As expected, and in conjunction with the OOP 2008 Conference, Adam Bien has pushed GreenFire forward by releasing code and a presentation. As a reminder, the GreenFire project manages, controls, and reports on Heating Systems. It uses GlassFish, Shoal, and Sun SPOTS. Adam explains that this Java EE 5 application "was developed on JBoss and ported to GlassFish afterwards in few minutes". The Front-end technology can be JavaFX, RSS, or JSF.

This all sounds like a wonderful application to support teaching of Java EE. More details on GreenFire here.

• How-Tos: Clustering, Launchd, Metro & JAXB and GF Profiles • Community - Interviews, RedHat and OpenJDK and Governance Board • Future Releases - IPS in UC2, GFv3 Schedule and Sailfin Tooling • Adoption Indicators - New GeoMap, Nuxeo Core and GF and Geronimo • Web.Next - JavaFX, jMaki Charting, Bayeux/Comet and JAX-RS • Events - IJTC • Try this: GlassFish.ORG

Tim has been exploring how to provide JavaFX Script support in GlassFish App Clients. Much of this can be done on the GFv2 base and we expect to do more in GFv3 - it is listed in the Themes Page. Tim's original post showed A Simple Client; since then he has posted two more entries: how to Use Injected Resources and how to Use Persistence.

JavaFX is beginning to show progress on multiple fronts, including some Adoption Reports, improvements on the JavaFX Script Compiler and its First Book. Also see earlier TA entries.

GlassFish v2 already has Java WebStart support (TA entries) but Tim just added JavaFX Scripting support. This is targeted for GlasFish v2 UR but it will show up in a build near you very soon.

The technology requires Java SE 6 on the client but the client can be delivered via Java WebStart. Check all about it at Tim's writeup, and share with us if you write a cool screencast.

News tip from Arun: jMaki + JavaFX @ The Rich Web Experience 2007

Java FX is making good progress and there is now an Open Source Compiler Project that complements the earlier OpenJFX project. A compiler (into JVM bytecodes) is critical for performance and the project has been mentioned by several people including Josh, Bob, Tom, and Chris. Other recent positive reviews include those by OnJava and Dr. Dobb, and the Reference Manual and the Getting Started documents have also been translated to chinese ([1] and [2]). Perhaps it is time to start considering how GlassFish should support Java FX.

BTW, I thought that the dictum "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission" was a Sun colloquialism, but the Wikipedia attributes it to Grace Hopper.

Having a language run on the JVM using an interpreter is often seen as the first step. This is what both JRuby 1.0 and what JavaFX Script (introduced at JavaOne last May) both do today. Among the leading dynamic and scripting languages, Groovy and JavaScript already have compilers to byte-code. The JRuby team started working on a compiler and so has the JavaFX engineers in close collaboration with the javac experts. Some languages do better than others based on them being dynamic or not (among other things). These first JavaFX Script compiler steps seem very encouraging according to project architect Chris Oliver - "Speed improvement for this particular example is a pretty awesome 54x".

Looking for the relationship with GlassFish? Well you could implement a JavaFX container for GlassFish v3 or use Phobos and the JSR 223 provider for server-side JavaFX!