Posts tagged: java

A while ago I wrote about the Rails influence on Java frameworks. It seems that the Rails lesson has been applied to a combination of Netbeans (in its 5.5 beta version) and Glassfish. A week or two ago Geertjan explained how to use a couple of Netbeans wizards to generate Entity classes from an imported relational database schema together with a default set of JSF backed JSPs, to generate a basic, but working, web application which allows the user to list, add, edit and delete records from any of the included database tables. [continues...]

A list of frameworks and applications successfully deployed on Glassfish is here. Glassfish is coming together nicely - I’ve given it a quick spin and I like what I see. In my day job I rely on the excellent Tomcat for most of my app deployments, but I’m considering moving them to Glasssfish. Some of Glassfish’s features are compelling: logical partitioning with ‘domains’ - ability to package a domain containing applications and server instance configuration into a zip file and re-deploy elsewhere support for EJB 3 active community, with a great blog impressive web management console the price tag! [continues...]

I’m re-examining the state of web-frameworks for Java at the moment, with a particular focus on support for Ajax and JSR168 portlets. It’s interesting to see the impact that Ruby on Rails has already had in this space. For example, several Java frameworks have started to favour convention over configuration, even if sporadically. Matt Raible has created a summary document, Java Web Frameworks Sweet Spots, of the current state of Java web frameworks, formed out of a series of short Q&A sessions with principal developers from 11 frameworks. [continues...]

community.java.net - Portlet - this is a good collection of articles about developing with the JSR168 portlet specification. Portlet Tutorial - WebWork, Eclipse and JBOSS - I’ve used Opensymphony components in the past and been really happy with them - not looked at WebWork yet, but this might be just what I need at the moment This was previously published at http://blog.sockdrawer.org and was retrieved from the Internet Archive.

I remember when Java applets were going to revolutionise the web. Although the Java applet has cropped up in all kinds of web-applications over the years, it has never really become ubiquitous in the way that, say, Flash has. As a web-application developer, working mostly in Java, I have not developed an applet-based solution for years. Currently, I’m more excited by the possibilities afforded by AJAX. Both Flash and Java applets have been part of the evolutionary process which seems to head towards the Rich Internet Application (RIA). [continues...]

I'm experimenting with a couple of components provided by the open-source initiative at opensymphony.com. I'm particularly pleased with the caching solution they provide called OSCache: this allows a developer to layer a caching structure over their servlet/JSP Java web-application. For general caching at the URL level (i.e. for caching all pages which match defined URL patterns), a Filter is provided. Using the filter allows caching to be applied to the web app without touching the application code at all - it just needs the necessary jar file to be included on the application's classpath and a simple entry to be added to the web. [continues...]

One useful feature of the later Java Servlet specifications is support for filters. Essentially, a filter can be defined declaratively in a J2EE web application descriptor to intercept responses from the application to the client according to URL patterns. The filter can then do some work on the response, before allowing it to continue. A really useful example of this, which I have just started using in just about all of my J2EE webapps, is the trim filter. [continues...]

Several Java packages work with RSS. Some can read certain formats, while others can write them as well. The class this article features reads all known RSS formats and outputs the converted data in the 2.0 format. Vlad Patryshev on DevX.com This looks useful - I haven't tried this out yet but I probably will in the near future. At the very least it could be deployed to sit between remote content and a local presentation layer, allowing the presentation technology to concern itself with a single format. [continues...]

The EJB 3.0 expert group seems to have handed JBoss the EJB application server market on a silver platter. Several weeks ago at TheServerSide Java Symposium in Las Vegas the EJB expert group announced its decision to shelve the current entity bean architecture and focus on the lightweight persistence of Plain Old Java Objects (POJOs). Specifically, it decided to use Hibernate as the persistence mechanism in EJB 3.0. Hibernate is an open source object/relational mapping solution that joined the JBoss Group last year. [continues...]

"The Unix idea of piecing together solutions from reusable parts has morphed into XML-based, service-oriented architecture. This time around, though, it's all happening on the Web, in an environment where everybody can compose simple and popular tunes. When technologists forget that, I hope users will administer the dope slap we deserve." Jon Udell on XML.com This resonated with me. Recently, as part of my work at a London University, I re-engineered a legacy enterprise-wide web application called MISLine, moving it from a straightforward ColdFusion app into a set of Java Beans / servlets / JSPs and deploying it in a J2EE cluster. [continues...]

"Without a dominant proprietary solution and with EJB in disarray, the software industry has a significant vacuum in the Java persistence solution market. Many are looking to the next best standard. With the Java Data Objects (JDO) 2.0 specification under way, the timing is right for JDO to seize this opportunity. " Bruce Tate on DevX.com Bruce's conclusions are interesting. Despite developing J2EE apps for a couple of years now, I have not found a compelling case for developing Entity Beans, but would welcome a 'safe', standard, persistence solution. [continues...]

Just got back from the Sun 'Tech Day' in London. I thought the line up of sponsors was interesting - aside from Sun, the sponsors were: Oracle, Nokia, Motorola, Macromedia and Novell. Oracle and Novell's presence is no surprise - they bought into Java wholesale some time ago and Macromedia have made a strong foray into J2EE, describe their 'MX' product-line as 'accelerating Java development'. The interesting thing to me was that out of five sponsors, two were 'phone' manufacturers, demonstrating new wireless devices and the tools and specifications needed to write applications for them. [continues...]