Chris' Rant - by Chris Wenham

Java: It's Not Just For Browsers Anymore

usually don't say much about Java since I think you probably get enough of it anyway. So if you're still not interested in hearing more about it, flip to the next page.

As you may know, Java is under fire for being too slow and immature. Valid complaints, but one is due for retirement, and the other is completely missing a vital point.

Performance of Java applications, which currently crawl along on most computers, won't be an issue in the months and years to come. This I'm sure of. While I won't go out on a limb yet to predict the success/demise of Java, I'll wager that by this time next year the performance of Java applications will be a non-issue with anyone except a benchmark freak.

Why? Look at the history of OS/2, Windows and other GUIs. Programs that ran under these environments were criticized as being slower than their DOS/Character-mode counterparts. Well today they still are, and always will be slower than an application that only has to push a 100^th of the same information to the screen. But recent years have given us computers that run so fast that we simply don't care anymore!

From a human's perception, it doesn't matter that a GUI application is technically running slower than a character-mode one. It visually and responsively acts just as fast.

If your Java program runs at half the speed of your comfort level, then in 18 months you'll be able to buy a new computer for the same price that runs it twice as fast (or upgrade it for even cheaper). Then again in another 18 months, and again, and again, and so on until eventually you just don't even notice anymore.

Back in the early 90's Windows accelerator cards replaced generic SVGA, and all of a sudden everything snapped with speed. Look for hardware acceleration of Java too, either as an add-on card, as part of the supporting chipset, or even merged into the CPU itself.

Immaturity isn't going to last for long either. Java has been one of the fastest growing children in the industry, especially with the Herculean efforts of IBM as a surrogate father. What Java hasn't got today will most likely arrive tomorrow. I mean, it's growing fast.

But something has been missed. When the pundits and moguls sneer at Java for its immaturity they're missing the fact that the advent of Java is the coming of age, the maturity of the computer industry itself. It's the stubble of beard growth on a young man's face, just fuzz right now, but an indication of the real adulthood it signifies.

While Java's platform independence is irrelevant to the individual user who only uses one platform him/herself anyway, it's crucially relevant to the industry as a whole. It's that long overdue, logical next-step from the days when big computer manufacturers like Digital and IBM put down their differences and settled on ASCII as a means of sharing information. Now, just like we can take for granted the ability to share information on the level of bits and bytes, we can look forward to the days when we can share functionality too.

So have I bored you to tears yet? :-)

All the above promises of paradigm-churning maturity will all evaporate if Java doesn't deliver some basic, fundamental benefits to you and me, John Q. Public, the masses at large, the Rest Of Us. We're not programmers, the majority of us don't use more than one operating system anyway, so all this hubbub about platform independence is pointless and irrelevant to us. But, uh... that's Java's major key advantage, right? If that means nothing to the people who really count, then Java's gonna fail, right? I mean, what other whiz-bang feature is left?

I hope, and believe, it is JavaBeans.

Simply put, JavaBeans brings to software what Lego Bricks did for toys. Average home and small business users can connect together packaged functions to make custom programs for themselves, without having to be programmers. Imagine connecting software components together on your screen to make a program the same way you plug CD Players, Amplifiers and Cassette Decks together with audio cables to make a home entertainment system.

You ever play with Sierra's "The Incredible Machine" or Maxis' "Widget Workshop"? Yeah, just like that. You drag parts onto the screen and tie them together with a few pipes. 'Paint' the way the screen should look, then generate the program and run it. Voila! Application instamatique. You don't even have to know how to use a pair of Begin-End brackets (don't worry if you don't know what those are, that's the point).

This is going to be much easier than OLE or OpenDoc.

Maybe one day you'll be able to run Java on your wristwatch, and then you can tell it to send e-mail to Bill Gates. More likely you'll step up to a Kiosk one day and insert a smart-card that lets you order a Palmtop computer and have it billed and shipped to you without ever revealing personal information to someone looking over your shoulder. When you then get that Palmtop computer you'll stick your smart-card back in it and use it to access the same software the Kiosk was running, except now without the Kiosk, to order a birthday present for your nephew.

Oh, and you'll be able to play games and stuff on it too.

(Hah! I made it through all that without using a single coffee metaphor! Woo-hoo!)

Chris Wenham is a freelance web designer, writer and Englishman who now lives in Endicott, NY. In the past he has written comedy, sci-fi, Pascal, Rexx, HTML and Gibberish. He has been using OS/2 exclusively for the past 2 years.