David Van Couvering 's Blog

David Berlind of ZDNet sees the light

The lightbulb effect continues to grow around the potential for Java DB to act as an offline web cache for web-based applications (e.g. those using AJAX to provide rich browser-side functionality). David Berlind of ZDNet just posted a great blog about his “aha” experience around this. I love how he waxes poetic about using it in an airplane with your USB stick. I’m going to do a demo showing how you can run the DerbyTax demo off a USB stick during my JavaOne talk. I haven’t tested it yet, so pray for me :)

I noticed some complaints about having to download the JRE for this to work. I’m curious, how many of you think this is a real issue? I know at least with Firefox it has become so easy to install plugins, but I can also see the point that if a click is required, the click may not happen.

On that note, I actually see Java DB in the browser having great value in corporate settings. Imagine providing a web-based app where users can store their own personal data (like legal forms, or expense records) their machine -- fast local database access, secure storage of sensitive personal information, the ability to run offline, but the application itself is centrally deployed and managed. It’s like the best of both worlds! And in the corporate world, it’s easier to require a one-click download of the JRE.

But even in the consumer market, if the application has enough value, people will download the plugin. I also like David’s argument that Java gives ubiquity – you can build the same app and have it run on a laptop, a PDA, and (some day) on a cell phone. You don’t have to retool your app for each platform – JavaDB is a portable lightweight persistence framework.

What I’d love to get back into Derby is the synchronization mechanism that automatically synchronizes between your local Derby database and some centralized store. This would make the offline model even more compelling. Is anyone game? Let’s talk...

Comments

• The beauty of one-click installing Sun's java plug-in, is that you can now seamlessly install Java "extensions" which can be used by web applications...In the derbyTax JavaDB demo, JavaDB gets installed as a a Java extension and this in a transparent manner as the we application is accessed online for the first time...then (Java) extension upgrades can also be handled seamlessly...The Java plug-in also give you access to Javascript-to-Java and vice-versa LiveConnect technology which is great to interact between the scripting and programming worlds - The demo also showcases that.

  Posted by: forsini on May 01, 2006 at 05:51 PM

• Tomcat To Go: Run Tomcat with embedded database from a USB stick, no Java required:

  http://www.javalobby.org/articles/tomcat2go/?source=archives

  Posted by: shrestha on May 31, 2006 at 01:14 PM

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