Java has come full circle, and James Gosling has watched the 12-year journey.
In 1995, Sun introduced Java as a way to endow web surfing with fancy graphics and more sophisticated interaction than just basic pointing and clicking. By introducing JavaFX Script this week at the JavaOne Conference, Sun is trying to reinvigorate that original idea.
Gosling helped invent the Java programming language, initially called Oak, in the early 1990s. He was involved in its early spread as a web browser plug-in and its commercial success in server software and mobile phones.
But when it comes to "client" devices, such as desktop computers, Adobe's Flash took over where Java started. Sun is trying again, and Gosling, chief technologist for Sun's client software group, has talked about the plans.
Q: Could you give a quick description of JavaFX Script?
Gosling: JavaFX describes a series of client initiatives we're doing. There are two that are pretty real right now. One is a scripting language called JavaFX Script. It's a scripting language designed for creating dynamic user experiences, for creating graphical user interfaces [GUIs] with really rich interaction and dynamic behaviour and lots of artwork.
You can do that with today's Java, but what — it's too difficult?
It can take a long time. Also there's this strange thing in the computer GUI business — traditionally there's been this notion that you want to have consistency. Companies like Apple and Sun have published user interface guidelines that say buttons should look this and sliders should look like that. But what people are wanting these days is something where the look is totally under their control — it's totally re-skinnable. The app [application] you see is really the face of whoever has built it for you. If it's a bank or a media company, the app you interact with is the face of the company.
It seems to me this is returning to the roots of Java, an interactive web experience. Is that an accurate statement?
It's very much an accurate statement. The applet [small downloadable Java programs] technologies and 2D graphics and Swing [Java graphical interface technology] are all about doing that. Applets are a technology that people have tended not to use for no particularly good reason. There is the legal history with things being a little bit uglier than they should have been...
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That was really ugly. It really killed the whole applet thing for a bunch of years, but one of the not quite well-understood facts is that applets still work really well.
So why are you guys doing this now? It seems a lot of this action is happening now with Adobe's Flash and perhaps Microsoft's Silverlight.
This is certainly in that space. The Java platform has got a huge installed base, and the depth of what you can do in the Java platform is really huge. If you compare what you can do with Java coded in an applet, it's far more than what you can do with things like Flash. But the issue for us really has been that…
