On enterprise technologies

Published on May 21, 2010 in Development and Music. 8 Comments Tags: , .

Back in 2001 or so one of my friends told me when he heard I was experimenting with Delphi that all these Delphi, VB and C++ are dead and soon there will be only Java.

About a week ago I cooked up a list of free patch editors and managers of external synths and samplers for the recently started linuxsound.ru. And now that yet another shovel for amateur grave diggers vintage synth manager is out, I thought I’d have a closer look.

Well, guess what. There really is a bunch of Java patch editors for ext. synths written in 2000-2004. Those are mostly dead projects. How about new applications? All, and no — I really mean all of them are written in Qt/C++. Have a look yourself, why don’t you: QXGEdit, ME-Edit, FB01 Sound Editor, Fx FloorBoard, qtpod and now Yamaha DX7-II synth manager.

And since I’m basically evil, I can’t resist recalling how principle developer of Protux went mad some years ago and decided to redo everything in Java, praising this technology and saying how much better everything will become, since he was an experienced Java developer at IBM. Remon, who joined the team shortly before that, disagreed and continued development of the tool under a new name and in Qt/C++.

You don’t need to be a wizard to see through the whole thing: the Java port miserably failed. At the same time Traverso is still alive, and even though it’s probably not kicking, but merely prodding, development continues, new features are being added, UI is being improved and so on.

I’m trying to think of any desktop Java application I used in the past years, and FreeMind is the only one I can recall (and even so it’s a sad example, because 0.9.0 has been WIP for years). So I’m curious, when did you guys and girls last used a desktop application in Java on daily basis?

  • Marco Diego Aurélio Mesquita

    Wow! A linuxsound “a la” linuxgraphics! Thanks! All that is needed now is an english version.

  • Marco Diego Aurélio Mesquita

    About desktop aplications in java… Eclipse rocks, Tuxguitar has no free competitor, Azureus rocks, Netbeans is not that bad, rssowl, uDig works…

    Java is under-explored. Its performance and (untill 2006) closedness made it lose too much space. But it is a good programming language after all.

  • http://www.romanofski.de Roman

    Can’t recall a Java written application on the desktop ever to be in use. It always felt clunky. Having said that tho, I still believe that it’s a matter of good programming(?) to get a nice Java application for the desktop. In other words: I wouldn’t necessarily blame it on the language.

  • http://www.prokoudine.info Alexandre

    Oh, but I’m not blaming it on the language :) What I’m talking about is how appeal of a particular technology can get you sidetracked.

  • http://www.krita.org Boudewijn Rempt

    Scrumworks Pro… A java app to manage the scrum development process. I have to use it every day because a customer insists on it.

  • http://www.prokoudine.info Alexandre

    @Marco: do you want my early death? :) I won’t be able to handle yet another EN version, I’m already set with web projects for the rest of the decade. IMO, what really has to be done is some sort of blog-like News and Tutorials section on top of http://linuxmusicians.com/. They have the community already, so no wheel reinvented.

  • ChrisLilley

    Your general point is sound. As a data point though, the XML editor which I use on a daily basis (oXygen, http://www.oxygenxml.com/ ) is written in Java and is frequently updated. Can’t think of another example though.

  • troublemaker

    “So I’m curious, when did you guys and girls last used a desktop application in Java on daily basis?”

    Batmud. :)

    http://www.bat.org/play/batclient

    OK, not quite what you were asking…