JavaOne - Some other general session

So I went to some other general session in the afternoon on Tuesday, May 8.

First they started out with an more in depth explanation of Java FX Script--a scripting language that allows for super rich client experience without writing a lot of code. It looks pretty slick to be honest. Useful?, at least in products that I work with, I don't really think so. One key thing they were talking about is treating the "web as a platform". And, along those lines, I went to a GWT (google web toolkit) session where they were saying that the web should behave like the web. While Java FX Script is something I would love to play with, and is super sexy, it just doesn't feel like the web to me.

Java SE -- lots of stuff coming in Java 7. They described a much quicker adoption rate of Java 6 even over Java 5. Well, that's cool--wish my company would move to Java 5. So, what I'm doing is putting together a list of compelling business reasons why we should move to Java 5. As far as Java 7 is concerned, there are upcoming concepts like superpackages and superJARS that better handle interoperability, versioning, and dependencies.

Open source JDK--that is another huge thing. What it really means... that's to be seen. Other miscellaneous "big" things are JRuby (on Rails), jMaki, Phobos, etc. ... all in the scripting realm. Also, Glassfish seems like a pretty lightweight web application server that can do everything.

So, it's a really exciting time for new concepts and (finally?!) solutions to some problems. On the other hand, I'm not sure what the handful of sticking technologies should be.

:)