Today I could give my talk “Having fun with Java and JavaFX on the Raspberry Pi” at the JFXDays. Normally this event takes place in Zurich, but this year also went virtual because… well because of 2020… I’m honored that my talk was part of this two-day event with a lot of talks by all the people who are the driving forces in the JavaFX community!
The OpenJDK sources are now fully available and developed on GitHub as a result of Project Skara. Thanks to a lot of work done by the community, the full Java development flow has been migrated to GitHub while keeping the repository history. This process has been described on the GitHub blog.
In my book “Getting Started with Java on the Raspberry Pi”, I give more info about IDEs (= Integrated Development Environment) for Java development. My prefered ones are JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA and Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VSC). IntelliJ IDEA is the most used IDE by Java developers and is available in a free edition with some limited features, or a full paid version.
A micro SD card is the default way to add an operating system to the Raspberry Pi. But there is an alternative you need to consider if you want to make your system more reliable. SD cards are not super fast and can get corrupted when you are writing a lot to disc.
In this article “Java vs Python - Which Programming Language Should Programmer Learn First?” by Javin Paul, you can find a comparison between the two most popular programming languages. Of course, as being a Java-developer myself, it’s not a mystery which I would prefer ;-) But more important than the language, could be the computer you are using!
In a previous post “Installing Java and JavaFX on the Raspberry Pi”, you can read how to install BellSoft LibericaJDK to be able to run JavaFX applications with a graphical user interface on a Raspberry Pi with ARMv7 or ARMv8 processor. But this won’t work for some (older) versions of the Raspberry Pi as these use an ARMv6 processor which is not compatible with the default OpenJDK 11 which is part of Raspberry Pi OS.
Goal of this comparison In my previous post “A Spring REST and H2 database application on the Raspberry Pi” an example was described to store sensors and measurements in a H2-database through REST API’s with a Spring application on the Raspberry Pi. This application takes some time to start on a Raspberry Pi, and Adam Bien who makes the airhacks.
In my book “Getting Started with Java on Raspberry Pi” I dedicated a chapter on Pi4J, the leading framework to combine the power of Java with the hardware capabilities of the Raspberry Pi. This project which was started in 2012 by Robert Savage, evolved during the years to be able to support all the different Raspberry Pi-versions and many types of hardware components.
One of the most read articles on this blog is about the installation of a recent Java on Raspberry Pi (March 13, 2019), so it’s time for an update! Disclaimer: this article is only valid for Raspberry Pi’s with an ARMv7 or ARMv8 processor. In the Raspberry Pi specifications table on Wikipedia you get a clear overview of the Pi-types with this processor:
After my first (and failed) attempt to get Java 11 running on an old Raspberry PI, I bought a brand new 3 Model B+ version. Installing a recent Java JDK which includes JavaFX UPDATE April 30, 2020 An earlier version of this blog showed how to install Java 11 on the Raspberry Pi, but Raspberry Pi OS has this now already included!
One of my goals for 2019 is experimenting with the latest Java and JavaFX versions on a Raspberry PI. After my experiments with the Python Pong game I was not very happy with the GUI I could build with Python and definitely wanted to try something similar, but with JavaFX which I like much more.
As a self-study project I experimented to create a Pong game + slide shown on a Raspberry PI with Tkinter, GPIO and physical buttons. Material list Raspberry PI, of course ;-) SD card with Raspberry Pi OS 3 boxes with on/off button like this one Breadboard for the first experimental setup Breakout connector like this one Or to help identify the GPIO pins you can also use RasPiO® Portsplus board Electrical cable with three wires Some breadboard cables Box to protect the Raspberry PI If you want easy control a bluetooth keyboard and/or Wifi dongle Assembling Connect the electric cables to the push buttons.