FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ===================== Contact: Lee Fitzpatrick Manning Publications Co. 203 629 2078 203 661 9018 fax lee@manning.com or see: http://www.browsebooks.com MAKING SENSE OF JAVA: A guide for managers and the rest of us By B. Simpson, J. Mitchell, B. Christeson, R. Zaidi, and J. Levine 180 pages, $29.95, ISBN: 0-13-263294-2 Greenwich, CT, May 30, 1996 -- Manning Publications Co. today announced the publication of "MAKING SENSE OF JAVA," a unique computing book accessible to non-programmers. The hottest technology to emerge in the computer industry in years, and a hit among those who create applications for the Internet, is the new computer programming language Java. Designed by Sun Microsystems to be used in a globally networked environment, Java makes it easy to create small programs that can be sent to any computer on the Internet to perform all kinds of new things inconceivable in the past. By embedding small Java applications ("applets") in Web pages to provide animation, interaction, and intelligence, Java is the tool of choice to bring life to Web pages that have largely been staid collections of text and static images. Software developers pounced on the language as soon as Sun announced it at the San Francisco SunWorld conference in May of last year, and many now view it as a future standard. Dozens of books have been published and all of them--good and bad--sell out as quickly as bookstores receive them. Until now, all of them have been aimed at programmers. Magazine articles have provided necessarily sketchy coverage of Java's exciting potential, leaving development managers and other observers of industry trends without the kind of balanced and complete overview possible only in a book. "MAKING SENSE OF JAVA: A guide for managers and the rest of us" will close this gap on May 31 when the first copies are released to the booktrade. The only source on this new technology accessible to mere mortals, "MAKING SENSE OF JAVA" will give managers and other business people a broad overview of Java, with just enough detail to understand the excitement it has generated and to plot their own course in the agitated waters of the Internet, the World Wide Web, corporate intranets and secure net transactions. The author team of Bruce Simpson of Auckland New Zealand, John Mitchell of Moraga California, Jon Levine of San Francisco, Brian Christeson of Alexandria, New Hampshire, and Rehan Zaidi of Waterloo, Ontario (Canada), represents well the eclectic Java community. Their ages range from 22 to 50, and they are consultants, programmers, writers, managers, and a student, who have actively participated in the Java maelstrom. Manning Publications of Greenwich, a small, selective press specializing in computer books, will offer the entire book for sale on the Web as an electronic document (a "cyberbook") for less than a third the price of a printed copy. Publisher Marjan Bace says, "Cyberbook purchases will be secure, encrypted electronic transactions. Buyers will transmit credit card information to us over the Internet in scrambled form impossible to read (and therefore to steal) except by cryptology specialists with huge computers--not a significant risk." Cyberbook buyers will be entitled to purchase the printed copy at a discount equal to the cyberbook price; thus they will receive the electronic version of the book with no surcharge. Cyberbook buyers will be asked to agree to use the book's content for personal purposes only. These could include pasting excerpts or illustrations from the book directly into a manager's presentation. The book can be browsed on the World Wide Web at the above site, with the table of contents, two chapters, the index, and other book parts available at a click of the mouse. The site also shows the book as a three dimensional object. Starting with a frontal view, the book turns, showing gradually more of the spine and then of the back cover.