Java has taken the computing world by storm. It is elegant in design, easy to learn, and a pleasure to use. A developer writes Java code once, and it is instantly portable to almost every platform. Java is strongly typed and object oriented from the ground up, giving us programs that are more robust, more maintainable, and more expandable. Networking is at the core of Java. Everything from naming, to its execution environment, to API design is tailored to networked computing. A rich set of reusable Java components is available to provide infrastructure support, and Java integration is available for nearly every major language. Java performance is more than adequate to provide the systems glue, with performance critical components written in other languages. Java 1.3 promises to provide significant improvements in client-side performance. Java tools are mostly free. Java programmers are easy to find. And as one of the most successful computing platforms of our era, users can expect continued expansions, upgrades, and community support.
