Java vs. Microsoft .Net debate rages

Discussing the future of Java, panelists cited wishes such as boosts for asynchronous messaging. "More of this will come because people realize that there is not [just] a single programming model," in Java, said panelist Gregor Hohpe, enterprise integration practice leader at ThoughtWorks.

But for the bigger picture, the Java stack is maturing, Hohpe said. "I think we're going to see a slow maturation, which is already under way," said Hohpe.

Panelist Linda DeMichiel, EJB 3.0 spec lead and a senior staff engineer at Sun, said she anticipated further simplification of J2EE. Schmidt said he expected open source to play a bigger role in corporate development.

Responding to a question about the viability of service-oriented architectures, panelists responded that many companies already are deploying SOAs without actually referring to it as such. "I think it's actually happening. It’s just that some people aren’t calling it that," Schmidt said. Users are adopting SOA-related technologies such as asynchronous messaging, he said.

On Friday at the conference, the spec leader for the existing JSF 1.0 specification hailed the technology during a session entitled, "JavaServer Faces: Dead on Arrival or a Raging Success?"

Rebutting criticism about the quality of JSF components, Craig McLanahan, spec lead for JSF 1.0 and a senior staff engineer at Sun, said only the standard components have been at issue. "We're seeing libraries of components [coming from] all over the place," McLanahan said.

Components have been available from companies such as ESRI and IBM, he said. Meanwhile, an alternative implementation of JSF, called Apache MyFaces, is available at Apache, he said.

"I will claim that JSF has been successful for its first year," McLanahan said.

One factor impacting JSF adoption is the large number of applications written for Struts, which presents redundancies with JSF, according to McLanahan, who also is the Struts framework founder. He said he has proposed an Apache project, dubbed Shale, that would get rid of overlaps between the two platforms.

Overlaps would be eliminated in areas such as JSF validation and Struts navigation. Although McLanahan had proposed that Shale become Struts 2.0, it instead has been accepted as a Struts sub-project at Apache.org, he said. 

Requirements gathering for the upcoming 2.0 version of JSF is under way, McLanahan said.

Version 2.0 is expected to feature AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML HTTP Request) functionality, to boost rich Internet application development, said Edward Burns, Sun staff engineer and a spec lead for JSF 1.2. AJAX serves as extensions in the popular Mozilla and Internet Explorer browsers, Burns said after a Birds of a Feather session on Friday.

"It's ubiquitous," he said.

Version 1.2 of JSF, meanwhile, is due as part of J2EE 5 in approximately 2006. It will feature in-progress tree creation and content interweaving. JSF 2.0 will follow some time after that. "We want to get the JSR [Java Specification Request] filed [for JSF 2.0] pretty soon," by the end of the year, Burns said.