Desktop Java on dope

It's been a while since I wrote here, mostly because I'm occupied with a new task besides my daily consultancy job at the client. I'm preparing a presentation on Desktop Java. More specifically focussed on Rich Client Java Apps with Swing. So the past few weeks I've been going over and over all JavaOne 2006, 2007 and JavaPolis 2006 desktop related presentations to make sure I didn't miss anything.
So far Java 6 seems promising for the Desktop developer, but as always it will take 3 or 4 more years until the businesses start adopting it. Heck I would love to just be able to start using Java 5, but the client I'm working at is still stuck at 1.4 :-( Too bad, no annotations, no generics, no SwingX or other cool components based on Java 5... I've actually been back porting quite a lot because of this. May this be a call out to all Swing component writers... preserve 1.4 compatibility for just a little longer please!

It's somewhat remarkable that desktop Java is making a serious come-back, all the UI bug fixes and improvements put into Java 6 and the promising upcoming JavaFX , Swing App. Framework, Beans Binding. Desktop Java is finally evolving rapidly, and that's good news but for now using JGoodies SwingSuite can get you started today with the technologies promised for Java 7.
Another thing I noticed is that Eclipse platform is also gaining momentum, so I'm expecting some more EclipseRCP / SWT projects in the near future.