May From the Pages Departments
EDITOR'S NOTE
Simple Intelligence
Dwight Deugo
JAVA BUZZ
Philip J. Gill
Will Java Embedded Browsers Spark New "Browser Wars?"; Info Appliance Market to Hit $17.8 Billion by 2004; IBM Releases Two alphaBeans Suites; Insignia's JVM Integrated With IE 4.0 for Windows CE; IBM Software Translates Web Content to PDA Formats; and more.
PRODUCT REVIEW
A Close-to-Perfect IDE
VisualCafé 4.0
Reviewed by Tad Kershner
VisualCafé 4.0 has been a pack leader since the early days of Java. Version 4.0 has a maturity and solidity that are second to none and makes it a pleasure to use on a rigorous day-to-day basis. With all its features, this is close to a perfect IDE.
JAVA TO GO!
Don't Stifle Exceptions
Jonathan Amsterdam
Quick tips on empty catch clauses; when you can and can't get away with them. After suffering through several long debugging sessions, Jonathan scans for an empty catch clause right away. However, there may be times when you can't get away with an empty catch clause. You might say that is the exception that proves the rule!
REAL WORLD JAVA
Writing a POS System From Scratch
Philip J. Gill
Chelsea Market Systems LLP is a Houston-area start-up software house entering an already crowded marketplace for retail point-of-sale systems. To stake its claim to that market, the company is developing its new system entirely from scratch using Java, without the aid of off-the-shelf or packaged software.