CodeFutures News & Industry Commentary Blog

The three hottest topics at JavaOne seemed to be AJAX, SOA, and data persistence. Almost everyone I met at the conference was interested in at least one of those three technologies. So I went to the panel discussion on "Java Technology, AJAX, Web 2.0 and SOA". There were many sessions on AJAX, but the speakers at this included Deepak Alur and Dan Malks, who wrote the Core J2EE Design Patterns book on which FireStorm/DAO is based.

Dan Malks did a straw pole of attendees about why they came to the discussion that produced some interesting results. About half the developers were there were interested in AJAX and about half were interested in SOA. There seemed to be a bit of confusion around the term Web 2.0, perhaps given the developer-centric nature of this crowd and the term's marketing roots.

Since I did not know too much about AJAX before JavaOne, I decided to take a tour of the vendor pavilion to look at all the AJAX products available. Most of them were surprisingly primitive (I will not name the vendors - the list is available on the Sun site). They were just raw technology. What they were missing was a simple development environment to quickly and easily build top-end user interfaces.

The one exception was JackBe. The demo provided Jacob Derechin really blew me away. He was able to build stunning looking, highly interactive Web interfaces that better than I ever imagined possible.

What makes JackBe even more interesting is that they are not content to have the best AJAX technology and they are also combining AJAX with SOA-based back end technology to provide a full end-to-end offering using SOA standards and AJAX. That's completely unique in the marketplace.

I wonder if CodeFutures should provide an AJAX-based user interface for FireStorm/DAO and FireStorm/SDO?

PJ Murray
CodeFutures Software

Nikhil Bajpai has written an a article on Why ORM Tools are Not Recommended that has some interesting points. Although I do not agree with all the points, it is rare to see anyone publish anything other than totally favorable regarding ORM tools.

For related reading, Andy Grove has published a short articles on Data Access Object (DAO) versus Object Relational Mapping (ORM) and also Choosing a Java Persistence Strategy.

PJ Murray
CodeFutures Software

Service Data Objects were mentioned a lot at JavaOne. The was a very well attended session on the last day of the conference that reviewed progress to date and discussed future developments. Steve Brodsky from IBM and Michael Cary from BEA were the session hosts, with contributors from Oracle and SAP (who, along with Michael Cary, explained how they were using SDO in their products).

I talked to several people about SDO and SCA at JavaOne. There was general agreement that SDO usage would take off much quicker than SCA.

One big issue that were ignored was if SDO would remain part of the Java Community Process (JCP). JSR 235 for Service Data Objects is an approved JCP specification for version 1.0 of the specification. However, SDO 2.0 goes beyond Java and embraces C++ (and in future, in theory, other languages). Will vesion 2.0 of the specification be part of the JCP? Given that SDO is now supported by many of the major industry vendors, and is part of the Service Component Architecture, perhaps it does not matter?

PJ Murray
CodeFutures Software

Brian Chess gave one of the best presentations at JavaOne on JavaOne on Twelve Java™ Technology Security Traps and How to Avoid Them.

The presentation was very well put together - sample code, then explanation of the security risk.

You can view the presentation here (you will need a user name: contentbuilder and password: doc789).

There's 92 (!) slides, you may find this summary of the security traps useful.

PJ Murray
CodeFutures Software

Still the Big One

As always, there were huge numbers attending JavaOne, and as usual, there were 'official' claims that were difficult to verify. There were 188 sessions scheduled, making it possible to only attend a very small selection of topics. Sun pushed NetBeans very hard at the show. The pre The pavilion section was still huge, but not as big as a few years ago, with the exhibition hall closed off with barriers on 3 sides so the show did not look to empty.

The Brazillians have Arrived

There was a good sized group of attendees from Brazil this year for the first time. It has been known for some time that the Brazilian government has made a strategic decision to embrace Java technology (hardly the first goverment to seek to protect itself against Microsoft, but at least they have done it in a positive way). The huge video screen at the bottom of the main escalator showed a video about the using Java in the Brazilian healthcare system. Turns out, Java is good for your health (system).

Microchips, Lousy Free Lunches, Bags, and WiFi

The bags handed out at registration were very high quality. The WiFi coverage was very patchy in the Moscone (although there were a few rows of computers in the pavilion). The daily lunches were terrible and I never actually touched any of them - which is pretty bad for a conference that costs a couple of thosand dollars to attend. The online registration system for sessions did not work (in theory, you pre-registered for sessions and used the micochip-based ID card to gain access, but in practice the system did not work very well and a line formed outside many sessions).

Google and Microsoft: Booth Buddies

Both Google and Miicrosoft had booths at JavaOne - right beside each other! Google did launch a Web Toolkit at the show, but really seems mostly interested in recruitment. Microsoft seemed to be mostly promoting the XBox, which was a clever decision given the company they were keeping.

Apple Store

There's a very large Apple store in downtown San Francisco that seemed to be crowded all the time. I tried a out a MacBook (Intel-based Mac) for the first time. It was amazing. My next laptop will be a dual boot, where I'll only use Windows when I've no choice.

Open Sourcing Java

Athough I was not there to see it, it has been widely reported that Rich Green, EVP, Sun Software said in response to the usual pestering about open sourcing Java "It's not a question of whether, it's a question of how." Open sourcing may help with bug fixes and with innovation, but there's a huge danger of Java becoming like Linux, where you need to be very specific about exactly which version of Linux you are using. So the 'how' question is actually one that might be very difficult to answer.

Mobile Java

Three or four years ago, there was a lot of hype about Java on mobile phones and there was a large number of mobile-technology related vendors at the JavaOne pavillion. There was still a few mobile technology vendors this year. But that is not an indication of a decline. In fact, the hype was true and Java has really gone mobile. Ed Zander of Motorola said his company was shipping over 200 million Java-enabled mobile phones this year and the industry would ship nearly one billion.

Finally, AJAX was Hot

One of my objectives at the show was to learn about AJAX and to visit all the vendors to find the best AJAX products avaialble (hint: look up JackBe). I plan to write more about this later....

PJ Murray
CodeFutures Software

One stricking difference between the 2005 and 2006 conference program at JavaOne is the almost complete dissappearance of Web frameworks. The huge number of competing Web frameworks available created some great opportunities for smackdowns between competing technologies. This year, the focus for front end technologies has shifted to AJAX (JSF seems to be still struggling hard to gain any momentum with developers, regardless of the efforts of some product vendors) . There are several sessions on AJAX and several vendors in the pavilion with AJAX products. Looks like a perfect opportunity to learn about one of the hottest technologies.

PJ Murray
CodeFutures Software