The electronic version of Java Developer’s Journal showed up in my inbox today. I must say that overall I love the redesign, except for the lack of a J2ME section. With the redesign comes four sections: Home (introductory and departments), Enterprise, Core, and Desktop. The previous organization of the magazine included a J2ME section.
So why did JDJ drop J2ME from its lineup? There simply were not enough articles to fill the section. There always seem to be enough J2EE or J2SE articles, but never enough J2ME. It is not as if everything there is to say about J2ME has been said. Quite the opposite. J2ME may no longer be in its infancy, but it is still quite young. New JSRs are constantly coming out that pertain to J2ME. Just check out Sun’s J2ME page and look at all of them.
J2ME continues to evolve, and at the same time many people use and develop for J2ME on a daily basis. There have already been two major releases on the CLDC/MIDP side with things seeming to stagnate a bit on the CDC side. And then there’s the EOLing of PersonalJava, but that’s another story.
There continue to be excellent articles at java.com, many J2ME articles at IBM DeveloperWorks, and Erik also keeps track of a lot of J2ME articles and blog entries. This is great, however I am still dissapointed at the lack of J2ME articles appearing in print. I have also noticed that J2ME has been around long enough to have a fair amount of outdated material and stagnant software. If we are not careful, stagnation and a lack of publications could cause major problems for J2ME