Interview: Java apps revolve around Sun

From Project Relator to an internal program called JavaFirst, Sun believes it's time developers started treating mobile devices like real computers. Mark Jones, InfoWorld's executive news editor, spoke with Sun's Rich Green, vice president of developer tools, and Jeff Anders, group marketing manager, at June's JavaOne show.

InfoWorld: Applications built around services-oriented architectures are typically done in J2EE environments. In that context, how will J2ME applications evolve on mobile devices?

Green: There are two issues here: Services-oriented architectures in general, and then how does it talk to clients, for example a mobile device. [Sun is] trying to move up more and more to services-based technologies. There are some issues, [such as] what is the state of the art in terms of standards for creating services-based systems? With the Web services definitions that are out there today, it’s really quite straightforward. But when you get into something like an enterprise-class application that has to do secure transactions with high availability and failover that use many Web services, the flow of information has to be choreographed, and that’s not all there yet. So what we’re trying to do is two things: Keep the platforms -- the Sun ONE platform and the soon-to-be Orion platform -- state of the art in terms of adhering to the latest standards for services-based technology. We’re also doing things ourselves in the area of integration and other services while we await these standards that will allow this to occur.

InfoWorld: What opportunity does this situation represent to the Java community?

Green: I think massive steps are being taken between the Java community, WSI, and others. All the JAX-RPC (Java API for XML-Based Remote Procedure Calls) stuff, all the J2EE 1.4 functionality, [and] Web services are probably the single most powerful bit of glue and protocol capability to build services-based systems. The WSI components, the WSI basic profile -- which is also going to be part of 1.4 -- add a lot more in terms of XML standardization and protocols for that. What we’re going to do is keep evolving the Java platform and the interface model to deal with that. And in some respects, Java is further ahead because Java knows about transactions. Java really knows about security. Now it’s possible through the EJB container model to build highly available applications just by enabling that at the container model. The question is, are there standards to express those between services? They’re not all there yet. That’s a Web services thing and not a Java thing. So you can build services-based architectures extremely effectively now with pure Java, not even using SOAP and XML, because of the fundamental capabilities of the platform and the protocols that it supports. But as the world converges on Web services, Web services has to be evolved to be able to express all of these notions that are there in the Java platform between Web services, regardless of the implementation technique.

InfoWorld: Part of this discussion is the argument that Java could become fragmented. Is that a motivator behind what appears to be Sun's attempt to control and more visibly own the Java brand?