Thanks for listing some other Sun junk. Take the mentioned "Java Media Component API", for example. Who the fog needs that? It is not as if Sun doesn't have a media API. It is only that the quitters at Sun couldn't be arsed to support the Java Media Framework. It was neglected for years, disowned and left to die a slow painful dead. Sun: Quitters, not finishers. Developers having invested in it were left high and dry, taken for a ride by Sun, and Sun proved to not be a partner one can trust. Sun doesn't go where it hurts, maintaining their stuff. Instead Sun travels the easy marketing hype road to irrelevance. Sun: Quitters, not finishers. Now, on its way to irrelevance Sun comes up with some new junk. As if some manager at Sun wants to make a name for himself by showing some initiative. The "Java Media Component API" will die the same slow death as the JMF as soon as said manager got his promotion - or a job at Goggle. Sun: Quitters, not finishers. Anyone knowing Sun's past "performance" and Sun's utter failure to demonstrate a change in behavior can't recommend the uptake of the Java Media Component API or FX or that other junk you listed. It is DOA. Hey, we are talking about the company that didn't even manage to maintain the JavaComm API for Windows. And the same quitters should now be trusted to maintain another media API? Ha, pull the other one. So JavaFX is not a "distraction" of resources from the desktop Of course it is. It distracts from the real desktop issues (which isn't fancy graphics). It takes programming resources away. Resources badly needed for bugfixing. For the life of me I can't figure out how a software development company doesn't manage to fix things like JFileChooser but puts resources on that FX junk. One has to be pretty incompetent to run software development his way. The same holds for that filthy rich client nonsense. As if that addresses any real-world problems. Ok, it solved two problems. It advanced the careers of these two guys. Good riddance.

doesn't matter. Ewin summed up how people look at pretty much anything Sun does to Java these last several years. It's all hype and marketing driven nonsense, implemented in flawed and halfhearted fashion, doomed to failure because the people implementing it don't even themselves believe in what they're doing. As a result people are sticking with what works, 1.4 and to a degree 1.5, while gaining proficiency in things like .NET so they have an exit strategy when the ship finally sinks. Sun's attitude is loosing them the very people they need most, the experienced professionals, because of their constant hammering to get more inexperienced kids eager to try every new hype to jump onto the bandwagon, kids who will just as readily jump off again when something "new" appears on the horizon, something like Scala, Flex, Silverlight, or whatever.

This poll didn't last too long, did it? I guess it didn't get the hoped-for response.

... on the server. I cant understand why Sun won't focus on its core strength: the server. I am a designer and engineer. I use Flash/AS3 for client-side development and Java for the server. Sun should not attempt to play catch up w/ Adobe. Adobe has much more sensitivity to client-side developers. That said, I would not consider using AS3 for the server. Or .NET or PHP or Ruby, etc. I love writing Java for serious server side applications... Mina, BerkeleyDB Java edition, Apache Commons, etc etc etc... There are so many great packages for server side developers. SUN: WAKE UP! Focus on your core competency. Support your existing community. Don't attempt to look for a new community. You risk losing the existing one!!!!

One can't help feeling that Sun is jumping onto the old "Zuh Jav Iz Ded" bandwagon. Not an encouraging idea.

I read a lot of JavaFX but nothing about more on Desktop Java itself was to read. Were are Chet, Romian and the others ?

We have a RIA project to do, but even JavaFX compiler isn't finished yet... We'll be using Flex now :-(

but I remember people hyping at some point or another the following.

• JavaFX "Non-Programmer" Authoring Tool
• Nimbus color/style editor

I've seen no blog posts about these two items. I assume that they were not released at JavaOne.