From: David Vallner <david@...>
Date: 2006-02-18T23:33:38+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby Web Start?

Dňa Sobota 18 Február 2006 04:38 petermichaux@yahoo.com napísal:
> I've been poking my nose into some Java books over the last week. Java
> Web Start applications seem like the coolest thing. 
>

<rant>

I don't recall seeing a single Java Web Start application that's not a demo in 
the wild. I'll admit, I didn't really look, or really care. The desktop Java 
market is miniscule, the only apps I can recall of having a major following 
are Eclipse (and other Java IDEs), jEdit, Azureus. None of those deployed 
using JNLP.

People don't want Yet Another Package Manager. I want my programs installed 
and kept up-to-date via RPM, APT, Portage, whatever is the standard on the 
system I'm using (unfortunately, a similar system for Windows didn't come to 
mind), not something else I have to keep track of.

If Sun wanted Java apps to be easily deployable, they'd provide a wrapper to 
turn JARs into proper executables with the JDK. JNLP is nonsense. It has 
marginal usefulness in deploying applications internally, but that's easily 
doable with remote administration without anyone clicking on links.

Microsoft aims to Do Stuff with its .NET clone of JNLP, and given their option 
to force anything down the throats of users with a new Windows version which 
Sun didn't have, it might actually end up being used.

</rant>

> This sounds like it could be much better then a database admin website and
> having to download admin web pages and images and css and javascript files
> over and over. 
>

Ever heard of browser caching?

> Does Ruby Web Start exist or is it being developed?
>

I doubt it. We have gems. Set your browser to do a "gem install" when you 
click on a link to a gem file, sounds pretty much the same to me.

> This sounds like the future to me.
>

It sounds like a relic from when Scott McNealy thought people will give up PCs 
and only use thin clients with everything stored server-side to me. Or that 
someone might actually use desktop Java apps - which, ironically, finally 
start to look and feel much less repulsively now (half-hearted yay for native 
controls in Swing 1.6) that no one gives a damn.

David Vallner