I have been surprised when I read this article: James Gosling (Sun) : « Java sur le poste client n’est pas à la hauteur aujourd’hui ». It is in French, so I translate the title here:
Strange, isn’t it ? The “father of Java” who, 15 years after, makes such a big statement!Well, the reality is different, as we all know.
Eclipse is there and it is there since sometime now. Eclipse is no more only an “open development platform”, but has become ‘a platform for building and deploying rich client applications”: it is called Eclipse RCP. Many people are developing rich Java applications for the desktop (and for the mobile market also) based on Eclipse RCP:
- Open Source applications, the most popular of which is probably the Azureus BitTorrent client
- Commercial applications also, of course !
And, not least, IBM is building the new generation of its products based on Eclipse RCP!
The Universal Managed Client for SOA, called Lotus Expeditor. A platform for building enterprise applications and enterprise mashups that bring the power of SOA towards the desktop and devices
The new Lotus Notes 8 client, which brings the possibility of building Composite Applications centered around the collaboration tools
Lotus Sametime, which provides a new frontier for Unified Collaboration and Communication
Sun may not be ready. But the world is not waiting in order to make Java evolving! And Java is bigger than a trade symbol.