Roundtable Transcript, Part 2 (Continued)

IDE Plug-In Standardization
[11:30] Phipps: Interested in some more votes. If you open the page, I now have a long list of candidate JSRs. Mike, you have the magazine open.

[11:40] Mike Burba: Oh boy, oops. [Laughter] So, from our perspective, simplification is what we need to do with Java, and we see some of the things that are happening in the specification, like J2SE 1.5, like EJB 3.0. In a lot of respects those aim at simplification, but we think that the way that we're going to help customers be more successful with Java is really through tooling. I think from a standards perspective the biggest one, or one that we think is truly important, and I know I'll get a lot of eye rolls, is JSR 198, and that is about standardizing the plug-in framework for IDEs. And why we think that's important is that it allows smaller companies to provide plug-ins for all the major IDEs. And what that does is, similar to what Microsoft does, it provides a standard way for smaller companies to innovate and make customers and developers more productive with Java.

[12:52] Phipps: I'm interested to pick that up, because I'd like to really hear what Mike and Jeff have to say about that. Do you think that JSR 198 is achievable? Or do you think that it is just a marketing vehicle?

[13:09] Jackson: I think it's achievable, but I don't think it's anything…when we started J2EE way back eight years ago a lot of people didn't think that was achievable. So, you know, the longest journey starts with a first step, and within the JCP working on a JSR, it takes a long time to get through an expert group in an area that is highly debatable. But you got to start; that's the key thing. If we hadn't started, we wouldn't be sitting here talking about J2EE.

[13:35] Phipps: What do you think, Mike? Do you think that a common plug-in interface is something that's achievable?

[13:39] Mike Milinkovich: Oh, it's technically achievable, of course.

[13:44] Phipps: Well, there are those who would suggest that it isn't even technically achievable at the moment, but do you think it's a worthwhile goal?

[13:54] Milinkovich: Yeah, I think it's a worthwhile goal, sure. To be honest, I don't know what's going on inside the expert committee, so I don't really know what the status of it is, or where the project is.

[14:08] Ted Farrell: I could tell you, but I'm not allowed.

[14:10] Milinkovich: Well, and that's one of the differences between the JCP and something like Eclipse where if you want to find the status of any project, you go to the Web site and read about it.