A number of very significant development efforts are underway that bode well for Desktop Java's future. On the language side is the Java FX script project http://www.sun.com/software/javafx/index.jsp. Java FX is neat because it provides a high-level scripting interface that runs on top of the Java 2D API. From the users' viewpoint it means they don't have to write Java code and, for better or worse, understand the intricacies of threads, Java 2D or Swing class hierarchies, timing frameworks, and so forth.