Get a Free WebLogic Platform 8.1 Developer License

BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1 offers powerful new functionality for building and integrating enterprise-class service-oriented applications - and you can get your own copy and development license for free. Download WebLogic Platform and get your free development license today. Check it out today.

JDocs.com Update

JDocs.com Update
First, Matt and I would both like to express our deepest gratitude to the Java community, both at Javalobby and beyond, for its amazing outpouring of encouragement and positive feedback regarding the preliminary JDocs.com service we announced last week. In more than eight years of running Javalobby I have never seen such a unanimous and singularly enthusiastic response to any subject. Thank you all for helping get things started by checking out JDocs.com, by sharing it with others in your blogs and emails, by suggesting new APIs, and most of all by participating and adding comments into this community knowledge resource. We have heard you clearly and will pour ourselves even more fully into improving the service with the suggestions you have provided.

What Happened to J2SE and other Sun APIs?
Several of you have noticed that J2SE, J2ME and J2EE are no longer present on the front page of JDocs.com and asked why? The simple answer is that Sun has asked us to remove those APIs from the system and informs us that its business interests are not served by allowing them to be included. I take responsibility for not having obtained formal permission in advance, and I was foolish to imagine Sun would naturally want to help us deliver the best possible service to Java developers. I'm sorry that we are not presently able to provide them.

Sun is adamant that the javadocs for Sun APIs must be accessible solely and exclusively from sun.com - nowhere else. Although their rationale has not been revealed to us, Sun's internal dialogue has also apparently resulted in a conclusion that JDocs.com somehow threatens the integrity of the Java platform, and we certainly would not want our community resource to have that effect! From the beginning Javalobby has been an unwavering supporter of the Java vision, so we would sorely regret it if our contribution hurt the platform. Still, it seems to be quite a stretch for any conspiracy theory to apply to JDocs.com.

Ironically, Sun was not only the very first friend in Java with whom we shared details about JDocs.com almost two months ago, but it is also the only organization to have asked us to remove any API while a huge number have asked to be added. We imagined from Sun's initial enthusiasm and from subsequent conversations that we would enjoy their full cooperation to better serve the needs of developers like you. I should have anticipated that the right hand might not know what the left hand was doing. Even though we spoke openly to a good number of significantly placed individuals at Sun, there were others who acted surprised and offended when we made our preliminary announcement. We apologize for any bad feeling, and nothing could have been further from our intent. We hoped for JDocs.com to be unequivocally positive.

Javalobby has patiently encouraged Sun to recognize and value the benefits that a dynamic, comprehensive, annotated, searchable documentation resource brings to Java developers like you. A key strength of JDocs.com is that it can become a "one-stop shop" for your API documentation needs, and it also adds powerful evolutionary enhancements over the static html docs that Sun produces. It would definitely be a pity if we can support you with hundreds of APIs but not include Sun's core Java APIs.

We are in active discussions with Sun, and we're doing our best to understand and address the foundations of Sun's concerns. Consensus in a large corporation can be difficult to achieve, but the benefits to Java developers are resoundingly clear. We will remain optimistic that a positive resolution can be identified so we can find a way to continue bringing you a richly comprehensive API knowledge resource. I encourage you to send your thoughts to us at feedback@javalobby.org, and please let us know if you would like your thoughts conveyed to Sun as well. We want the JDocs.com system and the process of managing it to be the best they can possibly be, and I am totally certain that basing our priorities on your feedback will help us achieve that. Thank you in advance for your help and support.

On a personal note, I want to add that a great inspiration for building JDocs.com at Javalobby was to create something principally for the advancement of Java developers and which was not politically oriented. The hundreds and hundreds of emails you sent us affirm that you also want the same, so it is especially disappointing that an important facet of the JDocs.com service has become bogged down in yet another political quagmire. Java needs less of this political stuff and more good-spirited community teamwork. If Sun cannot ultimately be persuaded to join in and support the community, then I hope all the rest of us will work together to identify creative and positive solutions without them. My dad spent years training me to see a world full of opportunities, not problems. With the will of the developer community having been so clearly expressed, I am quite confident that a good outcome will emerge.

To end on a more positive note, I’m pleased to say that we have already added 45 new APIs since last week, and we have a backlog of at least a hundred more to address. We have added a new page to display all the 95 APIs now loaded in the system, and you can also get an RSS feed of comments from each and every one of them if you wish. There's a cool new Eclipse plugin featured this week. The search results page now supports full pagination, and we have improved the display format of search results to make them more useful to you. JDocs.com will continue to get better and better. The Javalobby membership has given us clear feedback that this is the right direction, and we intend to pursue it diligently.

Until next week,
Rick Ross
rick@javalobby.org
AIM or Yahoo Messenger: RickRossJL