Today's announcement of Google's Chrome OS is exciting in a few ways. I think it has implications for Java developers. With hindsight, I now think that Larry Ellison was hinting about Google's Chrome OS when he expressed some of his desires for JavaFX on small netbook-like devices.

So, without any real knowledge and armed with nothing more than a vivid imagination, I provide some of my predictions/speculations for the upcoming Google Chrome OS and the devices it will power:

1. Google Chrome OS will be a slightly more beefy Android OS. More beefy because it will have additional hardware driver support you might find in a netbook. However, its essence will be Android OS.
2. The Chrome browser (or a slimmed down cousin) will be the primary application on that OS. It's already integrated into Android via Webkit
3. The developer API will be very similar to what Android G1 developers already use. Android G1 apps are essentially Java apps written to a Java-like API. Same Java language on top of the most important, core packages of the Java SE platform. And, of course, Google won't be able to call it a "Java" platform because it will be stripped down to what Google engineers consider only the core, "good" parts of Java SE APIs + Google's own Android APIs of course.
4. Google Chrome OS will be attractive to Java engineers because it looks and feels so much like the the JVM...except it's really the Dalvik VM. Many simple applications that run on Java SE will be able to run on the Dalvik VM after a recompile. Or maybe you'll just have to run your class files through a simple converter to target the Dalvik VM. At any rate, Java developers will feel right at home.
5. Google Chrome OS devices will need to get onto the network easily, seamlessly, regardless of Wi-Fi availability. Google really does believe that "the network is the computer". Without the internet, these devices will be severely hampered. Expect these devices to have multiple network access technologies built in. Wifi hardware will obviously be on board. But you can imagine it also having a cellular transmitter/receiver built-in too.
6. Remember all that cellular radio spectrum that Google was interested in only one or two years back? Wouldn't it be just an awesome thing if Google purchased a huge portion of that and used it to make their Google Chrome OS devices be able to instantly jump onto that for network access? You buy the device, punch in a pre-purchased code for access, and your notebook is on the net in 5 minutes! It will be incredibly, insanely easy to get on the network with your Google Chrome OS-powered device.
7. Hey, what's that Google Voice project anyway. Only one of the coolest telephony projects around! Maybe Google will leverage this service? Here's a scenario for you: you buy a Google Chrome OS device, open it up, agree to the terms of a Google voice membership, get a Google voice number and Google account (if you don't already have one), and the device then connects to the network using the built-in cellular hardware to connect to some of that cellular spectrum that Google will or has already purchased.
8. After all of this, or perhaps even before this, we all start to feel a little uneasy about just how pervasive Google really is. And despite Google's mistrust and derision of Microsoft, they begin to look a little bit like Microsoft too...really, really big and really, really powerful and located at every digital turn. But this time, instead of controlling your PC, they control your network. Ooh, there's a suspenseful novel in there somewhere.

Ok, some of that's just silly, crazy talk...or is it? We'll see over the next few months.

Oh, one last thing. I just cannot resist the urge to compare Google Chrome OS to Sun's Java OS. Do you remember that? I could hardly find any references to it, although I did find an old article called Inside the IBM JavaOS Project. At some point, Sun apparently enslisted IBM to help. At any rate, the Java OS project started (and ended) a long, long time ago. It's been a decade at least. Remember the Hot Java browser? I actually ran it and used it. I remember that one of our tests at Sun was to run the SwingSet demo on it. But now I'm just distracted. What was I saying? Oh yes, there are even more similarities. Java OS is to Google Chrome OS as the Hot Java browser is to the Chrome browser. Maybe Google Chrome OS will finally be the successful reincarnation of JavaOS?

It's all fun to think about, and as I suggested, pure speculation at this point.

The Flex guys have enjoyed this for a long time. When I discussed JavaFX with a friend who is familiar with Flex, he shrugged the feature off, clearing unimpressed with JavaFX despite his appreciation for the feature itself. Still, for Java enthusiasts, bind is a welcome language feature.

Another link and run post. Read more about using the bind keyword in JavaFX in the blog tip Binding var and def variables.

I hate to simply drop a link and run, but that's essentially what I'm doing here until others learn about my new blog Learning JavaFX.

My most recent dip into JavaFX involves for-loop constructions. And this experience brings up an interesting question for me. How do you access a variable outside the loop if it contains the same name as the "formal parameter" of the loop itself?

For examples of this and more details, read the blog entry:

Variables in a for-loop

Long ago, I started a series called JavaFX Learning Curve Journal. Those articles/journals were on java.sun.com at the very beginning of the JavaFX project. I recently tried to find some of those articles, and I think they've been removed or improved significantly. They're certainly not recognizable in their original form. That's probably a good thing. The language has changed since then, and we all know how absolutely misleading and frustrating an outdated article can be.

I'm still interested in this new language though, more so now than then really. When I moved from Sun a couple years ago, I knew JavaFX wasn't ready for prime time. I stopped tinkering with it. I stopped reading about it. I stopped writing about it. However, I'm re-evaluating now.

JavaFX certainly seems to be the future of desktop applications. I know there was a lot of denying that Swing and JavaFX were competing. But let's just face the truth ok. Limited resources, limited time, limited developers....Sun can't put its continuous efforts into both, right? Something will get starved for resources. I spent a lot of time becoming proficient with Swing. If you are a Swing developer, you most certainly put in a lot of time learning it as well. However, if you want to continue developing Java desktop user interfaces, I think the future is JavaFX. Sun just isn't backing down from it. Despite its shaky start, JavaFX does seem ready for serious consideration at this point.

So, I've done two things to jump back into the JavaFX mix:

1. I've started a new blog called Learning JavaFX. If you're just learning this language, you can fumble along with me. We'll figure out some of it together. If I can do it (which is not yet proven), you most certainly can! I learn by doing and sharing. Hopefully, you'll benefit too!
2. I've started a Twitter account learningjavafx. Subscribe to those tweets if you'd like. You'll find out where I'm succeeding with the language. And if you've read my blogs before, you know I don't pull punches either. If I don't like something about a tool, I say it, trying to be fair of course. So I hope to give it to you raw, my experience learning JavaFX.

I'm just getting started of course. So this isn't a bad time to start listening in, especially if you're just getting started too. We'll tackle this learning curve together, and hopefully have some fun along the way.