Back to Netbeans.

Netbeans has been a faithful companion to me on many projects large and small. I’ve tried out Visual Web in the past. It didn’t knock my socks off, but I’m “in a different place” now. I’m letting go of my stubborn attachment to Swing (yeah right) . I can better appreciate this new path. My experience with ADF Faces has convinced me that JSF does not have to be a weak substitute for Swing. I believe that it is, in fact, surpassing Swing in effectiveness for building compelling and useful applications. The growing synergy around JSF is taking Java web application development to a whole new level. Swing cannot compete with the growing libraries, frameworks, and tool sets springing up around Web 2.0 paradigm. Do I still like and use Swing? Yes. I’m comfortable with it. I get the job done with it. It even looks good. My users are generally happy with it. But I can’t control what the rest of the world is doing. Folks like web 2.0. Energy is surging in this area and that’s a wave I can’t afford not to ride!

But I digress! I’m hopeful that I’ll have a much more positive and constructive experience with Visual Web JSF. I’ll share my experience here.