Bear Bibeault wrote:Until this happens, I fear JavaFX will get no traction in the real world.
Gail Anderson wrote:I'm betting that you will see more examples. But, since JavaFX doesn't require you to use new engineering or architectural models there is plenty of literature to draw from (we even wrote an EJB book back in 2002 that used EJB 2.0 with a JSP front end, using patterns such as Session Facade).
Now of course you can choose what you'd like for your persistence layer, use Java as you need, and use JavaFX for the GUI. JavaFX fits nicely into accepted models for building commercial robust applications. And you can leverage your Java knowledge. In that respect, JavaFX fits into a very mature model.
But, yes, JavaFX is still pretty new. And exciting.
Gail Anderson wrote:I'm betting that you will see more examples. But, since JavaFX doesn't require you to use new engineering or architectural models there is plenty of literature to draw from (we even wrote an EJB book back in 2002 that used EJB 2.0 with a JSP front end, using patterns such as Session Facade).
Now of course you can choose what you'd like for your persistence layer, use Java as you need, and use JavaFX for the GUI. JavaFX fits nicely into accepted models for building commercial robust applications. And you can leverage your Java knowledge. In that respect, JavaFX fits into a very mature model.
But, yes, JavaFX is still pretty new. And exciting.
Gail Anderson wrote:Passion is good!
Perhaps Ibn and Gregg should collaborate on such a book!
Ibn Saeed wrote:Is JavaFX still being developed by Sun or has Oracle taken over?
Gail Anderson wrote:Passion is good!
Perhaps Ibn and Gregg should collaborate on such a book!
Gregg Bolinger wrote:
Gail Anderson wrote:Passion is good!
Perhaps Ibn and Gregg should collaborate on such a book!
I would if I knew how to do what I was writing about. That's the root of the problem. We need folks who know how to write these books. Believe me, you don't want me to write a book.
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The answer isn't "Why", is "How"!
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Michael Dunn wrote:> This is what I am looking for. Someone to teach us to build something useful.
Most of java's Swing classes are customizable, and 'something useful' would use classes heavily customized.
you can't teach customization, because often there are numerous different ways to customize something.
you might do something one way, I'd probably do it another way - both ending up the same, so customization
is basically an individual thing.
Reading a step-by-step book on playing a violin will not make you a violin player.
learn the basics then practice, practice, practice
Each application is thoroughly documented, starting from coverage of the underlying principles through the architecture and design, and finally the actual implementation of the application.
We should learn how to define an idea and identify the major components required.
Here we should be taught how to fit the major components together to create the final idea or a blueprint, then to design those individual components and finally create their specifications.
Here we should be taught how to take the individual components and create each individual components.
Gail Anderson wrote:Hi Ibn,
I respectively disagree. While the book you describe is indeed useful, the book I want when learning JavaFX shows me how to use JavaFX. The book you describe is a big picture book and many portions have nothing to do with JavaFX in particular, but have to do with software engineering and architecture. These, of course, are important but belong in a different book.
For example, in designing an online store you must decide on your persistence strategy. Will you use Hibernate, jdbc/database, ejb? Any /all of these strategies can be used with JavaFX, your front end.
If you include "learning JavaFX" with these topics, your book will be 1,000 pages. (I personally don't like 1,000-page books.)
I don't know about you, but when I'm learning a new language, I appreciate the work the author has done to build the examples and explain the language features used. A previous poster said, "I can learn everything about the language using Google and scouring the internet." Maybe. But it will take you 3-4 times as long.
For example. Let's say you want to write a game in JavaFX. You will need animation. Looking up the APIs you see that JavaFX implements animation with the Timeline class. Oh, and there's also Transitions: TranslateTransition, ScaleTransition, RotateTransition, FadeTransition, PathTransition, PauseTransition. There's compound transitions too: ParallelTransition and SequentialTransition. Okay, time to study these APIs.
In our chapter on Animation, we talk about all of this. And it turns out that you use Timeline for periodic updates, the kind you would use in a game situation (have I collided with something yet?).
When writing a book, the Table of Contents is a collaborative effort with the acquisitions editor, the authors, other technical parties, perhaps engineers involved with the topic. Our goal was targeting programmers who want to learn JavaFX. We don't assume Java or Swing experience. (Indeed I have found that people without extensive Java knowledge accept the JavaFX programming paradigm more rapidly. Some Java programmers find the scene graph metaphor different.)
One final point. Not every piece of software is an elaborate system. Some are "just widgets." One of our examples shows a flickr-based slideshow (an animated carousel). It uses JavaFX support for web services and pull parsers (to parse either XML or JSON). This is not a large example (thanks to JavaFX) but it is hugely useful (and fun). You can embed it in a web page and show your own (or others') flickr photographs.
n summary, the book you describe is very useful. But, that's not the book I would want to learn JavaFX. Just my opinion.
Gregg Bolinger wrote: But we need a book for the next level.
Bear Bibeault wrote:
Gregg Bolinger wrote: But we need a book for the next level.
Such books can be a hard-sell to publishers.
Gregg Bolinger wrote: But we need a book for the next level.
JavaFX isn't ready for enterprise level RIAs.There are too many missing pieces, too many missing components, and of course, no real linux support yet.
Gregg Bolinger wrote:I still don't think it is ready. It's better. But not quite where it needs to be. It needs wider IDE adoption. It needs a flippin Data Grid. And unfortunately, it is still pretty much an applet. I have the latest JRE on my mac, on my PC, and on a Linux box. Applets still load too slow for a good user experience. This isn't JavaFX's fault directly, but this needs to be fixed before JavaFX can really be successful, IMHO.
Gregg Bolinger wrote: Applets still load too slow for a good user experience.
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