Yesterday, I was in Wiesbaden at the JAX 2007 conference. I gave a keynote in front of about 1500 Java developers. The title of the talk was Java IDE(s) - Then, Now, and Eventually. The talk was general about where Java IDEs have been and where they are going. The keynote was mostly generic about IDE capabilities but I did spend the last few minutes with four slides about JBuilder 2007.
A few highlights included the impacts of today’s Java development and how the IDE can help mitigate the issues, problems and complexities.
Offshore/Outsource - In the past, offshore labor has been cheap enough that management has not worried about the efficiency of that labor. There was little concern for project management, how these teams collaborated with the home office, or what tools these offshore groups were utilizing. The cost savings of that labor is not what it used to be. In some cases, where there has been a 6-1 ratio, it is down to 3 and even 2 to 1. As the cost of that labor goes up, there will be increased pressure to find efficiency gains. Management will scrutinize projects, require structured collaboration, and require tools that track development.
Open Source - Open source has often been viewed as “free.” But what is clear is that “free” code does not mean “free” development. In many cases, open source tools can actually cost more to use because of integration issues. Companies are just now realizing that the real issue is TCO and will, as a result, be more cautious about how they use open source.
Model-driven development - For years the industry has been promising the ability to development applications without “getting your hands dirty” developing code. What is now becoming clear is that the coding process remains at the center of software development. Visual diagrams of work flows and business processes are important in understanding complex applications, but the real key is translation that understanding into the right code.
Additional Development Challenges for teams and individuals include: Productivity, Agility, Best of Breed tooling, Distributed / Virtual teams, Complexity, Compliance, and Coordination.
Mapping Java innovations/milestones and JBuilder/Eclipse releases shows the committment of CodeGear (from Borland) to supporting latest Java capabilities:
- 1995 – Java introduced
- 1996 – JDK v1.0, Borland C++ for Java
- 1997 – JDK v1.1, JBuilder 1.0
- 1998 – Java 2, JBuilder 2.0
- 1999 – J2EE, JBuilder 3.0
- 2000 – J2SE v1.3, JBuilder 3.5, JBuilder 4.0
- 2001 – JBuilder 5.0, JBuilder 6.0
- 2002 – J2SE v1.4, J2EE v1.4, JBuilder 7.0, JBuilder 8.0
- 2003 – JBuilder 9.0, JBuilder X
- 2004 – Eclipse v3.0, Java 5.0, JBuilder 2005
- 2005 – Eclipse v3.1, JBuilder 2006
- 2006 – JEE 5, JSE6, Eclipse v3.2, JBuilder 2007
Recently, InfoWorld and Andrew Binstock did a review of several Java IDEs. This was a follow on/update of a 2005 review of Java IDEs. During the keynote, I spent a few minutes comparing and contrasting what the “important“ IDE capabilities were in 2005 and how they are different today in 2007.
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- Coding – dynamic error highlighting, coding tips
- GUI development
- Unit testing, Profiling
- Project build / Ant
- Source Code Control
- Web – Struts, JSP, JSF
- UML modeling
- EJB application servers
- Coding – static/dynamic code analysis, metrics, fix and go debugging
- GUI designers, WYSIWYG web editors, Visual EJB, Visual Web Services
- Testing, Tuning, “Hardening”, “Securifying”
- Continuous integration and build
- Team development
- Web 2.0, AJAX
- UML modeling (more diagrams), model audits and metrics
- EJB, lightweight container (Spring), object/relational persistence (Hibernate)
2005
2007
The summary results of the 2007 comparative review showed JBuilder 2007 with an advantage over IBM and Sun offerings. JBuilder 2007 = 8.6, IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software 7.0 = 7.9, Sun NetBeans 5.5 = 7.4. Note: Based on Andrew Binstock’s InfoWorld Java IDE comparative reviews from March 2005 and March 2007
After showing screen shots from several different Java IDEs including JBuilder 2007, IntelliJ IDEA, Sun NetBeans 5.5 and IBM Rational Application Developer, I ended the keynote by mentioning a few of the capabilities that could appear in Java IDEs in the future.
Future Capabilities/Targets:
- SOA / Service Component Architecture
- Rich internet and AJAX applications
- Complimentary languages – managed, scripting, dynamic
- Embedded and Device Software Development
- Software process – Agile and otherwise
- Vertical market and domain specific frameworks
- Integrated marketplace for services, components, plug-ins
- BPEL and BPMN
- Concurrent programming
- Multi-language (programming and spoken), multi-platform
Future Style of Development:
- Individual, Small Teams, Large Teams, “Teams of Teams”
- Virtual, Collaborative, Distributed
- Standalone, Networked, Hosted, Connected/Disconnected
- Mashups
Thank you to the JAX 2007 organizers S&S and to all those who attended my keynote.
{ 1 } Comments
Hello Mr. David I:
I find your blogs really boring! If your keynote address is as useful as your blogs, I would imagine not too many people will be impressed by your keynote!
If you want to know how to write blogs that people appreciate, maybe you can learn from this blog site:
http://boeingblogs.com/randy/
Notice how well Randy B (the blogger) presents his information to his audience (read the positive responses & feedback). This guy does his homework and does not insult the intelliegnce of his audience by putting all kinds of garbage disguised as ‘useful’ information.
Sincerely
Jack Mann
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