Sun Microsystems Inc. said it will launch a community site Tuesday where
developers who sculpt the Web landscapes for dot-coms can talk about
experiences they have had whipping code into something useful.
Taking charge of the The SunSM Dot-Com Builder
Web site is Sun’s Vice President of Internet Services Lew Tucker, who
told InternetNews.com Monday that the site is a way for Web gurus at firm’s
such as priceline.com to divulge the insides and outs of how to craft a
business site.
Citing the example of priceline.com’s Chief Technology Officer Ron Rhodes,
who had to figure out how to boost the scalability of priceline.com’s
back-end by a factor of 10 in a little more than a year, Tucker said he
couldn’t think of anything more useful than illustrating real-world
situations on a site.
Tucker said Sun’s goal is to facilitate open dialogue around products,
services and best practices related to building great site infrastructure.
“The only good analogy I can think of is that it is like a site for
carpenters who have to build sites that cut across a bunch of technologies,”
Tucker said.
But how does Sun plan to cull such information? Simple. An editorial team of
what Tucker calls “investigative technology reporters” approaches
respected dot-coms and asks to be filled in on the challenges Web architects
have faced in tending their dot-com’s site. That means that developers don’t
have to just turn and rely on friends or colleagues any more.
Tucker said the community was created in light of the increasing complexity
of Web architecture. Developers can access topics such as XML, Apache and
Linux as well as participate in discussion groups. By linking Web developers
in a centralized community, Sun provides a way for developers to obtain the
resources and real-world examples they need to effectively build, scale and
evolve today’s leading Web sites.
While the sight itself seems altruistic, Tucker noted that Sun stands to
benefit from the experience the site will breed for newer users. And the
site is strictly by, and for, those who are crafting works on Sun’s network
computing platforms.
“We want to create better developers,” Tucker said. “We’ll need strong
developers to run our high-end operating systems.”
Tucker said there will be sections addressing Sun’s Java and Solaris
technologies, among others.