Crisis Averted!

In case you haven't seen it yet, the Swing and Java2D teams presented at this year's JavaOne conference an incredible Java desktop application demo. It's called Aerith, it's a road trip slideshow editor done mashup style (Google Maps + Flickr + Yahoo's geocoding webservice) and based on the screenshots it looks amazing. I haven't seen it in action yet, but apparently it has some clean UI transitions (think OS X) and other 3D effects. This is by far the shiniest, slickest, best looking Swing app I've seen.

Romain Guy has posted a Aerith FAQ, and the Aerith team recently released the source code as well.

Six months ago, I would have barely batted an eye at this. Java is eating my life!

A few months back I started a new job. A large part of this new job entails building and maintaining Java desktop applications. A large part of my life has recently been eaten away by terse API docs, vague explanations of core and advanced features, and minimalist and nearly useless code examples of said features.

Though it's a great change of pace from years of working mainly in PHP, it means I don't have much free time to work on things I like. Like Lace. At least for a little while.

I'm hoping that getting back into Java after a 5 year hiatus will be good for me. The Java landscape is difficult for me to accurately gauge, but it seems as though Java on the desktop is trending back into fashion.

Once I settle in to Java and my new role, I hope to be able to pick up my side projects again. It's unfortunate, but Lace and other projects don't pay the bills.