My reason for making this recommendation was that something very important had just happened: version 1.1.8 of the Java SDK was released. This new version had two key changes that attracted me: (1) it included a high-level graphical toolkit called "Swing", and (2) it's stability reached business-level quality. Though noone else saw it at the time, in my mind these two changes spelled doom for Visual Basic and Delphi because Java was a overall a cleaner type of system and more important it was transparent--anyone could get the full specifications and source code for the reference VM unlike the other platforms which were secret and proprietary. With the appearance of Swing, VB no longer had any intrinsic advantages over Java and it had a lot of built-in disadvantages. It might take years but I knew that eventually VB was a dead duck and that we should base our company instead on this new emerging technology: Java.

Three years have passed. In that time Java has grown from being a toy to the development platform of choice, especially for anything web-based. Delphi is long gone and VB has receded into the background, relegated to the passive role of providing scripting support for Microsoft applications. What about the desktop, the big leagues of software development? Here Java is pushing aside C++ development and I think this is a harbinger of the future. A future that is very bright for Java.

People today widely recognize the commercial viability of Java and its dominance in web-based development. Java is the platform for major systems like eBay. Noone doubts this. But what many people even today do not see is that in the near future virtually all development including desktop applications that have always been written in C/C++ will switch over to Java. The forces driving Java forward are unstoppable, here are some:

  - runs on all platforms, Mac, Windows, Unix, PalmOS, cell phones, etc
  - has the most comprehensive extensions library of any language
  - IBM is pushing it as the language of choice
  - taught in schools, Java is now the first language for all students

Many people still think C++ will hold its own because of performance and native tightness advantages but this is a mistake. The performance advantages of C++ are minimal and as things now stand it is considerably simpler to write a Java program for a native platform and still retain as much (or more) functionality. So many libraries now exist for Java that C++ is being swept aside. For example, when you use Java you have instant, integrated access to cutting-edge cryptography/security, XML handling, HTML rendering, networking, mail, media, imaging and a myriad other application areas. In all these areas corresponding C++ support lags far behind. Soon this factor alone will obsolete C++.

Perhaps the most telling indication of the rising star of Java can be seen on Sun's "Swing Sightings" journal:

Swing Sightings, volume 19