Paul Krill
Editor at Large

Subtraction by addition

news
Jan 7, 20042 mins

Spin doctors at Sun Microsystems, BEA Systems and Oracle are telling us this week that the formation of the Java Tools Community organization should help provide for a smoother path to interoperability between Java tools.

So now, we can add this organization, JTC for short, to the list of industry organizations or industry efforts that are supposed to be improving Java. Also on this list are the Java Community Process (JCP), for standardizing Java technologies, and the Eclipse Consortium, which provides open source Java tools.

Developers, not to mention journalists, must have their heads spinning trying to decipher the differences between these three outfits. Evidence of the confusion was witnessed during a press conference call Tuesday, when it was noted that a perception exists, incorrectly, that Eclipse is working on its own variation of Java.

In addition to tracking these three groups, developers must have their hands full keeping tabs on other organizations as well, such as the W3C, OASIS, WS-I, etc.

Perhaps instead of forming yet another industry organization, Sun should have hopped onboard Eclipse and worked with IBM to meet the goals now being pursued by the JTC. But we all know these guys often can’t find a way to work together.

Maybe another organization is needed just to help developers and the IT community at large be clear on the differences between this multitude of industry organizations.

Paul Krill

Paul Krill is editor at large at InfoWorld. Paul has been covering computer technology as a news and feature reporter for more than 35 years, including 30 years at InfoWorld. He has specialized in coverage of software development tools and technologies since the 1990s, and he continues to lead InfoWorld’s news coverage of software development platforms including Java and .NET and programming languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, and Go. Long trusted as a reporter who prioritizes accuracy, integrity, and the best interests of readers, Paul is sought out by technology companies and industry organizations who want to reach InfoWorld’s audience of software developers and other information technology professionals. Paul has won a “Best Technology News Coverage” award from IDG.

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