Is it true that java is an absolute failure in desktop apps?

Question

Hi Everyone.
I'm a new java disciple.
However I have a question about java and desktop applications.
is it true that java is an absolute failure in desktop apps?
I read on this article on salon. Here are the key points in regards to efforts at building netscape, corel and office version of java.
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/garf/2001/01/08/bad_java/index.html
Remember back in October 1996 when Corel announced that it was creating Corel Office for Java? Corel promised us a complete rewrite of WordPerfect and other office applications, which would have supposedly allowed these new Java-based applications to run on any Java-compliant machine.
Office for Java was a failure. While the product is still in the Sun Java Solutions catalog and you can download the beta from a few archive sites on the Internet, the project was abandoned in August 1997. Download it for yourself and you'll find out why: It's buggy and sluggish. On my 700 MHz Pentium III, Office for Java brought memories of my old Macintosh Duo's ill-fated attempts to run the heavily bloated Microsoft Word 6. The program's speed, alas, was dreadful.
Netscape had similar problems when it attempted to rewrite large parts of Netscape Navigator into Java. Indeed, the damning article What Netscape Learned from Cross-Platform Software Development," explains how Netscape's engineers were sold on the language and started writing large chunks of Navigator into Java. Netscape was committed to delivering Navigator on nearly a dozen different platforms, so Java seemed like the perfect solution. But Netscape's engineers couldn't make the language perform as Sun had advertised: Java was simply too slow. Netscape's engineers tried writing their own Java implementation, thinking that they could build a version that was faster than Sun's, but even that didn't work. "By mid-1998, Netscape was not only deemphasizing Java, it was even planning to replace existing implementations with C and C++." In other words, Netscape was taking the new code that had been written in Java and was rewriting it in C and C++.
What may i ask do you java gurus have to say about to this to a new java disciple
Stephen

Answer 1

First & foremost, consider the source here. Anything the comes from salon.com gets red-flagged in my opinion.
I would disagree that Java is an "absolute failure" in the desktop app market. What you have to understand is that Java is just a tool, and just like anything else, you have to use the right tool for the job. What are you interesting in using it for? What, specifically do you mean by desktop apps?
Garfunkel's Corel Office example is somewhat flawed. (1) In 1997 Java as at version 1.0; Java has come a long way since then. (2) Do you think that any office suite has a realistic chance of being competative against MS Office? I don't, and I think that says more about the failure of Corel Office than the fact that is was implemented in Java.
IMHO, Java is a great tool for developing cross-platform applications with a GUI. Swing is pretty robust, easily extended and has a pretty extensive widget set. It is a little bloated, but that is the price to pay for it's other (good) qualities.
As far as performance goes, remember that a GUI need only seem fast. If you can kick off a long-running task in another thread and then immediately return control of the GUI to the user, your program will be more responsive and seem to perform faster.
My advice to you is to really evaluate why you're thinking about using Java. Java is a great tool, but it might not be the best tool for the task you have in mind.