Yesterday I attended Oracle’s JavaOne keynote, presented by Thomas Kurian. The keynote focused on how has Java evolved and where it is right now. Millions of users use Java every day and the JVM is everywhere, form desktop computers to embedded devices. But we all knew that.

As for the future of Java, Thomas mentioned the new features that will be released in Java 7 and Java 8, scheduled for release mid 2011 and late 2012, respectively. I’ve already covered those, so I won’t go into detail. They are also trying to promote Netbeans as the standard IDE for Java developers.

Then the presentation turned to JavaFX. It seems that JavaFX the scripting language is going away, but the technology is staying. JavaFX 2.0 plans are to move the script APIs to Java, so that developers won’t have to learn a new language. They also plan several enhancements like binding APIs, Hardware Accelerated Graphics, HD Media support, etc. They showcased a demo where several video sources were being displayed simultaneously, with 3D effects like breaking a single video into hundreds of simulated cubes that would still play parts of the video. The plans are to release this sometime next year.

Overall, I don’t think the presentation had much impact. It seems to me that, intentionally or not, the keynote was just a message from Oracle that is business as usual, and that they plan on keeping Java around for a while.