Advancement of Java development has taken another leap forward with the recent establishment of the Java Tools Community, an initiative by members of the Java Community Process to promote 'tool friendly' Java technology standards.
The Java Tools Community (JTC) will promote the creation, adoption and advancement of Java Specification Requests (JSRs) for 'toolability' and interoperability in the design-time area.
"Toolability is a measurement of how easy it is to build tools around a particular standard or technology," explains Sean O'Hare, Java Systems Engineer at Sun Microsystems SA. "As a result, developers will be able to more easily build Java applications, increasing its rate of adoption."
Founding software vendors of the JTC include BEA Systems, Compuware, Embarcadero Technologies, Iopsis Software, JetBrains, Oracle Corp., Quest Software, SAP, SAS Institute and Sun Microsystems.
"The JTC will work toward making standard Java technology APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) friendlier for tool development. At present, tool vendors cannot take advantage easily of standard APIs when building functionality into their tools and often create proprietary techniques to achieve the benefits that standards were originally created to address," says O'Hare.
Gartner analysts believe the introduction of the JTC is a notable advancement for the Java community. Comments research vice-president Mark Driver: "A forum where customers and vendors can work together to advance Java tools standards will help produce a much higher-quality set of development environments while further unifying the Java tools community."
Supported by the Java Community Process, the JTC will provide an online community for tool vendors, customers and developers to collaborate in three major areas:
* The JTC will strive to maximise the toolability of current and newly proposed JSRs;
* The JTC will be dedicated to the interoperability of Java development tools and extensions through the advancement and proposal of design-time standards; and
* The JTC will strive for communication across the entire design-time community, allowing tool vendors, customers and developers to access information and provide input when creating or extending design-time Java standards via the JCP.
To learn more or to participate in forum discussions, visit http://www.javatools.org/.
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