Phobos and the Java platform . . .

Phobos has been getting more coverage lately and hopefully will continue to receive more in the near future. I believe Sun is on the right track to make a really good, lightweight, scripting stack for the average developer.

I think one of the biggest hindrances for Sun in years past was their lack of vision for reaching out to every business or developer. I think that has changed the last few years and they are on the right track on converting developers and businesses to their software. I have been a fan of Sun's for years even though I have used very little of their software. The biggest problem being ease of use and simplicity. Everyone knows that many, many huge enterprise applications run on Solaris and Java. However, for small business, it is a different ball game and it is hard to utilize all that power and stability. Java was originally written as a replacement for C. While Java was easier than C, a VB, VFP, Perl, or PHP developer wasn't really interested in learning C or Java. Yes, Java was more powerful, but the other languages were simple enough for the masses to crank out simple to somewhat complex applications. Java developers touted for years how great Java was, but you didn't see developers who were comfortable using higher level languages migrating down to Java.

This brings us to Java's opportunity which is now. Microsoft has discontinued VB6, VFP, and Access and is pushing their developers to migrate down to VB.NET or C#. Many developers would rather not do this. They are looking for alternatives. With tools like Phobos and Jmaki for the web, the landscape is looking better for those developers. I am looking forward to Netbeans 6 and the automatic databinding for the fat client, but I think the killer app would be to be able to use the Netbeans IDE tools for fat client, but be able to write your code in Javascript or a higher level language. When the masses can crank out simple applications to meet their needs, you will see migrations of developers who are looking to be able to develop cross platform apps.

I have seen some comments about Phobos from Java developers who feel we do not need another Java based web framework. I think Java developers should reach out to those who are not using Java and strive to encourage their movement to the Java platform. The Java community needs to show that it is reaching out to all developers. It has been a great stride for other languages to be ported to the Java platform.

Linux has achieved ease of use for the masses, but the lack of easy developer tools for the average developer to write applications to run on Linux has inhibited its growth. I think a Java foundation with high level languages can fulfill that role. Solaris is an outstanding operating system, but until it can be loaded on generic hardware as easy as Linux or Windows, it is difficult for people to use.

If you are currently using a Microsoft platform, you should give Phobos and the Java platform a try. Join the mailing lists and try writing a simple application. The Sun engineers answer questions and are a great help.

Next week I will discuss the similarities script developers on a Microsoft platform will find on the Phobos platform.