In-Depth
WebLogic Corp.
"We’ve been doing this for three years," said Paul Ambrose, CEO/CTO, WebLogic Corp., San Francisco, maker of distributed systems including Java application servers for financial services, telecommunications and other uses. Many of his systems never go out on the Internet. Yet, clearly, they represent Internet development. "Java and the Web are somewhat orthogonal," he explained.
Ambrose, who came to Java from the Smalltalk and database milieu said Java represents a good mix of aspects of 3GLs and 4GLs. Java can be a boon for productivity, he said, while it’s performance is quickly approaching that of C. "4GLs are deprived," he chides, discussing performance, "With them, you’re quickly out of runway."
The key limits on Java in 1997 were performance and the IDE interface. Now, support for JavaBeans, said Ambrose, allows people to begin to work with such things as controls "as they can work with [VisualBasic] controls." Among tools used to create WebLogic’s Java server offering is TowerJ from Tower Technology Corp., Austin, Texas. Ambrose gives high-grades to the software -- "It’s 100%Pure Java. You just compile away!" He adds, "For us, performance is a significant issue."