The biggest change over the last year has been Java's slow slide from its idealistic and hallowed perch. This slide has been greased from every angle with ample skepticism. But now, all of our ego boundaries have snapped back into place and we are really seeing the technology for the first time - warts and all. This is where our book, Java Pitfalls, comes into play. It is a straight look at 50 programming obstacles that we guide you around.
Pitfalls are the bane of beginning programmers who rely so heavily on the blessing of compilation.
The platform has also continued its astounding growth and spread into every computing niche. The question is no longer whether you will develop in Java anymore but whether you will develop in anything else. This is especially true for the average corporate developer. I see the ascendancy of XML as the greatest potential threat to Java. XML is as ambivalent to programming languages as Java is to operating systems.