It's been a year of ups and downs in the tech sector, but the evolution of Java continued at a steady pace during 2001. Today, Java lies at the heart of advances in distributed and mobile computing, network security, rapid application development, content management, and transparent cross-platform interoperability. As IDC analyst Dick Coburn put it, Java has proven that "users will flock to a technology standard that empowers rather than coerces."
For this year's ADT's Programmers Report Java Writer's Choice Awards, our intrepid band of reporters consisted of 64 independent, seasoned Java pros, ranging from in-the-trenches coders to big-picture architects. Most were based in the U.S., but we also heard from contributors in Europe, South America, and Australia. All of our voters contributed articles recently published in 101communications' Java Report. They faced a veritable swarm of products (more than 1,000), from which we asked them to net the year's top offerings.
As we do every year, we modified last year's product categories list to account for changes in the market. This year's list reflects an increased interest in wireless application development and new concerns about performance tuning and debugging, as well as ongoing needs in the areas of enterprise and marketplace integration. This year's categories include:
- Application Servers
- Class Libraries
- Database Products
- Deployment Utilities
- Graphing & Charting Tools
- Integrated Development Environments
- Messaging Middleware
- Mobile & Embedded Development Tools
- Modeling Tools
- Performance Monitoring/Testing Tools
- Virtual Machines
Our goal with these awards is to spotlight exceptional examples of the tools and technologies that truly help Java developers. But these were hardly objective choices. We asked our contributors to vote for their favorites, and that's what they did. As in past years, many products edged their way into the top three spots by just a vote or two. To be fair to both readers and vendors, we awarded honorable mentions to a number of worthy products that nearly made the cut.
And we all agreed that every product listed here, whatever its ranking, is doing something right and is well worth a look.
—John K. Waters, Product Review Editor
And the winners are ...
APPLICATION SERVERS
First Place: BEA WebLogic Server
Second Place, Third Place, and Honorable Mentions
CLASS LIBRARIES
First Place: Java Foundation Classes
Second Place, Third Place, and Honorable Mentions
DATABASE PRODUCTS
First Place: PointBase Micro Edition
Second Place, Third Place, and Honorable Mentions
DEPLOYMENT UTILITIES
First Place: DeployDirector
Second Place, Third Place, and Honorable Mentions
GRAPHING & CHARTING TOOLS
First Place: JClass ServerChart
Second Place, Third Place, and Honorable Mentions
INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTS
First Place: JBuilder 5 Enterprise
Second Place, Third Place, and Honorable Mentions
MESSAGING MIDDLEWARE
First Place: SonicMQ
Second Place, Third Place, and Honorable Mentions
MOBILE & EMBEDDED DEVELOPMENT TOOLS
First Place: VisualAge Micro Edition
Second Place, Third Place, and Honorable Mentions
MODELING TOOLS
First Place: Rational Rose Professional J Edition
Second Place, Third Place, and Honorable Mentions
PERFORMANCE MONITORING/TESTING TOOLS
First Place: JProbe ServerSide Suite
Second Place, Third Place, and Honorable Mentions
VIRTUAL MACHINES
First Place: Kada VM
Second Place, Third Place, and Honorable Mentions