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Java Live Transcripts Index

Guests: John Bobowicz and Chris Cheline
Moderator: Edward Ort (MDR-EdO)

This is a moderated forum.

MDR-EdO: Welcome to today's Java Live chat on java.net. As many of you know, java.net is an extremely successful Java community site where people exchange ideas and work collaboratively on projects of interest. With lots of active participants, and leading-edge projects, java.net has become a focal point for innovation. It's also a great place to get educated about Java technology and learn what's happening in the Java community. Today's guests are John Bobowicz (a.k.a., jbob) and Chris Cheline. John is the java.net Chief Technologist, and Chris is the Product Manager. They're here to answer your questions about java.net. But let's start off with a little history. jbob and Chris, what stimulated the creation of the java.net site?

John Bobowicz: We noticed that, because Java is everywhere, Java developers had to go to many different places to get information and to get connects. Contrast that to the Windows environment, where you go to one company. So, java.net was to be the place where all things Java can meet. We also wanted to encourage further collaboration among Java developers.

Netster: I'm fascinated by the Looking Glass project. Are there any other innovative, really cool, desktop-related projects currently being worked on in java.net?

John Bobowicz: Looking Glass is a really cool project and I believe it represents the next generation of user interfaces. Another really popular project is JOGL, the Java API for Open GL. It's one of our top downloads. Also check out the JDACC community for some cool X11 projects.

jbaker: What does it take to start a collaborative project with java.net? Who owns the project?

John Bobowicz: You just go to the "start a project" link on the java.net home page. The person who starts the project is the owner.

JavaRSS.com: Can everyone have a blog on java.net?

Chris Cheline: Although today blogging is an on an invite basis only, we do take requests, so if you are interested in blogging on Java, send a note to the feedback alias at the bottom of any page on java.net. We will be opening it more widely. If you do want to blog on java.net, we take requests.

Ches: Where is the best place to go to get serious operational help with Java/Microsoft IE problems?

John Bobowicz: On java.net I would go to the javadesktop community and check some of the forums. They deal with a lot of Java client-side stuff.

lhochet: How long does it take usually for a project to be approved/rejected?

Chris Cheline: Typically a project gets approved or rejected within 24-48 hours. If the project belongs in the general area it will be approved faster. If it belongs in a community, that community may have an additional approval cycle depending on their unique process.

lhochet: Who should I contact if it takes longer than 48 hrs?

Chris Cheline: Please send a note to the feedback alias for a status of the project. If it has taken longer than 48 hrs, it is likely a project that fits in one of the communities. These communities may have an additional requirement. Sending a note to feedback at the bottom of any page is the best way to check where it is.

davew: What is the future of Java on the client side, especially on the Windows environment?

John Bobowicz: J2SE is alive and well. Just look at the innovation that is happening with the Looking Glass project on java.net. There is a resurgence of activity going on in this area. Windows will continue to represent a very large audience for J2SE as well as Linux and OS X.

joja: I am taking my first course about Java, I already know C and C++. How long do you think it will take me to be a good programmer in Java?

John Bobowicz: Great question. The sooner you can REALLY master object oriented programming, the faster you will be productive with Java. Unfortunately languages like C++ don't enforce strict OOP so C programmers think they know OO because they use C++ and that isn't the case.

helen: What if I want to participate in a java.net project but I don't want to create my own, how can I get involved?

Chris Cheline: There are many ways you can participate in java.net. There are many ways to get involved. One is to simply find a project in which you have an interest, join their mailing list, comment in a their forum, or request a role once you get oriented with the project. You can find projects by going to the java.net home page and select the projects tab.

Netster: What's the latest regarding Sun's plans to open source Solaris? What sort of license model will it go out under -- GPL?

John Bobowicz: We are not part of the decision. You would have to ask the Solaris product team. I have no information on that.

dwalend: Most of hosting a project on java.net works great. Thanks. The big thing I've had trouble with was posting javadoc via CVS's www top-level directory. Others have suggested two reasonable solutions -- posting .war files -- and using Subversion instead of CVS. Any thoughts on that front?

John Bobowicz: That is something we are getting a lot of requests for and is something the infrastructure team is looking into. For the latest info on where they are with that, send an email to feedback@java.net.

markroth8: I've had luck posting javadocs using the nonav feature. Just add nonav in the URL. For example: http://jdic.dev.java.net/nonav/documentation/javadoc/screensaver/

John Bobowicz: The markroth8 comment offers some good insight from one of our Community Leaders on javadocs.

WRFink: When is J5 going gold?

John Bobowicz: I believe it will be happening very soon. I don't think anything has been announced yet. Keep your eyes open for it, because it should be very soon.

Netster: Where do you see the greatest activity in java.net? Is it primarily in project participation, forums, blogs?

John Bobowicz: All of those things get intertwined. Project contributors write to forums, bloggers talk about projects. If you are asking what appears to be the most popular collaboration medium, I'd say it's the forums. Blogs are personal or individualized, so they are a good way for an individual to start a conversation is the most public and accessible way. With Forums, it's more of a community resource that creates a level playing field for contributors. While a blog gets identified with an individual, a forum gets identified with a group. I see Wikis quickly catching up on the popularity scale as more people learn how to use them.

joja: Do you know a good site for learning OOP? Thanks for the help.

John Bobowicz: The good news is that you can't learn Java without learning OOP. So, as part of learning Java, you should receive a review of OOP at the beginning. You don't have to learn OOP before you learn Java.

Netster: How do you distinguish your site from other community sites such as MSDN's Community Center?

John Bobowicz: I think you have to go to several different sites to find the complete breadth of collaboration that you find on java.net. I don't know of too many other places, regardless of language or platform, where you find original articles, wikis, weblogs, forums, online collaborative development, and a team of leaders that will commit their time, effort, and expertise to ensure that projects and communities thrive. The biggest differentiators I have yet to see replicated are: 1) The level of technical as well as community building expertise that is freely available to all members of java.net and 2) The community is run by the community. Specifically to MSDNs Community Center:

• Unlike Community Center, at java.net, registration is purely optional. You don't need to register in order to download something. That makes no sense to us. As a matter of fact the only time you need to register at java.net is if you want to contribute. So, understand how different that makes our registration numbers from every other site. At other sites, like MSDN, their registration reflects the number of people who wanted to download something and doesn't suggest that they are active community members. At java.net, our registration numbers represent people who consciously want to get involved in the community. They are not registering because they are forced to in order to download something. You can download anything from java.net without registering or logging in. That tells me there is something interesting happening here and more than just people stopping by to grab something.
• MSDN is not as feature rich as java.net. I don't see wikis or weblogs there.
• It also looks like their code samples follow a push model where members can grab but can't contribute or change. In this regard MSDN is corporate run and java.net is community run. java.net also has real collaborative development tools and not just download links.
• Most of the contributions on MSDN seem to be made by MS or their partners. On java.net, most of the contributions are made by individual developers with no specific corporate affiliation.
• MSDN is not really a community. It is a portal. java.net is a community.

WRFink: Any news/updates on Sun and Eclipse?

John Bobowicz: java.net is the place to look for updates and information in the Java community. Regarding Sun and Eclipse, it's TBD. java.net supports all IDEs equally, so you will find a lot of info and projects related to Eclipse. Keep checking the site for details as they happen.

cajo: Judging by the rate of growth, I'd expect java.net membership to surpass JavaLobby by early next year. That's outstanding for such a young site!

John Bobowicz: Great observation. Our success in little over a year shows that we are doing something right and attracting the right types of people to the community. The important thing to note is that membership is not required for a lot of features of java.net so the fact that our membership is growing so fast says that there are a lot of people who want to get involved.

lhochet: Is there a standard naming pattern for package names on java.net? Something like java-net.project-name.subpackages?

Chris Cheline: We don't have a general guideline yet. We are working on coming up with one because net.java.dev.* sounds too much like java.net.*, part of the runtime API.

Netster: How can I contribute to the Javapedia? What sort of review (technical and editorial) do the entries go through?

John Bobowicz: Javapedia is a wiki, so just use the "edit" link at the bottom of any page to contribute. Javapedia is a community document and is therefore managed by the community. There is no formal or centralized review. Online and Open Source communities have a good track record for policing themselves and Wikis are a tool that allows that to happen. The beauty of a community resource, like a Wiki, or specifically the Javapedia, is that everyone in the community is responsible for it's content. If there is an omission or error, then fix it. That is how you contribute to the community and how Wikis work.

Netster: There are some (perhaps many) in the open source community that claim that an open source Java is inevitable. I'd like to know if your guests have any thoughts on that.

John Bobowicz: In response to Netster's question on the claim that an open source Java is inevitable. I laugh at definitive expressions like "inevitable". You don't have to be in this industry very long to learn very few things are predictable and even fewer things are inevitable. I don't know the answer to that question and am not part of the decision. Personally, I don't understand what people think will be different. I'm a Java programmer and I have no desire to get my hands on Java's source code. I do see a demand for Java developers to share their source code amongst themselves and that explains the success of java.net. Take part in the ongoing discussions on whether or not Java should be open source by going to "The Big Question" forum on java.net.

dianne: What is the license term for using software developed on java.net?

Chris Cheline: Each project where code is hosted has its own license. As project owner, you can select the license that you want applied to the code when your request your project; most of the open source licences are available. As a user, or participant in the project, you are then bound to that license.

mr_ellerbe: What are your thoughts on Project Looking Glass?

John Bobowicz: Project Looking Glass represents where the future of the desktop should be going. In that regards I think it is an awesome project that shows that not only is Java on the desktop alive and well, but it continues to be a leader in that space and is driving innovation. I'll be interested to see what the next generation of 3D widgets will be. The 2D GUI (Windows) gave us things like the mouse and windows and buttons. The 3D world will open up a lot of opportunities not available in the 2D world.

mr_ellerbe: Thanks for your comments on Project Looking Glass, John. I was able to install it under Fedora Core 1, yet I think I'll still need to do some tweaking on the NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX Driver. This will help with the 3D Acceleration.

John Bobowicz: Well, it sound like you can help! Please join the project and request a role. This is how projects become successful. I hope you contribute your ideas and join the project.

Guest: Whoops, it seems if you use your browser for anything, you're automatically logged out! Next time, it should be Web Start! :-)

John Bobowicz: Amen to Web Start! More people should use it and we encourage java.net projects to package themselves using Web Start.

Guest: I designed a program as a graduation project in my university. It's called the Monitor system. It captures images from cameras then shows them as images and video on the screen. It supports 1 camera only. How can I use multiple cameras? I heard I need to put another USB channel or USB hub? Is that true?

John Bobowicz: I'd check with 2 communities on java.net: The JELC (Java Education and Learning Community) and the Java Desktop community.

MDR-EdO: Well we've quickly come to the end of our session. I'd like to thank everyone who participated today. I thought we had a very nice mix of questions. And of course I'd like to thank jbob and Chris for their answers.

Chris Cheline: Thank you all for coming today. If you would like any further information on java.net, visit our site, or send mail to me at cheline@dev.java.net. There are many opportunities for participation: forums.java.net, wiki.java.net, community.java.net. Join the community and get involved.

John Bobowicz: Thanks to all who are interested in java.net. It is all of you that make up the community, not us, who have made it great. Get informed, Get connected, and Get Involved! If there is any other info you need feel free to visit the site. You can also ping me at jbob@dev.java.net. Thanks!

MDR-EdO: Last moderator (me) signing off. The forum is now unmoderated.