Religious fervour at JavaOne 1999

Well, it`s that time of year again when Sun Microsystems puts together one of the world`s largest geekfests. Geekfest it may be, but there can be no ignoring the impact that Java has had on the developers of the world.

It seems impossible that in just four years, Java has grown the way it has with current estimates indicating that there are in excess of 1.2 million Java programmers worldwide.

This year around 20 000 developers paid their money (or their companies` money) to join the melee. To listen to Sun preach its Java message for the benefit of the media and the odd heretic in the throngs. The already converted, no doubt, come for their annual doctrine refresher.

James Gosling, high priest of Java and chief evangelist (also the inventor and chief architect of Java) said it best during his keynote address: "Jeez... 20 000 geeks in one room!"

It seems impossible that in just four years, Java has grown the way it has with current estimates indicating that there are in excess of 1.2 million Java programmers worldwide. More importantly, the endorsement of Java by enterprises across multiple industries throughout the world is nothing short of astonishing. Java is delivering on its promise of "write once run anywhere".

This common Java-related phrase is taking on a new dimension - Java everywhere. Java is literally popping up everywhere, even in places once thought to be the exclusive domain of C and C++.

Sun announced three editions of the Java 2 platforms. Two of these are effectively just a repackaging exercise that focuses on a particular area, the other is, well, different.

The Java 2 Platform Micro Edition (J2ME) is targeted at embedded devices such as cellphones, personal digital assistants, pagers and the like. It is brand new and was tangibly demonstrated by being installed on the 3Com Palm V that all delegates were able to purchase for a mere $199.

The Java 2 Platform Standard Edition (J2SE) is essentially the same Java 2 package that has been available for download since December. It is intended for client-side and standalone applications.

The Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE) is J2SE on steroids. It is intended for server-side development and adds things like Java Server Pages, Enterprise Java Beans and Servlets.

These make Java a reality in the two highest growth areas in the industry, namely personal devices and e-commerce.

It is increasingly beginning to look like Java is set to replace Cobol as the language of choice for enterprise software development. The requirement for shorter times to market make object technology an imperative, and the need to have a uniform skills base that is effective across multiple platforms makes Java the only realistic option.

This is the theory, and enterprises in the Fortune 1000 seem to be practising it already with over 70% of them having already deployed Java applications during 1998. There is also a growing demand for Java training for Cobol programmers. There is a huge mindset change between the two, but it seems that many are making the switch successfully. The demand has reached the citadels of the Java faithful, and many preachers are sallying forth to convert the unbelievers to the one true way. Many of the converted are themselves taking up the priests robes and are helping to speed up the conversion rate. Having been there themselves and therefore having a deeper understanding of what the conversion entails, they are ideally suited to this role.

The GartnerGroup said earlier this year that by the end of 2001, over 70% of new development will be in Java. This can only mean the demise of the old faithful green screen. May they rest in pieces.

The atmosphere at JavaOne is one of religious fervour, with the faithful considering any dissent to be outright blasphemy. Yet unlike a religion where the faithful do not dare challenge the doctrine, this is both sought and encouraged. How else can the doctrine be proven to be flawed or flawless?

Sun has outdone itself in the marketing department, with JavaOne logos on everything including the paper serviettes. It even went so far as convincing the mayor of San Francisco to declare the week the official JavaOne week in San Francisco.

The company has provided the media (I am not included, being nothing more than a lowly convert) with top-class facilities and special attention. This smacks more of a marketing event than a technical conference to me, but nevertheless there is no shortage of technical content.

In the passion of religious fervour that engulfs many of the Java faithful, they seem unable to discern good technical content from the, well... not so good. Many of the sessions were just overviews and fairly sketchy in the technical details department. This left somewhat of a sour taste. As the conference progressed, however, it managed to redeem itself a little with some very juicy stuff.

Not to get too technical, Remote Method Invocation (RMI) is Java`s own built-in middleware solution for building distributed component-based applications. In the RMI world you can use a Java object that is actually running on another machine, on your local machine or client as if were running locally.

Corba is an industry standard endorsed by the Object Management Group (OMG) that predates RMI and has the same basic intent with a number of additional elements. The key element is that Corba is language-independent. This allows programs written in one language to use objects written in another language, again in the local-remote model.

Why all this intro? Well until now, Java programs that used RMI could not use Corba objects and vice versa. With RMI over Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP) this is now possible. IIOP is the protocol used by Corba components for communication. RMI uses its own proprietary model. Sun has announced that it has now made available tools that allow RMI over IIOP. It has gone as far as to state that this is the preferred route for new RMI applications.

The reason that this is so significant is that this allows Java RMI servers to be used by Corba clients and vice versa. This adds a significant piece to the puzzle for distributed multi-platform applications and allows Java programmers to write Corba applications in the same way they now write RMI applications. It also makes existing Corba objects available to Java RMI programs.

That JavaOne is a significant event on the Java developer`s calendar there can be no doubt. It is one of Sun`s primary marketing vehicles for the Java platform. As a technical conference though, I personally found it a little lacking in depth. Some depth was provided in the birds-of-a-feather sessions. These sessions often ran concurrently with the mainstream conference sessions making it very difficult to cover sufficient ground.

The bottom-line is that the conference has grown too large to be squashed into four days. Sun would do far better if it split the conference up into focus areas. Java itself has become almost too big to cover in a single conference.

My final comment on JavaOne 1999 is this. Java is here to stay, it has reached critical mass and moved squarely into the mainstream to take its place among the more established players. It has all the ingredients needed to become the world`s first true industrial strength, system independent software development and deployment platform.