At least, that’s my humble opinion. I’ve been using several java based desktop application (Azureus, BlogBridge, Eclipse, DB2 Control Center), and they just don’t do it for me. Okay, Eclipse and Azureus perform UI wise quite well, but Azureus is a memory hog unfortunately (I use uTorrent these days, which is VERY VERY lightweight).

The thing with Java Desktop applications is mainly the lack of UI standards. There are several libraries out there which provide UI widgets, but it’s up to the developer to pick which one to use. Which results in applications that look like Windows applications, but almost always never really behave like one fully.

Take the IBM DB2 Control Center. It’s an application that allows you to administer your DB2 server.

db2controlcenter.gif

It’s slow, does not release connections as it should (edit a few tables in a row and you will get an error that you’ve reached the maximum number of connections), and the UI, ah well… it does have a ‘Windows’ look to it, but it for sure does not behave like one.

For me, Java is a server language. Something that runs nicely on the back-end. For the front end? I’ll go for .NET using the Windows.Forms namespace.

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