Announcing the JavaFXpert RIA Exemplar Challenge

Note: the deadline for the JavaFXpert RIA Exemplar Challenge has been extended to April 10, 2010. Please see this post for the rationale.

I posed the question "Should There be Enterprise RIA Style Guidelines?" in late 2008, and received some valuable feedback/discussion.  Based upon that feedback, I'm replacing my question with the following challenge:

"Create an application in JavaFX that exemplifies the appearance and behavior of a next-generation enterprise RIA (rich internet application)".

Here are the rules to this JavaFXpert RIA Exemplar Challenge:

1) Each application must be created in JavaFX.

2) The code must be offered as open source, in the form of the updated Berkeley Software Distribution License.  The code for the winning entry will be added to the open source JFXtras project samples library.

3) The entries must be submitted in the form of a NetBeans or an Eclipse project by 00:00 GMT on 10 April 2010 to ria-exemplar-challenge@javafxpert.com.  The entries will be judged by two JavaFX developers (Jim Weaver and Stephen Chin), and two graphics designers (Jasper Potts and Romain Guy).  The criteria for judging will be how well we feel that the entry "exemplifies the appearance and behavior of a next-generation enterprise RIA".

4) The winning entry will be announced on 20 April 2010 on this JavaFXpert.com blog.

5) The prize is a cash award of USD 2000, and will be awarded after the winner is announced.

6) This contest uses the same age and country of residence criteria that Sun did in their JavaFX Coding Challenge. See this excerpt from the following web page http://javafx.com/challenge/faq.jsp

"All Entrants must be of majority legal age in their country and a legal resident of one of the following countries; Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, a European Union member state, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Malaysia, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Thailand, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, and Venezuela."

If you have any questions about this contest, please leave a comment on this blog post.

Thanks, and have fun with the contest!

Jim Weaver
JavaFXpert.com

Comments

[Jim Weaver]

"Does this not limit the entry base as I am quite sure there are some graphic designers who are capable programmers and vice versa?"

David,

I've lifted the "team of two" restriction. An individual developer can enter the contest, and win the 2000 USD. Also, the deadline has been extended to April 10, 2010. Please see the following post for details:
http://learnjavafx.typepad.com/weblog/2009/12/speedreaderfx-13d-proto-ria-exemplar-challenge-extension.html

Thanks for your input on this,
Jim Weaver

[Imran]

Hello Jim,

How can students from other countries not listed in the JavaFX Coding Challenge FAQ, participate?

Thanks,

Imran

[uday]

Hi Jim,

I am new to JavaFX. is it possible to pass a HashMap/ArrayList to JavaFX from Javascript???

Thanks in advance

[Tomas Studva]

Hi Jim,
my fault, I've overlooked that European Union member state is on the list. Than is no problem, Slovakia is in EU. Thank you for the challenge.

Tomas

[Tomas Studva]

Hi Jim,
is this challenge only for Students or also for employees interested in JavaFx? I am employee, have just started to lean JavaFx in my spare time and want to take part. My second drawback is, I am from Slovakia. Can you please add Slovakia to list of countries?

Sincerelly Tomas

[Jim Weaver]

Thank you for announcing this challenge! In your post you mention that you will provide an e-mail address for submission. Has it been posted somewhere? Or do we have to apply for this challenge in some way?

Peter, et al,

Entries to the JavaFXpert RIA Exemplar Challenge should be emailed to:
ria-exemplar-challenge@javafxpert.com

Thanks,
Jim Weaver

[Peter Miklos]

Hi,

Thank you for announcing this challenge! In your post you mention that you will provide an e-mail address for submission. Has it been posted somewhere? Or do we have to apply for this challenge in some way?

Thanks,
Peter

[Jim Weaver]

Neil,

Thanks for challenging the NetBeans requirement. My motivation for that was to make it easy on the judges to run and examine the entries. I'm changing the requirements to include Eclipse.

Thanks,
Jim Weaver

[Neil Bartlett]

Why the requirement to submit as a NetBeans project? What if entrants wish to use Sun's JavaFX plug-in for Eclipse?

Disclaimer: I'm currently the principal developer and maintainer of that plug-in. I know that the functionality is still pretty far behind what's available in NB, but it's a shame that you have put another barrier to adoption by excluding our users from your competition!

[Jim Weaver]

"Is it really necessary to have 2 members for taking this challenge, what if one can do all the work by him/herself?"

Varun,

As I stated in an earlier comment, by doing this as a developer/designer team I hope to draw from the strengths of each as well as to gain the benefits of collaboration. I will re-evaluate this idea in future challenges.

Thanks,
Jim Weaver

[Varun]

Is it really necessary to have 2 members for taking this challenge, what if one can do all the work by him/herself?

[Jim Weaver]

"The rules state 'exemplifies the appearance and behavior of a next-generation enterprise RIA'. What are the limitations of this? Are games excluded? How about applications for 'personal entertainment' like media managers etc.?"

Pär,

Rather than draw a box that defines what is acceptable and what is excluded, I've left it up to the entrant to determine what a "next-generation enterprise RIA" could be. Please allow me to answer your question by posing some questions that I'd like the RIA Exemplar Challenge to help answer:

1) If an organization is creating a new application for use in the enterprise, and they can use an RIA (such as JavaFX in this contest) for creating the UI, how would that affect what is possible and desirable for the appearance and behavior of the application? For example:

a. What would application navigation be like? Would it be Web 2.0-like, or radically different?

b. Would application functionality still tend to be page-oriented (like web apps currently are)? Should web application ideas like "back button" be carried forward?

c. What would data entry be like? Forms-based with a submit button, or re-imagined?

d. Could/should enterprise desktop apps appear and behave much like iPhone apps?

e. Should a given enterprise app be able to run on a mobile device, and on the desktop, with appearance and behavior (e.g. navigation) adapting automatically at runtime?

2. How can the following ideas be baked into (rather than bolted on to) next-generation enterprise RIAs?

a. Games and game-like behavior?

b. Social networking (e.g. tweets, photo sharing?

c. Rich media?

d. Mashups (geo, etc)?

Hopefully, these questions have helped answer yours, and I welcome more questions from anyone that would be helpful to the entrants of this challenge.

Regards,
Jim Weaver

[Pär Dahlberg]

The rules state "exemplifies the appearance and behavior of a next-generation enterprise RIA". What are the limitations of this? Are games excluded? How about applications for "personal entertainment" like media managers etc.?

/Pär

[Jim Weaver]

Paulo,

I'm using the same age and country of residence criteria that Sun did in their JavaFX Coding Challenge. See this excerpt from the following web page http://javafx.com/challenge/faq.jsp

"All Entrants must be of majority legal age in their country and a legal resident of one of the following countries; Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, a European Union member state, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Malaysia, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Thailand, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, and Venezuela."

Thanks,
Jim Weaver

[Paulo]

I would like to know about the countries restrictions, for example, Brazil is eligible to participate?

[Miguel Sauza]

Hi!
I'm available as a Programmer.

[Jim Weaver]

David,

Yes, I realize that some graphics designers are capable programmers, and vice-versa. As James Gosling points out, it seems to be more common for a graphic designer to have programming proficiency, than for a programmer to have graphic design proficiency.

My main objective is to challenge the best developers and graphic designers to re-imagine the appearance and behavior of enterprise RIAs. By doing this as a team, I hope to draw from the strengths of each, as well as to gain the benefits of collaboration. I do realize that this may cause less people to enter the challenge. I'll do a "lessons-learned" after this challenge to see if the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, and engineer the next challenge with that information.

Thanks,
Jim Weaver

[NetoG]

I'm available as a Graphic Designer.

[David Armitage]

Jim,

I note the rules require the entry from a team of two, incorporating a Developer and a Graphic Designer.

Does this not limit the entry base as I am quite sure there are some graphic designers who are capable programmers and vice versa?

I realise it is to encourage the storyline of RIA and ability to co-work on RIA development, but ...

Cheers,

David