Teppefall Labs

People want Visual Basic like point and click functionality that lets noobs create user interfaces in 25 minutes using absolute layout. I can not provide that, since most such software is written by the toolkit manufacturer and not by some random third party company. Sure, such software exists, but they never take over the entire marked and therefore you end up with library fragmentation and religious wars (IDE's etc).

I built Teppefall Layout because I though most Swing layout tools produced horrible layout code. I love the point and click programming, but then you need to change something and the rigidity of the code becomes apparent. You got a big slab of concrete and need to bring in jackhammers to make alterations. And then I am not in my happy place any more. I am not saying that Teppefall Layout is the best layout tool in the world, I am just saying that it works better for me. I have tried Sun, IBM and Borland (now CodeGear) layout tools and hated them all. The locked code area and the fragile connection logic drives me nuts. So I built my own lightweight layout tool as a learning experience. Some of us do that.

The primary reason I feel surrounded by fanboys is that they all have these bizarre football like commentaries about Java based user interfaces. Sort of like “our third division team is going to crush Manchester United while running blindfolded over the pitch”. Variants of this are “Sun is creating something like Adobe Photoshop”, “Desktop Linux will destroy Mac and Windows” and “Java 6 Update N PI*SQRT(L) will let us take on Flash”. Not bloody likely.

There is this gigantic thing called the Adobe Creative Suite software stack that tilts the marked Adobe's way. Sun has to embrace these tools or become utterly irrelevant in the rich Internet application market. Why Sun is banking on JavaFX when everybody else (Mozilla, Microsoft, Adobe, Apple and Opera) is using Javascript, HTML, CSS, DOM, XML and SVG is beyond me. Sun is forced to create all the animation tools, syntax files, format exporters and plugins. They get no freebies by only embracing JavaFX. It is like Sun versus everybody. And everybody got tools and runtimes out now, instead of when Java One 2008 is over. JavaFX is like Objective-C without C, no GNU support and without the Steve Jobs reality distortion field.

And like, no high end audio and video support ? Like, really ? Spill the beans on the API's or stop blabbering about rich Internet applications. The “rich” in RIA means video with overlaying intelligent vector graphics, not vector graphics plus some popups. And btw, I hereby - announce - that I will have sex with the supermodel Adriana Lima. I will film some of it and distribute it exclusively on Sun's new OMS video platform when it matches the features set in Flash and Silverlight. Stay tuned ! The video will be out in 10-15 years tops.

Sun is giving us tricycles and tells us to compete with top-fuel funny cars. Sure it can be done. Hire a suicidal monkey as the driver, bolt on a couple of army surplus rockets and light the fuse. What could possibly go wrong ?

I had to build my own tools to create Swing applications and yet everybody tells me everything is so simple. No, adding crap to a linked list is simple. That is the first lesson in college Java 101. Swing is more than that. And oh my god.. if I see another AllPermission example by Sun I am going to scream like a little girl.

Java on the desktop has five major features. Built in support for multithreading, a true multi platform core, high quality typography, good image support and JOGL + Graphics2D. Eventually people will realize that some tasks need deeper support for parallel programming. All it takes is one Java application that is 2,4,8,16 and 32 times faster than the equivalent AIR application and people might start getting it. Or maybe I am the only one with a Windows Vista system where the CPU reaches 100% when I browse a website with Flash based video advertising ? Adobe AIR is very cool on paper, but my CPU is running very hot.

And finally.. do not trust me. I am sick and tired of all the industry experts pretending to be objective and analytical. There are so many Adobe supporters out there who have financial ties to Adobe that it feels very iffy when they go out and proclaim that “Java is dead on the desktop” and “Flex rules - w00t”. This is not restricted to Adobe though. Several other companies do this. All is fair in love and advertising and all that.

And super-duper finally.. Adobe... I paid $3000 for your software. Can you maybe.. like.. you know.. fix this software activation problem one day (screenshot) ? There is nothing wrong with my installation. It is probably the same problem that is affecting Internet Explorer. I am on a 16Mb DSL connection and IE still tells me I am offline almost every time I use it. Or maybe this is just another Vista security feature, to just disable IE as often as possible.

Sorry if I sound too grumpy. I just turned 30.