Almost all that's innovative and exciting in the software world today involves a dose, often high, of object technology. The concepts so brilliantly introduced by Simula more than a third of a century ago have spread throughout the field; in the past fifteen years they have led to a radical revision of views about programming, system design, system analysis, languages, databases, concurrency and numerous other topics. Many people have tried to improve on the basic ideas; no one has found any that would replace them. It's the main game in town, and one whose rules we are still discovering.

Such a critical technology needs a world-class journal. In late 2001, the main international publication entirely devoted to object-oriented programming ceased publication, out of a business decision of its new owners, unrelated to the continuing growth of interest in the field. This left a gaping hole, which is now filled. We are proud to present JOT, the Journal of Object Technology.

JOT starts out with a stellar editorial board (see the members list here) made of the world's top experts in the field, representing many different trends and areas. The editor-in-chief, Richard Wiener, who formerly held the same position for JOOP (Journal of Object-Oriented Programming) which he brought to the highest level of prestige in the field, is hard at work, with their help, to prepare future issues. In the first one that you are now reading you can already see the style of the magazine and the scope that it covers through its columns, refereed articles, product reviews and book reviews, to which new departments will be added as we expand JOT and benefit from your feedback and suggestions.

Our primary goal is quality. We want to provide you with innovative, well-reasoned, timely contributions that will advance the state of the art and help the practitioners in the field. JOT's refereed articles undergo a rigorous selection process to ensure that we bring you only the best in content and form. While our focus is practical, we'll provide authors with a publishing reference at the highest level. JOT is currently an electronic-only journal, so that we can concentrate all our efforts on quality; if there is still someone somewhere who judges the quality of a publication from the number of trees that must be felled to produce each issue, we are counting on you, the JOT reader community, to demonstrate that this is irrelevant and that only quality matters. In all respects except for printing its papers on "paper", JOT follows the traditions, style and rules of science and technology journals.

As a matter of fact, we do depart from most traditional journals in one other respect: JOT is totally free for both readers and authors. This feature, which we hope to be able to maintain, is partly a benefit of our electronic support, but also critically follows from the support of ETH, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, where JOT is published and without which this adventure would not have been possible. We hope you enjoy the ability to use JOT at no cost. You are free to browse, print, cite. Please contribute back by publicizing the magazine to all the people and groups you know that can benefit from it, observing the copyright rules (for authors in particular: link to your article on the JOT site, not to a copy on yours), submitting your best articles to JOT, encouraging others to do the same, and sending your comments, criticisms and suggestions to help us make JOT as good as you want it to be.

Our scope is revealed by our name, but we take a broad view of object technology, encompassing for example the whole world of component-based development. We are not interested in enforcing a restrictive view of what is O-O and what isn't. We are interested in promoting productive approaches to software based on the most promising current advances. We will not favor any particular school; we want the best of what's out there. It is the role of Richard Wiener and the Editorial Board to make the selection. As the publisher, I am responsible for providing the right resources and support.

JOT is currently published bi-monthly; to be kept informed of each issue a few days before its date of publication, as well as to get the inside scoop on JOT and object technology, feel free to subscribe to our mailing list. To participate in JOT, don't hesitate to send suggestions to Richard Wiener or to the other addresses listed on the Contacts page. JOT will succeed with the help of its reader community and all ideas will be welcome.

Many people have worked very hard to make the JOT vision a reality, in a remarkably short time between the first idea and the appearance of this inaugural issue. None of this could have happened without the enthusiasm and indefatigable work of Richard Wiener; we are fortunate to have him as our Editor-in-Chief. The editorial board responded enthusiastically and helped us start without delay. The critical support of ETH has already been mentioned. We are particularly grateful to the authors who submitted their articles to a brand new publication. In my group at ETH (the Chair of Software Engineering) the following people worked hard and fast to install the servers and the software infrastructure on which publication of JOT rests, ensuring not only that everything would be ready by D-Day but also that a solid, scalable setup would be in place to support future growth: Volkan Arslan, Susanne Cech, Bernd Schoeller and Krzysztof Horecki.

A special acknowledgment is due to Ruth Bürkli, JOT's editorial assistant, who starting from the most minimal and evolving instructions built the entire Web site and prepared the first set of articles for publication in this first issue. Many thanks to all of them. We hope you will like the result of their work, help the journal grow further, and benefit from JOT and the further development of object technology.

Bertrand Meyer