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Java Swing Usage

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  Java Swing Usage "mitra" <mitra@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this> - 2011-04-27 15:28 +0000
    Re: Java Swing Usage "ram" <ram@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this> - 2011-04-27 15:28 +0000
    Re: Java Swing Usage "Chris" <chris@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this> - 2011-04-27 15:28 +0000
    Re: Java Swing Usage "Knute Johnson" <knute.johnson@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this> - 2011-04-27 15:28 +0000
      Re: Java Swing Usage "Andrew Thompson" <andrew.thompson@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this> - 2011-04-27 15:28 +0000
        Re: Java Swing Usage "Andrew Thompson" <andrew.thompson@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this> - 2011-04-27 15:28 +0000
          Re: Java Swing Usage "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this> - 2011-04-27 15:28 +0000
            Re: Java Swing Usage "Andrew Thompson" <andrew.thompson@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this> - 2011-04-27 15:28 +0000
              Re: Java Swing Usage "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this> - 2011-04-27 15:28 +0000
      Re: Java Swing Usage "bcd" <bcd@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this> - 2011-04-27 15:28 +0000
    Re: Java Swing Usage "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=" <=?iso-8859-1?q?arne_vajh=@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this> - 2011-04-27 15:28 +0000
    Re: Java Swing Usage "dagon" <dagon@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this> - 2011-04-27 15:28 +0000

#640 — Java Swing Usage

  To: comp.lang.java.gui,comp.l

I teach a course on Java would like to get a feel for how many 
"real world" GUIs are developed using Java Swing.  

How many of you actually use Swing on a regular basis for developing 
GUIs for your company either for internal or external use?

Is it worthwhile for a student to invest the time in learning Swing
when they could be using some other package?

Thanks for your thoughts and feedback.

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#642

  To: comp.lang.java.gui
mitra@cs.utexas.edu (Shyamal Mitra) writes:
>I teach a course on Java would like to get a feel for how many 
>"real world" GUIs are developed using Java Swing.  

      +Java Swing with 47% use, has surpassed WinForms as the
      dominant GUI development toolkit, an increase of 27% since
      fall 2004.2

http://weblogs.java.net/blog/hansmuller/archive/2005/10/official_swing.html

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#644

  To: comp.lang.java.gui,comp.l
Shyamal Mitra wrote:
> I teach a course on Java would like to get a feel for how many 
> "real world" GUIs are developed using Java Swing.  
> 
> How many of you actually use Swing on a regular basis for developing 
> GUIs for your company either for internal or external use?
> 
> Is it worthwhile for a student to invest the time in learning Swing
> when they could be using some other package?
> 
> Thanks for your thoughts and feedback.
> 

I think it really depends on who your students are. Is this a vocational 
course where they need to learn the minimum necessary to get a job? Or 
are they better off learning general UI design? If the latter, just pick 
the system that most clearly illustrates the general principles you'd 
like them to learn. Because no matter what you choose, five years from 
now the system they need to know will be completely different from what 
is available today.

If you want to find the most popular UI environment today, I would check 
the newsgroups and forums to see which ones have the most activity. You 
might also see if activity is increasing or decreasing in each forum.

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#645

  To: comp.lang.java.gui,comp.l
Shyamal Mitra wrote:
> I teach a course on Java would like to get a feel for how many 
> "real world" GUIs are developed using Java Swing.  
> 
> How many of you actually use Swing on a regular basis for developing 
> GUIs for your company either for internal or external use?
> 
> Is it worthwhile for a student to invest the time in learning Swing
> when they could be using some other package?
> 
> Thanks for your thoughts and feedback.
> 

I do rather specialized Java software for Las Vegas casinos.  Most of it 
requires some sort of a GUI.  I do the GUIs almost exclusively with 
Swing components.  They look better and are more flexible than the AWT 
components.  I'm really not sure why anybody makes such a big deal about 
AWT versus Swing these days.  Five years ago when it was new maybe but 
today there is no reason not to use Swing components.  By the same token 
there is no reason not to use AWT.  If you are going to write Java 
programs today, you need to know the complete API not just Swing or AWT.

-- 

Knute Johnson
email s/nospam/knute/

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#646

  To: comp.lang.java.gui,comp.l
Knute Johnson wrote:
> Shyamal Mitra wrote:
> > I teach a course on Java would like to get a feel for how many
> > "real world" GUIs are developed using Java Swing.
...
> ...I'm really not sure why anybody makes such a big deal about
> AWT versus Swing these days.  ...

Nobody has (in this thread, at least).

OTOH, it occured to me when the OP first asked
the question, that if this is a choice of Java based
'GUI toolkits' then perhaps it should be a decision
between Swing and ..HTML.

After all, more than 19 out of 20 'GUI' based Java
jobs are calling for experience with JSP, AJAX,
JSF, servlets..

But to come back to something mentioned by
others..  Does it really matter?  It is better to
treat it as a learning experience and stress to
the students that this is one GUI toolkit available
in one language (and they will need to learn
more languages, and a slew of GUI toolkits,
throughout their career..)

BTW - actually working with Swing?  For money?!?
You seem like a rarity, these days..

Andrew T.

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#662

  To: comp.lang.java.gui,comp.l
Andrew Thompson wrote:
....
> After all, more than 19 out of 20 'GUI' based Java
> jobs are calling for experience with JSP, AJAX,
> JSF, servlets..

Current (lies, damn lies &) statistics

Search of dice.com, 2007/1/13
java+swing    688
java+swt       77
java+awt       52
java+jsp    *3243*

Notes:

1) I arbitrarily chose 'JSP' to give some
idea of Java usage for generating HTML.
This might also be involved in jobs that
mention (for example) J2EE or servlet, but
neither of those areas is specific enough,
as the developer might not be doing much at
the 'front end' (or a desktop application using
Swing/SWT/AWT could be doing server access).
JSP, OTOH, has no uses other than generating
web-pages.  There might be other jobs mentioning
JSF, AJAX  or other J2EE related tech. that
are very GUI oriented, but I did not want to
confuse the results with jobs that potentially
overlapped (e.g. use both JSP and AJAX).

2) While a job advertiser would probably have
the sense to mention SWT (or AWT) specifically,
Swing based GUI programming might simply be
referred to as 'Java GUI development' - with the
employer expecting you to guess it is Swing.
For that reason, I believe the Swing numbers
to be higher still, than SWT/AWT.

My analysis is that

1) opportunities for client-side GUI *work* were
few and far between.
2) both SWT and AWT usage were minor,
compared with Swing.

And I canot understand why *anybody* is
advocating teaching SWT to students, given
its niche market/large download size(/non x-plat?)
nature.

Andrew T.

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#667

  To: comp.lang.java.gui,comp.l
Andrew Thompson wrote:

> And I canot understand why *anybody* is
> advocating teaching SWT to students, given
> its niche market/large download size(/non x-plat?)
> nature.

Perhaps if the course leads into projects which use Eclipse as a platform.

That would require that the course designers took the (perfectly defensible)
position that it didn't matter what specific library/technology the students
learned, since the underlying principles are all the same.  Difficult to
reconcile such a position with teaching Java at all, though.

    -- chris

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#668

  To: comp.lang.java.gui,comp.l

Chris Uppal wrote:
> Andrew Thompson wrote:
>
> > And I canot understand why *anybody* is
> > advocating teaching SWT to students, given
> > its niche market/large download size(/non x-plat?)
> > nature.
>
> Perhaps if the course leads into projects which use Eclipse as a platform.

A 'Java' ..course geared to a ..source editor (OK - IDE)?!

I find that concept to be very bizarre!

(I am not challenging that such courses might exist, especially
if the educational institution is directing their students towards
a common employer that uses SWT - but as a 'teach these
students a GUI toolkit' type concept, I cannot underastand why
it would be the 'first'* choice.

* nobody has yet implied that SWT should be the top choice
of teaching students a GUI toolkit, but I am working on the
assumption that the 'real question' specifies 1 single GUI
toolkit**, and SWT would sure not be my first choice.

** A quite arbitrary disticntion, purely to support my immediate
point, and quite in contrast to things I might have stated, or
implied, in previous posts***.

*** Am I drunk yet?  (checks) well.. with finishing the last third
of he 750 ml Jim Beam, and sinking most of a new bottle -
probably ( maniacal laugh.. ;)

A.

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#676

  To: comp.lang.java.gui,comp.l
Andrew Thompson wrote:

> > > And I canot understand why *anybody* is
> > > advocating teaching SWT to students, given
> > > its niche market/large download size(/non x-plat?)
> > > nature.
> >
> > Perhaps if the course leads into projects which use Eclipse as a
> > platform.
>
> A 'Java' ..course geared to a ..source editor (OK - IDE)?!

I meant Eclipse the platform for creating more or less arbitrary
applications[*], not Eclipse the Java IDE.  I can think of several reasons why
it might be a good idea to expect/recommend students to use such a platform for
advanced programming projects.

    -- chris

[*] provided you don't mind them looking and working like a badly-designed Java
IDE...

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#648

  To: comp.lang.java.gui,comp.l
In article <lZPph.100227$Pv5.77501@newsfe17.lga>,
Knute Johnson  <nospam@rabbitbrush.frazmtn.com> wrote:
>
>  I'm really not sure why anybody makes such a big deal about 
>AWT versus Swing these days.

The competition tends to be between SWT and Swing.

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

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#654

  To: comp.lang.java.gui,comp.l
Shyamal Mitra wrote:
> I teach a course on Java would like to get a feel for how many 
> "real world" GUIs are developed using Java Swing.  
> 
> How many of you actually use Swing on a regular basis for developing 
> GUIs for your company either for internal or external use?
> 
> Is it worthwhile for a student to invest the time in learning Swing
> when they could be using some other package?

There are not so many fat client GUI's being developed
in Java. In the Java world the web GUI dominate.
But some Swing GUI's are developed.

And I consider a little Swing knowledge a mandatory
requirement for a Java programmer - it is simply part
of the common basis.

Arne

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#655

  To: comp.lang.java.gui,comp.l
Shyamal Mitra <mitra@cs.utexas.edu> wrote:
>I teach a course on Java would like to get a feel for how many 
>"real world" GUIs are developed using Java Swing.  

What is the description of the course?  There's a LOT of real-world code, so
even if a small percentage is built on any one framework, there's still a ton
of use.

Swing is probably the most popular desktop UI for Java.  SWT and Swing-less
AWT are probably next, followed by dozens of others.  None of them hold a
candle in terms of popularity to HTML, but Swing and SWT are probably used as
much or more than any given HTML UI framework.  

>Is it worthwhile for a student to invest the time in learning Swing
>when they could be using some other package?

It depends on what they want to learn, and what other package they'd be
learning.  What's the course about, and what level of sophistication do the
students have?

For a beginning Java course, don't mention UI at all.  Write console apps, and
maybe some very plain servlet/jsp code. 

For a "Java UI overview" course, teach a bit of Swing, a bit of "plain HTML"
servlet/jsp, a bit of SWT, a bit of JSF, a bit of Spring webflows, and a
hint at maybe the Google AJAX framework.

For a "GUI Programming in Java" course, I'd concentrate on Swing, with a bit
at the end talking about SWT and Ajax.
--
Mark Rafn    dagon@dagon.net    <http://www.dagon.net/>

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