I've been mulling over the implications of the news that Sun's JRuby team leaders, Charles Nutter and Thomas Enebo, are leaving Sun because of uncertainty about the future of their project after the Oracle acquisition. They will be joining Rails specialist Engine Yard. This is the key quote from Nutter:
To be honest, we had no evidence that Oracle wouldn't support JRuby, but we also didn't have any evidence that they would.
JRuby is by all accounts excellent - I'm aware that developers at ThoughtWorks use it, and Ruby advocate Martin Fowler (who works there) told me that it works very well for them, observing that some enterprises who would be reluctant to deploy the native Ruby runtime are more comfortable with running Ruby applications on the JVM (Java Virtual Machine). It is foolish of Oracle to let the JRuby guys slip away, particularly bearing in mind the trend towards dynamic languages (like Ruby) rather than static-typed languages (like Java).
What does this suggest about the future of Java itself under Oracle's stewardship? If Oracle could have done more to reassure Nutter of its continuing commitment to JRuby, so too it could do more to reassure the rest of us that investment in Java and its community will continue as strongly under Oracle as it did under Sun. Maybe it will, maybe it won't; though culturally I suspect the new company will be averse to Sun's habit of investing heavily in projects with little obvious potential for direct revenue. The failure to monetize Java fully, along with the failure of its bold experiment in open source, is one reason for the acquisition itself.
That does not imply that Java will go away - Oracle itself is a heavy user, and defending its future was likely a factor in its willingness to purchase Sun. Still, it would not be surprising if the community is a little less warm, and Oracle's investments more focused on its own needs rather than those of the wider platform.
Despite Oracle, there is no reason to be gloomy about Java's future. There is another way to look at the move of the JRuby team, which is that they've found a way to continue working on the project with or without Oracle's support. Java is bigger than Oracle, just as it was bigger than Sun.
IBM worked tirelessly to free Java as far as possible from Sun's control, developing its own JVM and creating the Eclipse tools project to foster alternative tools and frameworks. Those efforts will have a new context and relevance.
Maybe Oracle will do great things for the Java platform. Maybe it will do little, and momentum will shift to those outside the home company. Either way, investment in Java development is as safe as anything can be in our uncertain industry.
Last week Sun launched JavaFX, its Java-based platform for Rich Internet Applications. Sun picked up the high level of interest in Adobe's Flash as an application runtime, and perhaps Microsoft's Silverlight as well, and hurriedly developed its own equivalent. JavaFX is a new scripting language that runs on the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) and is optimized for graphical effects and multimedia. It brings to Java animation features like timelines and motion paths, support for a variety of audio and video codecs, and a way of coding a graphical user interface without the supposed complexities of Swing with its Model/View/Controller (MVC) design. JavaFX applets can run within or outside the browser. One innovation is that you can drag an applet out of a web page and onto your desktop. If you close the browser, the applet keeps running, thanks to support for out-of-process plugins in Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox.
So far JavaFX has received a mixed reception, and it is easy to see why. The launch was rushed, and some early visitors to the site had a bad experience, with videos that would not play or samples that did not run. Videos running in JavaFX flash unpleasantly if you resize the browser. The install experience is not as smooth as for Flash or Silverlight in my experience, because you need to install the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) as well as the JavaFX plugin. The download size is larger, although this is disguised by Sun's slimmed-down initial install. The idea is that you get up and running quickly, while the rest of the JRE installs in the background. The SDK does not yet run on Linux or Solaris, although the applets themselves should run because they only require the standard JRE plus a runtime jar (add-on library) and can be executed using Java Web Start. The latest NetBeans has JavaFX support, but another downer is the lack of any dedicated visual design tools. Sun only offers an export add-on for Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator, or a converter for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). There is no 3D API yet, though it is promised.
It is easy to be negative; but some of these problems will disappear as JavaFX matures. A visual design tool is in the works, as is a mobile version that will be shown at the Mobile World conference in February next year. JavaFX will have a place for Java developers who are envious of what Flash and Silverlight can do. While it may not match Flash in terms of broad runtime deployment, I'm guessing that Sun will outpace Microsoft in this respect. JavaFX also has a couple of advantages over Flash, including more sophisticated client-side security and better code performance in some scenarios. The Java VM is mature and well optimized. Adobe's ActionScript virtual machine does have a just-in-time compiler, but seems slower than either Silverlight or Java for code execution. Speed of graphical effects is another matter, and while I have not seen any comparisons yet, I suspect Adobe's long multimedia experience may come into play here.
JavaFX will be welcomed then by Java developers who need more expressive graphics in their applications, and will be an interesting option for those developing games for mobile devices. Try as I might though, I'm finding it hard to believe that this is a huge section of the market, or that Sun will have much success persuading designers to target JavaFX rather than Flash, or that JavaFX will win much market share from Adobe for web-hosted video. Swing works well these days, its MVC architecture has merit, and it is well-suited to the kinds of Enterprise applications which commonly have Java clients. JavaFX is a useful addition to Java, but I doubt that Adobe is losing sleep over its likely impact. That said, I'm keen to hear from developers with plans for JavaFX applications, so don't hesitate to let me know.
