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Replies:
58
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Last Post:
Dec 5, 2008 4:23 PM
by: kleopatra
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[FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 29, 2008 9:36 AM
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... the official terminus is "frozen" - but as that happened already in July and everybody in the core team is well over their ears into FX it looks rather permanent to me.
In other words: I'm no longer paid since July. Which might explain my spurious appearance here. Just doing the barest possible work to not let SwingX blow up. My personal deadline to seriously look for a new contract is the end of this /start of next year - after more vacation and giving a BOF at Javapolis .. ehhh ... Devoxx (what a shame the name change is!)
CU
Jeanette
BTW, this is a duplicate of a posting to the mailinglist - infrastructure going to bits ...
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 29, 2008 2:33 PM
in response to: kleopatra
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Too bad ....that funding has been stopped... the future of swingx will look really bleak thereafter.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 30, 2008 3:18 AM
in response to: kleopatra
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Oh crap. So they'd cut funding the month before rbair was thanking us for the contributions http://forums.java.net/jive/thread.jspa?messageID=294692񇼤 maybe he was surprised anyone was still around (so unfair of me). Like to see Amy still claim Swing and their existing developer base were still important to them now. We've been blanked by the client-side team in Sun just over a year now. Thought it weird how it'll take anyone a week to reboot the build server (and days to fall over again). Assuming amy, rbair and shannon still work for Sun? or are they working three days weeks? Where do we stand? do they even care?
Looked at Devoxx schedule and noticed a distinct lack of Swing related topics, about the only thing I saw was a talk on the third-party swing explorer tool. Didn't check the BOFs, but hey you might get to collar (heckle!) rbair when he does his JavaFX talk.
Did write a piece on javalobby about how hacked off I've been feeling with Sun and this bizarre behaviour of shutting off all communication and work on JSRs 295 & JSR 296, Swinglabs etc.. has a definite air of winding things down and attempt one last desperate hurrah.. maybe it is time to finally call it a day like Scott, Hans, Chet & Romain.
Oh the javalobby piece never appeared.. lost in moderation? may have been rather fruity and raw, am really, really angry about this
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 11:53 AM
in response to: osbald
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Hey guys, I think maybe some clarification is in order. The term "cut funding" is not correct here in that it connotes more than is really accurate. There's legal & contract related stuff here that is orthogonal to the future and direction of SwingX, Swing, and SwingLabs.
The first thing: Swing is part of the JDK. It isn't going away any time soon. For a great many large enterprise applications Swing is the best cross platform toolkit available. We'll continue to support and work on fixing bugs in the JDK. And SwingX continues to be a great place for leveraging Swing. No question! You guys have been doing fantastic work while I've been working on FX and I hope it continues.
For the past several years I've been the principle Sun engineer working on SwingLabs. My heart is in this community. We've seen friends leave the Swing team, and so more core responsibilities have been spread on the rest of us. I've been working full time (times 3) on JavaFX APIs, implementation, bug fixes, profiling, demos, etc, along with Amy and Jasper and Kevin Rushforth and Dmitry T. and Igor and the rest. Definitely no question that there is a lot of working going into JavaFX and will continue to happen. I think as the demos start coming out and as the roadmaps get finalized and made public that you'll be as excited as I am with the direction we're moving the platform.
And yes, you can all heckle me at Devoxx  . I think you're going to be impressed and excited with the JavaFX platform as we unroll it. Its got huge potential.
Richard
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 1:15 PM
in response to: rbair
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> There's legal & contract related stuff here
Just want to be clear, I'm not implying any legal problems between Sun and Jeanette in any. Quite not!
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 2:01 PM
in response to: rbair
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Hi Richard,
you beat me with the clarification of the legal stuff by responding to yourself, nothing more to add to that one
> Hey guys, I think maybe some clarification is in
> order. The term "cut funding" is not correct here in
> that it connotes more than is really accurate.
what exactly do you think in my announcement is "not correct" or connotes more that "accurate"? Would really love to get that clear.
In regard to the other track of how/what/if Swing/X will be actively supported and evolved (the latter is the central point - without it'll just die out as any piece of rusting code anywhere in the world) by Sun: personally I think it quite funny that you argue in favour of that support/evolution mainly by stating that nobody (definitely not the experienced engineers/architects) at Sun has any time for it - because you all are wasting it it on FX (biased me again <g>) Fancy demos - especially in a language unrelated to the project at the center of this forum's topic - are just that: fancy demos. They don't solve any real world problems. Chet's termed the effort to produce them so cutely as CDD - Conference Driven Design - in one of his blogs shortly before/after he left Sun.
Cheers
Jeanette
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 2:06 PM
in response to: rbair
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Thanks for the update Richard. You guys have been doing an awesome job on the JavaFX project, keep up the great work. I really like this new direction for the platform, and I can't wait for JavaFX 1.0 to be released. I hope I am not offending the Swing/SwingX crowd by saying this, because I like Swing too, but I think Sun needed that paradigm shift, that disruptive force on the UI front, and no amount of resources, and funding thrown at Swing/Swingx was going to deliver anything beyond some incremental improvements. So when money, and resources are tight you're gonna have to make some tough choices.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 5, 2008 8:23 AM
in response to: osbald
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Yeah, Romain already works for Google Android for quite a while now.
The maturity or way of treating some parts of that project by Google does not seem that different from SwingLabs however, but I assume people like him are at least paid ?;-)
And just like Swing itself (not SwingX) Android 1.3.1 may finally work in other languages than English, too.
T-Mobile most likely will sell people stupid enough to have bought the G1 another G1.3.1 then, LOL
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 30, 2008 6:05 AM
in response to: kleopatra
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Unfortunate, but not unexpected, I guess.
I've been remiss in looking at the open source efforts on the JDK and the management of the direction of swing: how much chance is there of merging some/all of the labs' components into the open source JDK?
I know Amy started this with the best of intentions, but it seems that the relationship between the various labs projects and the core swing effort was never what we'd hoped: going back to the very beginning when Amy & Mark had one version of sorting and filtering and Scott went a different direction in the core code, it seemed that the impact of this effort was more of an idea factory/home for lost code than anything else.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 30, 2008 4:16 PM
in response to: david_hall
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I think sun regrets ever releasing swing as a core library. The obsession with never breaking backwards compatibility is really bizarre for me, and would be completely unneeded if everyone was forced to bundle their own swing version. Now a days it wouldn't even be too much. Swing is what 15mb and only because it's kinda bloated right?
Thus swingx i guess.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 3:31 AM
in response to: david_hall
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>I've been remiss in looking at the open source efforts on the JDK and the management of
>the direction of swing: how much chance is there of merging some/all of the labs'
>components into the open source JDK?
That's probably quite a tricky one. First off SwingX is 1.5 based, they're were plans to migrate to 6.0 after the 1.0 release. ie. we rely on the backport jars for GroupLayout,SwingWorker and table sorting & filtering differs from swing. The core problem will be getting to that 1.0 release without the funding and Jeanette's champion effort (or new contributors who have the time i.e. don't have full time jobs) there's a real risk progress here will stall and developers interest wane.
There's other more idealogical differences between the core and SwingX, painters, highlighters, addons, component adapters etc..which if added to the core introduce issues with consistency and complexity issues in terms of the presented APIs. Would Sun want two types of JTable & JTree in the core? don't think you could make JXTable the core JTable without breaking the vast majority of existing code.
Not sure how you'd bridge those gaps, or if they'd be any interest from Sun for doing so (why kill the funding?).
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 3:49 AM
in response to: kleopatra
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Wow, why Sun would put a knife to this, this most (or so I thought) thriving bottom-up and community based project I've seen, is beyond me. For what its worth, thanks for all the hard work!
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 3:54 AM
in response to: kleopatra
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I think there a lot of developper using Swingx api and I'm one of them (and a very happy user  ).
I would like to understand the problem:
-The project swingx will not be develop anymore (no support and no team to manage the project) ?
- If yes Does Sun will provide another Api like swingx in the core api?
Excuse me if my question doesn't match to the post of Kleopatra but I'm French and I read english like a frog ^^ so I understand the post in this way.
regards, Jérôme
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 4:25 AM
in response to: jvergereau
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That came as a shock to me,
I was just starting to get my hands dirty with it!!
Now I'm not even able to get the latest source code of it...
After the disappointment of java3d being abandoned, beans binding left in a pre-alpha state in my opinion what will be next ??
I'm quite discouraged at the moment to find a well supported cross-platform open source language for the desktop to focus on... 
Message was edited by: gasdia73
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 4:43 AM
in response to: gasdia73
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..said something similar in my missing 'angry' javaloby post, one of the more repeatable rants:
"Don't get me wrong I really appreciate Swing - I don't think people release quite what a great cross platform UI framework it really is. Yeah you've got things like Qt, Tk, GTK, wxWidgets, Mono? but they suck cross platform wise and when you need a new component it's like hitting a wall of hurt. Languages like python and ruby really lack a well integrated UI framework, Shoes is kinda interesting - but a hack (ontop of the language). Yeah Swing isn't perfect and It's a shame it's failed to grow and develop alongside the rest of the Java platform. Sun's painted themselves into a corner where they can't even fix long standing bugs without breaking swathes of their customers code."
See things like Pivot, Griffon (swingbuilder) possible even JavaFX (certainly Josh has described it as papering over the swing cracks) as symptomatic of the same underlying issue and frustrations.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 4:55 AM
in response to: jvergereau
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> The project swingx will not be develop anymore (no support and no team to manage the
> project)
I Don't think it'll disappear overnight. The code is open and available to all via cvs in the worst case. What's changed is that in terms of development and support we're going to be be left on our own driven souly by goodwill of the contributors (which isn't all that new).
So (hopefully not speaking out of turn) but I'd expect a reduction of visible progress in terms of forum activity and commits, but not a standstill.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 5:02 AM
in response to: osbald
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Where can I get latest SwingX code?
Also I was thinking of joining swingx team next year when I will graduate my university.
Message was edited by: digz6666
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 5:09 AM
in response to: digz6666
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You need to got to the java.net project page: https://swingx.dev.java.net/ or https://swingx.dev.java.net/source/browse/swingx/ to browse the code directly.
The website swinglabs.org seems to live on the same machine as our ci build manager hudson, which has been down for the past week. Not seeing that as too ominous a sign in itself yet as it often falls over (under spec'd?) and its hard finding anyone in Sun to restart it.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 8:09 AM
in response to: osbald
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good at last its still possible to get the source, anyone knows when the server will be back online ?
Message was edited by: gasdia73
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 12:08 PM
in response to: gasdia73
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> good at last its still possible to get the source,
> anyone knows when the server will be back online ?
Swinglabs.java.sun.com is up.
Trying to get swinglabs.org redirected to use the same machine as swinglabs.java.sun.com.
Richard
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 3, 2008 3:39 AM
in response to: rbair
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Richard,
>
> Swinglabs.java.sun.com is up.
great! Now somebody needs to kick Hudson back into line: currently swingx
- weekly and maven are down - have seen again that nasty "not enough device space" or so
- continous hangs since days
Thanks
Jeanette
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Dec 4, 2008 1:49 PM
in response to: osbald
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> The website swinglabs.org seems to live on the same machine as our ci build manager hudson [...] its hard finding anyone in Sun to restart it.
I know I'm late to the thread, and I no longer work on Swing... but, I do have the keys to the server - I can kick hudson and glassfish if/when they get stuck, feel free to email me anytime and I'll get 'er right back up.
jeff at sun dot com
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Dec 4, 2008 1:53 PM
in response to: jdinkins
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Oh, and I should mention that Rich is working on getting the build and website moved to a beefier machine inside Sun's network - which means real admin support, not just Rich and me.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Dec 5, 2008 4:23 PM
in response to: jdinkins
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Hi Jeff,
>> The website swinglabs.org seems to live on the same machine as our ci build manager hudson [...] its hard finding anyone in Sun to restart it.
>
> I know I'm late to the thread, and I no longer work on Swing... but, I do have the keys to the server - I can kick hudson and glassfish if/when they get stuck, feel free to email me anytime and I'll get 'er right back up.
great to know sure we will make come back to you if things blow.
Thanks
Jeanette
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 12:16 PM
in response to: kleopatra
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I was suspecting something like this for some time. Latest when Amy Fowler made that interview in May about Swing vs. JavaFX, degrading Swing programmers to plumbers. If you want to re-read Amy's spin doctoring: http://www.pushing-pixels.org/?p=312
One of the most ironic statement in that interview:
> And there is SwingLabs, which has a great extended component suite,
> led in heroic effort by Jeanette Winzenberg.
Two month later the funding is cut. Disgusting.
kleopatra, you don't have to take my advice, but my advice is simple. A company that doesn't pay you is a company that no longer deserves your loyalty.
No payment is an absolute no-no in a business relation. It doesn't matter if they were good to you for years. No payment, in fact, no payment for month, means no service should be rendered. Let SwingX blow up, even if it might hurt to let years of work go. Sun is abusing your emotional attachment to and interest in the work by letting you work for free. But as Sun demonstrates by not paying you it is just a business thing for them, nothing emotional and they don't care about you (some might say so, but Sun's action as a company says otherwise).
Update your CV and look for a new job now. The economy might be going down, and your chance of getting a new job can become lower with every day you wait. Should Sun ask you in the future to do some work for them, first ask for compensation for the unpaid month of work, and then ask for payment in advance for any new work.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 2:18 PM
in response to: ewin
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Ewin,
when reading your - caring, thanks! - post, especially:
>
> No payment is an absolute no-no in a business
> relation. It doesn't matter if they were good to you
> for years. No payment, in fact, no payment for month,
> means no service should be rendered.
made me realize that maybe my message could have been misleading, so to clarify: my manager at Sun never had left me in the dark about the "frozen" funding. That is I have been contracted until June and the contract had not been extended at that time. Since then, I was on a leisure trip, just part of the community spending free time here (and enjoying it, SwingX and its community is worth any minute of it . There had been some low probability that "freeze != stop" which didn't happen. We probably should have announced it earlier (and kind of agreed that would be Sun's job to phrase it in a diplomatical way - which in fact Richard the First did in a way that nobody noticed <g>) My fault as well to not insist on complete frankness right from the beginning, please take my apologies for that!
CU
Jeanette
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 12:38 PM
in response to: kleopatra
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... it is shame. I am using SwingX for almost 2 years and it is great peace of code. Swing and SwingX are very useful, but you have to know exactly what are you doing.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 2:51 PM
in response to: kleopatra
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I am very angry with this Sun's step - especially after JSR 296 was probably killed by same way.
I can't imagine any of my Swing application (>>thousands of users around the world) without SwingX components anymore. Advanced components like JXTable or JXErrorPane (and others) will always be necessary together with Swing API.
Sun's managers should know that SwingX is VERY IMPORTANT project and many existing already and still probably new software projects will depend on it. Anyone for some form of petition/protest letter?
I have already tried to play with beta build JavaFX. I was one of the voluntary "tested subjects" at Sun's Usability test lab in Prague. As experienced Swing programmer I can say that I didn't like this technology at all. Very nifty demos (flying transparent shapes, moving pictures..), but helpfulness for my download manager, text editor? Zero.
Sorry for my imperfect English...
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 3:09 PM
in response to: kleopatra
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Jeanette & all --
It's indeed unfortunate what's happened with Jeanette's contract (this post was the first I'd
heard of it, btw) and I hope it's temporary, but SwingLabs isn't being shut down and SwingX
isn't going anywhere -- it's a great extensions library that exists because the community drove
the development in the direction they needed. I don't see that ending. And Swing will always
be a part of the desktop Java platform, no matter who comes and goes on the team.
And for the record, JSR296 (App Framework) is very much alive and we are currently looking
for someone to lead JSR295 (Beans Binding).
Aim
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 3:18 PM
in response to: aim
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Very much alive? Hmms. I didn't see any e-mail from project leader on mailing list for ages.
The issue list was not changed since Hans left Sun.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 4:39 PM
in response to: aim
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> Alexander Potochkin (a longtime Swing engineer) took
> over 296 in July.
> see http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=296.
Offtopic:
I know that. But his last e-mail on mailing list is dated to 11th August. Framework development is dead since that time.
Message was edited by: vity01
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 10, 2008 10:25 AM
in response to: vity01
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Hello vity01
It's Alexander Potochkin (just returned from vacation)
I am still working on JSR 296, it is moving forward not as fast we all want it to be
but anyway it is under development and not frozen
Please send your comments and suggestions to users AT appframework.dev.java.net alias
Thanks
alexp
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 6:52 PM
in response to: aim
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I have to agree with vity01, JSR-296 have not moved for almost a year. That (and now the knifing of SwingLabs) is scarry to those of us with considerable investments into these frameworks and libraries!
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The problem with SwingX
Posted:
Oct 31, 2008 11:58 PM
in response to: kleopatra
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1) Last time I checked on SwingX it wasn't managed like a mature project. Official releases were few in coming across many months. There was no sense of API cohesion and improving stability over time. Maybe this is just me, but that's the impression I got.
This is definitely something that *can* be fixed and *should* be fixed in my view.
2) I agree with i30817. Nothing still undergoing research should go into core because Sun's draconian backwards-compatible mentality is a nice way of killing projects.
There is nothing wrong with developing important projects such as SwingX outside core for years. In fact, I would encourage this. I believe that SwingX components should end up in the JDK only after their APIs have been stable for at least 5 years.
The UI domain is far from a solved problem and I don't think it makes sense to freeze the API until we get this right.
Frankly, Swing (not SwingX) needs to be simplied. The underlying code needs to be sanitized so amateur programmers can understand and contribute to it, and the API usability needs to be improved a great deal.
In my view, there is both the space and the *need* for two JTables in the JDK. I think we need a 2nd-generation Swing API added into the core and to deprecate the old one. And please, for the love of god, spend *a lot* of time getting the API right for Swing2 before you push it into core. I've seen too many half-assed solutions getting frozen in the JDK and that's doing everyone a diservice.
The final point I'd like to make is that Sun needs to begin removing deprecated APIs from the JDK. I know there is a very strong resistance to this but modularity is not the anti-christ. If people want to use corba let them ship the optional JAR with their application. Life will go on. Besides, JSR-277 should facilitate this further. It doesn't make sense to freeze any API forever. No one ever gets things right the first time around. Just my 2 cents.
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Re: The problem with SwingX
Posted:
Nov 1, 2008 3:58 PM
in response to: cowwoc
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So right !
And I would even go 1 step further: give us closures and properties, and then create Swing.next .
Btw, you can change the name of Java to Java.next, if you don't want to manage backward compatibility (I'm actually serious on this one)
Olivier Allouch
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 1, 2008 2:08 AM
in response to: kleopatra
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SwingX contains awesome lot of useful components. However a major reason that I avoid using SwingX is its uncertain future. Resources and time are poured into projects that are innovative but yet undetermine whether the product of the project will eventualy end up in the final Java SDK.
I am not too sure of whether this is a "open and free" culture of Sun but what I observe is that there are serious lack of direction and accountability of Sun engineers to complete certain project and backport these changes into Java SDK. I find it hard to understand why Sun engineer did not aggressively lobby for their pet project to be integrated into Java SDK, unless the project is not strategic to the core Java system and hence that it is a mistake to even approve development.
On JavaFX ===========
I am a experienced Java Swing developer and love programming it, however I do feel that it is ill suit to compete it against the like of RIA platform like Silverlight, and Flex (as I use Flex before). Swing is a heavyweight GUI and graphics library and can't take on the competing designer-friendly RIA platforms which feel lightweight and more marketable. Swing is really very good at creating complex application but require too much work to perform animation, graphics-effect-intensive stuff etc. Rather than retrofit Swing to fix into a more lightweight toolkit thus destroying its root, it will be more appropiate for a new technology to do the work, hence JavaFX seems a promising solution.
That to say, I happy that JavaFX development is strategic and that Sun align its entirely engineering resource to commit to this project and the Sun engineers are accountable for the schedule and milestone. It definitely look more encouraging when Sun engineers focus on things that produce a single cohesive marketable end product (Java SDK, JavaFX )
Though Swing should not be ignored as JavaFX and Swing appeal to different developers. I hope that Swing development could learn from JavaFX, that all projects initiated must endup in Java SDK otherwise they should be cancelled. With such practice, the resource for Swing will be better justified and well-spent.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 1, 2008 6:59 AM
in response to: geekycoder
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> Though Swing should not be ignored as JavaFX and
> Swing appeal to different developers...
Not only the developer target group is entirely different both apis aim for different applications. JavaFX Script is very good to write certain kind of eye candy and flash like applications but I don't see any advantages for general desktop RCP applications since most of the gui code is generated and the remaining special cases have to be handcoded anyway (which is not declarative).
JavaFX is a simplification layer over a language with its apis, everyone knows layers decouple (@see jfx mobile, desktop, tv..) and may make things easier (declarative..) but they also increase complexity and hide features (per definition).
JavaFX script is an attempt to increase the user base but not a language which tries to solve problems.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 1, 2008 7:16 AM
in response to: mbien
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Hi mbien!
> JavaFX script is an attempt to increase the user base
> but not a language which tries to solve problems.
Which problems are those? JavaFX doesn't just paper over the current platform. Its a fresh API without any backwards-compatible constraints.
Cheers
Richard
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 1, 2008 9:00 AM
in response to: kleopatra
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Jeanette,
Speaking as a former contract developer, who had Java/Swing at the top of my resume, I'm sorry to say, run as far as you can from the client side of development. In the Boston area, the ratio of Java server to client side development is at least 100-1 (I am not exaggerating). Let me make clear - I'm not in your league as far as knowing Swing - but the opportunities just weren't there (3 Java/Swing interviews in 6 months).
I have more-or-less had to start over and now thank my lucky stars that I'm working full-time with Tomcat, servlets, JSP, etc. 0% client side.
Eons ago, I bet on Swing, and at the time it was the greatest thing since sliced bread (converted 60K lines of C++ to 30K lines of Java). Fast forward to 2008, and I'm sorry to say, I bet on the wrong horse.
Good luck.
Steve
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 1, 2008 5:26 PM
in response to: kleopatra
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This news is not really unexpected, but it is still very disappointing.
If we look at the time line we see a spurt of fresh ideas (for swing) in 2006 followed by their subsequect neglect and withering, which lead to the good Swing GUI guys leaving to join Adobe (Flex anyone?)
If Sun really think that businesses with large Swing applications will redevelop them into a JavaFX version they are in for a BIG surprise. If I am going to do a ground up redesign of my Swing app, I'll certainly be looking at *all* the options, flex/javafx,gwt,wicket etc. (yes I've got web 2.0 in there)
So unless javafx is breathtakingly good, it will be like a stuffed mouse on a string to a kitten. Great fun and full of intrigue at first. But when it's time to write real business code, somewhat lacking in use.
Who at sun came up with the idea of JavaFX in the first place?
Back to the code face folks.
Peter Henderson.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 2, 2008 11:51 AM
in response to: kleopatra
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In My company we developed a library on top of swing, we need to do that so in jdk1.3 years there's no swinglabs nor other toolkit availabe. In that aspect we are 'safe' as swing will be always integrated in the JDK. But I'm sad for all swing developers that used swingX, a nice toolkit I'm using too at home for my friend's projects. Sun again as always did has neglected client side, they trying it now again with javaFX, I have to admit I tried and I like it, but sun need to do a big effort in order to sell it's godness and being spreadly adopted. I don't know what to do now, keeping swing programming, moving and learn that new JavaFX language? moving to flex/flash ? or maybe going with Microsoft?
I hate web programming as an AJAX-java-script/browser-html mix, so I'm looking into some client side tools SUN tools or not! Hey I'm not blaming sun, just I'm sad for swing as for me that's the best toolkit ever made ! During all those 8 years with siwing, I can always solve a problems by doing a trick or look at core API! can do you that and fix Micrsosoft code or keeping your customers awaiting for some bug to be fixed ?
just some thoughts there... (a bit offtopic sorry, and excuse me for my english )
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 5, 2008 7:58 AM
in response to: aleixmr
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It’s shame. Who knows that Sun may decide to drop Swing all together someday. Java on desktop? It’s just a joke. It’s time to seriously consider switching to MS .Net and Adobe Flex. At least, we know that they are going to stay.
Swing is the best cross platform development tool and it has a large developer base even we don’t see many desktop applications. Many developers have invested many years of time on Swing. It’s big mistake for Sun to try to use JFX script to replace Swing or put JFX script in higher priority than Swing. Swing has been engineered and developed for many years to be what it is today. Based on one guy’s concept from Sun, JFX script is less than two years and it runs use the same Java runtime. What makes Sun think that this can compete with Silverlight and Flex? Java on desktop would have a space if Sun continues to put focus on Swing and Java run time development.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 5, 2008 8:16 AM
in response to: jdevp2
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jdnc-interest@javadesktop.org wrote:
> It’s shame. Who knows that Sun may decide to drop Swing all together someday. Java on desktop? It’s just a joke. It’s time to seriously consider switching to MS .Net and Adobe Flex. At least, we know that they are going to stay.
>
May I ask who guarantees that? I mean, why are you sure that Adobe or
Microsoft wouldn't cancel any of those projects? May I also recall you
that SwingX is opensourced, so it's somewhat silly to think that its
destiny is only related to the fact that Sun funds it?
--
Fabrizio Giudici, Ph.D. - Java Architect, Project Manager
Tidalwave s.a.s. - "We make Java work. Everywhere."
weblogs.java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici - www.tidalwave.it/blog
Fabrizio.Giudici@tidalwave.it - mobile: +39 348.150.6941
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 5, 2008 12:30 PM
in response to: Fabrizio Giudici
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No body guarantees any piece of technology will stay forever. But .NET is built into Window 7 and Flash is everywhere. It’s hard to believe that they will disappear in 5 or 10 years.
I’m not saying that Microsoft or Adobe won’t cancel some of their projects which don’t fit their strategies. I wish that Swing is going to stay for as long as it can. I just feel that Sun doesn’t have the enough resources and commitment on the further development of Swing technologies since it probably spends most of resources on JFX script.
It’s been almost 2 years for JFX development, have we seen anything outstanding ? Looking at PulpCore ( http://www.interactivepulp.com/pulpcore/) makes me wonder why we needs JFX script. What’s going to be next if JFX script doesn’t make it ?
Where is the true multi media support for Java platform? I hope that Swing will not like JMF or JAI and becomes abandoned technology by Sun.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 6, 2008 10:22 AM
in response to: Fabrizio Giudici
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Fabrizio,
I agree, if is not funded by Sun anymore, it should be continued by the community.
I would definitely offer my support here, SwingX brings great components which should be part of the Swing core some day.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 5, 2008 7:34 PM
in response to: kleopatra
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Another bad move for Sun.
They think they're gonna get something out of JavaFX. They have a minor chance against Silverlight and Flash.
Swingx is a great project, it's one of the few projects that kept Swing relevant in today's UIs, it's even used in a large organizations. People thought that the Swingx will be moved to the JDK. It's really a shame.
Jeanette thank you a lot for your great work on Swingx.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 6, 2008 4:37 AM
in response to: janaudy
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I will never buy stuff for personal projects. If this was the case I would have moved to .NET.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 6, 2008 5:07 AM
in response to: carcour
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Hmm I didn't know JIDE had a ribbon or was compatible with the RowSorter. You've got to know that was really the question. When Josh says Swing was improving in 7.0 I was questioning whether it was actually Swing that was improving or simply the addition of the JavaFX SDK bundle into the JRE.
What I'd count as Swing improvements would be thing like the improved drag&drop, dialog modality changes, sortable tables (rowsorter) and action changes and various L&F fidelity/constancy fixes in 6.0. Not heard of same for 7.0, and even the above were rather 'safe' rather then revolutionary.
We've since seen Vista and no doubt Windows 7 will be here (more ribbonbabny) before 7.0. So you'd expect some support from the platforms core libraries. Rather then the stale maintenance only approach being taken.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 6, 2008 5:08 AM
in response to: carcour
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I agree. Not for personal stuff. But still 400$ for the suite is "cheap" - good investment if you consider your time spent on forums, etc., fixing bugs, reporting them, etc.
Otherwise, yeah, .NET. But with it comes other issues.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 6, 2008 5:13 AM
in response to: janaudy
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jdnc-interest@javadesktop.org wrote:
> I agree. Not for personal stuff. But still 400$ for the suite is "cheap" - good investment if you consider your time spent on forums, etc., fixing bugs, reporting them, etc.
> Otherwise, yeah, .NET. But with it comes other issues.
> [Message sent by forum member 'janaudy' (janaudy)]
>
> http://forums.java.net/jive/thread.jspa?messageID=315245
>
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>
But the trouble is you dont get the source code, so when you find it
doesnt work properly with Swingx or on OSX you are stuck
paul
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 6, 2008 1:07 PM
in response to: kleopatra
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For what it's worth, I find this entire discussion very depressing.
God bless JavaFX, however it turns, but there are fundamental question that remain unanswered. Assuming I have no interest in ever using JavaFX script...
1) We need a strong community-lead project like Netbeans or Glassfish to replace Swing. I say replace because it doesn't look like Sun will ever relax its backwards-compatibility rules. I am not saying they should drop them altogether but relax them for reasonable changes.
2) The goal of the Swing-replacement project should aim to put out a *mature* easy-to-use API that keeps on improving incrementally over time. Ideally it would start with a fast-changing API and slowly parts would get frozen as the community is happy with the result and there is no further tweaking left to be done.
3) Including the API in core Java should be a non-goal. We *might* want to include frozen components from the API in core after a couple of years but for the most part we want to focus on flexibility above smaller distribution size.
4) The new reality is that Java Kernel makes it cheap to install Java components in the background. My hope is that one day it can be used to install custom application components. This, in turn, means that we wouldn't want to ship Swing-replacement with core Java but rather download it on-demand just like anything else.
5) One final point. Swing is a very flexible API but I think it is fair to say that it favors flexiblity over ease-of-use. That is, the goal was to keep the API as lean as possible. Instead of adding a new API for every possible kind of use-case a lot of effort was put into making sure the flexibility would be there to implement the use-case yourself. This might be a point we'd need to revisit. I definitely favor lean APIs but it looks like Swing's design ideology failed.
I welcome your feedback.
Gili
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 6, 2008 1:47 PM
in response to: cowwoc
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> 1) We need a strong community-lead project like Netbeans or Glassfish to replace Swing. I say replace because it
<snip>
> 2) The goal of the Swing-replacement project should aim to put out a *mature* easy-to-use API that keeps on improving incrementally over time. Ideally it would start with a
<snip>
> 3) Including the API in core Java should be a non-goal. We
<snip>
You don't have to start from scratch. There are at least two open
source implementations of the Swing and AWT APIs (GNU Classpath and
Apache Harmony) which you could start from, depending on your choice
of license. You could either use and send patches to those, or just
download and fork them and chopping the crufty parts of the API off
with a rusty hatchet. Do it within NetBeans, just to prove a point;
then refactor NetBeans to use your new SwingSong API and release it on
Google Code, just to stir the mixture .
Apart from Swing impls, there is also the Thinlet GUI toolkit
(http://www.thinlet.com/index.html), and the newer Pivot
(http://pivot-toolkit.org/), and probably others I'm missing. There
are also tons of different open source libraries with stuff related to
animation, look and feel, game-related stuff, etc. There's a lot out
there, as I'm sure you know.
I joined SwingLabs pretty early on (after it was released), and IMO as
I always understood it, it had a pretty specific goal--of
experimenting with extensions to Swing that might be candidates for
improvements to, and inclusion in, the JDK. But the review and vetting
process leading to inclusion in the JDK sets a pretty high barrier to
experimenting with things that are really ground-breaking.
I'm excited to see what Sun comes up with in the first JavaFX release.
At the same time, I think it's largely up to them what happens with
the Swing and AWT toolkits; their goal for a long time has been more
polishing and bugfixing than making sweeping changes. That's their
prerogative, IMO. I can run even very old Swing apps without a
recompile or a problem with each new JDK release, which I think is a
good thing. At the same time, they only have so many resources (and
the company itself has financial problems), so we can't expect them to
do everything. They have their goals, ours may be different.
I think the big problem here is waiting for Sun to take the leadership
position on GUI development. They are a public company, and they have
their own decision making process, which may well be informed by
community input, but certainly isn't driven by it. If you want to see
leadership in a GUI toolkit, join a project or start an independent
effort. There are ongoing projects, enormous amounts of code in every
related area of concern. There's lots of smart people and cool stuff
coming out all the time--apart from the aforementioned, check out
JBox2D, PulpCore, Swash--it goes on and on.
It's nice if Sun can fund personnel to work on a project like this
(and honestly, I hope and expect they do right by you, Kleopatra), or
if they can provide secondary support, like servers or hosting, but
the company is losing money and they have to cut back somewhere.
There's exciting work going on all over the web related to Java
desktop technology, the main problem is is to herd the cats and get
people collaborating with each other.
IMHO, best regards
Patrick
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 6, 2008 3:00 PM
in response to: kleopatra
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Just wanted to chime in to say that I'm very sorry to hear this.
First off, Jeanette, thank you for all your hard work on SwingX. I for one am a developer who would have had a crappy product without your work and personal help on my issues a couple years back.
Second, I think this is a very, very bad move on Sun's part. I will echo many of the statements here: the SwingX project is vital to the Java client community. Period. Yes, JavaFX might be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it's not here yet and is entirely, 100% unproven in the market. Putting all your eggs in one basket is a really, really bad idea. I find it very hard to believe that the amount of money required to keep this project alive is worth the bad blood, publicity and the gap in the client development market that not having it (truly supported) leaves.
Rob Eden
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 7, 2008 1:53 AM
in response to: kleopatra
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Hi Jeannette, thanks for all your good work...
Saw this coming a long time ago, it is a pity that databinding, swingx, crud and application platform were never followed up to the end.
Good luck.
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Re: [FYI] Sun stopped funding of SwingX
Posted:
Nov 9, 2008 11:36 AM
in response to: jancarel
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The backwards compatibility situation doesn't happen only with swing, but also with parts of java.lang that swing uses. I'm sure that you've heard me rant on various mainling lists about CharSequence mind-numbing stupid decision not to have a ranged copy function (or heard Elliotte Rusty Harold ranting about the same for the list interface).
You know why did i rant? Because swing text components must accept strings to be filled, not CharSequences, and because of that there is a mighty useless toString() in my client code, if i don't want to subclass - that is what we want to avoid right ?
The interface is not doing it's job - abstracting over implementations because of backward compatibility. In fact i bet the reason that the interface is NOT used is because it doesn't have that key function.
Cowow if you do start a project like that i would like all(most) classes to be final, just so that use cases are more builder/interface oriented, at least at first.
On the other hand, its true that there are lot of little swing replacement/addons projects, but there is nothing like swingx, since it is, or was, linked to sun, it has legitimacy and critical mass, it is used widely - it's unfortunate that that meant that swingx has to follow swing instead of ignoring it or the other way around.
Sun would be smart to allow swingx to remain, but to make it a *lot* more radical instead of more conservative - like the painters and sorting removal indicated. Instead of of simply new components, a new component model (and the components too to validate the model).
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