JavaOne Opening Keynote: Gosling Speaks

The theme in two words is "Java Here," since Java technology will be used in everything from toasters and light switches to Web TV and enterprise servers.

By Erica Rex, JavaWorld

James Gosling, a VP and Sun Fellow at Sun Microsystems Inc., kicked off JavaOne April 2 with a keynote at 8:30 a.m.

San Francisco (April 2, 1997) -- Before James Gosling , one of this morning's keynote speakers, mounted the stage, it was the usual Sun trade-show opening: lots of noisy rock and roll music, bright lights, and a multiplicity of oversized monitors hung from walls, ceilings, and scaffolding. A stylized video, "Doggie Be Good," introduced the "Java Here" theme: it portrays a half-asleep woman lying in bed. Her terrier won't stop barking outside her door. With the flick of a remote switch ('Java here' reads the on-screen bubble) she unlocks the door and lets in the dog. From there, she goes to the kitchen, and starts the coffee, the toaster, and the television with the flick of yet another Java-enabled device. Then she goes to the garden, where the incorrigible dog runs off with a pair of gardening gloves. Quick as a wink, our friend is on the cell phone ('Java here') to her husband on the golf course. In no time at all, he's logged on to the Web from a hand-held Java-enabled device . He orders a collar from an on-line pet catalog. It arrives at his wife's door in no time. The final sequence portrays the dog, its Java-enabled shock collar tucked neatly under its chin. The moment it begins to growl, the woman halts it mid-woof using yet another Java-enabled remote.

John Gage Director, Science Office Sun Microsystems Computer Co.

John Gage, Director of Sun Microsystems' Science Office, was the MC for this keynote. Said Gage: "There are close to twice as many attendees at the JavaOne conference this year as there were last year. Because it's such an important event, Mayor Willie Brown -- an honorary Java programmer by virtue of the fact that he's learned to work the algorithms of government so well -- has proclaimed Java Week in San Francisco, to last from March 31 through April 5."

James Gosling, Vice President and Sun Fellow at Sun Microsystems, then made a grand entrance wearing a Borg costume. Said Gosling: "I haven't been assimilated, but I have been busy."

Gosling's speech emphasized both the improvement to existing Java APIs (Application Programmer Interfaces) and the addition of new APIs appropriate for programming everything from devices to enterprise servers.

In addition, there is "enhanced performance and compatibility for JDK 1.1. The test suite now includes more than 8,000 programs," said Gosling. There are also enhanced GUI toolkits, more lightweight components, including an enhanced AWT foundation, better internationalization/conversion capabilities, better security, and improved distributed computing components such as JDBC, RMI, and CORBA. "[We] have also worked on creating a JavaBeans Application Programming Interface (API) infrastructure. Next year, we'll be focusing on API initiatives including a Java Naming-and-Directory Interface, Java transaction services, Java sound, Java advanced imaging, profiling and tracing, and richer security. We're trying to find out where the dead hippos are lying," said Gosling. "We're going to have both more access and more protection."

The Swing Set: Java Foundation Classes
The new Java Foundation Classes, with the current AWT at the core, will extend the Java Platform's capabilities to offer a comprehensive set of GUI component tools for Java application development. Coming from this work will be a project that Gosling referred to as The Swing Set, a unified user-interface framework for building applications. Said Gosling: "It [the Swing Set] will have a rich set of pre-defined components, will be fully customizable, will simplify commercial GUI development, and will create an open component market. All the GUI components will interoperate. Programmers should be able to switch the look and feel of any GUI back and forth, from Mac to PC to whatever. It's a license to be completely tasteless on the part of the application developer and the UI developer. You can project any look you want to project." Instead of worrying about transactions or porting, programs can "reflect the face of your [developer's] company. It's like having plastic reconstructive surgery available for the user interface."

PersonalJava, EmbeddedJava
Besides the new UI framework, there will be a new Java Application Environment (JAE) for consumer networked products, called PersonalJava, and a JAE for smaller devices, called EmbeddedJava. These JAEs will be tailored for "products such as cell phones, set-top boxes, screen phones, mid-range mobile phones, and my mom's toaster," said Gosling. "EmbeddedJava is designed to shrink memory usage -- it's for small devices where the byte code is much smaller and ROM and RAM requirements are smaller." EmbeddedJava will also be useful in products such as industrial controllers, pagers, routers, switches, or any device that requires less than 0.5 MB of ROM.

Miko Matsumura, an engineer at JavaSoft, and Gosling demonstrated a Web TV box running Java, and used it as an example of how PersonalJava "enables Java tools to become available to the non-technical masses," said Gosling.

Resources

• Gosling's bio
• Gosling Talks About Java Revolution
• Baratz interview
• Baratz keynote

April 2, 1997	Complete Contents