Bck2Brwsr

From APIDesign

During my duties at JavaOne2012 my feeling (primed by observing various RSS feeds full of posts about something which ends .js) that Java is no longer as cool as it used to be straightened. It always starts by loosing interest of newcomers, targeting just a piece of the technology segment and soon once Good Technology becomes new COBOL. Can that happen to Java? Just read Is JavaScript the Future of Programming? and (if you like Java), you'll get scared. I decided to do something about that. I'd like to return my favorite programming language Bck2Brwsr.

Goals

Create small Java capable to boot fast and run in 100% of modern browsers including those that have no special support for Java.

Demonstrate that Java has benefits over JavaScript when creating larger HTML5 applications.

Unlike other similar efforts, the goal of this project is not to execute any existing Java library. It is expected that libraries for the new, limited environment need to be specially designed.

Demo

A trivial Calculator demo written in Java running in your browser regardless whather you installed Java plugin or not.

TODO

Although the system is capable to run and execute trivial applications, there remains tons of things to improve and fix. Any help is welcomed. Just let me know if something interests you:

• Throwing and catching exceptions - Tomáš Z. volunteered
• Speed (e.g. rewrite to register based system)
• Support for converting ByteCode in the browser - half baked by me
• More precise number support (int32, int64, float, etc.)
• API for drawing on the canvas
• Convertor from GWT's native code to Bck2Brwsr's @JavaScriptBody
• Method overriding with various modifiers
• Basic reflection support (e.g. Bck2Brwsr throws SecurityException when allowed), but for example Class.newInstance() should work.
• Debugger of Java (and not JavaScript would be good)
• Maven archetype for creating the calculator like demos