Plan B

Show me the media

Despite the rave reviews that JavaFX has received, one can't help fretting over Java's future as a "RIA" platform. Considering Java's 2D/3D graphics capabilities, JavaFX/F3 (with tool support) would no doubt leapfrog Flex/Apollo/Silverllight on that front. But what made flash the delivery platform of choice for a Youtube or a Google Video is not its technical superiority : its the support for basic/standard audio and video formats. And that's where Java (with its near-dead JMF) sorely lacks. While the download size can hurt Java on the desktop, the lack of media support is, imho, the principal crippling factor. Once that is addressed, JavaFX might just need to add constructs to leverage the JRE's media capabilities. But until such a time, there's plenty of catching up to do for Java in the Rich Internet Application space.

Update: I find it rather ironical that today's java.com feature video of JavaOne is delivered through - you guessed it - a flash player.

Posted at 10:06AM May 12, 2007 by Bharath Ravikumar in Java  | 

Fuelling innovation

Google's Marissa Mayer on what keeps Google ticking (and more importantly, attracts talent). Topics covered include 20% time for engineers, challenging engineers to think at the next (intellectual) level to solve interesting problems, how engineers take pride in working with really smart peers, absence of micromanagement, how the company learns from mistakes, assimilates ideas from various quarters etc.  Going through the video, you'll realize that nothing of what she said is Nuclear Physics and is mostly common sense. But truth be told, very few large technology companies foster such an environment or follow such practices to the T. And that explains the growing chasm between Google and the other Engineering companies. As simple as that.

All said and done, worth a watch. (The first 25 minutes are most relevant).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soYKFWqVVzg

Posted at 05:40PM May 05, 2007 by Bharath Ravikumar in General  |