First, a brief editorial if I may.  The upcoming JavaFX 2.0 platform has been getting overwhelmingly positive reaction from the community so far.  While the public sentiment seems to be cautiously optimistic, I've heard nothing but positive reactions from everyone that I've spoken to about the platform.   In fact, many of the early adopters of JavaFX have told us directly that they are very encouraged about the direction the platform is taking.

One such early adopter is Oracle's own Jim Connors.  As his day job, Jim is a principal sales consultant (basically an engineer that supports Oracle's sales efforts) in the New York area.  However, Jim also co-wrote a book with Jim Clarke and Eric Bruno on JavaFX and has spoken and conducted training sessions at events like the New York Java Developer Day, the Java Road Trip, and other events.

In his thoughtful editorial, Jim discusses some of the reasons why he believes the new directions Oracle is taking JavaFX make sense, including:

• Better developer tools
• Lower barriers to adoption -> better accessibility to existing Java developers
  
• Improved performance
• More flexibility (ability to use other dynamic languages, etc)

To read more about Jim's thoughts on the new JavaFX, check out his blog.  Or if you want to learn more about the JavaFX platform, pick up a copy of his book.  And if you still want to use JavaFX Script, you can check out Project Visage