Dear Final Debug: I’ve just finished a large project that kept me all but underwater for the past three months. Is anything new happening in Java? Did I miss anything? — Horace O’Leary, Chicago.
Final Debug Replies: Horace, you should get out more often! There has been some news on the Java front, and analysts are mixed regarding whether the news is good or bad for Java’s future.
In the face of massive company turmoil, Netscape announced it will abandon its Java VM and support the “Activator” Java VM currently being developed by Sun. Is it bad for Java that one of its original licensees is giving up on development? Or is it good for language since it brings Web users one step closer to VM standardization?
Consider the latest rounds in the legal battle over whether Microsoft can use the Java logo on its Internet Explorer and associated products. Is Sun’s legal aggression toward keeping the language standard good for Java? Or is it bad news because it alienates the one company that can make Java a real desktop standard? After all, if Microsoft loses this battle, nothing stops the company from debuting its own Java-like language, called, say, J++, and decimating Sun’s efforts.
A year ago people were complaining that Java was underhyped. Now that there are more than 300 books in print about the language, reality is setting in. Companies such as Marimba with its Castanet push line were planning on making Java ubiquitous. Now Marimba is redefining itself as a software-distribution conduit. Java was supposed to bring programming “to the masses,” in the words of one Sun executive, but dumbed-down tools such as Jamba (a design environment in which nearly every simple applet can be constructed without stooping to writing code) has not set any sales records. Java, it was claimed, would destroy Microsoft desktop hegemony. You don’t hear much of that talk these days, at least not from people who are being held accountable for their opinions.
But this reality period may help the language thrive in the long run. With diminished expectations, Java can now be what it always was (marketing hype notwithstanding): an ingenious expansion of C++ with the promise, as it becomes more mature, of cross-platform interoperability with minimal porting. The leading tools, such as Symantec’s Cafe line, are gradually improving, also. Now that few expect Java to save the world, Java programmers can finally get some good work done.
Feast or famine
Our previous question garnered 184 responses, none of them correct. Our current question garnered 47 responses, all of them correct. Go figure. last week’s question was:
What was the famous name of Ted Nelson’s original hypermedia project?
The answer, of course, was Project Xanadu. Our first correct answer came from Julian So, who will receive a trio of books about Macromedia Director. By the way, if you’re interested in learning more about Nelson and Xanadu, check out his site, recommended to us by C.E. Larson, who also sent us a correct answer.
We’ll have a new contest next week. If you want to submit a question, send it on!
