Monday, November 17, 2008

How to Supercharge Java

I think certain changes in strategic direction by Java could help it compete far better with .NET, Flash, and browsers. Here are my recommendations:
  • Drop JavaFX and Swing (though I like Swing a lot in certain ways). Move to SWT.
  • Drop NetBeans (despite the nice progress they've made). Centralize on Eclipse.
  • Provide a C/C++ to JVM compiler and perhaps so2jar and dll2jar tools.
  • Provide jar2swf and swf2jar tools, and contribute to an existing or new open-source Flash player (now that the spec is open, right?).
  • Also support GWT big time.

I know enough to understand that many folks inside and outside of Sun would scream a lot if some of these directions were taken. I also don't know what's best for Sun as a company, but gradually losing mind share for Java probably doesn't help them any. Not that I know the stats.

Just some thoughts here, and I could be wrong.

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