The competition

[Stephen Winnall]

Lots of good points in Daniel's post. I don't think we can emphasise them enough.

<Rant free-to-ignore="yes">

My take on "web" vs "apps":

It seems to me that "web" is driven by designers, whereas JavaFX and other client-side technologies are driven by programmers. Or putting it in blunt terms (as a programmer myself), the web tends to be good design driven by bad programming, whereas the client-side is often bad design programmed well. People like good design, but sooner or later they get fed up with bad programming too (thought they only see bad performance, slow upgrades, difficult integration and bugs. amongst other evils). On the whole, there are not a lot of Leonardo da Vincis out there uniting programming and design. No Leonardos means that programmers and designers have to learn to work together in coalition (separation of concerns…) if we really want to produce good stuff. Whichever of "web" and "apps" sorts this first has the advantage.

JavaScript vs. Java should be a no-brainer. JavaScript was never designed for programming in the large but rather for moving bits of DOM around a screen. Surely some marketeer can put this to the decision makers?

I'm not sure what the word is which describes the essential difference between "web" and "apps" in terms of regular use. The word "fluidity" comes to mind in the sense of creating natural transitions from one UI state to another. If form-based web interfaces which require browser refreshes are the answer, I don't understand the question.

Native experience is another crucial battle in the war of "web" against "apps". Unfortunately, both sides interpret WORA as meaning "write once, rubbish anywhere". People need to have the native experience of the platform they are used to. It's only programmers and designers who use more than one platform (an insignificant minority in successful applications). The danger of WORA is that managers see it as the opportunity to get something for nothing, so the end-user becomes insignificant. Whoever first combines WORA with native experience on all significant platforms will win.

The mobile space proves that end-users prefer "apps" over "web". The mobile market exploded with the introduction of Apple's App Store. Before that, nobody really cared about mobile "web" applications. But that brings us back to WORA, the native experience and "fluidity", which are equally important for mobiles.

Deployment is just about the only objective argument *for* "web" that I can see. It's tied together with managerial control, which makes it less amenable to reason and a nasty combination to tackle. We are presumably in agreement that JavaFX is intended to be the technical make-over to replace Swing on the client side. So what is going to replace Web Start (JNLI)? It's got to be possible to push Java apps to any device reliably and effectively.

Daniel writes that "it's the space that Oracle doesn't care about". I'd agree that Sun failed to grasp the importance of this, but can't we hope for better from Oracle?

All these things suggest to me huge marketing opportunities for Java and JavaFX in the "apps" space (not just mobile, also on the desktop). However, I fear that the propaganda war is being lost: "web" has a lot of impetus behind it and "apps in Java" have missed a lot of opportunities. Just being the best technology doesn't count for much. Being technology-centric counts for even less. The history of IT is littered with better technologies which lost because they were badly marketed or badly managed. As I think Daniel is saying, that can happened again. And if it doesn't, it won't be because we are the good guys, but because we learnt to do marketing.

</Rant>

Sorry about that, I'm feeling better now :-)

Steve

On 30 Nov 2012, at 16:42, Daniel Zwolenski <zonski at gmail.com> wrote:

> It's the space that oracle doesn't care about but just for reference here's some stuff that web are doing:
> 
> http://blog.alexmaccaw.com/the-next-web
> 
> My analysis of this market segment, for what it is worth:
> 
> Web is moving faster than jfx, with a head start in a lot of areas, with big backing from all vendors and a deployment model that is seamless across more platforms. 
> 
> Jfx being based on established, type-safe java and having all the java libraries/tools makes it a big draw card for developers compared to jscript. However there is little benefit to users and it is users who will drive the choice of technology. Feature wise jfx and web are generally on par - in many cases web is better but generally in areas not fully standardized yet so limited to certain browsers etc. Standardization is happening quickly in web unlike the days of old. In general web is improving faster than the current jfx road map. 
> 
> In JFX's favour is the java brand and libraries from java's dominance in the server space. Java's reputation plus one-language/WORA end to end are the key selling points for jfx. 
> 
> One-language/WORA is currently a perceived advantage only since jfx does not work on as many platforms as web and it is only server side that jscript does not currently compete. Developers are starting to realize that jfx is not delivering on wora and business decision makers are unlikely to be convinced by developers without WORA as a selling point. 
> 
> Several early forays of jscript into the server space have already happened with some minor success. Expect this to be a growth area and the wora/one-language advantage could switch, making it one of the draw cards of jscript over jfx within the next 12 months (though java on the server is likely to dominate for many years still through pure momentum and market position). Jscript is also being enhanced to have more appeal to developers, however it has a lot of legacy perceptions to overcome before it will appeal to traditional server developers. 
> 
> Performance is also a perceived advantage of jfx (web is currently perceived as slow, whereas as 'desktop' is seen as fast) however in practice jfx is no faster than modern browsers and web is increasingly improving performance. The perceived advantage will be short lived especially with windows 8 driving more pc upgrades and the inevitable drop off of ie7 and ie8 (responsible for most of the negative performance opinions). Web is rapidly addressing its perceived performance issues. 
> 
> The mobile space is currently still open. The technology that provides good cross-mobile development will dominate here. Existing solutions like phone gap have had mixed success. WORA is the selling point but poor user experience and performance are the main complaints. Jscript based solutions are improving however and there are a number of vendors targeting this space. Phones typically have a 2 to 3 year life cycle so as we start to see the drop off of older android devices, jscript solutions will become more performant and user friendly. 
> 
> Javafx has a small window, maybe 12 months at most, of opportunity to capture some of the consumer market space. Mobile is particularly open but web is also in a transition state and some aggressive positioning could see jfx capitalize on the java brand to establish itself before web achieves its current trajectory. Claiming some market space now coupled with java server dominance could see jfx survive the onslaught of html5 frenzy. 
> 
> Deployment is currently the number one inhibitor to both the web and mobile space. A good deployment model is needed on major platforms to have broad range appeal. 
> 
> Should javafx not gain market space before the "html5" era truly establishes itself then jfx is unlikely to ever make it into the consumer space in its current form. It is likely to continue to have some market share in select back-office environments (particularly those that oracle is directly working with) and may spread a little wider if alternate deployment solutions such as running javafx ontop of jscript, or compiling to jscript are implemented. 
> 
> In the embedded space, java and javafx is well positioned with hardware/technology at the sweet point for embedded jre usage. Expect this to be a growth area over the next few years with javafx likely to dominate this space. 
> 
> 
> 
>