Reflecting On Java's Needs
Dynamic language, SOA support part of its future
By Jennifer deJong
July 15, 2007 —
(Page 1 of 3)
It soared to heights in the Internet era. But a little more than a decade later, the Java programming language is working hard to stay aloft.
Created by Sun Microsystems in the early 1990s, Java was released in 1995, just as the World Wide Web had begun to take off. But today the language that led the way is lagging behind. Java is playing catch-up with Web development technologies such as AJAX and Flash (for building rich Internet applications), and with dynamic languages like PHP, Python and Ruby, which let developers write Web applications quickly. “Java is strong,” said Sun director of Web technologies Tim Bray. “But .NET is not going away. PHP is not going away.”
SD Times asked Bray and other Java experts what lies ahead for the programming language and the platforms on which it is implemented, including Java Standard Edition (Java SE), Java Micro Edition (Java ME) and Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE).
Enabling developers to more easily build RIAs and use dynamic languages within the Java platforms remains a high priority, as does providing a better way to build services and manage service-oriented architectures (SOAs), the experts said. They also noted Java’s bright future as the language of choice for real-time applications (see “Predictably, Java Goes Real-Time,” page 40), and its suitability for writing programs that run on “wider, instead of faster computers,” said Bray, referring to those that rely on multicore processors. Finally, the experts noted that Sun’s long-awaited release of Java to an open source project under the GPLv2 is pivotal to the future of the language and the platforms.
“A lot of innovation will come from open source, not just the JCP,” said IBM director of Java technologies Mark Thomas, referring to the Java Community Process body that governs Java standards.
Here’s the experts’ take on what’s next for Java.
FIRST-CLASS SUPPORT FOR SOA
Like databases and operating systems, Java applications have become part of the core computing infrastructure, but when it comes to moving that infrastructure toward SOA, Java isn’t offering enough help today, said Thomas. “You can try to implement components [for SOA] through the Java ClassLoader, but that can be unwieldy and error-prone.” A more effective way to enable SOA is through the OSGi technology, a module system for Java that is expected to become part of the Java standard, as specified in JSRs 291 and 232, he noted. “The ability to dynamically install, start and update services is critical [to Java’s future],” he said.
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