A woman in a man’s world
Who are Karakun AG and what is their recipe for success? Why are there still so few women in the ICT industry in executive positions today? What levers are available to help young women overcome their skepticism about IT professions? In the current issue of the magazine Basler Wirtschaft , our CEO, Dr. Elisabeth Maier, responds to these and other questions. Read the complete interview in the E-Mag or download the interview as PDF (German).
Google for the chemical industry
“At present, the chemical industry remains dominated by the pre-digital world,” says Susanna Groth of Chemberry. Buyers and manufacturers often meet at trade fairs, where personal contacts are vital. But the signs are pointing to a change. “We want to be the Google of the chemical industry,” says Groth. The Basel-based start-up has created a platform that aims to serve as an interface between manufacturers and processors of chemical constituents.
The technical development of the Chemberry-Plattform will be implemented by computational linguists and software experts from Karakun AG. Learn more about the project in the 2019/11 issue of IT Magazine.
Karakun @ Oracle Code One 2019
In less than a month the time has come again: the Java world will meet from September 16th to 19th at Oracle Code One to network, discuss, learn and experiment. Even though the conference is now open for different languages and technologies – Java and its ecosystem is and remains a big topic.
We at Karakun are delighted to be represented with the following talks:
Beauty and the Beast: Java Versus TypeScript
[DEV4399]
Once upon a time, there was a poor, innocent language. It was friendly and kind. Everything could have been nice and peaceful, but there was another language that was grumpy and mean. One day they met and started to argue about who the better language was…. This session compares the Java language with TypeScript. It discusses how common problems are solved with these languages, and the audience will have a chance to vote. At the end, you’ll see who is the beauty and who is the beast.
Speaker: Hendrik Ebbers, Michael Heinrichs
Not Dead Yet: Java on the Desktop
[DEV1126]
Interestingly, a lot of people say Java on the desktop is dead, and, yes, it is not in the hyped zone anymore. But on the other hand, it is still widely used. This session gives an overview of Java on the desktop and why it is not dead yet. It gives examples of scenarios where Java on the desktop really shines and others where it would be better to choose a web application. It also shows the state of JavaFX, with all of its various flavors, such as standard JavaFX on the desktop, on embedded, on mobile with Gluon, and on the web with JPro. And, of course, it includes demos of those different scenarios.
Speaker: Gerrit Grunwald
Productivity Beyond Failure
[DEV2358]
We all have heard Fail fast! Embrace failure! Celebrate failure! but a key element is missing: The celebration should be focused on the learning that comes from failure, not celebrating the failure itself. This session explores what has been missing when we try to implement a simple recipe for a creative and performant team: tolerance for failure, willingness to experiment, psychological safety, and a highly collaborative environment.
Speaker: Ixchel Ruiz
JavaFX Real-World Applications
[DEV1397]
Not sure if you want to make the switch to JavaFX for your desktop applications? This session is intended to convince you that JavaFX is ready for prime time. It shows how JavaFX has been successfully deployed as part of many large and small business-critical applications. It presents a dozen applications from various domains: planning and scheduling solutions, operating room control software, fitness trackers, and more.
Speaker: Gerrit Grunwald, Dirk Lemmermann
Team Diversity the Successful Way
[DEV6012]
Innovations such as artificial intelligence, automated systems, and the cloud are transforming the IT world. It is known that diverse teams solve problems better and come up with innovations faster, and yet the IT workplace remains very homogeneous and mostly male-dominated. In this session, a panel of technical women and community leaders discusses how to bring more diversity to your teams and include more women in IT. Of course, men are welcome to join this discussion too.
Speaker: Ixchel Ruiz and others
Rich Client Java: Still Going Strong!
[DEV2513]
In this session, a panel of experts in the UI field discusses the different types of rich client technologies and frameworks: Swing, JavaFX, and HTML5. The questions to be discussed include the following: What are the differences between the technologies? Is JavaFX better than the old Java-based technologies? HTML5 or JavaFX: Which one to use? Cross-platform JavaFX: a dream coming true? What frameworks are available for the technologies? Should I migrate? How do I migrate? JSR 377: Is there still hope for a unified API? Will it change the rules of UI engagement? DukeScript, anyone? Material design on desktop and web? Does it work? Electron or similar technologies? Oracle JET? Which technology to use for which use case?
Speaker: Gerrit Grunwald and others
Karakun voting machines
When you visit Code One, you will immediately notice the voting machines that are located at the entrance/exit of each room. These allow you to quickly and easily cast your vote for the current presentation: press the green duke if you like the sessions or the red duke if the presentation does not meet your expectations. If the talk was “quite ok”, simply press the yellow Duke.
The idea of the voting machines originally came from our engineers. We are responsible for setting up and operating the voting machines during Code One.
OpenWebStart for Java Distribution
If your application is distributed via Java Web Start (JWS) and you are not yet concerned by the decision Oracle made regarding Java Web Start, you might not be paying attention: JWS has been deprecated in Java 9:
“Java Applet and WebStart functionality, including the Applet API, the Java plug-in, the Java Applet Viewer, JNLP and Java Web Start including the javaws tool, are all deprecated in JDK 9 and will be removed in a future release.”
The whole story began when Java applets and almost all NPAPI plugins became obsolete and were replaced by Web-based technologies. Although JWS was advertised as an alternative to the deprecated applet technology, the days of JWS applications are now counted.
With the release of Java 11, which happened on September 2018, Oracle removed JWS from their JDK distributions. On the Java Client Roadmap Update it has been announced that
“Oracle will not include Java Web Start in Java SE 11 (18.9 LTS) and later.”
Oracle argues that vendors of the most popular desktop operating systems push for applications to be delivered in bundles together with integrated, sandboxed runtimes. In addition, they increasingly require desktop applications to be distributed through their own private application stores.
This leads to the problem that clients that have the latest version of Java installed can no longer use JWS-based applications. From Java 11 on, JWS does not exist any longer and, therefore, JWS based applications cannot be used with Java versions newer than Java 8. Organizations have to look for alternative deployment solutions which might require substantial migration efforts.
Since public support of Java 8 has ended in Q2/2019, updates and security fixes for Java Web Start are not available without a paid support contract with Oracle. Staying with Java 8 also builds up technical debt and only postpones the urge to face the situation.
What are the Options?
To address this situation, two options have been available so far:
- Buy Oracle support and stay with Java 8 for the next few years
As commercial support is guaranteed by Oracle until 2025 (see the Java Release Train), one can stick with Java 8 until then. But this also means to build up technical debt and postpones the situation only for a small amount of time. Also, one needs to take care that the licensed Java 8 is not used with other applications which is impossible for publicly distributed software. Liable for violations of this constraint is the distributor which makes this aspect a high risk. Renouncing commercial support is dangerous because of potential security flaws.
- Removing JWS as fast as possible in order to be ready for Java 11.
Remember: with users installing Java 11 or newer as default JRE on a target machine, JWS cannot be used anymore.
Any of the above options requires resources, devotion and money. The first suggestion buys time but does not address the core of the problem and carries potentially serious risks, the latter requires a radical change regarding software delivery.
Our Solution
Fortunately, there is a third option. Karakun initiated the development of OpenWebStart, an open source reimplementation of the JWS technology. OpenWebStart will be based on IcedTeaWeb, an open source project initiated by RedHat-developers years ago and now resurrected as starting point for a new open source alternative for JWS. Our replacement will provide the most commonly used features of JWS and, up to the required scope, the JNLP standard, so that customers can continue using applications based on JWS and JNLP without any change.
Our vision and goal is that nothing will change from your users point of view. OpenWebStart will provide exactly the same JNLP-based workflow as Java Web Start. The included App Manager will manage all JNLP-based application that OpenWebStart has downloaded and started. It will also regularly check whether updates are available for its managed applications, and downloads updates automatically. The Control Panel lets you configure workflows to start JNLP-based applications by hand – just like the well-known Java Control Panel which was also removed by Oracle.
Besides those, there are two completely new modules that will simplify your life: The JVM Manager and the Updater.
The JVM Manager downloads Java versions from a dedicated server and manages versions internally. With OpenWebStart, it will be easy for developers to specify the Java version to run JNLP-based applications. The Updater will download and install new versions of OpenWebStart.
Timeline and Costs
OpenWebstart 0.2.0 has already been released in July and is publicly available for download on the project website https://openwebstart.com/download/. Our goal is to have a release candidate ready in Q3/2019
While in the ramp-up phase the project is financed by some substantial sponsors, OpenWebStart will be open sourced and therefore freely available.
OpenWebStart Sponsors enjoy the following benefits:
- Sponsors have an influence which features are implemented and how feature requests are prioritized.
- To make sure that sponsor-specific software works with OpenWebStart, we offer the possibility to run tests with those applications and JNLP files. It’s up to the sponsor to accept this offering or to run own tests.
Thanks to the organizations who already fund this development we are able to develop a first release of OpenWebStart. In order to develop the full functionality of JWS and to ensure sustainable maintenance of the tool we are still looking for additional sponsors. Feel free to get in touch with us at OpenWebStart@karakun.com and help us to make a great product and a successful story out of it.
An insight into Web APIs
The web is constantly evolving. For decades there has been a desire to make applications accessible and usable over the web. Various technologies were used in this way, including Java applets and Flash in the past, and WebAssembly in the future – the latter being developed as the standard for the Web. Regardless of these technologies, the web is based on standards such as HTML, CSS and a large number of web APIs standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that are made available by modern browsers. Knowing these web APIs and applying them correctly presents a new challenge.
In the current issue of the specialist magazine Java Aktuell (04/2019) our senior software engineer Simon Skoczylas presents some important web APIs.
Excerpt:
Web APIs, as programming interfaces in the browser, offer ever more possibilities for interaction with the user and the world outside of the browser in the field of web development. Here I would like to introduce a few of the familiar and less known web APIs to make developers aware of various web APIs. I would also like to show how the critical decision between native, hybrid and web applications needs to be taken with increasing care.
Member of the association BaselOne
We at Karakun believe in open source. That’s why we are not only consumers of free software, but also have a long list of active contributions to various open source projects, which we usually use in our own projects. And of course, we are also happy to pass our know-how back to the community – be it through talks at conferences or JUG-evenings, events like the React Training with Simon Skoczylas in Munich, Hackathons or Meetups like the Hackergarten or even professional articles and books.
Since March 2019, Karakun AG has been an official member of the BaselOne association, organizer of the eponymous software developer conference in Basel. “The conference has made a name for itself locally in the past 3 years and some internationally renowned speakers have already appeared here. We would like to help establish Switzerland, and in particular Basel, as the home of innovative software companies and experts”, said Elisabeth Meier, CEO of Karakun AG.
In addition to active work in the conference organizing committee, we are actively involved in the design of the conference program.
Time to get to know us!
This year, the JavaLand Conference
is taking place for the sixth time, from March 19 to 21 at the amusement park Phantasialand. The grand community reunion, on this occasion with amusement park panache, again offers the ideal environment for sharing knowledge and networking. Visitors can expect numerous lectures by top speakers, interactive community activities and a whole lot of fun!
And we’re right in the middle of it! Come to our booth 310 and learn more about us, who we are and what we do. Oh, and we’ll be having fun, too: help our little robot steer through our obstacle course as fast as you can. You don’t control the robot directly, however, but rather program it using components on an iPad. Once you have managed it, you’ll have the chance to win one of 3 robots.
But we’re not just there for fun. Indeed, we are also contributing to talks in the top-class program:
Web-APIs: Das ultimative Handbuch (Simon Skoczylas)
As a web developer, you get to use different Web APIs every day. Often these are the commonly known APIs, such as Document Object Model (DOM), DOM Event API, Fetch API or Geolocation API. This creates a kind of comfort zone that you rarely leave. At the same time, the Web provides many additional less or little known APIs. For example, do you already know Web Speech API, Web Bluetooth API, Server Timing API, Battery Status API or Credential Management API?
These and other APIs are part of the talk that aims to help web developers leave their comfort zone. Since the presentation covers a great deal of APIs, the audience can select at the beginning of the talk which APIs are presented in detail.
Was macht Java auf dem Client? (Hendrik Ebbers)
As in previous years, we would like to discuss with you innovations in client-side Java development. Having talked about the removal of JavaFX from the JDK in recent years and informing you about the discontinuation of Java WebStart last year, there will be many new points concerning client-side Java development in 2019.
Java WebStart ist tot - Wie geht es nun weiter? (Hendrik Ebbers)
With Java 11, Oracle has removed Java WebStart from their JDK/JRE. Although WebStart is certainly an outdated technology, it is still used by many companies and Java projects. This presentation shows different ways and approaches to maintain an existing WebStart project in the future or to successfully migrate to a new Java deployment technology. In addition to different distribution and deployment approaches, we will also look here at how we can build a native application directly from our Java client.
Panel: Zukunft Java
A panel discussion following the presentation “Zukunft Java”.
Participants: Wolfgang Weigend, Simon Ritter, Michael Page
Chaired by: Hendrik Ebbers
Dou you also think that we should get to know each other?
Do you have questions, or would you like to contact us in advance? Then simply get in touch and we will promptly respond to your concerns!