See you at JavaOne 2009!

I just got word that I’ll be talking again at JavaOne 2009. This years talk will be on component-oriented design, which people have asked me about quite a bit about on this blog (you’ll find a few of my responses here, here and here).

In order to whet your appetite, here’s the abstract:

Component-oriented user interface design offers a refreshingly simple take on designing widgets. By hiding details and throwing inheritance out the window, you can create an API that is simple to use and less prone to bugs. Swing hasn’t provided us with the best design model, as it offers deeply hierarchical (and therefore complicated) APIs for getting user interface controls onto the screen. The sheer surface area of the API slows down even the most veteran of developers. Componentized UI design squarely addresses the usability of an API by encouraging small, deliberate APIs that correspond to higher level widget functionality.

In this session, we’ll look at what component-oriented UI design is, how it differs from traditional widget design and how it will simplify your APIs. We’ll apply this technique to the design of two different components to help illustrate the technique. First, we’ll walk through the design of a search/filter component that provides an OS appropriate look on Windows and Mac. Second, we’ll look at how the componetized approach can simplify the design of a Mac style Source List, by hiding the complexities of the underlying JTree implementation.

I’ll post more information here about the talk logistics (session number, room number, etc.) as I get them. Hope to see you there!