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These are two very interesting articles about applets, their history and predictions about their future.

• Are applets making a comeback? by Jeff Friesen.
  Jeff asked some Gurus (Roman Guy, Chet Haase, Jim Weaver and others) about their opinion. I found it very interesting how Roman and Chet, authors of Filthy Rich Clients, responded to the questions. For those who don’t know, Chet just left Sun a couple of weeks ago and now works for Adobe (AIR, Flex).
• The new applet experience by Jeff Friesen.
  In this article Jeff takes a tour into Applets, JavaFX, and Java 6 Update n. Very nice to read and he points out some rough edges of using Java for RIA’s.

In my previous posts I wrote that JavaOne 2008 will be all about JavaFX. It looks like I am right. In this interview one of the leading developers for JavaFX (in this case its about JavaFX tools) Josh Mariancci talks about Rich Internet Applications and what we can expect from JavaFX. He also indicates new and exciting news will be revealed. My guess is that JavaFX gets a GUI builder like Adobe’s Flex Builder Netbeans Matisse. However, I also heard rumors about integrating JavaFX in existing Adobe products. Eclipse UI builder for JavaFX, that’s blasphemy!

James Weaver’s list of JavaFX Sessions at JavaOne 2008

Since April 1st (no it’s not again a bad joke) the Java SE 6 Update Beta build is available. For all you don’t know what this is about (yes, you two in the corner), here are the major features:

• Enhanced Java deployment: Deployment Toolkit, Java Kernel online installer, Java auto-updater, and server side requirements are removed.
• Improved performance: Java Quick Starter and Hardware acceleration support
• Improved Look&Feel: Nimbus
• Next generation plugin-in: Applets are back and rock

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