Java Links

Javasoft

• What's new?
  News and Press Releases
• Security
  • Code Signing
  • Applet Security FAQ
  • Security White Paper (Postscript format)
• Mailing Lists at Javasoft
  • Mailing Lists not at Javasoft
• The Java Platform
  • Download the JDK 1.1
  • Licensees
  • Developers
  • Porting Java to Other Platforms
• Sun's Java Documentation
  • General Information and White Papers
  • Product Documentation
  • Java Developers Kit
  • The Java 1.0.2 Class API
  • The Java 1.1 Class API. This is as to Java as P.J. Plaugher is to C, only more so.
  • Sun's Java Tutorial
  • The Documentation Redistribution Policy
  • The 1.0 Java Language Specification
• Sun's FAQ Lists
  • General questions about Java.
  • HotJava
  • The Java Developers Kit
  • Obtaining the source code for the JDK 1.0.2
  • Java Licensing, Trademarks and Copyrights Java
  • Java Security
  • Recently Asked Questions
• Future APIs
  • Jeeves and The Java Server API
    • Known Bugs
    • FAQ List
    • Architecture
    • Jeeves API
    • Release Notes
  • Java Beans
    • Java Beans White Paper
    • Main API Areas
    • Postscript format draft of the Java Beans API
    • Acrobat format draft of the Java Beans API
  • AWT Extensions for drag-and-drop and cut-and-paste.
  • "JAR File Format Specification"
  • Java Remote Method Invocation and Java Object Serialization
    • Postscript draft of the Java Object Serialization specification.
    • The Core Reflection API for analyzing the fields and methods of objects.
  • Java Enterprise API and JDBC
  • IDL
  • Java Commerce API
  • Java Management API
  • Java Media API
• The Java Store, Getting and spending we lay waste our powers...
• Tools
  • Java Workshop
  • Java Workshop 1.0
    • FAQ
    • Try and Buy
    • Intro
• Training
  • Java
  • Java Workshop
• JavaOne
  • Keynote Addresses, Slides and Transcripts
    • Tim Berners-Lee
    • Gosling / Baratz
    • Scott McNealy
    • Eric Schmidt
  • Session Presentations, Slides only in Acrobat format
    • Technical Track
      • Libraries Technical Overview
      • Platform Independence & Reusability
      • Java Runtime Internals
      • Servers & Server Extensions
      • Database Access
      • Database Connectivity
      • Crypotgraphy and Security
      • Java Database Connection
      • Media Class Libraries
      • Remote Objects
      • Embedded and Small Systems
    • Design Track
      • Real-World Analysis
      • Network-Based Applications
      • Human Interface Design
      • Authoring & Scripting
      • Advanced Tutorial: Abstract Window Toolkit (part 1)
      • Advanced Tutorial: Abstract Window Toolkit (part 2)
      • Designing Real-Time Interactive Services
      • Private Label Browsers
      • Designing Your Own Class Libraries
      • Advanced Tutorial: Multithreaded Applications
      • Designing with 3D
      • Distributed Computation & Persistence
      • Multiuser Environments
      • Internationalization
    • Business Track
      • JavaSoft Business Roadmap
      • Industry Outlook (Markets Intro)
      • Database Systems and Tools
      • The Internet Server
      • Markets: Intranet/Enterprise
      • The Internet Desktop
      • Java Compatability
      • Markets: Finance
      • Java-Based Appliances
      • Revolutionizing Software Distribution
      • Markets: Internet Commerce
    • Vendor Presentations
      • BORLAND: Rapid Application Development
      • BRITISH TELECOM: New Mobile Applications)
      • JUSTSYSTEM: Component Software Architecture
      • METROWERKS: Macintosh Development
      • MITSUBISHI: Java-Based Devices from Mitsubishi
      • NETSCAPE: Introduction to the JavaScript Language
      • NOVELL: Beyond Browsers
      • SUN MICROELECTRONICS: PicoJava
      • SUN MICROSYSTEMS COMPUTER CORPORATION: Evolution of Web Servers
      • SUNSOFT: Java Workshop and Beyond
• People
  • Ken Arnold
  • Thomas Ball
  • Dave Brown
  • David Brownell
  • Steve Byrne
  • David Connelly
  • Satish Dharmaraj
  • Pavani Diwanji
  • Amy Fowler
  • Lisa Friendly
  • Rachel Gollub
  • James Gosling
  • Jim Graham
  • Graham Hamilton
  • Mary Hamilton
  • Herb Jellinek
  • Marianne Mueller
  • Mark Opperman
  • Eduardo Pelegrí-Llopart
  • Rich Schiavi
  • Hassan Schroeder
  • Kevin A. Smith
  • Orca Starbuck
  • Kathy Walrath
  • Annette Wagner
  • Prasad Wagle

Lists of Links

Gamelan

A collection of links to Java applets.

Java at Yahoo

As usual Yahoo has fairly useful collections of links to Java info.

• Java:
  http://www.yahoo.com/Computers/Languages/Java/.
• HotJava Browser:
  http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_Web/Browsers/HotJava.

Launching Pad: A compendium of Java-related web pages

Jeff Aronoff has put together a nice page of annotated Java links with some bias toward the Mac platform. It includes his notes and slides from the Java presentations at Apple's Geek's Week at Pikes Peak.

Cup O' Joe Java Shop

A moderately bandwidth-intensive collection of links to Java tools.

News and Bibliographies

Digital Espresso

Collected Notes from comp.lang.java, strong-java, and other sources. Extremely useful.

The Java Online Bibliography

General, non-technical articles about Java on the Web

Java News

News from the press and press releases (not that there's much difference in computer journalism these days).

Tutorials and Examples

Making Sense of Java

Hank Shiffman has put together a collection of twelve common assertions about Java. On this page he tries to cut through the hype to find what's true, what's false, and what's only half-true. I don't always agree with what he says, but it's definitely worth reading.

Sun's Java Language Tutorial

The beginnings of a Java tutorial.

Java Diary

One man's adventures with Java, well written and very useful for beginners.

Programming Active Objects in Java

Doug Lea's explication of the philosophy of active object design using Java as the implementing language. There's lots of material about threads here.

AWT Tutorial

Nelson Yu's preliminary tutorial about the AWT.

From Hello World to Ticker Tape in Seven Steps

Timothy Arnold's applet tutorial.

Slurp Java

Vijay Mukhi's humorous approach to learning Java.

Java and VRML

Adrian Scott has written a FAQ list about using Java with VRML and vice-versa.

Security

The Safe Internet Programming Project

The Safe Internet Programming Project at Princeton Univorsity has a lot to say about Java security and related issues.

Mark Ladue's Hostile Applets

These simple Java applets were created in order to point out the potential for downloading hostile applets.

What Javasoft has to say about security

• Code Signing
• Applet Security FAQ
• Security White Paper (Postscript format)

The Java Security Hotlist

A set of links about Java Security

History

Java, The Inside Story

This is the first article about the genesis and history of Java. You may also be interested in Chris Warth's comments about the article.

The Java Saga

David Bank's December, 1995 article for Wired about the birth of Java.

Periodicals

JavaWorld

Javology

Java Report Online

Ports

Nextstep

Amiga

A group has formed to port Java and HotJava to the Amiga Operating System. P'Jami is the name for the resulting browser. It is unclear if this is going to go anywhere.

Jolt

Jolt is a community effort to produce an independent, portable, GPL'd Java system which can pass Sun's validation suite.

Linux

Windows 3.1

IBM has a preliminary port of the JDK to Windows 3.1, It requires Win32s, WinG, and at least eight megabytes of RAM.

SGI

An IRIX port has mostly been completed by Simon Leinen. SGI's own port is available at http://cosmo.sgi.com/

HP/UX

DEC Alpha/OSF/1

The OSF has ported Java to Unixware, the Bull Estrella or other PowerPC running AIX4.1, X86 running DASCOM OSF/1 , the Digital Alpha running Digital UNIX 3.2 , the HP700 series running HPUX 10.x, the NCR Globalyst (Pentium) running UNIX SysV, and Sony NEWS (MIPS) running Sony NEWS 6.1.1. See http://www.osf.org/mall/web/JDK/.

MVS

IBM is porting their AIX port of the JDK to MVS. This port will probably require the XPG4 Base (i.e. POSIX) brand certified Open Edition MVS. One problem with this port is that MVS uses the EBCDIC character set in contrast to the ASCII/Unicode set used by Java and almost every other computer on Earth. No release date is projected.

OS/400

IBM is porting Java to the AS/400 as a direct POSIX port of the Sun JDK. It will not support AWT or multimedia classes due to the lack of graphics and sound on the AS/400. The beta should be available in the early fourth quarter, 1996.

Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)

Natural Intelligence's Roaster is a Macintosh hosted applet development environment. It has been designed from the public specs with no help from Sun. It is also still beta quality. I do not recommend it.

Metrowerks includes Java support in Code Warrior Gold. Metrowerks has licensed Sun's source code. The Java support is alpha quality, and is not by itself worth the price of Code Warrior, even the $99 Java only edition. However if you also need a C compiler it doesn't cost you anymore to get Java support.

Sun publishes a payware IDE called Java Workshop. It is fairly cheap, ($99) but again not yet worth the download time. Java Workshop is similar to Sun's existing Workshop products for Fortran and C++. However it is written entirely in Java. You'll need at least a Pentium Pro to squeeze adequate performance out of this system.

Microsoft's Visual J++ is one of the faster VM/JIT combinations available. However the compiler has some bugs that prevent it from compiling certain legal Java code. Once again, despite the 1.0 designation, this is beta software at best, and is not worth spending money on.

Step Ahead Software publishes Javelin, a payware Java IDE for Windows with versionitis (the rapid release of allegedly major versions that only include trivial enhancements and a few bug fixes).

Powersoft has a rapid application development tool for Java codenamed "Starbuck" in public beta available from their web page.

Parts for Java

Kawa Asymetrix's SuperCede for Windows 95/NT leths you create stand-alone executables.

Iavadraw

IBM's VisualAge for JAVA is currently in beta and looks promising but needs 64 MB of RAM.

Borland's JBuilder, a.k.a Latte, is currently in private beta.

Marimba's Bongo

ObjectShare's Parts for Java (a SmallTalk IDE moved to Java)

Imperial Software's X-Designer

Visaj

Kinetix/AutoCad's HyperWire, a 3-D/VRML oriented Java IDE.

Penumbra's MOJO

Jamba

Bulletproof JBuilderPro

JRad

Aleda Freeman has created an excellent page on Java IDE's and other tools at http://www.cybercom.net/~frog/javaide.html. This site has descriptions of and links to IDE's, database connectivity tools, and more.

The bottom line is that you should use Sun's JDK and the text editor of your choice. None of the available IDEs are worth what they cost. All will cause you more problems than they solve. Unless you enjoy paying to beta test products, there's no reason to purchase any of these at this time.

Other Front Ends

Ada

Intermetrics

Scheme

Kawa

Web Servers Written in Java

The Java Web Server (a.k.a Jeeves)

Supports the Java Servlet API

James

Supports the Java Servlet API and modules for extensibility.

Jigsaw

The World Wide Web consortium's reference server

Jetty

Supports the Java Servlet API as well; includes source; free for non-commercial and internal use.

Object Request Brokers for Java

Java and the Mac

Java and Frontier Sittin' in a Tree!

How to call AppleEvents in Sun's JDK for the Mac 1.0.2

Development Tools

Decompilers

Mocha

The original Java decompiler

WingDIS

As well as being available from WingSoft's web site, version 2.0.3 of this payware decompiler is included on the CD-ROM of my book, Java Secrets. (Current version is 2.10).