Ahh yes, another year, and another huge conference with seemingly huge announcements. JavaOne is back, and already Sun is announcing their way into the hearts of managers and stockholders everywhere.

The first announcement out of the gates was Java FX (see here and here). I’d link to the homepage of Java FX, but, there isn’t one.

This is a consistent issue I have with Sun’s approach to Java. Whether or not it is true, there seems to be a left hand, which is the internal Java development group. They start initiatives like Swing. Then, there is the right hand, which is the marketing side of Sun. They do things like naming Tiger Java 1.5, then J2SE5, then JSE5, all the while keeping the real version number still 1.5. These are also the people that do things like ‘leveraging the Java brand’ to create seemingly dead-end projects like the Java Desktop System, which incidentally has less to do with Java than Ubuntu.

Buzzword names that encompass a ton of technologies and concepts proliferate Sun’s Java world - words like ‘JavaBeans’ sounded like a concrete thing when they were first ‘released’ in Java 2 (aka Java 1.2), but turned out to be a lot of abstract concepts with a few frameworks.

It seems to me Java FX is another ‘marketing-driven’ initiative. Details are still thoroughly sketchy, and sadly, that makes it much more appealing to the average buzzword community. I’d love to believe Java FX will revolutionize Java development in the 21st century, but as of yet there isn’t a thoroughly clear answer on what it is, or how it will work.

As best as I have gathered now it is a scripting language, similar to perhaps Flash ActionScript, but with the power of the JDK (and JDK Libraries?) behind it - at the same time, the concept of Java FX is the entire package end-to-end, probably grouping JavaFX script with a tuned-up version of Java web-start, and probably a tuned-up version of Java applets. As best as I can figure, a JavaFX application is supposed to seamlessly transfer from desktop to browser.

In addition, they are announcing JavaFX mobile which has no official description, other than somehow enhance the mobile development process, supporting more devices and other such stuff. The entire J2ME stack is confusing enough already in my opinion, but whatever.

Just to cover all of their bases, all of the announcements I have seen mix in a few more ‘hot’ words like ‘AJAX!’ and ‘Web 2.0!’ and ‘Now with more sodium! Sweet Jesus!’.

Here’s hoping Java FX doesn’t fall between the seats in the car like so many other Web 2.0 AJAX powered ‘initiatives’; I’m not holding my breath, however.