Keeping you abreast of the ever-changing Java world
Microsoft announces “Jakarta” Java technologies
March 12 – Microsoft will ship in mid-1996 a set of Java-enabled technologies, dubbed “Jakarta,” that appear to make Microsoft a major player in the Java vendor community.
Announced is Java support for Version 3.0 of the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browser (the current alpha release of that version does not yet support Java). The browser will include a built-in just-in-time (JIT) compiler to improve execution performance. Also planned is an integrated development tool for Java, based on Microsoft’s Developer Studio product line. Microsoft has committed to integrating the Java language with COM (common object model), Microsoft’s standard for interoperation between object brokers and Microsoft’s OLE.
Additionally, Microsoft signed a formal Java licensing agreement with Sun, and agreed to develop and maintain the Java reference implementation for all Windows products including NT. A Microsoft spokesman emphasized the importance of the COM connection; JavaSoft president Alan Baratz called the Microsoft commitment to Java “comprehensive.” –Michael McCarthy
Borland releases graphical Java debugger, promises just-in-time compiler
A pre-release version of Borland’s graphical debugger for Java applications is currently available for evaluation. The Borland Debugger, written entirely in Java, allows developers to easily set and remove breakpoints, step into Java functions, view variables, and even walk the call stack.
The debugger can be used to fix Java applet code locally or remotely across networks on any machine that hosts the Java virtual machine, ultimately offering true, platform-independent debugging. The debugger is among the first in a family of components called Latte, Borland’s native Java visual development environment.
Borland’s integrated development environment (IDE) fully integrates Sun’s Java Development Kit. Borland adds significant value to the kit by letting programmers manage projects, edit code using a Java-syntax color-highlight editor, and then compile, test and debug.
In addition to the Debugger, Borland will soon release its AppAccelerator, a new just-in-time (JIT) compiler. With AppAccelerator, programmers using Windows 95/NT for Java development can achieve a five to 10-fold performance increase in Java applications and applets. Even greater increases in speed can be expected when executing computationally intensive code.
“Having just-in-time compilers for Java is essential for delivering high-performance, cross-platform execution,” said Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape. “We’re excited about and supportive of Borland bringing this technology to market so quickly.”
The AppAccelerator is scheduled to ship in the Borland C++ Development Suite later this quarter. Further, Borland is licensing the AppAccelerator to Web browser vendors and others to help speed up Java applications on a variety of hardware platforms.
Developers can download the pre-release Windows 95/NT version of the Borland Debugger at
https://www.borland.com/Product/java/debugger/downld.html. It expires on March 31. –Max Airborne
Macintosh Web developers still waiting for Java
March 13 — While Web developers scramble to get in on the Java race, those on the Macintosh team are still stuck at the starting gate. The irony of the situation is apparent: while many of the pages you’ll find on the Web were created on the Macintosh platform, Macintosh users can barely view or create Java applets without encountering a mire of bugs and headaches. Fortunately, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Several companies have Java tools in various stages of development, however.
The release of JavaSoft’s Java development kit for the Macintosh, currently in beta, is expected by the end of this quarter. Though the kit lacks an editor, a project manager, and a debugger, it’s usable by Macintosh developers who aren’t afraid of a command-line interface, and developers can view Java applets on the Web via the kit’s AppletViewer, independent of their Web browser. The beta release requires a PowerPC processor, System 7.5, and 8 MB RAM, and can be downloaded from http://www.javasoft.com/JD K-1.0/Mac-Beta1/.
An early developer’s release of Roaster, a Java development environment from Natural Intelligence Inc., is generating promising reports from developers. “With Roaster, I’ve found a complete Java development environment,” said Sean Doyle of MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science, a seed tester of the developer’s release. “It’s the fastest Java tool I have used for prototyping, debugging, and delivering applets.” A PowerMac version of the Roaster is available for 99, which includes updates through Release 2. Developers can order, download, and register Roaster DR 1.1 at http://www.natural.com /pages/products/roaster/. Natural Intelligence promises a version for Motorola 68k-based Macs soon, and is working on Roaster Professional, which will create standalone Java applications. Natural Intelligence has also announced its Java consulting division, which offers a variety of cross-platform Java development services.
Symantec (https://www.symantec.com) is about to release Caffeine, a free Java plug-in for users of Symantec C++. Caffeine will be available for the PowerMac from http://www.symantec.co m/lit/dev/javaindex.html. Those who don’t already have Symantec C++ can purchase it for 49.95, which includes two updates. The first update will include Symantec Cafe, a full Java development environment with a debugger and class browser.
Metrowerks (https://www.metrowerks.com), makers of CodeWarrior, is promising a May 1996 developer’s release of its Java tool suite, code-named Wired. –Max Airborne
JDBC API integrates Java with enterprise databases
March 8 — JavaSoft has released a beta version of the JDBC API, a standard SQL database-access application programming interface that enables developers to write Java database applications. The API specification is now available at https://splash.javasoft.com/jdbc/ (where the JDBC driver manager jdbc.tar.Z file can be downloaded). The API is available for public review during a 90-day beta trial that will end June 8. Currently 82 pages in length, the API spec will, JavaSoft hopes, be frozen for official release in mid-June.
The World Wide Web provides businesses and consumers access to billions of bytes of unstructured data, but work is still underway to provide seamless access to the trillions of bytes of data stored in conventional databases. “The JDBC API extends the Web by allowing embedded Java applications to access such data,” said Alan Baratz, president of JavaSoft. “Our database integration products will provide vital corporate database connections for making the Java Development Environment on the Web an enterprise information access and application platform. JDBC is just the first of several products and services we’ll announce over the next year that will lay a strong foundation for the Java Enterprise Platform.”
To ensure that applications are portable between various JDBC drivers, JavaSoft is also developing a JDBC compliance suite, targeted for release in June. The compliance suite will verify whether each tested application conforms to the highest levels of Java compatibility. Also slated for June is a reference implementation of JDBC for the Microsoft ODBC interface.
“We’ve created JDBC to encourage adoption of an industry standard for developing open, portable, platform-independent database solutions,” said Jim Mitchell, vice president and general manager of JavaSoft’s software systems group. “We are actively working with database, tools, and driver companies to make JDBC flexible without compromising performance.”
Several companies currently developing for the JDBC API include: Borland International, Gupta Corp., IBM (for its DB2), Informix Software, Intersolv, Object Design, Open Horizon, OpenLink Software, Oracle Corp., Persistence Software, RogueWave Software, SAS Institute, Visigenic Software, and WebLogic. –Kieron Murphy
Alta Vista indexes Java applets
March 13 — Alta Vista, Digital Equipment Corp.’s widely used Web search engine (https://altavista.digital.com), is now capable of seeking out Java applets embedded in World Wide Web pages.
According to Digital, Alta Vista already has indexed more than 24,000 pages that feature Java applets. The company said Alta Vista locates applets whether or not they are mentioned in a Web page’s text, something Digital says other search engines can’t do. Alta Vista also can help Java developers track the number of Web sites using their applets or linking their pages. –Max Airborne
Rogue Wave’s JFactory provides visual application builder for Java
March 13 — RogueWave has released JFactory, a visual application builder and code generator for Java. JFactory enables developers to quickly create applications by dragging and dropping typical controls such as buttons, list boxes and menus. JFactory is derived from RogueWave’s zApp Factory application builder.
JFactory, which includes project management, testing, and code generation, can create both stand-alone Java applications and applets designed to run in Java-compliant Web browsers. The product permits incorporation of a third-party editor, debugger, and compiler.
JFactory runs on Windows 95, Windows NT, and Sun Solaris, and is available for an introductory price of 95. https://www2.roguewave.com/. –Max Airborne
Nutmeg libraries simplify Java development
March 6 — Thought Inc. has announced Nutmeg, one of the first commercial class libraries available for the Java language. The product is downloadable for evaluation purposes at https://www.thoughtinc.com.
According to Thought, Java can still require a great deal of time spent on low-level programming tasks. One of the areas where this is especially true is in the area of list management. Since Smalltalk has long been known as a powerful language for applications such as lists, Thought has modeled Nutmeg, a set of Java Classes, after the Smalltalk Collection Class library. Nutmeg includes classes to manage arrays of information, indexed collections, ordered and sorted collections, sets, and even dictionaries. Users can also define Smalltalk- or Java-style error handling, as well as programmer-defined sorting criteria (and in many areas, error handling and object selection blocks).
Student copies of Nutmeg are available for 9 (a binary license only). Corporate pricing is expected to be 95 per seat for the binary release and 95 per seat for a source code license. Both zip and tar files (for Windows and Unix) are available for general download. These classes have been designed to work with Windows, OS2, Mac, or Unix JDKs. Applications written with Nutmeg should run with any Java runtime environment. –Kieron Murphy
Java-based GUI Web publishing system available
FutureTense (https://www.futuretense.com) recently announced the industry’s first Java-based Web publishing system. FutureTense Texture is a Windows 95-based Web authoring tool and Java-based viewer/applet that lets graphic designers create WYSIWYG Web documents without writing HTML or Java code. Texture documents can be viewed with any Java-enabled browser on Windows, Macintosh or Unix. A viewer applet is automatically downloaded by the browser.
“As the first Web publishing system to use Java, FutureTense Texture lets designers create visually rich, highly-interactive Web publications quickly and easily,” a JavaSoft spokesperson was quoted as saying. “We believe FutureTense Texture is the first of a new generation of powerful, trailblazing tools — based on Java — that will dramatically improve all aspects of Web publishing.”
FutureTense Texture will ship in the second quarter of 1996, at a special introductory price of 95. It will be available at launch for the Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT. The company also promises a Macintosh version. –Max Airborne
Java opens mainframe to access by Web browsers
March 13 — Java, the current hottest technology, has been tapped by one vendor to perform the most old-fashioned — but some would say among the most important — of computer duties. OpenConnect’s OC://WebConnect server software gives Java-capable Web browsers access to mainframe data via 3270, 5250, NVT and VT220-type terminal emulation. The product converts standard data flows into HTML/Java data flows (and vice versa), permitting multi-session, multi-protocol access to existing business applications.
“OpenConnect chose Java as a key component of this new product offering because it provides a solution set to a wide range of interoperability issues,” said George W. Macintyre, OpenConnect’s Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. Where forms-based HTML/TN3270 packages fail due to difficulties with common HTML implementations, such as handling real-time host updates to user screens, or finding a user’s browser address on the network, “the OpenConnect Java approach means that users have a true bidirectional connection to their host systems.”
Java-enabled browsers can download an evaluation copy of OC://WebConnect at https://www.oc.com/WebConnect. –Max Airborne
Java SNMP package enhances network management
March 9 — For those interested in network management using Java, Advent Network Management has announced its Java SNMP Package for developing SNMP applications and applets in Java. The beta SNMP Package is derived from CMU SNMP 1.2U and includes a new MIB parser. The package is being made publicly available, with resources to speed the development of Java network management applications. Download a copy of the SNMP Package at https://www.adventnet.com.
A MIB browser applet with real-time graphing capabilities also is available. This applet provides some simple functionality to help a user load and navigate multiple MIBs and do sets, gets, and getnexts, in addition to graphing. The company claims the applet allows users to monitor network traffic remotely — even from a home PC. –Kieron Murphy
Diva for Java development tool announced
March 6 — Quintessential Objects, Inc. announced today that Diva for Java, the company’s Java development environment, will be available March 20. The release is a beta that includes a new visual design interface.
Diva for Java provides Java developers with class and project management capabilities, and creates both applets and standalone applications. According to Jim Friskel, QOI’s founder and CEO. “Diva has many advantages, one of which is that it is a standalone environment. Since it is not an add-on to an existing IDE, it has very little overhead. The entire product compresses down to under a half of a meg.”
Available for Windows 95 and Windows NT, Diva for Java is priced at 9. Details are available at QOI’s web site: http://www.inch.com/~friskel/. –Max Airborne
BlackWidow lets applets talk to CORBA objects
March 8 — Post|Modern Computing has announced the availability of the BlackWidow Java Object Request Broker. The beta version of BlackWidow can be downloaded and used freely from https://www.pomoco.com.
BlackWidow is a complete CORBA 2.0-compliant implementation written in Java, providing full client- and server-side functionality. Since the ORB runtime is written completely in Java, applets using BlackWidow can be downloaded into a Java-enabled Web browser (such as Navigator 2.0) and can communicate with any other CORBA 2.0-compliant object running anywhere on the Internet or within an intranet.
BlackWidow uses the Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP) as its on-the-wire format, allowing any client or server object written in Java to interoperate with any CORBA 2.0-compliant objects. For example, a Java client can talk to a C++ server by using BlackWidow and Post|Modern’s C++ ORB, ORBeline 2.0. Or a Smalltalk client can communicate with a Java server by using a commercially available Smalltalk ORB. BlackWidow objects can run on Windows 95, Windows NT, Mac OS, Solaris, SGI, and Linux, as well as many other platforms. The BlackWidow development environment is currently supported only on Windows 95, Windows NT, and Solaris. –Kieron Murphy
TeamJava registers experts and enterprises
March 8 — TeamJava has announced the availability of its new public registry of consultants and consulting companies specializing in the Java platform. A link to a registration form can be found at Review Registry Questions off of the company’s home page at https://teamjava.com.
TeamJava states, “Our mission is to promote and advance Java and assist Java consultants the world over in locating and completing contract work.” Its site, while quite new, includes registries of individuals and companies, as well as Java FAQ Archives and Java Links. For more information about TeamJava, contact James A. Squires via his Web site at https://www.jas.com or email jas@jas.com. –Kieron Murphy
JAVelin offers graphical development environment
March 7 — Step Ahead Software of Sydney, Australia, has released the Java development environment JAVelin. A time-limited evaluation version is available at https://www.ozemail.com.au/~stepsoft.
Chris Coleman, Step Ahead’s technical director, said, “The JAVelin tool basically says to developers that this is the ’90s. Java is a ’90s language. Why should you be focused on opening, editing, and closing an unruly bunch of text files when the ’90s focus is on classes?” With JAVelin, the focus is unashamedly on classes — their data and methods and the relationships between classes. All of these are shown graphically in front of the programmer, and access to details such as field types, method codes, and so forth is never more than a few clicks away.
According to the company, a built-in, intelligent editor provides editing facilities to modify source code for individual methods. A right-click menu in the editor offers quick access to other components, which can then be pasted directly into the editor to save typing and remembering the names of classes, fields, or methods. At the user’s request, JAVelin will automatically invoke the Java compiler (from Sun) to compile the underlying Java code.
“Practicing what we preach meant applying object-oriented methods to the development of our tool,” said Coleman. “The upshot of this is that incorporating support for the Java language took only about two weeks.”
JAVelin runs on Windows 3.1, Windows 95, and Windows NT. To compile and test code, users will need Sun’s JDK. The full price for JAVelin will be US 99; but as an introductory offer for a short time, the price is 49, including shipping to anywhere in the world. –Kieron Murphy
Java applets worth a look
Creative Media Cauldron (https://www.brainlink.com/~cauldron/) has released a suite of “Plug-in Playlets,” which currently consists of tools for Streaming Animation, Hot Button Panels, Temporal Imagemaps, and Invisible Download.
Steve Christensen’s Java Lava Lamp (https://smc.vnet.net/javalamp.html) is an animation generated with Mathematica and a Java animation applet. Steve provides full details on the Lamp’s creation.
ACupOfCoffee to go for NeXT’s InterfaceBuilder
March 6 — According to its developer, Ralf Suckow of melonSoft in Berlin, ACupOfCoffee is the first full-featured Java GUI Builder for Sun’s Abstract Windows Toolkit (AWT). Officially out of beta, ACupOfCoffee is implemented as a palette for the NeXTStep InterfaceBuilder. With ACupOfCoffee, users can implement all the features of InterfaceBuilder: drag and drop of components and their parts; direct manipulation of component attributes; alignment of functions; individual object inspection; creation of customized palettes of frequently used arrangements; and so forth. ACupOfCoffee turns InterfaceBuilder into a native Java AWT development tool that offers WYSIWYG interface design capabilities.
Suckow said, “The unique, flexible architecture of NeXT’s InterfaceBuilder allows full customization for the Java AWT. You arrange a UI for Java applets with full comfort. Also, ACupOfCoffee supports the interaction between the user interface and your application objects. It generates variables that allow you to access the interface objects, as well as generates an event handler that will call your application object methods in response to user actions.”
ACupOfCoffee is available via anonymous ftp at ftp://next-ftp.peak.org/pub/next/submissions/aCupOfCoffee.1.0.NIHS.tar. gz. It is free for any noncommercial use. For more information, contact Ralf Suckow at suckow@contrib.de. –Kieron Murphy
Low-cost Java processors cast Sun technology in silicon
March 13 — In an effort to extend their reach into the low-cost consumer and enterprise marketplace, Sun Microelectronics (formerly SPARC Technology Business), a division of Sun Microsystems Inc., announced last month a microprocessor family optimized for Java. With estimated application performance many times that of general purpose processors at a fraction of the cost, Sun Microelectronics officials claimed, the new class of low-cost Java processors will lead to a networked microprocessor market topping 5 billion by the year 2000.
“Java software, Java processors and Java systems are central to Sun’s inter- and intranet strategy,” said Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems, Inc. “Creating low-cost Java processors will take this powerful technology directly to the consumer, and takes the consumer directly into the new paradigm of network computing.”
Sun plans to offer a full range of Java-optimized component- and board-level products. According to Chet Silvestri, president of Sun Microelectronics, Sun will license the technology to third party developers “who can embed the technology into the wide range of products that will be enabled by the rapid growth of the internet and Java.”
“Industry analysts estimate that the overall microprocessor and microcontroller market will top 0 billion by the year 1999,” stated Rajesh Parekh, Sun Microelectronics’ Embedded Products Group vice president and general manager. “Today the average business person [utilizes] more than 10 microcontrollers. By 1999, the average home will contain between 50 and 100 microcontrollers. And worldwide there will be more than 145 million cellular phone users — each with at least one microcontroller. The result? Millions of cellular phones, security systems, entertainment systems, low-cost network terminals, and other internet appliances operating within a network and highly optimized for small applications or applets running at top speed. We believe our Java processors can provide a more optimum solution in a quarter of these applications.” –Max Airborne
Many Java and JavaScript security issues remain unsolved
Java and JavaScript continue to be plagued with the discovery of security flaws. Most recently, Lincoln Stein, MIT Genome Center’s director of informatics, documented a bug in JavaScript, a series of HTML extensions native to Netscape 2.0. The bug allows private information, such as a user’s email address, to be gathered and sent along with data submitted in an on-line form, without the knowledge of the user.
Stein is the author of the WWW Security FAQ, available at
http://ww w-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html. According to Stein, the best way to avoid JavaScript security bugs is to “use Netscape 1.1 or another vendor’s browser.” Stein also emphasizes that turning off Java in Netscape’s Security Preferences dialog box has no effect on JavaScript.
Other bugs in JavaScript have been documented. One tracks a user’s browsing activity and sends a report back to a remote server, and another allows JavaScript to gather and transmit recursive directory listings of a user’s local disk and any network disks that are mounted.
Several days prior to Stein’s discovery, computer scientists at Princeton University uncovered a problem with the Netscape 2.0 implementation of Java. The flaw involves the Java Applet Security Manager, which, after DNS subversion, allows an “attacker” applet to connect to the victim’s machine after they’ve downloaded an “innocent” applet. The attacker applet then proceeds to attack the victim’s machine or, in a more sophisticated implementation, all the machines in the victim’s local network. According to the Princeton report (http://www.cs.princeton.edu/ ~ddean/java/), the victim’s firewall is helpless to prevent the attack and, in effect, “the attacker causes the victim’s web browser to attack the victim’s own machines.”
Netscape has issued a patch that solves the Java problem, which users can read about and download at
http://home.n etscape.com/newsref/std/java_security.html. –Max Airborne
Here’s a related article published February 26 in JavaWorld‘s sister publication, Macworld Online: “Bug in Java Security Enables Malicious Applets to Attack.”
AT&T researchers track favorite Java resources
March 8 — A team of AT&T Research employees has been keeping tabs on the most popular subjects on the comp.lang.java newsgroup. Team spokesperson Loren Terveen said, ” We have created Web pages that summarize the most frequently and recently mentioned resources on comp.lang.java during the last few months. This is part of our research in supporting online communities.”
According to the team, the top five resources of interest are: Java Programming for the Internet (43); Gamelan (17); Frequently Asked Questions (7); Java and Cosmo Code Development Kits (6); Teach Yourself Java Errata (5), Natural Intelligence Inc. (5), and Java-Linux (5). Links to these and other relevant resources can be found at http://www.phoaks.com/pho aks/comp/lang/java. For more information, contact Loren Terveen at terveen@research.att.com. –Kieron Murphy
Mitsubishi Electric, NTT Data reveal Java plans
TOKYO, March 8 — Electronics equipment giant Mitsubishi Electric Corp. confirmed today that it will license the Java network programming language. Meanwhile, Japanese systems integrator NTT Data Communications System Corp. has disclosed plans to develop a Java-based data retrieval system. –Rob Guth, IDG News Service
Bell Labs developing Java rival
March 13 — AT&T’s Bell Laboratories division has spent the last 10 months secretly developing a direct competitor to Java, while leaving other major projects on the back burner. Code-named Inferno, the project has the devotion of much of the Bell Labs team, and Sun has not been invited to collaborate.
Inferno was announced somewhat inadvertently by AT&T’s Dennis Ritchie at last month’s UniForum in San Francisco. During a session speech, Ritchie, father of Unix and the C programming language, said he didn’t want to criticize Sun, but feels Java is both becoming unwieldy and doesn’t go far enough, according to a San Jose Mercury News report. Ritchie also suggested that Inferno would be useful for televisions, appliances, and other machines, not just computers.
Panic in the Java community was tempered by several additional facts about the Inferno project. Ritchie admitted that it has not been decided whether Inferno will become a commercial product. But Ritchie said AT&T management has shown a great interest in the project from the beginning, to the point where Inferno development has superseded development of Plan 9, AT&T’s post-Unix operating system on which Ritchie and his team have been working for years. Inferno’s future direction is likely to remain in question pending the AT&T reorganization that recently led to massive layoffs, and the expected transfer of the Inferno team to one of the operations being spun out of AT&T. In addition, AT&T is expected to buy a license for rival Java. –Max Airborne
