Todd,
You're really bringing up two separate issues:
The Web as Development Platform
Java as an application language
I think we both agree on the former being an important aspect of our development future.
Whether you like it or not the Web will be integrated into the Operating System and is
already a huge part of most major development tools and getting bigger all the time.
The ability to distribute applications from a single point of maintainence all the
way out to the World Wide Web is extremely enticing and provides huge potential both
for businesses wanting to exploit that access as well as developers who can provide
the applications that can run there.
Whether Java is a crucial piece in this future is debateable. I personally don't think so, at least not yet
mainly because Java is an immature language that lacks proper tools or even a business
model to make it worthwhile to build third party tools for. In addition, C++ is not
a language for the masses - while Java is not C++ it still shares many of the cryptic
language features of that language.
The key is that in order to do Web development you don't necessarily need Java. This
site runs on Visual FoxPro as a backend. I've also developed over a dozen sites using
Visual FoxPro on the backend with one of them taking close to 1/4 million hits a day.
Windows Technologies are moving to the Web - you can easily build ActiveX controls and
run them over the Web (there are some issues to consider). IOW, we're moving towards
a model where you can chose the tool to build Web apps with rather than being forced
into any one tool, especially a new, unproven language...
