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Java Beans glue applets together

JavaSoft announces component architecture initiative

By George Lawton, JavaWorld.com, 07/09/96

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Microsoft has ActiveX (nee OLE). Unix has CORBA. Now an initiative called "Java Beans" is brewing a similar set of APIs that will make it easy to create Java applications from reusable components. Java Beans will be used in a wide range of applications, from simple widgets to full-scale, mission-critical applications. Many of the major software development tool vendors, including IBM, Netscape, Borland, Symantec, and Oracle, have announced plans to support Java Beans.

"Our mission with the Java Platform has been to guarantee developers that if they write in Java, their applets and applications will run anywhere," said Alan Baratz, president of JavaSoft. "The Java Beans initiative is evidence that we are pursuing that commitment vigorously. The winners are developers and ultimately end-users, who get all the functionality of current component architecture models with the portability and ease of use of Java."

A component model is required so that Java programmers can compose components into applications, and use some to control others. Currently, Java applets allow only static integration. Java Beans will enable a kind of dynamic integration in which components will come alive, capture events and then call methods of other components. For example, a button in one document can control functions in another document.

Java Beans will allow integration with other applications using multiple component architectures, including ActiveX/OLE/COM, Apple and IBM's OpenDoc, and Netscape's LiveConnect. Java Beans components also will be embedded into other containers.

Java Bean components will be stored as part of a parent application and can merge their GUI controls with it. This enables you to, for example, create a graphing application, and then incorporate the controls into Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Word, or a Hot Java browser. In theory, this will enable you to write once and then run anywhere.

Java Beans will be able to store other "beans" so that they can create hierarchical components and compound documents. They can be extremely small. For example, all of the components of the abstract windows toolkit (AWT) will be implemented as beans. At the high end, larger components such as a spreadsheet could be embedded into other applications as well.

Java Beans is "still at a smoke-and-mirrors stage of development," notes Donald DePalma, an analyst with Forrester Research Inc. Indeed, JavaSoft had not committed to announcing the component model at the JavaOne conference until shortly beforehand, and quickly lined up support from vendors.

The APIs are currently under development by JavaSoft and other supporters. More details will be available this fall; They will be reviewed for public comment in September. An early release version of the development software is expected by the end of the year from JavaSoft. It will begin shipping as part of the Java Development Kit in mid-1997 and will be incorporated into other development tools in the same time frame.

Read more about Core Java in JavaWorld's Core Java section.

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