Hot on the heels of Joe's passionate post on why the Java industry needs a new print magazine I would like to add in my tuppence worth to the debate. Having been with the ill-fated JDJ for 7 years, 2 of them as its Editor-in-Chief I too feel the time has come for some new blood to enter the market.

JDJ has its problems, we all know that. We all sit there and think we could do better. Armchair editing as I like to put it. Having written a number of books I know only too well the commitment it takes to write and when you come up against someone who brushes it off with a casual "oh i could have written a book" it does get on your goat. The world is full of people that "could have" but how many actually are there of the "have done" crowd? The number is precious few.

I got my chance to get off the armchair at JDJ and put my mark on the magazine. My big opportunity to get my teeth into something I was sure I could make better. I was honored, and still am to this day, of being put in charge of the mothership. At the time I took over, the reputation of JDJ in the developer space wasn't too great. The silver lining for me, was as Editor-in-Chief I couldn't make any matters worse. The only way I could go was up the ladder.

Up the ladder I went, one rung at a time, with the odd occasion slipping down a few rungs. It wasn't easy. I was fighting years of 'acceptance' internally at SYS-CON as "thats way we've always done it" as well as the constant hate email from readers. But you get numb to that and I am proud to say that every email that ever came into my inbox, I answered.

My competition, or yard stick lets say, was JavaPro. JavaPro I never really seen as a serious Java magazine because their editorial staff couldn't have strung a HelloWorld.java together between them. You never seen a JavaPro editor engaged in a java debate on a newsgroup, mailing list, or even chairing a panel at a Java conference. I wanted to make sure that our guys were not only accessible, but could challenge the crap that marketing people were trying to throw down our throats. I sent many 'mystery shopper' type emails into JavaPro to see how they responded. I rarely got a response and when I did, there was no real meat to it; merely a 'thank you for contacting' us email. That was simply rude as far as I was concerned.

JavaPro in their defense have started to engage the developer community. I have now seen them as conferences chairing panels etc and its good to see. I think they realized they had to do it after seeing just how much coverage we were getting by simply going down to the trenches where the real work was happening. Although I have yet to see them in any mainstream mailing lists or answering questions in any IRC or USENET groups.

At the moment, we have 2 Java magazines; Java Pro and JDJ. Sadly both suck. We have some great online resources, but again, that's online and not print. Print is something you take on a train/plane ride; print is something you leave in reception; print is something you take to the toilet. Print has the luxury of sneeking up on you. You find yourself reading about technologies that may have normally passed you. Print whatever anyone says, is still easier to read than a monitor. The world still needs print.

I personally believe that the best people to morph into print is one of the large online communities. JavaLobby I see as just a less dumber version of Slashdot; no real meat with just a lot of ranting. TheServerSide is slipping into the rant mode of late, with only the likes of JavaWorld and JavaGuru being potential candidates with their large back catalogue of quality content. Ironically, the best company to do a Java magazine, would be IBM. Their ibm.com/java is full of juicy content that is ripe for printing.

I have been talking to various people and somone suggested the name: YAJDJ; which I thought was perfect (if you don't get it, read the title of this blog).  But the problem is how to make money with any title.  Publishing is not cheap and it is definitely not for the faint hearted.  Like I said, it's very easy to sit and pontificate about how you would do things better, but getting the numbers to add up isn't easy.  There is probably a good reason why there is only 2 Java magazines in the space; no one else wants to fund a loss maker.

One company you would think should be getting behind any magazine effort would be Sun.  Sadly they offer next to no support to the Java magazines and are unlikely to offer any support to another one in the space.  When a company like Sun refuses to get behind a print initiative, you can quickly see why there isn't a shelf of Java magazines like we see now with C# and Linux.  They don't even commit to advertising.

JDJ is not without its problems.  No denying that.  Things could definitely be done better and there is no doubt that they'll suffer a dent in the reputation that within 7 months, they are now looking at their 3rd Editor-in-Chief.  Thats not good for any title.

I have been left JDJ for nearly 7 months now and in that time I have not had any regrets in leaving behind the world of publishing. It has been refreshing. But why did I leave? Well that's another blog for another day.