One of the best sources of information about the demographics of Web users are the surveys conducted by the Graphics, Visualisation and Usability Centre at Georgia Technology University in the United States.
Their latest poll has returned results about everything from Web users' political leanings to their income to their awareness of Web-related security issues.
Most poignant, though, is a new section that looks at the attitudes of Web developers and authors towards Java.
This is a timely subject to be added to the survey because we are in the midst of a high level of Java hype these days, with much talk of how it will revolutionise the Web and Java-enabled network computers costing less than US$500.
One would expect, then, that most Web authors have experimented with Java or are actively using it and that the Web development community would see Java as a useful tool. The survey, however, paints a different picture - one where most Web authors have not tried Java yet and where many are sceptical of the media hype, choosing to see Java more as an aesthetic addition to the Web rather than a functional one.
The survey found that: Only 17 per cent of Web authors responding to the survey have programmed in Java. While almost 60 per cent indicated they intended to move into Java programming within the next year, this figure may be more optimistic than realistic. Only 15 per cent of respondents felt that Java would revolutionise the Web. Almost 30 per cent only saw the value of Java as aesthetic or as having no value at all.
These results run counter to the image of Java that Sun has been trying so hard to create - that of the ultimate tool for developing platform-independent, interactive, secure content on the World-Wide Web and beyond.