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.

At JavaOne 2009, Sun demonstrated a new JavaFX designer tool. You can even view the demo online. To shortcut right to the section that shows the tool, move to about 23:00 minutes into the video.

There are obvious questions that are not answered. So obvious, in fact, that I'm slightly baffled that I can't yet find an answer:

1. Where is this new tool?
2. Is it a standalone tool separate from NetBeans?
3. Will it plugin to NetBeans or Eclipse?

If I'm not mistaken, at the end of that video, Nandini said that the tool would be available at the end of the year. At the end of the year? Wow. Why announce something now that's not done?

Do you remember two (three?) years ago when Sun made its first announcements about JavaFX itself and presented demos of it at JavaOne? When we all got home, we realized that JavaFX wasn't really ready and we couldn't really use it. That announcement was definitely premature, but this year's conference gives me confidence that finally JavaFX is a consideration for me in my real job. However, why continue the pattern of announcing things so early? Why announce a designer tool that is apparently not available for even a preview download? Why? This behavior really is frustrating to consumers...that's me, a developer that wants to use JavaFX and any decent tool I can find. I'm glad that something is in the plans...but it would also have been nice to know what exists TODAY for designing JavaFX applications.

The next best thing to being at CommunityOne today and tomorrow is the live video feed of the sessions!

Can't participate directly? Check out the CommunityOne online video feeds.

Choices, choices...so many choices and so little time. JavaOne has hundreds of sessions, BOFS, and labs. There's no way to do it all, although many of you will try. Plan well, and use the JavaOne session schedule builder to make the most of your time.

Of course, your selections will be different, but here's my list of Top 10 Sessions that I must attend at JavaOne (in no particular order):

1. TS-4605, Enterprise JavaBeansâ„¢ 3.1 (EJBâ„¢ 3.1) Technology Overview
   This session provides an overview of Enterprise JavaBeansâ„¢ 3.1 (EJBâ„¢ 3.1) -- JSR 318 -- technology. You'll find war packaging of components based on the EJB specification (EJB components), EJB "Lite" technology, Singleton beans, Startup/shutdown callbacks, Asynchronous session bean invocations, and more.
2. TS-3817, Google App Engine: Javaâ„¢Technology in the Cloud
   Google App Engine is a powerful cloud-computing platform designed to help developers more easily create and manage scalable Web applications.
3. TS-5225, Spring Framework 3.0: New and Notable
   The latest Spring release, 3.0, introduces new features and enhancements that make Spring more powerful and extensible yet even simpler to use.
4. TS-4875, Developing RESTful Web Services with the Javaâ„¢ API for RESTful Web Services (JAX-RS)
   The Javaâ„¢ API for RESTful Web Services (JAX-RS) is an annotation-driven API that makes it easy to build Java technology-based RESTful Web services that adhere to the REST architectural style.
5. TS-5578, The New World: JavaFXâ„¢ Technology-Based UI Controls
   This in-depth session covers the new JavaFXâ„¢ platform UI controls. It discusses the basics, such as how to use them and how to lay them out, through to more-advanced topics such as theming, skinning, and creating your own custom controls and layouts.
6. TS-4247, Getting More Out of the Javaâ„¢ VisualVM Tool
   This session addresses the following topics: leveraging existing JConsole plug-ins, creating new plug-ins for specific applications such as application servers, creating new plug-ins for specific tasks that are not supported out of the box
7. TS-5307, Building Next-Generation Web Applications with the Spring 3.0 Web Stack
   In this session, you will learn how to build Web applications using the RESTful Spring 3.0 @MVC annotation-based programming model, expose multiple representations of the same resource, including HTML, XML, JavaScriptâ„¢ Object Notation (JSON), and Atom, to service multiple client types without the need for specialized handling in server-side controller code, use Spring JavaScript technology and the Dojo toolkit to consume your RESTful Spring resources, using unobtrusive Ajax techniques, easily connect your existing RESTful Spring resources to RIA technologies such as JavaFXâ„¢ technology, and more.
8. TS-5265, A Javaâ„¢ Persistence API Mapping Magical Mystery Tour
   The session will be of interest to any Java technology developer who may store a Java technology-based object in a relational database. Attendees will learn how to use annotations to map objects to a relational database, what the new JPA 2.0 specification is adding to the mapping layer, when to use specific mappings and when certain mappings should be avoided, and how to make the best use of the O-R mapping part of JPA.
9. TS-5385, Alternative Languages on the Java VM
   There are several languages that target bytecodes and the JVMâ„¢ machine as their new "assembler," including Scala, Clojure, Jython, JRuby, the JavaScriptâ„¢ programming language/Rhino, and JPC. This session takes a quick look at how well these languages sit on a JVM machine, what their performance is, where it goes, and why.
10. TS-4640, A Complete Tour of the JavaServer Faces 2.0 Platform
    This session presents a comprehensive tour of all the new features in the JavaServerâ„¢ Faces 2.0 platform.

Remember, whatever you choose, make sure you plan ahead to get the most out of the week. If you must choose between two great sessions, pay attention to schedule updates near the end of the week. Often popular sessions get rescheduled!

You update your JDK frequently to get the latest and greatest...but did you know about VisualVM. It may be one of the best kept secrets in the JDK. But now you know too!

The VisualVM application gives you visual insight into your application's use of resources: heap, threads, memory, CPU usage, and more. This is a profiling tool that you might consider paying for, but you won't -- it's free, and its right under your nose.

Check out The Best Kept Secret in the JDK: VisualVM for more information about this great tool.

If you go to JavaOne, make sure you attend Geertjan Wielenga's session too:

TS-4247, Getting More Out of the Javaâ„¢ VisualVM Tool
Friday June 05 12:10 PM - 1:10 PM Gateway 104

The UTF-8 encoding is easy to abuse in some ways. Or rather, sometimes people use it in unexpected ways.

Recently the Java platform received an update to reject one malformed UTF-8 encoding sequence called non-shortest form. You can learn more about this fix and its implications for you in the article Overhauling the Java UTF-8 Charset.

I should be ashamed. But I'll do it again this year regardless. I'm begging for a JavaOne pass. I'm not asking for a free handout, not exactly. Instead, here's the deal:

1. You provide a full JavaOne conference pass.
2. I provide blogging and coverage of JavaOne, your product, or your events here on java.net during the JavaOne week.

You provide the JavaOne pass, and I'll do the writing each day of the conference!

Contact me a john at joconner dot com.