Norman Richards

Web sites were originally static. Later dynamic content came about through CGI scripts paving the way for the first true Web applications. Since HTTP was entirely stateless, it became necessary to invent ways for requests to be linked together in a sequence. At first state was ad... (more)

Sun gave a demo of their new Java Desktop System at last week's AustinJUG meeting. Of course, the "Java" Desktop has absolutely nothing to do with Java. I see it as an admission by Sun that the Sun brand is dead. Nobody wants to buy Sun hardware or software anymore. But, the Java... (more)

The Austin Java User Group recently sponsored a contest to create the smallest Java Hello World! program. The rules were simple: create the smallest Java class that when executed will display the text "Hello World!" (and only that text) to the console. The restrictions were that... (more)

Releasing Java applications can be a real challenge. Fortunately, Java provides a rich set of features for packaging and deploying applications that can simplify the release process significantly. This article presents some of the issues involved with packaging Java code. I'll e... (more)

Java is often criticized for its performance, particularly in comparison to equivalent code written in languages such as C and C++. Advances in runtime performance have silenced many critics, but still there are times when no matter how fast Java is, it's just not fast enough. F... (more)