Dear Final Debug: What is going on with the Java standard? One day, I hear that Sun has gotten the ISO to accept Java as a standard. Then I hear that there are at least three versions of Java foundation classes floating around (Microsoft, Netscape, Sun) and none of them work with any of the others. Is there a Java standard anymore? – Steve Farrell, Park Ridge. Final Debug Responds: Steve, we’ll give you the good news first: there aren’t three sets of foundation classes battling one another anymore. Netscape has united its classes with Sun’s, so it’s only Sun vs. Microsoft in that arena. The bad news for developers is that it’s Sun vs. Microsoft everywhere else on the Java scene, too. Parallel marketing and legal battles are escalating, but let’s focus on what tools the Java war is handing to developers. As you’d expect, Microsoft has a plethora of Java tools available, all intended to woo developers to its iteration of the language. While technically the company’s additions to the language are not proprietary, they only run on Windows machines now. Developers for other platforms are welcome to build in support for technologies like ActiveX and CAB, but don’t expect many to devote too much effort to that. Microsoft’s Windows Foundation Classes use the Win32 proprietary model, and you don’t need to guess hard that that will be the only platform the company’s Visual J++ development tool will run on. Although Sun has failed to attract Windows developers to its Java Workshop development system, it is trying to convince Windows developers that it has much to offer them. Its new plug-in for Windows lets developers override alternate Java virtual machines (the only other one is Microsoft’s, of course), something that can now be done manually as well. What’s promising, in the short-term, is that the Sun system overrides rather than overwrites. You can still run both VMs with little trouble. But as the war heats up, you can guess what’s going to happen. A Java question. We have a Java question this week. How do you modify Director files so a Java-enabled browser without an installed Shockwave plug-in can interpret it? Be the first person to send us the correct answer and you’ll win a copy of the advanced-level Teach Yourself More Java in 21 Days (sams.net).
