JavaOne is coming up in September and I am thinking about my to-know-more-about list. I am thinking JavaFX, Executors, and performance tuning applications and tools. Somewhere in between I have to make time to lookup friends and connect with fellow programmers. I am also curious to see what's up now that Sun is Oracle.

At this year's JavaOne, you can notice the buzz around "cloud computing." Vendors seem to have different takes on just what this term means. Then there are fun new languages for the VM, such as Scala, JavaFX, and Clojure. And old languages seem to be moving to the VM, too: There are JavaOne sessions on running PHP on the JVM, for example.

I got to JavaOne late this year, but still was able to see some old friends, and do some catching up over dinner. JavaOne has become a social call and a community refresher for me as much as it has been a trade show that offers one the latest trends and news.

Despite all the changes in tools and diagnostic technologies in the past few years, Web application performance-tuning still relies on basic trouble-shooting skills and simple common sense.

Java has been attracting communities of programmers for the past twelve years. Much of Java's appeal, however, is based on its ability to stay simple while at the same time incorporating more complex features. But the big challenge ahead for Java is how to maintain the success formula in the ever-changing world of the future.

Java is set to "reach humankind" by providing key Java features to empower Mobile device technology, especially rich content and networking.

Every Java project is designed for reusability. Yet when time comes to do a new project in the same domain we always opt for building from scratch. Is software reusability, especially in the J2EE realm, just a myth?