Java, the object-oriented programming language with Internet and cross-platform credentials, has been much in evidence at North America's largest computer show this week. Participants in a Comdex/Fall PowerPanel debated Java's impact before a capacity crowd, while exhibitors showed an assortment of new products using Java.

"There is no doubt that Java has caught the imagination of the computer industry," Upside magazine Editor Eric Nee told a packed panel discussion on Java Wednesday. "All you have to do is look around the room here to see that."

During the discussion, Miko Matsumura, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java evangelist, related how he became a Java convert -- before going to work for Sun -- when he compiled a Java program for the client side of a chat site he was developing for HotWired, a World Wide Web publishing venture. The applet occupied a little less than 6K bytes of memory. "The last time I made a program that was under 6K," Matsumura said, "was on an Atari 400 when I was 12 years old."

Robert Tasker, senior vice-president of computing research and consulting for the Boston-based research firm Yankee Group, was less enthusiastic. Among other things, he questioned Java's speed as an interpreted language, wondered who will retrain programmers to use it, and asked whether Java is too oriented to the client side of client-server computing at a time when the thrust seems to be to put more of the workload on the server and rely on thin clients.

"I see a lot of holes, a lot of blocks, and I for one would have to see a lot of those holes filled in before I would commit to putting my applications on Java," Tasker said.

Kim Polese, a former Sun employee and founder of Java-program developer Marimba Inc., answered Tasker directly, saying Java will get faster with time, the number of programmers is admittedly small but is growing "at an incredibly rapid rate," and Java can be as useful for server programming as for client programming.

There is no question that up to now, Java has been lacking in development tools that programmers working in more mature languages take for granted, and has had a few other growing pains. Simon Arnison, vice-president of research and development at Innotech Multimedia Corp., a Toronto-based software developer that showed a new Java-based World Wide Web search engine at Comdex, told Newsbytes that developing in Java was "a colorful experience."

Despite being a cross-platform language, Java behaved a bit differently on different platforms, Arnison said. Developers also labored under the handicap of lacking sophisticated tools such as just-in-time compilers and sophisticated debuggers, he said, adding that these are now becoming available and working with Java is "much better now than it was six months ago."

Innotech's application, called NetResults, is one example of what developers are doing with Java. It can be used to index and search documents on intranets or the Internet. Innotech chose Java because of its ability to handle multiple processes and the way it allowed decisions to be made on the client side with minimal server interaction, Arnison said. NetResults uses Java applets to let users conduct searches ranging from simple to sophisticated Boolean queries. He also praised the language's extensive support for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and network connectivity.

Peak Technologies Inc. of Marblehead, Massachusetts, showed Peak Net.Jet, a browser accelerator that uses such tricks as taking advantage of time when the modem would otherwise be idle to download and cache pages linked to the Web page the user is currently viewing. Richard McKinley, vice-president of sales, told Newsbytes it is the first completely Java-based consumer product. Building Net.Jet in Java helped Peak make it work with Netscape Navigator versions 2.0 and 3.0 as well as Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser, McKinley said.

Ottawa-based Corel Corp. was also at Comdex showing its Corel Office for Java, the first desktop applications suite written in the language. Corel also showed its personal digital assistant, which uses Java as well. "We are able to take applications that were developed on other platforms using Java and then make use of them on this new technology," said Chris Biber, a Corel technology evangelist.

Innotech's NetResults is shipping this month, at a per-server price of $1,995. Peak Net.Jet, due to be in stores this week, sells for $29.95. Peak also showed at Comdex Web.Animator, a tool for adding animations to Web pages, also written in Java.

Source: Newsbytes