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Show HN: 300k lines of Java UI code running as JavaScript in browser

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Re: Show HN: 300k lines of Java UI code running as JavaScript in browser

#51

Post by dragonwriter »

solomatov wrote: post #49
le-mark wrote: post #8

Appears the tech behind this "cheerpj" a java transpiled to javascript[1] system that appears to contain all of openjdk including swing(!?!). That's kind of cool actually. But creating applications with such a system seems highly problematic. See for example GWT (google web toolkit)[2] which also transpiled java to javascript. I only see legacy GWT apps around nowadays, the world moved on. So I really don't see the a…

> Appears the tech behind this "cheerpj" a java transpiled to javascript[1] system that appears to contain all of openjdk including swing(!?!). IANAL, but what about copyright here? AFAIU, you create a derivative work of JDK.

There is a reason for the “Open” in the name of “OpenJDK”.

Re: Show HN: 300k lines of Java UI code running as JavaScript in browser

#52

Post by hxtk »

kelvin0 wrote: post #46

"We test extensively on the latest versions of Chrome and Safari. For the best experience, we recommend Chrome." Why no FF? What could possibly cause them not to support it? Any specialists out there?

I'd imagine it's a large codebase and they're trying to maximize the number of people that can access it while minimizing the number of supported browsers. There are very few platforms where firefox is available and Chrom(e|ium) is not.

FWIW, it actually does work on Firefox Quantum; it's just not guaranteed to work.

Re: Show HN: 300k lines of Java UI code running as JavaScript in browser

#53

Post by [deleted] »

cromwellian wrote: post #34
le-mark wrote: post #8

Appears the tech behind this "cheerpj" a java transpiled to javascript[1] system that appears to contain all of openjdk including swing(!?!). That's kind of cool actually. But creating applications with such a system seems highly problematic. See for example GWT (google web toolkit)[2] which also transpiled java to javascript. I only see legacy GWT apps around nowadays, the world moved on. So I really don't see the a…

Actually new Google applications being shipped, like Docs and Inbox are using GWT, and its successor, J2CL. J2CL (Java 2 Closure) and J2ObjC together permit cross platform application development to run shared code in the server, Web, Android, and iOS. This is not "write once, run anywhere" UI development, the UI layer is still native JS, (Java for Android), and hand-written Objective-C (iOS), but about 70% of the co…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: 300k lines of Java UI code running as JavaScript in browser

#54

Post by beachy »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #44
ramses0 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think bigger. Start a consulting company that just runs around and recompiles all people's old Java Swing crap into "web apps" like this one. Charge $10-50k / pop. Get on the consulting gravy train by somehow allowing piecemeal callouts to "real dom" (kindof like an IFRAME from within JAVA) which lets you start rewriting bits and pieces into some angular.next framework. By the time you finish converting the majority…

Sounds like a great instance of the old adage "Consulting: If you can't be part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem."

Consultants: people who borrow your watch to tell you the time.

Re: Show HN: 300k lines of Java UI code running as JavaScript in browser

#55

Post by merb »

le-mark wrote: post #8

Appears the tech behind this "cheerpj" a java transpiled to javascript[1] system that appears to contain all of openjdk including swing(!?!). That's kind of cool actually. But creating applications with such a system seems highly problematic. See for example GWT (google web toolkit)[2] which also transpiled java to javascript. I only see legacy GWT apps around nowadays, the world moved on. So I really don't see the a…

> the world moved on.

I also tought that, long before Google shipped some new GWT applications in 2017. I think that GWT is still in big use, but it's probably not trendy, that's why you probably won't see much talk about it.

I think that transpired ANY Language is actually the future of most web applications. yes there will still be a lot of javascript users, but I guess other languages will soon have ways to build web application with a shared code base. And actually I think there is a benefit in doing so, well sharing everything is maybe not the best idea, even GWT made integration with JavaScript stuff better in the last releases. But Models and Utilities are a big win if they can be shared.

Actually in my company we use a lot of Scala, and it would be really cool to share the models, but sadly it's really hard to get a good toolchain (ScalaJS works, but integration in our "legacy" tooling sucks). that's why we still duplicate a lot of code in typescript, besides the fact that most models are just 1:1.

Re: Show HN: 300k lines of Java UI code running as JavaScript in browser

#56

Post by jeffreportmill1 »

nneonneo wrote: post #48

I’m on a 2G mobile connection right now, and that site refuses to load. I’m going to guess this has something to do with bundling all of Java, but surely there must be a better way to write UIs that doesn’t involve downloading the whole JDK to my browser cache. This is not a joke - webpage size is a real issue. Even on this connection I can browse a lot of pages normally, but something like this Java UI toolkit just…

I don't disagree it's not for general web pages, but it's more than fine for any non-trivial app. Downloads less data than 60 seconds of YouTube. The runtime is CDN shared, so the more apps that use it, the less it will matter.

Re: Show HN: 300k lines of Java UI code running as JavaScript in browser

#57

Post by mattnewton »

switchbak wrote: post #35
malkia wrote: post #28

I won't mind IntelliJ on the web - even if it takes some time to load, or CLion - which targets emscripten/webasm/something Imagine a bit more powerful Chromebook with that..., but then where the files, projects, etc. would get stored?

I've wanted this for a while - have my ThreadRipper box at home, and use a remote IntelliJ on a wimpy laptop that just runs a light UI through the browser. Real latency benefits vs running remotely, especially on a typical coffee shop wifi. Ahh, but I don't see that happening any time soon. Edit: or spark up a really powerful instance on something like Hyper.sh when you need it, close it down when you're done. Pay mo…

For the second point, I've had a lot of success doing this with a Jupiter notebook. It's not an IDE by any means but it's very productive for exploratory work, and when you need horsepower you just spin up the kernel on a beefier cloud machine.

Re: Show HN: 300k lines of Java UI code running as JavaScript in browser

#58

Post by wolco »

beachy wrote: post #54
CamperBob2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a great instance of the old adage "Consulting: If you can't be part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem."

Consultants: people who borrow your watch to tell you the time.

and charge you for it

Re: Show HN: 300k lines of Java UI code running as JavaScript in browser

#60

Post by SunboX »

malkia wrote: post #28

I won't mind IntelliJ on the web - even if it takes some time to load, or CLion - which targets emscripten/webasm/something Imagine a bit more powerful Chromebook with that..., but then where the files, projects, etc. would get stored?

Try https://c9.io/ or https://shiftedit.net/
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