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Burning BridgesPosted by editor on May 22, 2008 at 6:56 AM PDT
Is the Java Plug-In really "annoying"? A few days ago, ZDNet.co.uk posted an article on applications that tick them off. Annoying software: a rogues' gallery features applications that put themselves in the user's face and run roughshod over their needs. Think Real Player, or the bundled junk-ware that bloats the desktop of a brand-new PC. Or iTunes trying to trick you into switching to Safari. Or think of Java. Wait, what now? Java? Yep, Java got dinged by the ZDNet editors on Page 6. They write:
I thought this was an interesting hackle to see raised, so I forwarded it on to the Java Posse group for discussion and followup, where several (including JavaFX engineer Josh Marinacci) noted that most of the other offenders were far more annoying. Even the Slashdot followups found comparatively far less fault with Java's presentation.
A discussion about the article is going on in our own forums, and some of the readers agree with ZDNet's original assessment. In
Re: ZDNet gives Java a negative review, Now, what do you think? Does the Java installer and toolbar plugin enhance the brand or badger the user? Also in today's Forums,
Finally, Shai Almog talks about the state and plans for the Lightweight UI Toolkit in Re: What are your needs for UI Toolkit ? "The LWUIT Demo is only a demo. LWUIT itself is early access but is already being used by several vendors for products it is also being used by our team for products. LWUIT will be fully open source under GPL+CE very soon which allows bundling LWUIT in proprietary applications but requires returning changes to LWUIT to the community (no need to open source your application). Swing for mobile devices is AGUI, LWUIT works on top of AGUI when its available. Sun is releasing LWUIT as a tool for the developer arsenal." In Java Today, the GlassFish Scripting Project is an umbrella project for projects related to the use of scripting languages in GlassFish. As Jean-Francois Arcand notes, the grizzly-jruby extension is moving out of the Grizzly project to become part of glassfish-scripting. The project also includes resources for discovering supported scripting languages and using them with GlassFish.
New JavaScript Editor in NetBeans IDE 6.1 A brief interview on Artima looks at the challenge of Testing Multithreaded Java Code. "In this interview from JavaOne 2008, Coverity chief scientist Andy Chou discusses why traditional unit tests don't often help in uncovering concurrency-related errors, and why a combination of static and dynamic analysis yields better results when testing multithreaded code." In today's Weblogs, Jean-Francois Arcand discusses Building GWT Comet based web app using Grizzly Comet. "I'm getting a lot of requests to share our JavaOne BOF slides where we have demonstrated the use of GWT + Grizzly Comet." Patrick Keegan shows off Beans Binding Between Separate Forms. "Continuing from my last post, I'll show the next steps in the creation of this simple (but not too simple) client purchase application. This time, our main focus is in creating a separate dialog which we will use for data entry. We'll need to do a few tricks so that input from the dialog is propagated to the main form and then the database." Finally, Arun Gupta notes a FREE 20-week Ruby-on-Rails Programming Course - with Passion! "Sang Shin and Brian Leonard are starting a new free online course of "Ruby, JRuby and Rails Application Development (with Passion!)". The course is taken online and will start from Jul 15, 2008." Current and upcoming Java Events :
Registered users can submit event listings for the java.net Events Page using our events submission form. All submissions go through an editorial review before being posted to the site. Archives and Subscriptions: This blog is delivered weekdays as the Java Today RSS feed. Also, once this page is no longer featured as the front page of java.net it will be archived along with other past issues in the java.net Archive. Is the Java Plug-In really "annoying"? »
Comments
Comments are listed in date ascending order (oldest first)
Submitted by biff on Sat, 2008-05-24 09:42.
But you are able to add a splash screen to replace the default animation:
http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/plugin/developer_guide/special_attributes.html
So you have all the control that you need.
Submitted by johnwallace on Fri, 2008-05-23 23:03.
I absolutely HATE when the Java applet loader comes up. It paints a bullseye on Java saying "look how slow I am". It was a horrible branding decision by Sun, and has caused many developers to avoid applets. Imagine how awful my web page would be if I had three or four applets loading. What an eyesore. (For the marketing people out there saying "better to get bad publicity than no publicity" miss the point. I WON'T use applets because the loader looks horrible. I won't give you the chance for bad publicity. From me you get no publicity.)
As a developer, I should be able to add a splash screen to an applet if I want, or just leave it blank.
As far as the complaints that the installers are too in-your-face, I don't want Java or AdobeReader or iTunes just updating in the background. I want control over those. And besides, these are important technologies that I got for free. I don't see the big deal having to approve the update every now and again.
Submitted by fatbatman on Fri, 2008-05-23 15:56.
I agree with the other posts, particularly about using Flash as the template for how to do things. Just do what Flash does, it's proven, it works.
If the Java Posse doesn't think it's annoying then it proves how out of touch with the end user they actually are, espeically if it includes an engineer who worked on it in the first place. It's liking getting an artist to review his own work. Do an end user survey instead and listen to what that says.
Regarding the post on the posse group by Joshua Marinacci;
"Apple's, the bastion of user centered design, who tries to shove a
webbrowser down to you along with the huge download that is iTunes.
And I still can't figure out why the Acrobat reader is twice the size
of the full JRE, since all it does is view PDFs. :) "
Apple can get away with a pushing things on the user because they've already "won" the user, and for Acrobat because there's no viable alternative for viewing pdfs. Java doesn't have this luxury.
With Flash, Macromedia realised initially it was "optional" to the user/developer as there were alternatives, (back then Java was there by default in the brower) so they made it as transparent and user friendly as possible to gain penetration. If Flash hadn't done this initially it probably wouldn't be where it is now.
Now the tables have turned so it's now Sun's turn to do the same.
If anyone from the Java Posse is reading this, use the comments from ZdNet as feedback to make to make Java update 10 / FX better, not to go on the defensive.
Submitted by brendonm on Fri, 2008-05-23 13:46.
Whenever these questions come up, the real question should be: Does Flash do it? Java should slavishly follow Flash's design decisions except in cases where Java would be doing something demonstrably superior. Another point already raised in other fora is that regardless of what developers think of Java, it's brand could hardly be worse on the desktop at the moment.
Better to infiltrate the desktop by stealth.
Submitted by liquid on Thu, 2008-05-22 22:04.
Let's just start an informal poll here on java.net, 1) leave everything as is, or 2) unbrand (or 3) at least give the freedom to decide to someone - with parameters for devs, config options for users, etc). We'll see then.
Submitted by jwenting on Fri, 2008-05-23 06:37.
"Now, what do you think? Does the Java installer and toolbar plugin enhance the brand or badger the user? "
If you read the last several years of complaints of developers about the plugin being far too intrusive you'd know what we think. The fact that Sun even needs to ask the community shows they're disconnected.
"so I forwarded it on to the Java Posse group for discussion and followup, where several (including JavaFX engineer Josh Marinacci) noted that most of the other offenders were far more annoying"
Doesn't matter. The very fact that they use that as an excuse for the intrusiveness of the plugin shows they're out of touch with the end user. There's a complaint, do something about it. And that complaint comes from not just your end users, but the people developing software on the Java platform as well and has been voiced for a long time.
Submitted by rdelaplante on Fri, 2008-05-23 00:10.
"Client Java is just way too pushy. I don't see Flex / Silverlight popping any console windows, adding tray icons, or even showing their name in the *default* loading sequence. Why would Java be so adamant in advertising itself with the *end users* is, frankly, beyond my comprehension."
I agree. It should not pop up any console (when does it do this?), I _really_ don't like seeing a tray icon for it. Showing the Java logo as the default loading screen might be ok, as long as developers have the ability to show their own loading screen. I haven't looked into it, but I've never seen an applet not show the Java logo.
Submitted by keithjohnston71 on Fri, 2008-05-23 00:58.
Does the Java installer and toolbar plugin enhance the brand or badger the user?
I think the Java plugin should not add itself to the system tray. It is those Java update messages that are so annoying. It's fine to have the Java/Sun logo when an applet or webstart app is launching. The time to tell the user to upgrade is when they *want* to run an applet or application and they don't have the right version. That is what Flash does.
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