JavaOne 2008: Day One (So Far)

JavaOne 2008 Day One has started, of course, and it's an interesting show, with a lot of undercurrents about JavaFX (as expected) and multimedia - and mobile applications. There's a lot more, of course, and this thread is meant for people to add comments at will...

The opening keynote was ... interesting. If only it had been 2007, it would have been great - and in 2007, it was interesting, as most of this keynote was 2007's JavaFX introduction all over again.

It looks great now (still) but ... I couldn't see people being interested, once they got over being dazzled with the flashy graphics. JavaFX is being reintroduced to the same people who weren't done forgetting it from last year - it's a little hard to watch this year. Let's face it, guys, the rabbit's dead.

The conference is quiet compared to last year. Some of the biggest news isn't being said, or has already been posted: the SpringSource Application Platform was released last week, of course, which would have been a major release here - but it's hard to see Sun offering Spring that kind of press at JavaOne.

A note from the floor: lots of interesting booths, but the logo above the BEA booth stands out: It says "Oracle | BEA" instead of just BEA...

Feel free to post your thoughts in this thread about things you've seen.

Re: JavaOne 2008: Day One (So Far)

I understand that JavaFX should be taken with care, since it's on the razor's edge. But I've seen a fundamental difference so far: last year (and just up to a few time ago) I've seen only demos and small applets; this year Stephan Janssen demonstrated a real application (the version of Parleys.com based on JavaFX). It's worth mentioning that he said that a stand-alone client for uploading movies that they made has been made with JavaFX with no special care (same code as the applet), while with Air/Flex things would have been much harder (if even possible). Stephan has a specific talk with a comparison with the two technologies in the next days and we'll learn more.

Re: JavaOne 2008: Day One (So Far)

The (accelerated) multimedia capabilities of JavaFX looked interesting. However, JavaFX is supposed to be the Sun alternative for doing Rich Internet Applications, but it basically boils down to Java Applets. I've never really liked the way Applets perform in a browser, and with me many others as the alternatives to applets are way more popular.

I still expect there's something to be announced in the Portal area. There's a booth with Glassfish and Liferay, and Sun might replace it's own Portal Server with this open source portal implementation. This would make Glassfish a very interesting platform, but we'll see about that the next few days...

OSGi and better applet support

OSGi support is also a very good news. But I am not sure that, for such a core technology, like module kernel, having both standards is that good.
Having 2 module systems would make more difficult to move modules from Java kernel to an OSGi-only kernel. At the end, is OSGi going to win ?

While thinking these days about OSGi-like technology, I am wondering about Java-Jini links. With OSGi support into the JDK, Java looks like gaining one feature Jini has. So, I wonder about what remains into the Jini pockets. Programming style ? Some specific services (like Javaspace) ? Other stuff ?

This being said, the new applet way looks like also quite interesting. Being able to drag and drop applets outside the browser is a first step showing applet lifecycle is not linked anymore to the browsers: this gives another door to push Java on the desktop.

Re: JavaOne 2008: Day One (So Far)

I think I remember reading something about the applet issue being addressed. Something might already have been done. I'll have to did for it. This might be it - https://jdk6.dev.java.net/plugin2/

Re: OSGi and better applet support

this sounds extremely interesting. I hope that Sun finally gets its act together. A focus on the consumer desktop is far more important than the server side technologies like OSGI. Java is already strong on the server side, but very weak on the client side. This needs to improved.

Re: OSGi and better applet support

Re: OSGi and better applet support

D&D of applets outside the browser is showed during Robert Brewin's web cast available here.

applets

One can build applets, they just can't be deployed by end users.

(6.10 supports very limited things and it's deployment will be to small % of end users in coming years)

.V

Re: OSGi and better applet support

Can you elaborate on that? Does OSGi support mobile code?

Re: OSGi and better applet support

From Wikipedia entry1 : "The [OSGi] Framework implements a complete and dynamic component model, something that is missing in standalone Java/VM environments. Applications or components (coming in the form of bundles for deployment) can be remotely installed, started, stopped, updated and uninstalled without requiring a reboot; management of Java packages/classes is specified in great detail. Life cycle management is done via APIs which allow for remote downloading of management policies. The service registry allows bundles to detect the addition of new services, or the removal of services, and adapt accordingly.

The original focus was on service gateways but the applicability turned out to be much wider. The OSGi specifications are now used in applications ranging from mobile phones to the open source Eclipse IDE. Other application areas include cars, industrial automation, building automation, PDAs, grid computing, entertainment (e.g. iPronto), fleet management and application servers.".

From a coarse-grained point of view, Jini is about discovering, assembling, using and un-assembling services. I just see service proxys are modules that may assemblied into a module system. OSGi provides such module system. Then, it looks like Java is gathering some Jini features, or least, some basic features that may be use to do some Jini-like programming are going to appear into JDK. It sounds like Jini as a testbed for interesting features for Java.

This raises some interesting questions. One is the following: why not going to move forward and to define another (Java EE ?) profile to include (more interesting stuff of) Jini into regular Java development kits ?

Applets are dead

Applets are dead. I'm surprised that it's even a topic. If you want to do Rich Internet, you focus on a framework that delivers HTML/Ajax as output. Even Microsoft's second go at Flash with Silverlight may very well fail even though, given it's C# programming model it *could* easily be technically more compelling than Flash. But if you look at the speed at which Flex apps load with the new Flash cache (way faster than HTML/Ajax), well, who needs JavaFX? What is the compelling reason to use it for the end user. The load time of applets? Those nasty applet security alerts? Downloading tens of Megs for the Java runtime?

Unless, of course, it compiles to Flash/Flex/Flash. Then it becomes a better way to write for a main stay platform.

Well, the one place it may shine is on mobile. And it may gain some traction in the enterprise space where Java developers can more easily apply their skills on a Java based platform. Then again, even in the enterprise space, why not use something like GWT or one of the other Rich Internet platforms?

Asynchronous Processes Modeled as Persistent Finite State Machines

Benjamin Possolo describes and implements a finite state machine for asynchronous services using JEE. (August 18, Article)

---

A RESTful Core for Web-like Application Flexibility - Part 2 - Microkernel

Randy Kahle and Tom Hicks continue their series of RESTful computing with an explanation of the role of the microkernel. (August 7, Article)

---

Putting Physhun To Work

Read more about the Physhun finite state modeling framework in Jim Ladd's article on a real life application. (August 5, Article)

---

Are Java Web Applications Secure?

HDIV was designed for the purpose of addressing security issues in Web application frameworks by extending some of those frameworks to do such things as check of non editable data integrity and perform validations for editable data. Read about potential security problems and how HDIV attempts to address those problems. (July 30, Article)

---

The Road to JBI: Paved with Good Intentions

Standards are a good thing, but sometimes we overreach. Ross Mason tells us how we overreached on JSR-208, and what to do about it. (July 28, Article)

---

A RESTful Core for Web-like Application Flexibility - Part 1

Representational State Transfer (REST) computing offers developers and applications a number of advantages, including simplicity and flexibility in running applications. Tom Hicks and Randy Kahle begin this series on RESTful computing with the surprising topic of binding. (July 23, Article)

---

Implementing Finite State Machines with Physhun and Spring

The Physhun project provides finite State Model persistence and transaction management with synchronous or asynchronous behavior. This article presents Physhun, a Spring-based framework for implementing complex processes through Finite State Machine models. (July 18, Article)

---

Continuous Performance Management Across the Application Lifecycle

This video explains the benefits of concepts like Continuous Performance Management, which applies performance engineering continuously throughout each phase of the software lifecycle. (July 16, TechTalk)

---

Best Practices for Developing Scalable Web 2.0 Applications

In this Tech Talk, filmed at TSSJS-Europe, Uri Cohen gives a demo that will show you the power of GigaSpaces' scaling, hot failover and self-healing capabilities. A sample Web application which uses Spring MVC and contains an AJAX web front-end and a GigaSpaces' backend will be scaled out. (July 15, TechTalk)

---

Introduction to m2eclipse

The m2eclipse project provides support for Maven within the Eclipse IDE. It is a plugin which helps bridge the gaps between Maven and Eclipse. Read about how to use m2eclipse to integrate build management into your Eclipse environment. (July 14, Article)

---

Scaling Your Java EE Applications - Part 2

In part two of this series, Wang Yu presents some surprising results of Java application scalability based on his experiences in a performance laboratory. (July 8, Article)

---

Scaling Your Java EE Applications

Getting Java applications to scale requires an intimate understanding of the application, the JVM, and the underlying hardware. Wang Yu presents some surprising results of Java application scalability based on his experiences in a performance laboratory. (July 3, Article)

---

Zero Turnaround for Java Development

In this podcast, JavaRebel development lead Jevgeni Kabanov discusses the value of zero turnaround to both development and production systems, and how JavaRebel helps achieve this goal. (June 27, Podcast)

---

JSR 286 Portlets: Action-scoped Request Attributes

The recent Java Portlet Specification 2.0 final draft (JSR 286) addresses a shortcoming in the action-render model used in the current spec to be able to let the container take care of managing the attributes between action and render. (June 12, Article)

---

New Features in EJB 3.1 - Part 4

The EJB 3.1 expert group is working on changes for the next version of the Java EE spec. Here's a preview of those changes. (June 12, Article)

---

Review: Algorithms in Java

Algorithms in Java provides those who seek to understand underlying mechanisms for manipulating data and working with well-known algorithms using a familiar language. (June 12, Review)

---

Free Book: Jakarta-Struts Live

Download the entire book of Jakarta-Struts Live and learn about Struts MVC, Tiles, the Validator, DynaActionForms, plug-ins, internationalization, and more.
(Book PDF Download)

---

Building Content Oriented Integration Solutions With Mule and JCR

The latest version of the JCR transport for Mule ESB offers a set of features that can enable the creation of content oriented integration solutions. This article by David Dossot presents a simple scenario where all these features are leveraged. (June 9, Article)

---

Extending Spring LDAP with an iBATIS-style XML Data Mapper

This article by Colin Lu explains how to use Spring's LDAP integration with an XML data mapper to make LDAP access from within Spring trivial. (May 20, Article)

---

Application Server Matrix

The Application Server Matrix is a detailed listing of J2EE vendors and their application server products, with information on latest version numbers, J2EE spec support and licensing, pricing, platform support, and links to product downloads and reviews.
(Application Server Comparison Matrix)