Raible Designs

From the T637

Bill Dudney

Moblogging begins...

Bruce Snyder

[JavaOne] State of the Web Tier

I'm sitting here with Bruce, listening to Craig McClanahan and others speak about the "state of the web tier." After the first 15 minutes, it seems like a waste of time. I should go to something I don't know about. The first 15 minutes touched on MVC frameworks and things like filter and tag libraries. I was impressed that they mentioned WebWork, Tapestry and Spring. Heck, they even mentioned SiteMesh when they talked about filters. Now Craig is talking about portlets.

It would be cool to do some portlet development. I took a class a couple of years ago to become a Portal Server instructor. I got certified, but never actually taught a course.

JSF: A server-side user interface component framework for Java technology-based web application. It's not an application framework for your business logic - it's for the UI only. JSF looks cool - especially since it uses the same "form backing object" like Spring MVC has. I think JSF has an advantage over a lot of other frameworks because (1) it'll be well documented and (2) it'll be well tested and (3) it'll be widely used. Having a widely-used technology is sooooo much easier to learn than ones that aren't. I'm willing to bet that the JSF version of AppFuse will be the most popular one in a year from now. By the end of the year, AppFuse will support WebWork, Tapestry and JSF in its web layer - in addition to Struts and Spring MVC.

Demo time. Craig is showing us the JSF demo app that we saw in the keynote. We're looking at Java Studio Creator now. There's a Creator party tomorrow night - get tickets from downstairs at the Creator booth.

J2EE 5.0: New name, same great platform. Final release in second half of 2005. Ease of Development is the primary theme. Based on J2SE 5.0, with great benefits (shouldn't it be J5SE and J5EE - WTF!?). New JSRs: JSP 1.2/JSF 1.2 - EL alignment is key. Toolability is key. Maintenance reviews: Servlets and JSTL. J2EE.next - successor J2EE 5.0. Work will begin shortly after JavaOne and JSRs will be filed after JavaOne. Experts groups are on Java.net - JSP and JSTL are there today. Also,the JSF Reference Implementation is now on java.net. BTW, I'm on the J2EE 5.0 Expert Group so hopefully I can contribute to making J2EE 5.0 easier too. They'll let just about anyone onto these expert groups - can you believe they let both Hani and I in? ;-)

Apple's new displays

Drooooollllll...

JavaOne - who's blogging it?

My battery is about to run out, so I leave you with a list of folks that are at JavaOne and seem to be blogging this sucker. Send me a comment or trackback if you want to be listed.

• Dave Johnson
• Opinions & Commentary
• /dev/ttyo
• Cameron Purdy
• Syncopated Dissonance
• Java.net Bloggers

What phone should I get?

I lost my phone yesterday - somewhere between the airport and the hotel. I doubt anyone will find it and return it to me, so I'm in the market for a new phone. I'd prefer something with a camera - and maybe even the ability to develop Java for it. Any suggestions? Does AT&T carry it? There's an AT&T store right up the street.

[JavaOne] The first day

Went to bed at 4 a.m., up at 7 a.m. and woke up w/o a hangover - it's going to be a good day. Last night was spent at the Thirsty Bear, followed by beers until 3 with Matt and James from SourceBeat. The wireless connection sucks - too many people I'm guessing.

I'm sitting in the keynote by Jonathan Schwartz - what's the big announcement? My bet is that the tiger/tiger thing is JDK 1.5 is going to be released - and it's going to be released on the Mac at the same time.

Schwartz's speech is fairly boring - it's definitely a whole lotta marketing. I'm falling asleep - give us something good!

The number of Java Developers grew by 30% last year - from 3 to 4 million. Schwartz thinks that Java will "roar" into the automotive industry next. Some guy just drove in a BMW and they're demoing a Java-based entertainment system. Basically, it's a just a voice-controlled system for communication, climate, navigation and entertainment. Looks cool I guess. It'd be sweet to get a gig developing apps for cars, wouldn't it?

Now Schwartz is back on stage. Java.com gets 9 million hits enough, and 6-7 million click the "get it now" button to get/install Java. After sitting in this thing for the last hour - I can see why people skip it. OK, this is cool - Project Looking Glass is going to be open-sourced, but you probably already knew that since Java 3D has been open sourced.

If you want to say hi today, I'm wearing a brown Hawaiian shirt and shorts.

JavaOne - the journey begins

My flight leaves Denver around 3:00 and is supposed to arrive at SFO at 7:15. If I'm good, I can grab a taxi and make it to Moscone before registration closes at 8. I doubt it, but it's worth a try. If it's closed, I'll head to my hotel and try to hook up with Bruce, Bill or Simon. Leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail if you are around and want to hook up tonight.

AppFuse Logo - winner is Igor Polyakov!

Igor Polyakov is the winner of the AppFuse Logo Contest! I didn't get many votes from the mailing list - but of the 7 votes I received, 5 were for Igor's logo. Since it was my favorite too - I can't complain. Congratulations Igor - we dig your design!

Maven's ibiblio repository: nicely out of date

I have a feeling that Maven and I will never quite get along. I live on the bleeding edge, because you have to if you want to keep up with open source. I'm using Hibernate, Spring and JSTL in my Maven sample app. Hibernate is pretty up to date - ibiblio has 2.1.3 and 2.1.4 is the latest. Spring's JARs aren't too bad - 1.0.1 vs. 1.0.2 being the latest release. So much for getting spring-mock.jar quick and easy - since it's part of 1.0.2. JSTL is one version behind too.

Lesson learned: if you want to stay on the bleeding edge, don't use Maven. I suppose another option is to become the guy who uploads these new versions. That job looks rather complicated though. I'm guessing that most folks are simply maintaining their own repositories (or staying away from the bleeding edge).