“Barring a sudden cold shoulder from IBM, a gaffe by Sun
Microsystems, or some other unlikely event, Java is on track to
become one of the primary programming languages of e-commerce.
And it should provide a bright future for those who know their way
around the Beans and Enterprise Editions.”
“Some holdouts remain: People who question whether Java can
replace COBOL, C++ or Visual Basic as a language for
mission-critical, big-time business applications. A number of
industry experts insist it needs to brew a bit, but its time is
coming quickly.”
“Java is definitely catching on,” acknowledges Ian Hayes,
president of Clarity Consulting in Massachusetts. “But most of what
I’ve seen with Java has been working with interfaces, like doing
Web front ends and so forth. No one I know of would go and program
a Java accounting program or something like that. … Java will
really go mainstream the second somebody can do a warehouse
distribution application in Java.”