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Hello Peter, Of course it is! We covered much of this in 1998. The new things are increased frustration and possibility that with current technology and mindset we might actually put it to rest Didier replies: Peter, I noticed recently a new trend for people who invested in Java. At first it seems that several projects tried to develop some functionality in Java. For example CML got its java interpreter, translating the CML document into a three D view. But, and this is not entirely the fault of browser environments, Java is not always running smoothly in these environments mainly because the plug-in run-time is not running smoothly and several version were simply buggy. We blame the browsers but in fact we should also blame who made the plug-in. Because of this matter of fact and because of the recent push lead by IBM of a java only run-time incarnated by Eclipse. It seems that several projects with vested interest in Java are moving toward the eclipse platform. In the last month I saw at least 3 major projects moving in that direction. New trend: So, there is a new trend now where the Java world is moving to a new platform: Eclipse. The model is simply that you download the eclipse platform and then download pug-ins from the web when needed. Publishers define perspectives and the latter are used to know the requirement. See, again the requirement thing (what is actually missing in the browser platform to know intelligently what to do). Pretty soon, we'll see a new movement toward XAML fro the window platform. Because the latter includes 2 and 3D and because there will be several user friendly tool, we can expect this will compete against Eclipse. In the case of XAML anything like a window in the desktop to a window in IE's browser can be the host of XAML apps. For the next years, as people will update to the new window version tey will get this automatically installed. Finally an evolution of AJAX or the fall of the browser as an application platform or as a datument platform. I can say that up to now, the community didn't try very hard to make the browser platform to work efficiently. I saw a lot of criticism but not a lot of concrete code. However, I was recently pleasantly surprised to see the AJAXIANs taking a different angle and considering the browser has we would do with any other development platform. The shift is not easy because it means to get out of the comfort zone and explore new lands. Funny to see that the comfort zone if full of frustrations as expressed recently in this forum. Bottom line: We'll see more and more movement of the java community toward a java environment. Eclipse seems to fulfill the niche for now... Until its limitations become obvious (but maybe the Eclipse team will pay attention to the customer base and will respond by adjusting it to the new requirements). Hopefully, AJAXIANs will continue to push the limits and offer different engines sitting on top of the browser platforms like Javan (I just inveted the word :-) are actually considering the different VM (IBM, SUN) and JDKs (IBM, Sun) W3C created the Myth of the standard/recommendation with different implementation. Sun created the same myth. In both case, we noticed the effort from vendors to not be commoditized by offering THEIR version of the standard/recommendation. It seems that the myths are now getting busted by reality. The impact: for the browsers, the emergence (since a couple of years) of portable libraries like Sarissa offering a single API on top of the different browser platforms (doesn't remind you of a certain patters re-emerging like a phoenix once in a while). Because W3C recommendations are a myth or a utopia, the reality is that browser implementations are still different (after 1more than 10 years of the web) and have different behaviour. What is needed is: a) get rid of the browsers and start from scratch all over. This is what people migrating to Eclipse are doing. However, they port their actual applets and hence, do not totally start from scratch. b) do some layers on top of the browser platform to adapt to the different browser platforms. This is what the AJAXIANs and your humble servant are doing. c) Embrace The new window generation and enjoy the efficiency of XAML. Cheers Didier PH Martin
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