Java Royale
If James Bond ever decided to fend off evil as a web developer instead of as a world-class spy, he’d probably forego the conventional wisdom of the W3C and start cooking up some slick, sexy, and stylish gadget-like interfaces in Flash. Hey, 007 may be superficial, but he knows what looks good—even outside of a skirt.
And where, you say, would that leave the role of Q, his bumbling technical mentor of sorts? Obviously, he’d be writing all of the back-end logic in a higher programming language. At his disposal he has a number of options, such as, well… okay, maybe just one… Actionscript.
Actually, where the Queen’s majesty might fail, Macromedia promises to deliver. In a new programming API they’ve code-named Royale (eat your heart out Ian Fleming), J2EE developers will soon be able to use Flash as a front end for Java Enterprise applications. Personally, I believe this has the potential for some interesting consequences, but right now, it’s nothing but a blip on the radar screen—one that every good little spy should keep their eye on.
