I would like to start my blog with a series of posts about JavaOne 2007 conference in San Francisco. This is my seventh JavaOne, but the conference never starts to disappoint. As usual, this is a great opportunity to meet people from all over the world and learn about new things.

So what is new for 2007?

Java FX is what all the noise is about this year.
There was a lot of confusion about Java FX, Java FX script and Java FX mobile. What is the relationship between the three?

Java FX is the family of products which will eventually span desktop, TV and mobile devices. It promises to ensure great interactive content, ease of portability and development tools support. Initially, Java FX includes two products: Java FX Script and Java FX Mobile.

Java FX Mobile is based on the mobile phone stack from SavaJe. Those who attended JavaOne 2006 should remember their orange-colored handset with AGUI (JSR 209) support.

Java FX Script is the new name of the F3 scripting language by Chris Oliver. The language combines declarative SVG-style interface descriptions with java-like scripting code. With proper tools support it should empower web designer's creativity.

Chris Oliver repeated his Java FX script session (TS-3420) three times, each time it was full. Needless to say, I couldn't get in and missed the demos. Chris has a few demos posted in his blog and they look cool! It took me five attempts to shoot all space invaders .

One complaint: the new JavaOne schedule builder feature wasn't helpful. The overflow rooms last year at least ensured that everyone gets to hear the talk which is full. This year you simply had to be either quick or lucky to get into a popular session. The new Schedule Builder feature did not work as advertised. The card reader at the session door was not synchronized with the database and quite a few folks (including me) could not get in despite going through the pre-registration hassle.

It will be interesting to see how Java FX will transform Java conformance testing. One of the promises of the Java FX technologies is better compatibility and little or no fragmentation. Since there is no way a single binary (or even a binary built from the single source) can run on all devices unmodified, there is a clear need to have a new conformance or compatibility testing program.

Another big announcement is Open JDK. JDK is catching up with Java ME with a widely expected announcement of open source JDK. Mark Reinhold presented the details in his project report (TS-2800). Opening up the JDK source is expected to change the way Java conformance testing is conducted. Patrick Curran writes about this in his blog.