Perhaps. I think you'll see Java's use on the server side take a slightly
different path though - it won't merely be used to replace existing CGI
applications - they're a little primitive. Jave is a little more than a
cool new language, it is one of very few "ways" (can't think of a better
word) that executable content can move around securely in binary form.
OMG have just started the (year long) process for ratifying a mobile agent
standard for inclusion in CORBA facilities. SunSoft is a big OMG player.
I think you'll see Java supporting mobile agent operation (similar to mobile
content, except that execution states need to move as well) very
soon. I would be unsurprised if SunSoft's submission on mobile agents was
Java based - as far as I know SunSoft have no other technologies which enjoy
Java's platform mobility.
If this occurs, the game will change. Applications will spring up where
executable content will be able to move not only server-to-client
as Java does now, but client-to-server and server-to-server. In some/many
cases, execution state will move as well.
CGI's will become a dim memory of a primitive, clumsy technology. (They
are already a primitive, clumsy technology. They are yet to become a dim
memory.)
> SO... Windows programmers use Windows-native languages like Visual BASIC
> for their Winsite CGI programs, Unix programmers use "Unix-native"
Whilst VB remains a competitive option to Java derivatives. That may
not be so long. I don't recall Microsoft going through such
a humiliating backdown before, ever.
> languages like Perl or shell scripts for their NCSA-httpd CGI programs,
> etc. They do it not because what they use is "better" (tho they may try
> to convince you of that), but because they are using whatever they are
> most familiar with. Java, for all its merits, is still yet another
> language and development environment to learn.
In much the same sense that a 4GL is to people who have mastered assembler.
There are things that writing assembly code simply can't(*) achieve.
Similarly, applications that'll unfold over the next 18-24 months will require
facilities that current Web servers and CGI mechanisms simply can't offer.
((*) This is not a computability argument, but a financial one. Assembly
coders could NOT achieve most MIS systems simply because of the prohibitive
cost of using assembler to produce them.)
- Raz rjturner@nospam.socs.uts.edu.au
"It often upsets a man's God fantasies to have (Misquoted? from )
someone shoot down one of his helicopters." (Ben Elton's "Stark" )