 |
|
|
|
| A Developer's Perspective |
|
 |
Rick Ross is the founder of Javalobby. He is a frequent speaker at Java-related events and a well-known advocate for Java developer interests.. |
|
The Eclipse "Million Download Challenge"
The final production version of Eclipse 3.1 (which is actually a much more significant than the mere 0.1 dot-level increase indicates) was released last week. As you might expect, the huge demand for this new version was stressing out the Eclipse Foundation's download servers until they wisely brought an additional 100Mbps server online to help out. You should now be able to enjoy a very speedy download of the substantial Eclipse SDK (100 megs for the Win32 version.) Mine clocked in at over 500K per second, so the new server can definitely pump out the bits. Many thanks to whoever made the call and added the new capacity.
We have all seen vendors use download counts to emphasize their popularity, but the Eclipse folks have set the bar at a new high level for style with their "Million Download Challenge." When the last version of Eclipse was released it took about 60 days to hit one million downloads, but this time they may reach that milestone more quickly. The challenge is to pledge a donation to your favorite charity for each day less than sixty days it takes for Eclipse 3.1 to reach a million downloads. For example, if you pledge $5/day for "Doctors Without Frontiers" and Eclipse 3.1 reaches a million in just 40 days, then you'd donate $100. You select the charity, and you set the level of your pledge, so I think this is a great-spirited idea which I hope you'll join Javalobby in supporting.
Check out this posting at EclipseZone.com to see some more details about the crazy numbers the Eclipse.org websites are getting.
Geronimo Passes J2EE Compatibility Test Suite
There will soon be another fully certified open source J2EE 1.4 application server, a credential that only JBoss and Jonas have achieved so far. During a JavaOne birds-of-a-feather session the Apache Geronimo team was pleased to reveal that their project had successfully passed all the tests in the huge J2EE compatibility testing suite. This doesn't mean that Apache Geronimo is certified quite yet, but it has reached a major milestone on the road to certification - a target that team has been working towards for over 22 months! Some of you may recall that IBM recently acquired a company called "GlueCode" for an undisclosed sum of money. According to their website, "The Apache Geronimo application server is the backbone of the Gluecode Standard Edition platform, and serves as the framework for bringing together best-of-breed open source with value-added features built by Gluecode." It would not be unreasonable to imagine that IBM is strategically interested in seeing Apache Geronimo achieve J2EE certification. With Geronimo as an open source entry product and WebSphere as a higher-end offering IBM will soon be covering the full spectrum of J2EE servers. Your spider senses should be telling you to expect further news about this one-two power punch.
Romain Guy's "Joplin" demo online
A lot of people were impressed by Roman Strobl's demo of the new "Matisse" GUI builder in NetBeans, but I suspect even more of you will want to check out the fully functional Java MP3 player which Romain Guy demonstrated during James Gosling's keynote session at NetBeans Day. Using Matisse, Romain was able to assemble a slick, professional user interface for a full Swing application in a little bit less than five minutes. The good news is that the full source code of Romain's "Joplin" demo application is now available. I urge you to check out Joplin because it proves that great-looking Java applications don't have to be painful to build. I hope we'll be able to get Romain to record the whole design process and share it with us, since I think it really shows Matisse in action building a real-world GUI.
Juggy, the Java User Group Mascot
To know my friend, Bruno Souza, is to love him. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who more passionately supports Java or who cares more about the Java community. You've heard of Bruno, I'm sure. He's that legendary Brazilian who wears his country's green and yellow flag as a cape everywhere he goes at JavaOne. He's also one of the leaders of the Java User Group community at java.net and president of the Brazilian JUG, SouJava.
As such, this year Bruno and several others created a new mascot for Java User Groups everywhere: Juggy, the Java finch. Juggy is purported to be a distant relative of Duke, the Java mascot, but I'm not entirely sure how many evolutionary branches separate the two red, white and black creatures? In any case, you'd probably have enjoyed the Juggy puppet that Bruno was carrying around JavaOne this year (in addition to his flag, of course.) On the last night of JavaOne Elizabeth and I had the pleasure of taking Bruno, Daniel Brookshier, and several others out for dinner and coffee beforeleaving for the airport. Thanks to Ean Schuessler's quick hand with the camera, we werelucky to get this QuickTime movie of Juggy (Bruno) holding court in a San Francisco café with Daniel and with a younger patron of the café who was curious about the new JUG mascot. It's silly fun, completely unrehearsed, and we will NOT be submitting it to America's Funniest Home Videos. Enjoy!
Until next time,
Rick Ross
rick@javalobby.org
AIM or Yahoo Messenger: RickRossJL
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Matthew Schmidt
is the man behind the scenes at Javalobby. If you have questions
or concerns, feel free to email him at matt@javalobby.org. |
Rockin’ At JavaOne
As many of you probably know (and if you don’t, what rock were you hiding under!), the 10th JavaOne was held last week in San Francisco. This year’s conference was probably the most exciting one that I’ve been to in the last four years. While there weren’t a great deal of announcements made during the week (of the huge earth shaking variety at least), the overall tone throughout the show was one of general excitement with the industry and things to come. Most people you talked to at the show thought that the Java industry was going strong and that things had improved a great deal since the dot-bomb. The parties were swanky, the drinks were flowing, and everyone seemed to have a good time.
Speaking of parties, this year was the first year that I made it to the Java after Dark party that Sun throws the evening before the last day of the show. I was pretty amazed at how nice a job they did. The show kicked off with some free food, 2 free drinks, and a rocking all-female Led Zeppelin cover band, Zepperella. Let me just say, that even if you aren’t a Zeppelin fan, these girls totally rocked. The evening continued with the headliner, comic Dennis Miller, and followed up with another cover band, Camp Freddy, and a night full of arcade games, bull riding, trampolines, and more food. The whole evening was definitely a great 10th birthday party for Java and I was glad to make it this year.
Finally, it was interesting, as always, to see how much information people will give away at these conferences for the chance to win “1” of something, be it a Sony PSP, a piece of software, or even a little gadget that will get lost in their garage when they get home. People were lined up around the show floor for some of the booths, and considering how much everyone hates to get spam, I was amazed that they were so freely giving away their information. I guess it’s just like that Simpson’s episode where Homer gives up his soul for a donut, everyone has their price!
Java Releases Get Some New Names
As they say, all good things must come to an end. This also happens to be the case with the current Java naming moniker, J2x. Starting with the next version of Java, codenamed Mustang, the platform will be called Java SE 6.0, Java EE 5.0, and Java ME. Yes, I know it sounds a little weird at first, and yes it doesn’t roll off the tongue like J2SE and J2EE, but apparently most people don’t recognize J2x as being Java. Say what you will about those people, but the more consumers out there that recognize the Java brand, the better off we’ll all be as an industry. So, put a little sticky note on your monitor and next time you write about Java, remember to use the new names for future versions!
Get Into Spring Web Flow
Deciding how to handle workflows for your web forms has always been difficult. Sure, there were things out there like OSWorkflow out there, but to me, most of the solutions didn’t quite give me that warm and fuzzy feeling. As Rick and I work on a new portlet based system, we’ve found that several of our forms actually have a few different actions that you can take once you start the process. This was desperately calling for a workflow system and Spring Web Flow came to the rescue with built-in portlet support and a powerful XML/Java format. Getting up to speed with Spring Web Flow, it pretty straightforward, and to help you get the most out of your starting time, Javalobby has a new article by Spring guru, Steven Devijver called “Spring Web Flow Examined.” Check it out and let him know what you think.
Check out the JavaOne Photo Gallery
Finally, I would like to end up the day with an invitation to take a look at the photo galleries we compiled during JavaOne. The Javalobby team took over 600 digital photos over the course of the week and we’ve put them all up for the world to see. Feel free to let the slideshow play through on the second monitor that sits on your desk :) Hopefully, we’ll be going through the pictures over the next week or so and adding captions so that you can know who some of the people in the pictures are. In the meantime, enjoy the slideshow and don’t forget to check out our coverage of NetBeans Day, and days One, Two, and Three on the website!
Until Next Time,
Matthew Schmidt
matt@javalobby.org
Yahoo IM: mattschmidtjl
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Erik C. Thauvin maintains a blog
, as well as one of the web's first and most popular linkblogs, which he updates daily with the latest Java and technology news. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
A recap of
some of the most popular and active Javalobby.org
discussions this week. |
|
Eclipse guy tries NetBeans
|
|
Recently I decided to give NetBeans another try since I’d heard version 4.1 was much improved over previous versions. My journey started at the NetBeans download site.
|
|
Full Discussion
|
Posted By: Ed Burnette - (134 Replies)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Technical papers & research related to Java development. |
|
Product and
service announcements for Java developers. |
|
naisQuest 1.0 search engine
|
|
naisQuest is a search engine designed for web sites and corporate networks. Supports most popular file formats, has results highlighting, web control panel and tools allowing desktop-friendly use.
|
|
Full Announcement & Discussion
|
Posted By: Martin Wertheimer - (0 Replies)
|
|
|
|
NitroX - Professional Tools for Eclipse
Perspective
