM. It’s good to know what different garbage collectors are available and how they work, but you still can write good programs without knowing.
root: “I fail to see the relationship between easy development and well tuned applications.”
I never said they are well tuned.
root: “You seem to conclude that easy development translates into efficient, secure, well written and robust applications. I beg to differ.”
You can definitly write secure, well writen and robust applications without knowing the VM internals. You cannot write very efficient applications. But that is not the main point. You will not be able to write fast C programs without knowing the system either, with C even more so IMO.
root: “I agree. But your analogy is misplaced. Water molecules do not constitute a part of a plumber’s tools. The Java framework on the other hand is a tool programmers use for productivity.”
Maybe I didn’t make myself clear enough, I was talking about the VM, which is definitly no tool of the programmer. The analogy of course is still not very good, but I can’t think of any better right know. I think you know what I wanted to say anyway.
root: “The developer who knows generics in Java is a system resource trade off, is more equipped with information
and knowledge than one who doesn’t.”
Performancewise: yes. But you seem to confuse fast applications with good ones. An application can be lightnig fast, but still unusable. And it can be badly optimized and still be very usable, as most of the time the CPU is idle anyway.
root: “Now, I don’t know if what you state about generics is true, or false, but the reason I hate Java is because of its abysmal use of system resources. And I’m sure I stated that above. I also mentioned that Java gurus, who understand Java’s esoteric framework, are able to abate, avoid, or correct this weakness because of their expertise.”
I don’t think you ever staded that Java is slow. It’s quite the opposite: you stated that java developers are bad and program slow code. Where I replied that the framework is not the fastest. And as you are talking about gurus here, you seem to understand yourself, that you are an above average programer if you have complete knowlege of the frameworks internals (not only the framworks methods you can use, but how they are implemented). So programers which don’t know this, aren’t bad programers.
root:“?Based on Java Technology for Flexibility ”
So, according to SUN, Looking Glass is written using the Java technologies.”
Which can mean anything, but not necessarely, that its entirely written in Java. As far as I remember, they say the same about ther Java Desktop.
Root: “After all, a good programmer is one that exploits the strength of a given language/tool/framework while circumventing its weaknesses. How can a good programmer do that without extensive knowledge of the language/tool/framework, among other things?”
A good programmer knows how to use the framework. And maybe also knows of some of the weaknesses (in java for instance to use stringbuffers instead of strings).
But he doesn’t have to know everything about the VM. And he doesn’t have to know how the sorting algorithm in Java is implemented, he just has to know that there is a Arrays.Sort and an ArrayList.Sort method and how to use it.
Again you can write good programs without knowing how the VM works. Maybe you should have knowing of some tuning parameters, but that is not really necessary, as an Administraor should tune the VM. Those programs will perform fast enough in 90% of the cases, and for the rest you can let the guru optimize it.
Compared to OSX it is a big step backward (I have it installed on my HP laptop) but the Looking Glass looks quite good and is fast because it runs on the GPU like quartz extreme. I saw the demo running in their demo boot on a not so new laptop and it runs faster then I would ;]
It is java and should be cross-platform,
will you replace your current desktop?
I am not quite sure what to make of this. Some of the more obvious possabilities are kind of neat, but I’m not entirely convinced that this is anything truely revolutionary.
They’d best think up some really, cool shit, or this isn’t going to sell too well I think.