From the announcement of the new release of Chemical Markup Language, and other discussions on the list it seems that Java is becoming an integral part of the chemical web. However, it appears that moving down this road could exclude many people from our sites.
The issue is one of corporate firewalls. Many companies are not willing to let in 'live' code to their networks in order to ensure the security of their systems. For example, in a recent discussion on the CHMINF-L discussion group about CAS/STN Easy Edition, Rick Williams of Pfizer said: "On the more important (from our point of view) issue, about which you had no comment, what's with the Java routine? We simply cannot, at this time, offer to our clients any resource which is manipulated by or depends on programmatic intervention from outside the corporate firewall." I'm sure that Pfizer isn't the only company with this policy. There are many advantages to the Java approach, but companies seem suspicious of it even with reassurances about the built-in safety mechanisms in Java. Is there a danger we could be moving towards a two-tier chemical web? -------------------------- Paul Deards Internet Publisher Chemistry and Industry 0171-2353681 x233 pauld@chemind.demon.co.uk http://ci.mond.org/ -------------------------- Advertising with C&I electronic publications is a cost-effective way of reaching a target audience of scientists. For more details, contact us at advertising@chemind.demon.co.uk -------------------------- ----- chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. Archived as: http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To unsubscribe, send to listserver@ic.ac.uk the following message; unsubscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (rzepa@ic.ac.uk)