Category Archives: JavaOne

13 things we plan (or do not plan) to do with our PDF library in 2013…

We have been drawing up our development plans for 2013. Here is a list of some of the things we plan to do, some we might do and some we have definitely no plans to do. It is intended partly as a bit of ‘festive fun’ and partly to see what you would like to see.

1. Android port of our Java PDF viewer.

2. DotNet port of our Java PDF viewer.

3. iOS6 port of our Java PDF viewer.

4. Full XFA support.

5. Replace Rhino with Nashorn and improve Javascript support.

6. Replace Swing with JavaFX.

7. Change pricing and licensing.

8. Totally Open source the software.

9. Remove the Open source version.

10. Release a cloud version.

11. PDF to Postscript converter.

12. Abandon Java entirely.

13. Acquire Adobe.

What do you think should be on our ToDo list? What are you planning todo in 2013?

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What is it really like to visit Silicon valley?

Last week I was in San Francisco for Javaone 2012. As I am not usually on the West Coast, I also took the opportunity to visit ‘Silicon valley‘ to see customers, potential customers and to be a tourist. I took my camera along with me so you can get a feeling for what it was like….

The easiest way to reach Silicon valley from San Francisco is by CalTrain which has a double deck and a ‘spaceship’ feel to it. I saw loads of Macs and IPads but there were more people in my carriage reading paperbacks than using Windows laptops.

You can also use the freeway to visit if you like spending time in your car.

Many people also take their bicycles on the train and then cycle the last part of the journey

The area is fairly hot and dry. If you are expecting a big Hollywoord style sign on the hill, you will be disappointed

Palo Alto station (jump off here for Stanford). Shouldn’t there be some statue or monument here?

Stop here not just for Google but Microsoft and lots of other famous names.

All the big companies provide free luxury coaches to take you to the office.

Driving past the LinkedIn offices. Silicon valley is best described as a huge Business Park with lots of offices.

Lots of famous names here but it is not all IT companies.

A vacant plot for the next big thing…

Any guesses who is based here…

Clue if you need any more help.

Google also does a pretty good lunch.

Men waste no opportunity to learn new information (I cannot comment on what the ladies do)

Oracle’s offices are not hard to find.

And Larry has his own little lake to practise for the America’s Cup

The area is hot and tropical.

There are lots of other office buildings where the next Facebook or Google are hiding

And finally home. The train is quiet outside rush hour.

What did you think of Silicon Valley?

 

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Open Question from O’Reilly – would you like to see a new version of Java in a Nutshell?

Java in a Nutshell

For many years, many people (me included!) have considered O’Reilly’s Java in A Nutshell (David Flanagan)  to be THE Java reference book to have lying around – definitive, detailled and with lots of excellent code examples. It used to be updated for every Java release, but with the decline in book printing in general, and the questions over the last few years about Java, this has not happened and we are stuck on a book about Java 5. The language has come a long way since that and Java 7 (while being backwardly compatible) packs a lot more features.

If you read my JavaOne article, you will know that Java is very much BACK and so O’Reilly are now considering whether to update the book with a new release. So if you would like to see a new edition take their survey….

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5 key things I learnt at Javaone2012

Having had a long plane ride back from San Francisco, I have had some time to mull over a very hectic and exciting week and what really came out of it. And I can tell you:-

1. Oracle is prepared to invest very heavily in Java. There were an awful lot of things to show off at Javaone (improvements to NetBeans, Glassfish, Nashorn, FX2, progress on Java 8, etc) and all the development team were hiring. And the Javaone/Oracleworld event was clearly big budget – any guesses what it must cost to hire all those venues, have a couple of roads closed for you by the city authorities and bring in all those music acts?

2. Java is alive and growing. The show was bigger and busier than 2011 with lots of companies showing off new products. JavaFX is now a very serious option for client development and even without Jigsaw, Java8 is going to be a big step forward.

3. Oracle is getting Java almost everywhere. A lot of effort had gone into getting Java running from everything from huge systems to the Rasperberry Pi. And while Jigsaw is delayed, profiles will give us some benefits before then. The two ‘elephants’ in the room are Android and Ios. There were 2 talks on IPad which we both cancelled (leading to alsorts of conspiracy theories).

4. Oracle is getting much better at handling this Community/partner thing. The Community keynote was very good and as one speaker said, Larry likes to win at everything so if he wants a Community, it will be the best. Oracle is also mending fences. James Gosling was back as a speaker at the Community keynote, talking about some very clever marine robots his current company deploys. The one critical bridge to mend is Google, who used to be a big part of the convention.

5. It is still worth the money going to the shows. Aside from the amazing free concerts organised, the interaction with Oracle and other developers and the chance to share ideas is priceless. Sitting at home coding that week is a false economy.

What did you think of Javaone 2012?

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Nashorn Progress at JavaOne 2012

As PDF files can contain lots of Javascript, Nashorn is of particular interest to us. So I was curious to know what has happened in the last 12 months since it was announced at JavaOne 2011.

Nashorn is a replacement for the Rhino Javascript library (hence Nashorn which is Austrian for Rhino). It takes advantage of the new invoke dynamic feature of the JVM (Not available when Rhino was written) to provide a faster more powerful library.

In 2012, the initial code is written and has been made available to test and work on further performance gains. Oracle has released the code and has a number of partners testing it. It is already being used as it is in the new NetBeans 7.3 release. It is already an order of magnitude faster than Rhino and you can also call it directly. It currently fails one Javascript test so its compliance level in comparable to Chrome.

All of which is excellent news if you are interested in Javascript and the Java platform!

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