Foreign wheatgrass blooms in China.
If we randomly pull a person with a mobile phone on the street in Beijing and ask, do you know MMS? Everyone should say that he knows; But by the way, do you know Java technology? Very few people can answer-in fact, multimedia messaging services use this Java technology that is not well known to ordinary people. As many Java technicians have repeatedly stressed-Java is around you and everywhere.
From a global perspective, stories about Java are full of legends, such as those incredible successes, such as missed opportunities and more tangled lawsuits. In the past ten years, Java programming language and platform have been successfully applied in various application fields such as network computing and mobile, such as mobile phones, personal computers, transnational financial systems and satellite communications. There has never been such a widely used platform as Java in history. At present, the global economic value of Java has exceeded $654.38+020 billion. When Sun launched Java, its slogan was "Write once, run everywhere". In the past decade, Java's cross-platform and open features have been recognized. In addition, Java language also has excellent features such as object-oriented, expression syntax similar to C and C++, and good security. In many aspects, it has become the successor of Cobol and C++ languages, favored by developers all over the world, and become the first choice development platform for enterprise applications. Just in July this year, IBM and Sun just announced that they would extend the Java technology agreement signed by the two companies by 10 year, with the goal of providing long-term and stable guarantee for nearly 4 million developers in the global Java community. BEA also announced a package plan to develop the industry's first J2EE application environment that fully supports various major open source frameworks. These measures affirm the value and necessity of cross-platform Java compatibility.
In China market, Java has made great progress in enterprise-level applications and public-oriented services, especially in key businesses such as telecommunications and finance in China. At present, with the support of relevant government departments in China, China Mobile and China Unicom have officially launched wireless value-added services based on Java, and are actively preparing for 3G value-added services based on Java. With regard to Java cards, Sun Company and China UnionPay jointly established a joint laboratory for Java cards, which cooperated comprehensively from technology to scheme. In addition, many companies in the industry have also developed a considerable number of application software based on Java standard system. For example, UFIDA has been developing on Java since 1998. At present, UFIDA's ERP 5 is under development and will be launched next year. However, if we make a global comparison, we can only say that China Java never seems to attract enough attention.
Jonathan Schwartz, president and chief operating officer of Sun Company, once said at the 10th anniversary celebration of Java: "Java is developing like a rocket, and no one thought it could fly so far." . However, while celebrating, we should pay attention to the fact that compared with the development of Java at home and abroad, we seem to see a situation that "foreign countries dried up and domestic flowers began to blossom". Shortly before the Java Developers Conference in China in 2005, Gong Li, President of Sun China Engineering Research Institute, was transferred to the general manager of Microsoft Internet Technology Department (China). As one of the most representative figures of Java in China, his departure may reveal a trace of gloom in the development of Java in China.
Java is easy to get, but hard to find.
The Director of Software, ISV and Java Business of Sun Greater China believes that Java is easy to get started, but not easy to master. This is like a lot of people who can draw Chinese paintings and a lot of amateurs, but few can really become painters. In China, it seems that there are not enough Java talents, and the number of enthusiasts who are really willing to learn to use the Java language is not optimistic.
Xiao Li, a graduate student in the computer department of a university in Beijing, has a deep research on Java technology, and once served as the moderator of the Java technology discussion board of the school BBS forum. But he said he was not going to take the Java certification (that is, the Java developer qualification exam) because he didn't want to pay the certification fee of 1500 yuan.
In fact, there are quite a few technicians like Xiao Li who can use Java but have not been certified. This situation makes it always inaccurate to count the number of domestic Java developers today. The data shows that there are 4.5 million Java developers in the world this year, while in China, the number is less than 654.38+10,000. In this regard, Wang, a professor of computer science in Tsinghua University who is known as the "father of Java in China", said that if the statistical scope is strictly defined on "developers" (even counting technicians like Xiao Li), there may be only about 50,000 real Java developers in China. Compared with China, a big country with a population of 654.38+0.3 billion, and the huge market potential of Java, this is extremely disproportionate.
So why are there so few Java developers in China?
Professor Wang is one of the earliest experts who paid attention to Java in China, and he is also one of the experts who can persist today. He said that, on the whole, Java is not favored by "academics" in China. For example, until now, the computer department of Peking University has not systematically taught Java courses. From a national perspective, less than half of the computer departments in more than 500 universities offer Java courses.
However, when Java 1995 was first born, it was not like this in China. Professor Wang described that at that time, scientific and technical personnel were "in hot pursuit" of Java, and even set off an upsurge of "learning, using and popularizing Java" throughout the country, and the national Java technology exchange meeting was held for seven times. At that time, the newspaper Network World (then called International Newsletter) held a series of lectures on Java technology and a national Java competition. Since then, Wang, Professor and others have published a series of technical articles to promote the development of Java in China.
However, only a few years later, many people who participated in the Java contest in that year stayed away from Java. Professor Wang believes that these people choose to give up for three reasons. One is because of the internet bubble in 2000; The second is that Java is not fast enough (of course, the development speed and running speed of Java have made a qualitative leap today), and the third is that there is no convincing actual case. Today, some people even think that Java is just a "toy".
Professor Wang said that compared with foreign countries, the number of Java students in China is small, and the gap is also reflected in the fact that there are not many training units that can offer high-end Java courses (such as Web Services), which is difficult to meet the needs of cultivating advanced Java talents. Secondly, the lack of media coverage of Java has restricted the development of Java technology in China.
Of course, there are different views on the number of Java talents in China. Jiang, senior technical community manager in charge of Java online community in Sun China Company, said that at present, Java-related communities in China are booming, such as Java research and Java version community. The largest Java community is Sun China Technology Community, with registered users of 1.6 million; CSDN registered 800,000 people, half of whom are Java users. China Java Users Association has set up user branches in more than 200 universities across the country. In terms of specific figures, Jiang believes that there are about 450,000 people in China who use Java for commercial development. For example, 80% of the software in China telecom industry is written in Java, and all services such as SMS and mobile games are written in Java.
According to Huang Zhen, at the Java China Conference in September, more than 65,438+040 experts will come to China directly from the United States for technical exchange. In his view, what China lacks at present is such opportunities for Java technology exchange and learning, while what China's partners require most is training.
In any case, whether there are more or less Java talents, the position of technicians is to find enough users. Perhaps the truth is just as Huang Zhen said-there are relatively few creative Java developers and creative users in China.
Orange and orange changes between applications
Zhen's opinion, in Professor Wang's view, on the one hand, is that Java is not favored by domestic "academic school", on the other hand, it is the fact that Java is not favored by domestic "market school". At present, Chinese mainland is not only inferior to Europe and America in the breadth and depth of Java application, but also slightly inferior to China, Hongkong and Macau.
In the course of our interview with Professor Wang, Professor Wang took out three business cards, among which, besides the title of Professor Tsinghua University, the title of director of "Tsinghua -iT Frontier Joint Laboratory of Knowledge Engineering" is more noteworthy.
The story begins with the national Java competition held by 1996 newspaper network world (then called international communication). What is even more unexpected is that when the development of Java in China was slowly dying, the Japanese met Wang and others through that contest. Soon, Japan iT Frontier Co., Ltd. sent someone to find Professor Wang. This joint-stock company is a software enterprise whose main business is information system integration. It was established by Japan's Mitsubishi Corporation and Japan's IBM in 200 1 after merging five companies mainly engaged in information industry, including the former AST. Subsequently, the two sides established the "Tsinghua -iT Frontier Joint Laboratory of Knowledge Engineering", with Wang as the director. Since then, the two sides have started international cooperation for eight years.
Professor Wang was very excited when he talked about the use experience of Java technology in some domestic enterprises. He said: "If our technology is not good, the Japanese will not come to us. But why is such a good technology not applied and valued by some domestic enterprises and users? " For example, Webform (electronic form automatic generation system and its visual development tool) developed by Professor Wang adopts Java standard, which facilitates the network transmission of electronic forms and solves the printing problem under the application environment of browser /Web server. The Ministry of Construction of Japan has adopted this system and requires all personnel to learn and master it. However, in the process of popularizing and using this system in China, some departments and enterprises received a cold shoulder. Wang attributed the main reasons to channel problem and relationship problem (or mechanism problem and concept problem). However, as a pure technician, Professor Wang obviously doesn't want to waste precious time on these things.
Specifically, in terms of industrial software, Professor Wang thinks that there are not many applications developed with Java in China. It can be said that in China, the situation of application promotion has not been fully opened, especially in the fields that can fully reflect the characteristics of Java (cross-platform, multithreading), such as financial information management, e-government and e-commerce, distance education and other industries, mature Java applications are still rare. As for some cooperative enterprises, Wang disagreed with their own research results. He said: "Some enterprises (even school-run enterprises) have approached us to discuss related cooperation matters, but their condition is to buy out the intellectual property rights of products at one time. This is a typical' don't come when planting trees, but do well when picking peaches'. Of course, we will not agree to this cooperation. "
In addition to the self-study and exploration of Java by China enterprises and employees, it is also very important for international companies such as Sun, BEA and IBM to promote Java in China. Especially when many domestic enterprises are not sure whether they can make money from Java technology in time, the activities of these companies in China have greater significance.
Huang Zhen is quite optimistic about the development of Java in China. He said that at present, Beijing's software industry accounts for two-thirds of the country, and 90% of enterprises have Java departments. According to the statistics of China Software Industry Association, more than two-thirds of software enterprises are developed with Java. For example, Neusoft currently has more than 4,000 Java developers; There are many Java developers in the development department of China Industrial and Commercial Bank to develop the bank's own system. The medical care card in Taiwan Province province of China and the online banking in Hongkong Bank of China were developed successfully with Java. It is reported that five outstanding Java application enterprises will be selected at the Java China Conference in September.
In addition, Sun's Java technology application center in China market has reached 35 JCOE. With the help of this "JCOE", Sun Company has successfully improved the application level of Java technology for many enterprises. For example, UFIDA Software Engineering, Digital China, Neusoft Software and Beijing Huasheng Tianchenghe are the first partners in the world to pass the Sun certification.
As a representative of successful users in China market, China Unicom held the "2005 China Unicom UniJa Developers Conference" on April 8th this year. In the half year since UniJa business was officially commercialized on June 1 65438+1October12004, the number of registered users of UniJa business has exceeded 1400, and the number of applications has also increased to nearly 300. The presence of Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO of Sun Company in the United States seems to show that the potential of China market has not been ignored.
In an interview, Java's entry into China ten years ago was compared to sowing, but after sowing, Sun had to do a lot of work to cultivate the seeds into forests. Professor Wang also said that Sun's efforts to promote Java in China were not enough. In this way, it is necessary for Chinese and foreign enterprises to speed up the pace and avoid a new version of Java application.
It's never too late to plant trees for ten years.
"When I started to promote Java, a colleague asked Wang if he wanted to build his own Java virtual machine. But we think it's best to focus on applications, "Wang said of his joint laboratory. "Our advantage is that we have more than 8 years of experience in international cooperation; However, our shortcomings are also obvious, that is, the market awareness is not strong, which restricts our development. "
It is understood that since 1998, 77 people from the Tsinghua -iT Frontier Joint Laboratory of Knowledge Engineering have participated in the San Francisco Java Conference. Recently, two projects have won the bid for the Xinhua News Agency News Standards Management System and the State Environmental Protection Administration. At present, the former is already under trial and the latter is nearing the end.
For the future development of Java, Wang mainly emphasized seven aspects. The first is the optimization of tools and the integration and optimization of development tools. For example, IBM's Eclipse integrated development environment is very good. The second is open source code. Wang said that in fact, he doesn't pay much attention to open source, but he thinks that tools should be open, such as function selection, expansion and opening, but the internal library system doesn't have to be open, but it should be moderately open. Third, attach importance to the China market; The fourth is industry software; The fifth is to grasp the mainstream mode under the network computing mode, namely Web service. Sixth, master the core technology of J2EE platform. The so-called "dispute between J2EE and. NET ",people no longer care who is long or short, but who can make money with it as soon as possible. Practice has proved that it can support both J2EE and. NET is more easily accepted and welcomed by users. The seventh is to master the key technology of mobile computing (mobile Java). Many manufacturers can provide various electronic devices implemented in Java, and these mobile devices are supported by J2ME platform. For example, the "Mobile Information Development Platform" developed by Sun Company has been successfully applied to mobile phones.
As the director of software, ISV and Java business in Sun Greater China, Huang Zhen thinks that there are some deficiencies in the quality, performance and security of Java development in China. First of all, the standard system of Java has not been established in China. Only by establishing a perfect standard system can quality standards be guaranteed. Therefore, the establishment of quality standard system is very important. Secondly, the performance requirements of Java are not perfect. Finally, the secure R&D environment of Java has not been established. China should establish a Java security architecture as soon as possible. He pointed out that there is a Java standardization organization JCP(Java Community Process) in the United States, and both BEA and IBM are members of JCP. There is no JCP in China, so there is no Java standard and no supervision in China. From the government's point of view, the reporter also learned from the relevant departments of the Ministry of Information Industry that at present, the China Communication Standards Association under the Ministry of Information Industry is formulating Java terminal specifications, which will be implemented as government standards after approval. The Product Division of the Ministry of Information Industry will also be presented as the supporting unit of this Java China Conference. Scott McNeal, CEO of Sun Company, visited the Ministry of Information Industry, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education, the China Software Association and the Beijing Municipal Government during his fifth visit to China in the first half of 2005, and specially participated in the technical exchange activities about Unija, which was affirmed by the relevant departments of the China Municipal Government.
As one of Sun's dozens in China market, UFIDA's practice and views on Java application undoubtedly represent the attitude of China enterprises to Java to a great extent. Fan, the NC technical director of UFIDA, said that the introduction of "J2EE" is a watershed of Java technology itself. Since then, Java has become more and more easy to use, people's views have changed, programming has become more stable, and there is almost no downtime. The general view is that J2EE focuses on the background and Microsoft. NET focuses on the prospect. Based on this view, UFIDA is divided into two development lines, one is Microsoft architecture and the other is Java. UFIDA has 250 Java developers. Java is mainly used in high-end industries and recognized by high-end users. In addition, Fan Champion also expressed the hope that Java will be easy to use on the Web interface in the future and make some better specifications.