Book reviews: JavaFX 1.2 Application Development Cookbook
JavaFX 1.2 Application Development Cookbook is a really nice book; The cookbook title is a little bit misleading as the book is a quick progression over the features of the language and how it can be used to write applications, all done in a very professional y concise manner.
Then why it is difficult to wrote about this book? Well, the first issue is than the latest API (with significant changes) for JavaFX is 1.3 while the book is written for 1.2; There are several performance and stability improvements, new graphic controls so this was definitely an mandatory upgrade for anyone thinking seriously into using the language. But the real deal breaker here is than JavaFX script is being discontinued and instead is being made a proper Java API that can be used by your regular Java developers.
All this will happen on the ‘JavaFX 2.0′ version of the language, sometime next year. Also JavaFX script is not really dead … is reincarnated as an open source platform called Visage.
So if I were you I would wait to see how JavaFX 2.0 looks like instead, no investment in books or coding for the time being. As for Visage, I would rather go for a head to head comparison with other tools like Apache Pivot which is more mature at this point.
The good: The book is a good one, easy to read and with good concrete examples. The price tag is also good.
The bad: Not a problem with the book itself, but the technology is changing to fast and too much, so it doesn’t make sense to invest on this book. Wait until Oracle delivers JavaFX 2.0.
The ugly: Oracle should have pull the plug sooner. JavaFX has lost a lot of momentum and makes you wonder if now it’s real purpose will be to replace an aging Swing on the desktop.
There are great things scheduled for JavaFX, but we will have to wait some more to see them. Perhaps a new version of this book will be more than welcome once the new version is out.
–Jose
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