Java Magazine - November/December 2011

//java nation /JAVAONE NEWS /

Richard Bair Nandini Ramani and Adam Messinger

DUCHESSES SHARE THEIR VIEWS ON IT

The Duchess network connects women Java developers from around the world.

At JavaOne 2011, Regina ten Bruggencate, current president, and Clara Ko, cofounder, discussed the role of women in IT in a birds-of-a-feather session.

Women engineers in the Duchess network connect at local Java user group (JUG) meetings and globally at conferences and online. Started in the Netherlands, the network saw membership double in the last year, thanks to very active Duchesses and supportive JUG leaders and members. The network now has 400 members in 57 countries.

Duchess promotes “changing the image of the nerdy guy as being the typical IT professional,” ten Bruggencate says. “The industry is moving toward having developers that are willing to and good at collaborating to make better software,” echoes Ko. Join them online and meet with them at Devoxx.

JAVA IN ACTION JAVA TECH

JavaFX 2.0 Is Here!

The big news at JavaOne 2011 was the release of JavaFX

2.0, an advanced Java UI platform for enterprise business applications—and the next step in the evolution of Java as a premier rich-client platform.

At the JavaOne technical keynote on Monday, October 4,

Richard Bair, chief architect, client Java platform, at Oracle, detailed the general availability of JavaFX 2.0 for Windows (32-bit XP, 32- and 64-bit Windows Vista, and Windows 7). He also announced NetBeans 7. 1 Beta (featuring full JavaFX 2.0 support); the JavaFX 2.0 developer preview for Mac OS X; and JavaFX Scene Builder early access.

Key features in JavaFX 2.0 include 100 percent Java APIs, the new FXML UI markup language, and full Swing integration. JavaFX 2.0 provides a Web component based on WebKit, which allows developers to seamlessly mix and match native Java capabilities and the dynamic capabilities of Web technologies.

At the Java strategy keynote on Tuesday, Oracle Vice President of Development Adam Messinger announced that Oracle is submitting a proposal to open source the JavaFX platform as a new project within the OpenJDK community. Oracle will be working with the JCP to propose JavaFX as an official standard part of the Java platform, Messinger said. Oracle intends to initially contribute the JavaFX UI controls and related libraries; other JavaFX components are planned to follow in multiple phases.

Nandini Ramani, vice president of development, Java client group, at Oracle, generated a lot of buzz at that same keynote with a demo of JavaFX 2.0 running on an Apple iPad 2.0, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10. 1 running Android 3. 1, and an Acer Windows 7 tablet. “We want to hear from the community,” Ramani said. “If this is something you want to see, we’re happy to make it a priority.” (Read more in the Nandini Ramani interview, “Shock the Senses,” on page 32.)

Looking to the future, full Mac OS X support will coincide with the Java 7 for Mac release, which will be followed by support for additional platforms (Linux, Solaris, and so on). You can listen to Nicolas Lorain’s JavaOne 2011 session “Introduction to JavaFX 2.0” and other JavaFX sessions at parleys.com.