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JavaFX only looks more half-baked when you prominently post about projects launched shortly after the 1.0 release to fill gaps left by said release.

I was just coming here to say the exact same thing. It does look nice but it is very typical. Sun releases something and leaves it up to the community to make it worth while. What are they getting paid for? What was that guys title? Director of R&D? Yea, I want that job!!

"JavaFX only looks more half-baked when you prominently post about projects launched shortly after the 1.0 release to fill gaps left by said release."

James Williams,
That's a good point, and I appreciate that you articulated it. Nevertheless, there *are* gaps in the 1.0 release (as can often be expected in a 1.0 release). I have chosen to help fill the gaps, and then tell the community what is available so that we can make use of the additional functionality when writing JavaFX applications. Some of the gaps, like this lack of a charting/graphing library in the 1.0 version, hopefully don't promote the perception that JavaFX is half-baked. The shortage of layout classes (only HBox and VBox currently exist in the SDK), however, is a concern to the JavaFX community, and has been partially addressed by the Grid layout in the JFXtras project. From what I've heard, MigLayout will be ported soon to JavaFX as well. Also, I believe that the 1.1 release of JavaFX will contain more layout classes.

Thanks again,
Jim Weaver
http://JavaFXpert.com (blog)

Wonderful, more layout classes. Cause that is really what JavaFX needs to be compete. Come on Jim. You have to agree somewhat that JavaFX in its current state can't compete with Flex and Silverlight right now. I mean, it doesn't even have a DataGrid. You have to use a JTable and do that nasty Swing wrapper junk around it. An RIA framework without a DataGrid? JavaFX should still be labeled Beta right now.

Gregg Bolinger,

I don't believe that any RIA framework is complete and without need of enhancements. As developers, we always push frameworks where we need them to go which often times is not where the core developers had anticipated. In the case of JavaFX, it does need a broader set of features to address data and data visualization. One of the items on my radar as part of the charting initiative is an active datagrid that supports the binding mechanisms already present.

My point is Sun should not have released something that wasn't really ready to be used out in the world. JavaFX is hardly ready for real world RIA development. Yet here it sits at an official 1.0 release. Nearly useless.

"JavaFX is hardly ready for real world RIA development. Yet here it sits at an official 1.0 release. Nearly useless."

I respectfully disagree, Gregg. Let's have some fun here. You design the UI and system behavior for a sample app that meets your criteria for "real world RIA development", and spec out the application-level communication protocol to the back-end services (perhaps HTTP GETs with JSON or XML streams being returned). Have a graphics designer create some comps and graphical assets and send them to me. I'll create a UI in JavaFX that looks and behaves per your specs, including communicating with the back-end. You create the back-end services (or identify an existing, publicly available service, like Amazon Web Services).

I'll chronicle the development of the UI on the JavaFXpert blog, and on JavaLobby. One stipulation: The application can't have anything to do with Pets or Stores. :-) Wanna play?

Thanks,
Jim Weaver
http://JavaFXpert.com