-bones coding environment, to Symantec's Cafe, a complete interactive development environment (IDE).
The second generation provided developers with the first visual IDEs. These products included a coding environment as well as prebuilt graphical widgets for handling common objects like those used in constructing the user interface. The develop
ment tools released during the second half of 1996 fall into this category, including three of the best-known IDEs: SunSoft's Java WorkShop, Symantec's Visual Cafe, and Microsoft's Visual J++. Other tools in this category include ObjectShare's Parts for Java, Metrowerks' CodeWarrior (which works with Java as well as C++ and Pascal code), and Penumbra's Mojo.
Third-generation products let you create Java applications with little, if any, coding. AimTech's Jamba is an example of this type of toolkit; users create Java applets by filling in forms and manipulating visual objects, and the product automatically generates the corresponding Java code. (There is a way to insert your own Java code, but it's not easy.) Another is RandomNoise's Coda (due to be released this summer); it uses a desktop publishing-like interface to develop Java code.
A fourth generation of tools offers the ability to build server-side Java. These packages began to appear on the market during the second half of 1996, but the ne
w JDK 1.1, which provides server-side capabilities, will really launch these tools. Examples of these products include GemStone's GemStone for Java server, IBM's VisualAge for Java, SunSoft's upcoming JavaPlan CASE tool, and updated versions of Parts for Java, JavaWorkshop, and Visual J++. IBM is also working on a project to bring Java to the mainframe.
We expect to see many more third- and fourth-generation tools make an appearance in 1997.
Datapro Report
