Why AJAX is Preferred for RIAs over Java

[KenR]

Here's an informative discussion of why AJAX is preferred for this issue.

Several of Bruce Tate’s books focused on the flaws in Java and the need to let go of some of the ideas that haven’t worked out. And blogs like this and this have been appearing more frequently. And of course there’s Steve Jobs now-famous quote (referring to the iPhone): “Java’s not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain.”
This backlash has only been necessary because of Sun’s death grip on the idea of ubiquitous, omniscient Java. It was admirable once, but a language only evolves if its designers and advocates can acknowledge problems. Pretending that a language is successful in places where it’s not is just denial.
Some adaptations have occurred. Finally admitting that EJBs have cost the world enormously, the EJB3 team...

http://ajaxworldmaga....com/read/333329.htm

from www.slashdot.org

[mouser]

This is actually a nice long interesting articles on some of the shortcomings of Java and why it didnt take over the web like many expected.

ps. RIA stands for "Rich Internet Applications"

[mouser]

The article recommends Flex:
http://www.flex.org/

[urlwolf]

Hmm, very convincing. Downloading flex now...

[f0dder]

SUN made many mistakes - imho one of them was to force MS to remove their JVM from Windows, especially since they couldn't produce one that was as fast and lightweight.

[wuwei23]

I'm really looking forward to Adobe's Apollo:

"Apollo is a cross-OS runtime that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, Ajax) to build and deploy desktop RIA’s."

[iphigenie]

I was puzzled by how the flex framework needs java - it's especially ironic considering this article kind of says "flash beats ajax beats java as a web UI" (which it does)

[urlwolf]

It needs java on the server, and only if you want to use the fancy serialization (binary objects going through the pipes).

That's where they plan to make money (I think).

If you want to do the standard MySQL on the server, then you need to do XML pushups (parsing XML in both client and server).

BTW, http://iscrybe.com/main/index.php, the super-duper organizer that will rule them all and has the fanciest calendar, seems to be flex. It makes sense that it can go  off line just fine.

[housetier]

People might also want to look into OpenLaszlo:

 

OpenLaszlo is an open source platform for creating zero-install web applications with the user interface capabilities of desktop client software.

OpenLaszlo programs are written in XML and JavaScript and transparently compiled to Flash and (...) DHTML.

-http://www.openlaszlo.org/

On the server side you need a Java Servlet Container such as tomcat. Programs are compiled and displayed either by flash or dhtml (=AJAX). LZPIX is an impressive demo.

I am currently trying to write a complete IRC client "in Laszlo". We shall see how it'll turn out

[tinjaw]

I played with Open Lazlo a bit. I liked what I saw. If you don't know already, there is an eclipse plugin to do Lazlo GUIs.