Moving on (forked from Re: JavaOne roundup?)

[Tobias Bley]

Pardon? It’s not allowed to discuss with the JavaFX community the future of the technology and community in their mailing list??? What’s up Hervé?


Am 30.09.2013 um 12:03 schrieb Hervé Girod <herve.girod at gmail.com>:

> It's not the place to talk politics here. If you want to channel your frustration, do it in your blog if you have one. 
> 
> Hervé
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On 30 sept. 2013, at 11:14, Tobias Bley <tobi at ultramixer.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I absolutely agree Daniel. I opened a very important bug reporting concerning JFX performance on iPhone which currently prevents using JavaFX (and RoboVM) to build apps for the iPhone (https://javafx-jira.kenai.com/browse/RT-31453) this bug report is open since 3(!) month!  How shall the community build things for iOS if a very base feature (bug) is not fixed by Oracles core team??? It’s a very bad sign for engaged developers outside Oracle!
>> 
>> So maybe we should say good by to the legacy of SUN and use web technologies like JQuery, ExtJS, … with real community power and without an US company who sees only money and legal issues.
>> 
>> Maybe Larry loves to spend millions of dollars to win a boat race and develop experimental „iPads“ rather then spend their time and money to develop a technology with could be the base for ALL products, on Desktop, embedded space, mobile, watches, …
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Tobi
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> Am 30.09.2013 um 10:39 schrieb Daniel Zwolenski <zonski at gmail.com>:
>>> 
>>> The lack of information on iOS/Android is a major bummer, but this also highlights a deeper problem here. 
>>> 
>>> We have a situation where Oracle won't talk to this community because the topic is important, it's too big a game changer for them to comment on. It's tied in with share prices, and market strategies. 
>>> 
>>> So won't that be the case for anything *important* going forward? We "community" members are outsiders and very lowly ranked, well below "real" customers and even below random punters from the media. There's not even a way for us to rank bugs and get them attention (even if we provide fixes!).  
>>> 
>>> What kind of community can this ever be if anything important can't be discussed here before it's locked in, because it risks Oracle giving up a commercial edge? Is this then a community only for discussing our favourite method names for the API and pointing out that an enum constant is missing?
>>> 
>>> I can't see any way that this forum provides any significant contributions back to the platform - the occasional bug fix at best. JIRA is fine for discussing bugs, method names and little things like that. Any of the real community initiatives are run completely separate to this forum because Oracle doesn't want anything to do with them, and all the significant platform work takes place behind Oracle's closed doors and we only hear about it after it's a done deal.  
>>> 
>>> From where I'm standing, the Oracle community concept is fundamentally flawed, and the root cause is that Oracle just don't get how to interact with a community. You want to use us but you're not very good at it, you're not trying to improve (you don't think there's a problem) and ultimately Oracle's culture won't let you do it properly anyway. The current approach is a little like a car salesman trying to be your Facebook "friend". 
>>> 
>>> All the initiatives I got involved with through this forum have gone nowhere - deployment (auto updating), the early Maven deployment work (which Richard asked for), the tower defender game (which Richard asked for), the jfx browser (which Richard asked for), even stuff as simple as JIRA dashboards (which Richard again asked for). 
>>> 
>>> All these hit points where they needed Oracle to do their part of it and then just stalled and then died. This community could have fostered a lot of tools and efforts, and really propelled JFX into the bigger dev community, but instead, for me, it has been a constant source of stress and dissatisfaction, a hinderance and a hurdle. All pain, no gain. 
>>> 
>>> The only initiatives I actually made work were the JavaFX Maven plugin and the RoboVM Maven plugin. With both of these I made a conscious decision to not involve this forum or Oracle. I decided to cludge around platform shortcomings, rather than work with Oracle to fix it (5 minute fixes would have saved me days of work). 
>>> 
>>> That was the only way I could make these initiatives succeed since this forum is a hinderance to contributing. It gives a false sense that Oracle is listening and actively supporting the community. To anyone out there wanting to do something in JFX tool space, I'd say start by leaving this forum and working out what you can do without any access to the Oracle guys, even if you make your own code contributions to the platform. Assume you're an outsider - the cavalry is not coming, you're on your own.
>>> 
>>> Given all that I'm walking away from this forum. I was waiting to hear about the iOS/Android stuff first, but really even if they did announce anything, it would be a long shot at best (untested, low resources, lack of solid direction and most likely tied in with some Oracle ADF garbage or similar). The uncertainty created by Oracle's mixed messages also killed all momentum on the community RoboVM work. Meanwhile web based stuff is getting stronger, cleaner and better tool support at an exponential rate, including in the mobile space.  
>>> 
>>> If JavaFX one day actually provides a usable platform for non-Oracle entrenched customers, and the developer world notices, I'll certainly consider it. I reckon I'll hear about that through the usual tech media channels first, rather than through here though. As Oracle themselves pointed out at the 2012 JavaOne session the smart money is on web based stuff (check out backbone.js and marionette.js for a desktop-like coding experience, not bad and will get better faster than JFX improves). 
>>> 
>>> On that note, the JavaFX Maven plugin is about to go into decay mode. It needs to be updated to work on Maven 3.1 (some libraries have changed from 3.0) and there are a number of bugs and feature requests building up that I've been ignoring. I have no incentive to do any of this so it will unfortunately just rot. If anyone wants to pick it up, let me know (you need a few free hours a week just to maintain it). I'm picking up stumps and moving on.
>>> 
>>> I also have the access rights for the openjfx Maven repo on Sonatype (needed to deploy to Maven central). I imagine Sonatype would grant this access to others if you apply and make a case for it, but if anyone wants to do this let me know and I can notify sonatype to give you access and save you some hassles. 
>>> 
>>> I think Niklas has the RoboVM Maven Plugin sorted now and can do enhancements on that but I'm sure if anyone wanted to help him out he wouldn't say no. 
>>> 
>>> Cheers, 
>>> Dan 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 5:04 PM, Tobias Bley <tobi at ultramixer.com> wrote:
>>> I don’t understand why „all“ this people who needs JavaFX on iOS/Android does not tell it Oracles management. And I don’t understand why all this people use their time to develop all this demos and Rasp.PI stuff. Who needs it? Why don’t we develop base stuff like iOS skins, Android skins, iOS/Android widgets, RoboVM for Android, RoboVM using OpenJDK, … I really love useful stuff like the „JavaFX maven plugin“ or the „AquaFX“ project. That kind of development we need!
>>> 
>>> Best,
>>> Tobi
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> Am 30.09.2013 um 08:50 schrieb Felix Bembrick <felix.bembrick at gmail.com>:
>>>> 
>>>> No, you are *not* the only one. We *all* need it.  In fact, without it  happening soon, JavaFX is already dead.
>>>> 
>>>> But let's not give up yet.  Perhaps it's closer than we know. I am a glass half full kinda guy :-)
>>>> 
>>>>> On 30 Sep 2013, at 16:40, Tobias Bley <tobi at ultramixer.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> I suppose „legal reasons“….
>>>>> 
>>>>> For me it’s very frustrating to see every year the same procedure: JavaFX-iOS/Android related tracks were canceled - „nerd“ stuff like Rasp.PI, DukePad & Co were announced. Maybe I’m really the only one who needs JavaFX on mobile to use JavaFX on desktop as well… :(
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Am 29.09.2013 um 18:13 schrieb Jeff Martin <jeff at reportmill.com>:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> It seems the JFX on iOS/Android were cancelled at the last moment. I tried to keep expectations low this year, but I admit I harbored secret hopes based on those sessions (a few embarrassingly optimistic conversations with clients notwithstanding).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Last week Tomas offered this:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> about cancelled sessions please contact Mr. JavaOne stephen.chin at oracle.com I believe he will give satisfactory answer.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I'd like to take him up on that satisfactory offer. Also, can we run the name "DukePad" by marketing again?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> :-)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> jeff
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Sep 29, 2013, at 12:12 AM, Daniel Zwolenski <zonski at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The sessions aren't up yet from the looks of it. It would be great to get an overall roundup of any new announcements or directions in any case. Given this is the developer community network it would make sense in my mind to highlight stuff like that in here.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> For me, I'd love it if someone could quickly sum up any announcements or sessions made about JavaFX for iOS, Android or in the deployment space?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> What happened at the sessions Tobi highlighted before (http://blog.software4java.com/?p=97), did anyone go to these and able to give us some info?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> On 27/09/2013, at 7:07 AM, Richard Bair <richard.bair at oracle.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> The sessions, I think, are all being uploaded to Parley's (http://www.parleys.com), although I don't see any content there yet (not sure how long it will take them to post-process, but usually it is pretty fast).
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Richard
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> On Sep 26, 2013, at 2:00 PM, Daniel Zwolenski <zonski at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Has anyone done or seen any good roundups (text or video) of the JavaOne sessions relating to javafx?
>>