Java, the Web, and software development

The author discusses how the World Wide Web and Java mark the death of fatware and the birth of dynamic computing built on rented components. The real paradigm shift will be the replacement of purchased software packages with transaction-oriented rental of Java applets attached to Web pages. In the move to a full-scale Internet based application development environment, developers are grappling with seven key issues: how to integrate e-mail, FTP, and HTML; the absolute need for security; the dearth of high-end visual tools; configuration management and version control; support for a flexible, sophisticated user interface; a common development environment; and performance, which has several components. Each of these issues are discussed by the author.