JavaSoft president sums up where Java’s at

In his keynote address “The Evolution of Java Computing” at the Web Design & Development ’97 expo and conference February 24, JavaSoft president Alan Baratz gave the auditorium an impressive list of Java’s achievements in the 500 or so days since its inception:

• Today there are approximately 300,000 Java developers, and 45 million users of Java platforms (mostly in the form of Netscape and Microsoft Web browsers)

• One third of all medium and large businesses develop in Java

• An “open standards-like environment” exists: JavaSoft is working with more than 30 companies to define and evolve the language

• JavaSoft boasts a comprehensive API strategy, with JavaBeans, Commerce, Security, Media, Server, Enterprise, and Management APIs in particular

• 70 percent of the smart-card industry (in the form of two leading smart-card companies, Schlumberger and Gemplus) has embraced Java

• There are more than 100,000 Java-enabled Web sites

• More than 100 universities teach Java programming, many as intro classes

• There are more than 150 books on Java — this beats the number of books on C++ and dwarfs the number of ActiveX titles

Why JDK 1.1 is important

Baratz also highlighted the key benefits of the latest upgrade to the JDK, noting that it

• Boasts three times the performance of Microsoft’s JVM on Windows (which to date has been the best-performing VM), as measured by CaffeineMark

• Includes more than 8,000 VM compatibility tests when it shipped

• Includes code signing and applet signing

• includes native method interfaces and remote method invocation (RMI)

• Features an improved application windowing toolkit (AWT) with a broad base of new widgets

“Why is Java so hot?”

Answering his own question about why Java has been able to achieve so much, Baratz noted that Java is “the first truly open platform, it’s a developer’s dream come true, it’s the holy grail for Microsoft, and it’s scalable beyond belief.”

With Java, Baratz pointed out, developers can write code faster than with any other language due to integrated memory management, the elimination of porting, and the lowered barriers to entry — meaning the transition away from monolithic code and toward componentized code.

Further, Java is changing the structure of the computing environment, with the development of smart phones, smart cards, NCs, and so on. Plus, it provides a new system administration paradigm: Once bug fixes are made, the most recent versions of software can quickly be made accessible to users. Finally, Java enables a new approach to selling and distributing software: users can buy tools off the network on an as-needed basis, allowing for what Baratz labelled WYNIWYG (“what you need is what you get”).

With a slight twist on Sun’s trumpet call, Baratz discussed JavaBeans, saying that they represent the “write once, reuse anywhere” model. Beans components, he noted, can work with all other component architectures, bridging into OpenDOC, ActiveX, or LiveConnect environments. He also threw in a comment about the lack of inherent safety in ActiveX components, saying that having code signing alone doesn’t prevent viruses or corruption. In contrast to ActiveX, Baratz said, Java offers inherent safety and is architecturally neutral.

Java equals HTML-plus

Baratz concluded by arguing that Web site developers should use Java instead of proprietary extensions to HTML 3.2. He views Java as a preserver of the HTML standard: If users commit only to using new functionalities that have Java applets to support them, they’ll run in any browser. This means no one company can drive users to embrace one standard.