By Mark Gibbs
IntraNet, 12/15/97

Adding serious business applications to an intranet usually requires writing custom code. That task is becoming less onerous for developers working with Java, thanks to a new crop of application development tools.

For example, SunSoft, Inc., a division of Sun Microsystems, Inc., recently released Java Studio, a graphically based integrated development environment for building applications from Java applets and JavaBeans.

Java Studio, an object-assembly system, lets developers create applications without programming. The system features a window for viewing and testing applications and comes with a set of JavaBeans that provide functional building blocks.

Developers can add and export JavaBeans. These capabilities simplify application design and allow for code reuse. Java Studio runs under the Sun Solaris and Microsoft Corp. Windows 95 and NT operating systems.

SunSoft offers Java Workshop for those developers who want to get under the hood and program in Java rather than just assemble objects. This visual development tool is a vast improvement over the Java Development Kit (JDK), which has a brutal command line interface.

Java WorkShop offers an easy-to-use tool set for building JavaBeans, applets and applications; supports Solaris, Windows 95 and NT, HP-UX and SCO UnixWare operating systems; and includes Visual Java GUI builder, a compiler, profiler and debugger.

IBM's VisualAge for Java is another visual rapid application development (RAD) tool for Java. Running under Windows 95 and NT, Visual-Age for Java offers drag-and-drop applet layout and linking of controls and resources. The system also includes version management functions.

User reviews of VisualAge for Java are enthusiastic. In particular, they cite power and ease of use as the product's strengths.

Factory for code

Rogue Wave Software, Inc. offers another part of the framework for rapid development with the release of JFactory, a visual interface builder for Windows 95 and NT, Solaris and IBM's OS/2. JFactory is a design environment for building the interface to Java applications and applets rather than the contents.

JFactory includes a project manager and drag-and-drop controls for buttons and menus. Developers specify events linked to controls or code. When the design is complete, JFactory generates code and then invokes either the compiler in Sun's JDK or another vendor's implementation.

Symantec Corp.'s Visual Café, another highly regarded product, has a graphical development environment, source code editor, debugger and class brow-ser. Visual Café is supported on Win-dows 95 and NT. Café Studio, the visual component, has a slick interface that some reviewers rate as the best in the Java RAD market.

Visual Café comes in three versions. The Web Development Edition, a starter version, includes an interactive development environment, an HTML authoring tool and more than 100 JavaBeans. The Professional Development Edition adds features such as incremental debugging, drag-and-drop JavaBeans and Java applets, wizards and class libraries. The Database Development Edition is for building Java applications with database connectivity. This version includes Symantec's dbAnywhere Server, Netscape Communications Corp.'s FastTrack Web Server and Sybase, Inc.'s SQL Anywhere relational database.

Borland International, Inc. offers JBuilder, which essentially is a version of the company's Delphi client/server tool that creates Java application code.

JBuilder supports Java 1.1 and the JavaBeans specification, as well as Sun's Java Foundation Classes, Microsoft's Application Foundation Classes and its own component libraries.

The tool comes in three versions: JBuilder Standard, an entry-level product; JBuilder Professional, oriented to database development; and JBuilder Client/Server, the enterprise version. The latter, scheduled to ship by year-end, will include Borland DataGateway for Java, middleware that provides Java client access to corporate databases. JBuilder runs on Windows platforms.

On the horizon

Oracle Corp. continues to thumb its nose at Microsoft, this time with a three-tier suite of Java development tools. Oracle's plan is to support the tools alongside its proprietary programming products.

First off the block is this quarter's scheduled release of a Java client tool that hooks into Oracle databases. Next year, Oracle plans to support Java-based objects for business use and allow them to be stored in its Developer/ 2000 and Designer/2000 design repository tools.

Curiously, one of the key aspects of Java programming, the capability to reuse objects, will not be available as part of Oracle's tool kit until 1999.

With sophisticated tools such as the above-mentioned in hand, intranet managers will certainly bring more Java-based, mission-critical applications onto their Webs.