Wednesday update

Day 2

No pics from Wed, it was all code all day, we'll not all code. The first talk I attended, and easliy the best I've seen at the show was by Joe Winchester from IBM on how much UI's really suck today. His main point was that developers are not artists, and we need artists to create good uis. Funny as hell.. check out this blog for a good synopsis: http://www.cafeaulait.org/

Then it was on to jMaki = Javascript + (Maki = Japanese for Wrapper). It's a SUN thing and an attempt to wrap all the cool js ui widget libs out there with a common api. Coolest thing is the pub/sub message bus which let's you anoymously wire up your widgets to listen to each other.

Lunch = big long lines, fair lasnagne

First afternoon was GWT = Google Web Toolkit. They have made some progress, especially in the performance area, they can 'zip' up all your images into a single file which can be cached, pretty cool stuff, plus IDE support. I think this one may have some real potential.

Next, on to, Exteme GUI Makeover 2007. Awesome, awesome stuff. Animated, changing colors, flying cell table sorts. The coolest error handler you've ever seen, and more. I can't wait to get some code samples and show those .net guys.

Then, F3 = Java FX. Totally boring presentation, did nothing but walk through the demo app you can download. I was doing everything to stay awake, but wanted to stay to see what the story was on deploying these JFX apps. Well, the story is short, same as Java apps :(. That is really the last hurdle, if SUN and the community can crack that, then there are sunny skies ahead.

So far, biggest winners are
1. Swing is alive and well and well cool again (I think)
2. There are too many web toolkits, I am thinking you need to hedge your bets with with big boys.

InterSystems, then hooked us with some great sushi, thanks guys! Cache rocks :)