Beginning JavaFX(TM) 2 Platform Review

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Beginning JavaFX(TM) 2 Platform ReviewLet's clear up something right from the start. The publishing blurb for this book states that "this book is one of the first on the new JavaFX 2.x platform". This is false. The book is written for JavaFX 1.2.1 (and 1.3) not JavaFX 2.x. The JavaFX 2.0 roadmap was recently announced by Oracle and they have stated that the JavaFX script APIs will be ported to Java and the script language will be know longer supported. So all those "Flash, Silverlight, and other RIA developers looking to use and integrate JavaFX in their Java RIA applications" will have to learn Java or else use the open-source version of JavaFX (Visage) instead.
With that relevant topic out of the way, I will now discuss how well the book teaches "Beginning" JavaFX. In general, I think it does this fairly well, if you are someone who wants to learn the basics of the JavaFX approach to RIAs. I doubt whether those "Flash, Silverlight and other RIA developers looking to use and integrate JavaFX in their RIA" will wade through 200 pages of language syntax before getting to the JavaFX UI section in Chapter 12. They might if they are unhappy with their current RIA solutions. JavaFX does offer some unique multiplatform advantages even if it is limited on the development environment side.
The first 2 chapters discuss how to get started with JavaFX and RIAs with a reasonable discussion of how to use the Netbeans IDE (6.7.1) to create JavaFX applications for three different environments - desktop, browser/web start and mobile (with minimal mention of TV apps). It also gives useful details of how to use the command-line to compile and package the application for the different environments. No mention is made of the JavaFX API Javadoc listings for the language or how to access these in the SDK or from Netbeans.
Also for all those RIA developers used to RAD IDEs, no mention is made of how to use the JavaFX Composer Netbeans plugin or even the Palette which appears in Figure 2.6. For all those Eclipse-based Java developers, a minimal mention is made of Sun's JavaFX plugin for Eclipse (but not the excellent Exadel plugin).
For chapters 3 to 11, the book dives into the details of the language syntax. I think the authors do a good job of addressing this rather dry topic with plenty of examples and sufficient detail to be useful without overwhelming the beginner. Unfortunately, I did find many small and unnecessary errors in the example listings which could confuse a beginner trying to follow along with the coded examples. (I have submitted all errors to the Apress web site, but I don't see any of them listed there yet.)
Also despite the println() function being used extensively throughout the example listings, very little mention is made of it being a builtin function, and how it uses an object's toString() function to generate a string representation of an object, or how you might change formatting of numbers to a preferred precision, or even where to find it in the JavaFX API javadoc (although the javadoc is not very helpful for this function anyway).
Having waded through all the JavaFX syntax, the reader will finally get to the last third of the book where one would expect to find details on what the JavaFX APIs provide for the would-be RIA developer. What we get in the last 2 chapters of the book are introductions to UI Elements and animation. That's it. No mention of working with the audio and video media classes of JavaFX. No discussion of how to use the Web Service classes either. Surely these two areas would have been particularly relevant for RIA developers.
This is a disappointment, because I did like the discussions and explanations used in those last chapters. But it just seemed as if the authors had run out of time and had just left the book unfinished. At the end, there is no overview of all those nice JavaFX language features such as binding, triggers, timelines etc and why they are useful for RIA developers. In other books, this would usually be done by developing a good example application to tie all the API and language features together and consolidate them in the reader's mind. This is a pity, as I think the authors did a good job of preparing the foundations. But at the end of the day, there was a loss of direction and a feeling that things were left incomplete without any guidelines as to where a beginner should go next.
Overall, I think I would recommend this book because of the good, clear explanations and examples, but I feel that it needs to be complemented with other books for the more advanced reader/developer.Beginning JavaFX(TM) 2 Platform OverviewThe open source JavaFX platform is essentially a Java technology approach to doing Rich Internet Application (RIA) development, an alternative to Adobe Flash/Flex and Microsoft's Silverlight. At over 100 million downloads, the new JavaFX 2.x is poised to be a significant player now.Written by a JavaFX engineer and developer, Beginning Java FX' 2 Platform is one of the first tutorials and books on the new Java FX 2.x platform to give you the following:Fundamentals of JavaFX scripting, desktop and mobile platforms;Rich Internet Application examples using JavaFX Graphics;Media and Animation using JavaFX;See how JavaFX gives you dynamic Java effects in your RIA application development.

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