[einrealist]

I have been using Java since version 1.4. Both the language and its ecosystem have come a long way since then. I endured the height of the EJB phase. I adopted Spring when version 1.2 was released. I spent hours fighting with IDEs to run OSGi bundles. I hated building UIs with Swing/AWT, many of which are still in use today and are gradually being replaced by lovely JavaFX. When I look at code I wrote around 12 years ago, I'm amazed at how much I've matured too.

[zelphirkalt]

One of the best tools I built was years ago with Swing and Miglayout. Still remember it fondly.

[tannhaeuser]

> I hated building UIs with Swing/AWT, many of which are still in use today and are gradually being replaced by lovely JavaFX.

Dude JFX yielded what was called RIAs to JavaScript like almost 15 years ago. Of the three major GUI toolkits Swing, JavaFX, and SWT it was Swing that gained HighDPI support first (10 years ago), and continues to be the base for kick-as IntelliJ IDEA and other Jetbrains IDEs.

[zelphirkalt]

Swing was simpler in some ways than JavaFX. I still remember JavaFX treeview taking 3 Generics and I was unable to figure out what one of them is for from the docs. Had to go on Stackoverflow, where someone said it basically didn't matter. But JavaFX looked great at the time.