# Ruby Web Start? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [February 18, 2006, 4:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-web-start/70001 "2006-02-18T04:39:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 4:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-web-start/70001/1 "2006-02-18T04:39:13Z")
Hi, I’ve been poking my nose into some Java books over the last week. Java Web Start applications seem like the coolest thing. From what I understand when you click an app link on a web page you automatically download not just the java app but also java if you don’t have the correct version installed. Then the application runs locally on your computer. This sounds like it could be much better then a database admin website and having to download admin web pages and images and css and javascript files over and over. Even compared to AJAX, a dedicated desktop app that can talk to the remote database would be faster. And with Java Web Start when the java app is updated on the original website, the next time you run the app it is automatically updated. Does Ruby Web Start exist or is it being developed? This sounds like the future to me. Peter ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 3:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-web-start/70001/2 "2006-02-18T15:33:48Z")
DÅ?a Sobota 18 Február 2006 04:38 removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid napísal: > I’ve been poking my nose into some Java books over the last week. Java > Web Start applications seem like the coolest thing. I don’t recall seeing a single Java Web Start application that’s not a demo in the wild. I’ll admit, I didn’t really look, or really care. The desktop Java market is miniscule, the only apps I can recall of having a major following are Eclipse (and other Java IDEs), jEdit, Azureus. None of those deployed using JNLP. People don’t want Yet Another Package Manager. I want my programs installed and kept up-to-date via RPM, APT, Portage, whatever is the standard on the system I’m using (unfortunately, a similar system for Windows didn’t come to mind), not something else I have to keep track of. If Sun wanted Java apps to be easily deployable, they’d provide a wrapper to turn JARs into proper executables with the JDK. JNLP is nonsense. It has marginal usefulness in deploying applications internally, but that’s easily doable with remote administration without anyone clicking on links. Microsoft aims to Do Stuff with its .NET clone of JNLP, and given their option to force anything down the throats of users with a new Windows version which Sun didn’t have, it might actually end up being used. > This sounds like it could be much better then a database admin website and > having to download admin web pages and images and css and javascript files > over and over. Ever heard of browser caching? > Does Ruby Web Start exist or is it being developed? I doubt it. We have gems. Set your browser to do a “gem install” when you click on a link to a gem file, sounds pretty much the same to me. > This sounds like the future to me. It sounds like a relic from when Scott McNealy thought people will give up PCs and only use thin clients with everything stored server-side to me. Or that someone might actually use desktop Java apps - which, ironically, finally start to look and feel much less repulsively now (half-hearted yay for native controls in Swing 1.6) that no one gives a damn. David V. ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 7:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-web-start/70001/3 "2006-02-18T19:17:58Z")
On 2/18/06, David V. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > the wild. I’ll admit, I didn’t really look, or really care. The desktop > to > option > > > over and over. > > This sounds like the future to me. > > David V. I have actually noticed a Renaissance in Java desktop apps. For the longest time, I didn’t expect Java on the desktop to be much of a force, but I have to tell you, things are starting to change. I don’t think you gave proper perspective to the apps you mentioned: Eclipse is used to hundreds of thousands of developers, so that isn’t a minuscule application. Azeurus had a million downloads in a single day when the latest version was released… another massively popular application. I have also started using RSSOwl which is just a really nice RSS feedreader. An application that I use that is deployed via Java Web Start is called ArgoUML which is a UML modelling program. Every time I start it, I have the latest release. The .Net equivalent is called ClickOnce. We’ll see how it turns out. I have no doubt that people will use it, not because they’re forced, but because Microsoft does have a way of making development of stuff like that pretty easy. I have a server diagnostic tool that I wrote for ClickOnce and whenever I add a new diagnostic to it, I can be sure that the next time I run it on one of my (geographically distributed) servers, it’ll have all of the latest tests. Rob