Since I left Berkeley in 1982, I have wanted to build a better basis for computing. With Java, a better programming language, and now Jini, we have a real candidate for a next generation approach. Programs can now be written in a reliable programming language, and simple distributed systems constructed based on distributed objects and mobile code.
This talk describes the large and long-term forces at work which lead us to believe that a distributed object-oriented future is at hand, and the how and why of the new technologies.
We will demonstrate the prototype Jini software and devices, which are about to be retired, publicly for the first and nearly the last time, because these early demo machines, which we have been using since the spring of this year, are about to be retired, in favor of a more sophisticated, and possibly less whimsical, demonstration for the official Jini product launch later this fall.