We asked, you answered — the results are in

As JavaWorld approached its first birthday, our staff decided to find out more about you, your work habits, and your thoughts about Java — its future and its impact in your life as a developer. Aside from our desire to know more about our readers, which allows us to better serve your needs, we wanted to let you know what your peers were up to.

Almost 1700 of you took the time to answer the survey we ran over the last three months, and you offered up some keen insights. Here are the results from the questions we asked, divided into topical areas.

Browsers

Not surprisingly, the majority of you (74 percent) use Netscape Navigator 3.01 or higher to make your way through the Web. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (versions 2.0x or 3.0) came up a distant second, used by less than 20 percent of respondents. However, when it comes to running that browser of choice on a particular platform, Microsoft, predictably, blew the doors off the competition. Seventy-two percent of you indicated that you use Windows. Broken down further, 43 percent of you use Windows 95, 27 percent use Windows NT, and 2 percent use Windows 3.1. The other platforms with a significant showing were Sun’s Solaris with 9 percent and Apple’s Power Mac with 7 percent.

Although more than one third of you have changed browsers in the past three months, only 16.8 percent of you have changed platforms in the same three-month time frame.

Development tools

No one development tool really stood as the dominant resource. Many of you (almost 20 percent) said you prefer simply using a text editor (Emacs was the big winner in that category) and the JDK (version 1.0.2 is by far the most popular). Those of you, however, who choose not to go through it alone most often use Visual J++ or Symantec’s Cafe/Visual Cafe as your primary tool.

Other tools that you regularly use include:

• Primary Tools
• Symantec’s Visual Cafe Pro
• Metrowerks’ CodeWarrior

• Secondary Tools
• Sun’s Java WorkShop
• Marimba’s Bongo
• Asymetrix’s SuperCede Java Edition
• Symantec’s Visual Cafe Pro

Programming background and experience

Your general level programming experience was impressive:

• Expert 52.7 percent
• Mid-level 37.5 percent
• Novice 9.7 percent

When it came to Java programming, however, the numbers did a 180: Only 16.5 percent of you consider yourselves Java experts, and 40 percent claimed newbie status.

In terms of language usage, Java won hands down; 56.3 percent of you program with Java frequently. Many of you also frequently use C (32.2 percent) and C++ (32.5 percent).

Other languages that had a strong showing included Perl, Fortran, Smalltalk, Delphi, Power Builder, Ada, and Lisp.

Java in the office

Almost 70 percent of you currently are using Java or plan to use Java for mission-critical applications within 6 months. Several respondents described the projects in which Java has played the key role:

We are working on a Java API to grant access to corporate DBs both for reading and writing. Every unit needing access will implement its UI using our API.

I am currently developing a large applet… for the United States Geological Survey.

We provide Java APIs to our customers for use in mission-critical development.

My company is starting to develop a full-blown Java application. There will be around two dozen programmers involved.

Many of you, however, expressed a need for Java to stabilize and mature before it will be widely embraced:

Java is not yet mature enough to be used in mission-critical development, as its architecture is still evolving.

Java and the IDE environments are unstable and buggy. Java has a number of poor design decisions, but it has fantastic potential (that far outweigh the flaws).

Java still lacks many features necessary for serious business applications.

When asked if Java plays/will play a strategic role in your business, 40.1 percent of you agreed. One respondent boasted, “We’re basing our whole future direction on technologies like Java.” Another said, “We intend to focus 100 percent on Java. We have invested a significant effort into studying Java.”

Some of you aren’t quite that convinced; 19.9 percent expect Java to play an important role within 6 months, and another 16.7 percent expect to wait a year before Java will make an impact.

A few (8.5 percent) respondents aren’t at all convinced of Java’s future in their business. “Java just isn’t robust enough or fast enough for daily use,” remarked one developer.

The Microsoft question