Re: Repost recent article from Newsbytes
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To: haegint <thomas.haegin>
Subject: News Story
Date: Samstag, 13. Dezember 1997 13:57
****Internet World - Java Programmers Now Abundant
Newsbytes - December 12, 1997 14:57
%ONLINE %BOS SUNW V%NEWSBYTES P%NBYT
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, U.S.A., 1997 DEC 12 (NB) -- By Jacqueline Emigh,
Newsbytes. Contrary to what many people might think, Java developers are in
abundant supply, a panel of users contended, during a Sun Microsystems
[NYSE:SUNW]-sponsored press event in New York City.
During Sun's User Forum and Press Luncheon, attended by Newsbytes at Internet
World, the panelists cited three main factors for the plethora of Java
programmers: interest in Java by young developers; university training courses;
and easy migration of pre-existing C/C++ programming skills to Java.
The freewheeling user discussion also touched on issues ranging from Java
integration to developers' wish lists.
Many Java programmers today are not old enough to rent a car on business
trips, the panelists agreed.
General consensus was also expressed on the "golden" spot held by developers
knowledgeable about Java today.
But Mark Benerofe, vice president of programming and platform development for
Sony Online Ventures, asserted that industry needs for skilled programmers are
not "Java-specific. Everybody is looking for programmers. It's a digital
world," Benerofe told the reporters and analysts.
Noted Dan Woods, director of editorial technology for Time Inc. New Media:
"Programming is independent of the language you learn."
Another speaker, representing Xerox, concurred with that sentiment. When Xerox
first started to build its Java-based Xerox Problem Management (XPM) system,
none of the developers working on the project "knew one line of Java code," the
reporters and analysts were told.
JavaSoft chief Alan Baratz, also a panelist, pointed to knowledge of other
object-oriented languages, such as C++, as a key criterion for learning Java
easily.
Yet one member of the audience, who recently made a career change from
engineering to journalism, informed the panel that, as a person trained in C
programming, he found Java much easier to learn than C++.
Steven Epstein, VP of NewsLink Services for Simon & Schuster, observed that
colleges are now offering programming classes designed for students majoring in
a variety of disciplines.
"The universities are responding," echoed Sony Online Ventures' Benerofe.
Even the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) teaches programming, along with
computer graphics, for example, the journalists were told.
In answer to a reporter's question regarding "wish lists" for Java, Dan
Mushbrush, director of new technology for Service Merchandise, cited
diagnostics management.
Time Inc.'s Woods pin-pointed improvements in some Java classes, such as
string classes.
Mushbrush also told the group that, in the future, Service Merchandise plans
to add CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) to its Java-based
online catalog and gift registry on the World Wide Web.
In response to another question, Baratz said that JavaSoft plans to exploit
DOS, through its new Java PC product, to provide 486 PCs with Java access.
Directly supporting the 16-bit Windows 3.1 platform with Java would be
impractical, because Java is a 32-bit environment, according to Baratz.
Speaking with Newsbytes at the close of the press conference, Mushbrush said
that Service Merchandise expects to use CORBA with Java to replace
"proprietary" technology currently in use for conducting e-comm with consumers
over the Internet.
Mushbrush also predicted that the use of CORBA will allow Service Merchandise
to integrate its IDBMS database applications, running on mainframes and Unix,
with applications of "supply chain" partners such as shippers for "secure"
Web-based transactions.
"I should have answered the question (during the panel session) about
programmers," added the exec. Most of the programmers who created Service
Merchandise's Java application were originally trained in Cobol, Mushbrush
elaborated.
Also during the event, Simon & Schuster's Epstein told Newsbytes that ready
availability of Java programmers was a major factor in the decision to build
the company's new College NewsLink service in Java.
"We also knew the code would be efficient and scalable," Epstein remarked.
The Simon & Schuster VP noted that NewsLink uses university intranet sites and
e-mail to deliver content from the Web, filtered on the basis of applicability
to various academic disciplines.
In another press conference attended by Newsbytes at Internet World, Sun
introduced Java JumpStart for the Enterprise, a bundle of software products and
services consisting of JumpStart Foundation, JumpStart Webtop Products,
JumpStart Services, JumpStart Development Tools, and JumpStart Support and
Training.
JumpStart Foundation, for example, consists of JavaPC, in addition to the Java
Runtime Environment (JRE) and another newly unveiled product -- Java Activator.
As previously reported in Newsbytes, Java Activator is designed to let
developers build Java-based Windows applications that give end users the option
to replace Microsoft's implementation of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) with
JavaSoft's implementation, Baratz said.
Also during the earlier press conference, JavaSoft's David Spenhoff noted that
the new JavaPC technology will provide Java class libraries on DOS.
Additional information is available on the Web at sun.com .
Reported by Newsbytes News Network: newsbytes.com .
(19971212/Press Contact: Penny Bruce, Sun, 408-343-1400 /JAVAOSLOGO/PHOTO)
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