Who is Stanley Ho ?
What's the problem that JSR-277 wants to solve ?
Is the draft JSR-277 still open for feedback ?
So what are the outlines how JSR-277 will work ?
What's the relationship between modules and components ?
How will the versioning be supported ?
How can the Java language enjoy the JSR-277 features ?
What's the JSR-277 repository and why do we need it ?
How does JSR-277 compare to OSGi and Maven ?
Does OSGi and Maven have an impact on JSR-277 ?
Is there a slow adoption of Java Web Start ?
What feature would you like to see in Java web Start ?
When do I use Java Web Start ?
Can (or will) JWS support non-Java application deployments ?
What will be hot in Java-land in about 5 years ?
In this JavaPolis 2006 interview Ted Neward talks with Stanley Ho (JSR-277 specification lead) on the up coming Java Module System. In addition they also discuss the current and future state of Java Web Start.
JSR-277 seeks to address many issues associated with Java Archives (JARs), including the lack of version control, the difficulties in distributing multiple JARs for deployment, the classpath hell, JAR hell, and extension hell, etc. that have been well known to many Java developers for years. The specification defines an architecture with first-class modularity, packaging and deployment support in the Java platform, including a distribution format, a versioning scheme, a repository infrastructure, and runtime support.
Stanley Ho is the architect for the Java Deployment team in J2SE at Sun Microsystems, Inc. He has been involved with Java since JDK 1.1 when he joined the JavaBeans team. He was the technical lead or the main contributor in many projects, including Java Web Start, Java Update, JDK/JRE Install-On-Demand, Java Upgrade (Migration from Microsoft VM), J2EE Client Access Service, Java Plug-in, JavaBeans/ActiveX Bridge, etc. His current focus is to improve ease-of-deployment in Mustang (J2SE 6.0) and Dolphin (J2SE 7.0).