READERS: JAVA IS HERE TO STAY
The term "insightful" accurately describes the response to our recent 
Java TechMail "Is Sun settling on Java?" The feedback was supportive of 
Java as a development language, but members were less enthusiastic 
about Sun's control.

We asked readers to give us feedback on two questions: "Has Sun 
misjudged Microsoft's edge in the Web Services arena?" and "Will Sun's 
release of J2EE be enough to keep the Internet, and Web services, out 
of Microsoft's control, or has Sun's reluctance to give developers what 
they need put the first nail in Java's coffin?"

A. Swab replied; "Many of us will remain loyal to Sun because we grew 
up on Sun along with the growth of the Internet. Sun solutions have 
always been more stable and scalable compared to Microsoft. Maybe 
Microsoft is the more popular and usually cheaper alternative. Those of 
us that remain loyal to the Sun side need Java, or whatever replaces 
Java on the Sun side, to maintain reliable solutions on our servers. 
Java happens to be portable, so it's convenient to use on the client 
side also. Java will remain strong until something better comes out for 
the Sun side. I deal with both Sun and Microsoft solutions. Frankly, 
I'm tired of patching Microsoft exploits every few days. I'm sure other 
folks are too. If anything, Java will become more popular than ever, 
given some time. I doubt many folks will drop Java just because it is 
not as open as some would like. Java is here to stay."

Still supporting Java but questioning Sun, Cal made the case that "Sun 
is positioning itself to follow in the 'Netscape vs. MS' lawsuit era. 
Look at Netscape. They took a 'wait and see' approach thinking they'd 
wait until some standards were put in place by some government 
appointed regulatory commission. In the process they saved themselves 
some $$$, but in the long run they missed the boat. Then they decided 
to sue the only company that spent the money and stuck its neck out in 
a time of changing technology. Even IBM backed away from competing with 
MS on many fronts (lawsuits involved some of those battles as well).

"Now Sun seems to be taking the same wait-and-see approach. I would 
hope not. Java is a standard in its own rite (sic) at the last two 
release levels. IBM supports it, and the same skills I've used with 
Java on my Web site I have been able to port to mainframe and 
Enterprise systems commingled with legacy applications. Java is out 
there."

Even though the majority of the members feel that developers have too 
much invested in Java to let it die, S. Meeds contends that, "Sun has 
kept a proprietary stranglehold on Java, and no one can say that it 
hasn't had an effect. The statistics show that the demand for Java 
programmers appears to be dropping, and Visual Basic skills are now 
more in demand than Java. It is clear that the development tide has 
already shifted away from Java, but it remains a good tool with a lot 
of future potential. The problem does appear to have its source in 
Sun's continued control of the language. I personally don't trust Sun's 
judgment to implement Java as a tool I can use. They seem more 
concerned with doing things at odds with Microsoft. This is going to 
continually affect the use figures until Java is turned over to an 
active independent board.

"There have been many good languages in the past. BASIC was far from 
the best language when it was implemented, but it has survived and 
grown tremendously. You can make a case that it has survived because it 
has grown so much. Pascal began as a capable language but didn't change 
a lot in capability through the years, and it didn't survive. Java, in 
the same manner, may become another good idea that somehow slipped 
away."

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CORRECTION
In the June 14, 2001 TechMail, "Writing objects to files," the 
published code snippet will not function as shown. The corrected code is 
shown below.

import java.io.File;

public class DirectoryListing {

public void showDirectoryFiles() {
File dir = new File("/tmp/files");
File[] files = dir.listFiles();

for (int i=0; i<files.length; i++) {
if (files[i].isFile()) {
System.out.println("File : " + files[i].getName());
} else if (files[i].isDirectory()) {
System.out.println("Dir : " + files[i].getName());
}
}
}

public static void main (String args[]) {
DirectoryListing dl = new DirectoryListing();
dl.showDirectoryFiles();
}
}

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