How does Pivot compare to Swing?
While it is technically feasible to build an RIA in Java using the Swing toolkit, Pivot offers a number of advantages that make it a more compelling, modern alternative: • Pivot provides an XML markup language called WTKX for simplifying user interface construction. Flex, Silverlight, and OpenLaszlo all offer a similar feature; web developers are comfortable with the markup metaphor, and it can considerably reduce overall development time. • Components are not limited to an “atomic” preferred size; they are allowed to report a preferred size as constrained by either width or height – this facilitates such features as label wrapping, which Swing does not support. • Pivot employs a consistent data model that is used throughout the entire framework; for example, JSON data returned from a REST service is serialized into the same data structures used by a table view component to present data. No additional translation is necessary, which can significantly improve performance. A common data
