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Ninth annual Inprise Conference reveals juicy bits of Java news

Sessions stress Delphi, databases, and CORBA, but JDK 1.2, HotSpot, Swing, beans, and JBuilder grab attention too

By John Zukowski, JavaWorld.com, 09/01/98

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• First Java ORB (client and server)
• First Java CORBA services (naming and events)
• First to support OMG's IDL to Java mapping
• First Java Transaction Service (JTS) implementation, with its Integration Transaction Service (ITS)

Delphi generating Java bytecodes?

Surprisingly, there were even some Java tidbits related to Inprise's Pascal tool, Delphi, during the technology keynote. To enable existing Delphi developers to create cross-platform server applications, Chuck Jazdzewski, the chief Delphi architect, demonstrated the Delphi for Java Bytecode Compiler. This compiled Delphi source to Java bytecodes, enabling a server-side non-graphical Delphi program to run on a Solaris box or any other Java virtual machine. Inprise executives stressed that this was only a technology demonstration, not a product announcement. However, if the audience's reaction has any impact on the product's future, expect to see it soon.

JBuilder for AppServer

Another highlight from the technology keynote was Inprise's JBuilder for AppServer technology preview. While Inprise's message at the conference was consistent -- its aim is to provide support for Pure Java standards in order to deliver the best development tool for distributed solutions -- the company also wants to offer a complete solution that tightly integrates its complete line of development tools. With the AppServer preview, the JBuilder product automatically generated CORBA, HTML, and servlet client and server code -- providing a tightly integrated solution for developing, deploying, and managing distributed multitier applications. Working from an IDL file, or even plain Java interfaces, the only thing left to do is add the business logic.

Baratz keynote

Probably the biggest Java-related news came from the Straight Talk about Java Technologies for the Enterprise keynote from Dr. Alan Baratz, president of Sun's Java Software Division. (For more on the keynote, see last month's article.) In his speech, Baratz announced the latest release date for JDK 1.2 -- November 1998 -- and Sun's final development criteria. In order for it to ship, the tool must not increase the RAM footprint more than 30 percent; it must keep performance and start-up time at levels at least as good as Java 1.1; and it must be fully backward-compatible.

Baratz's other announcement was related to Sun's HotSpot technology, which is due to be released in February 1999. (For technical information on HotSpot, see Resources.) With this release, expect Java performance numbers to at least double, due to a three-pronged performance-improvement approach. Using pause-free garbage collection, adaptive optimizations, and a new threading and synchronization model, Java performance with the HotSpot virtual machine will equal the speed of natively compiled C++. The adaptive optimizations made by HotSpot are optimistic and may be dynamically backed out if they prove to be wrong -- something a static C++ compiler is unable to do, since the C++ compiler cannot undo bad guesses at runtime.

 

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