[TheServerSide Newsletter #24]
November 25, 2003 Newsletter Circulation: 135 000+ No. 24


 This newsletter is sponsored in part by Oracle
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In This Issue


Tales From TheServerSide
 o A Week In Review

New Articles
 o Maven Magic
 o Simpler Java

Tech Talks
 o Randy Heffner on Application Security Architectures, EASI

New Book Reviews
 o JUnit In Action

New Application Server Reviews
 o ATG Dynamo in a nutshell

Key J2EE Industry News Headlines
 Some key headlines:
 o J2EE 1.4 officially released
 o IBM Donates Visual Editor Project to Eclipse

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Tales From TheServerSide


A Week In Review
By Dion Almaer

Sun has had an interesting week haven't they. J2EE 1.4 has finally been released, so we can expect to see vendors coming out with support for the new standard. Now we will see if it made sense holding up for WS-I Basic Profile, and if developers jump onto that bandwagon. With the new release, Sun announced that they would give their basic edition of "The application server formerly known as Sun ONE" for free, and are even pondering the idea of open sourcing it.

It would be interesting to see how people would take to an open sourced Sun ONE. JBoss and JOnAS are both doing well, creating more partnerships, and growing in the community. JBoss put their money where their mouth is and forked up an alledged $500k to Sun to join the fun and hopefully become J2EE 1.4 certified. This is a big move for them, and will take away the "we can't use JBoss as they aren't certified" that some larger companies use.

Apache was given a grant so Geronimo will be aiming to become a 1.4 certified server. A group of the committers got together at ApacheCon, and by the end of the week they had deployed good ole PetStore on Geronimo.

TheServerSide also wants to congratulate Richard Monson-Haefel for becoming a newly elected member of the SE/EE Executive Committee, and Doug Lea for his re-election. It is good to see the JCP containing quality individuals as well as the heavyweight vendors.



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New Articles


Maven Magic
By Srikanth Shenoy

Maven is a high-level, project management, build and deployment tool from the Apache project that adds a layer of abstraction above Ant. Using extensive code samples, this article shows you how to use Maven to set up a project template, compile source files, create a JAR and publish the artifact into a repository. It covers inheritance in the Maven POM (Project Object Model), shows you how to set up a sample J2EE project, create WARs, EJB-JARs, dependency JARS, build the EAR file and how to use the Maven Reactor.


Simpler Java
By Bruce Tate

J2EE, EJB, and XML can be complex technologies to work with, and although there's a tradeoff between simplicity and power, there has been a recent trend in the Java community to move away from monolithic frameworks back toward cleaner, simpler ones. This article examines a lightweight container and a persistence framework and looks at the basic principles that they use to embrace simplicity. It also looks at how larger J2EE vendors are creating smarter sets of tools to insulate developers from the complexity of J2EE.



Tech Talks


Giga VP and research leader focused on J2EE and .NET, integration, security
Topic: Application security architectures, EASI, Web services security standards

Randy discusses the elements of a complete application security architecture and how enterprise application security integration (EASI) unifies the security architecture across different environments such as J2EE and .NET. He looks at EASI products available on the market, talks about how companies are using the Liberty Alliance, and projects how Web services security standards will develop over the next couple of years.




New Book Reviews


JUnit In Action
Review by Dion Almaer

JUnit in Action (Manning Publications), shows you how to benefit from unit testing using the JUnit open source testing framework. It discusses unit testing techniques and best practices and gives examples of tough situations such as how to unit test EJBs, database applications, JSPs and Taglibs. In this book review, Dion Almaer gives a detailed synopsis of the sections on JUnit, Testing Strategies, and Testing Components and highlights some of the key strategies and tools used in the book.

As Manning Publications continues to provide TSS members with great content in the form of free book pdfs, chapter excerpts, articles, and books-in-review, we have created an index page to aggregate all Manning content around the site. This page will also keep you informed of upcoming content from Manning such as:

Checkout Manning Publications @ TheServerSide.com


New Application Server Reviews


ATG Dynamo in a nutshell
By bruce lee

I used ATG Dynamo in many projects in the past and then joined the ATG PS team before I was forced to go due to the economy. This review provides insight into ATG Dynamo both from the client/user and software vendor's perspective and attempts to give people a better understanding of Dynamo, especially its pros and cons.


 This newsletter is sponsored in part by Novell
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Key J2EE Industry Headlines

J2EE 1.4 spec leads write an open letter to the community

J2EE 1.4 has been officially released. Bill Shannon and Mark Hapner, the co-spec leads for JSR 151 (J2EE 1.4) have written an open letter to the java community, where they talk about J2EE 1.4, the challenges faced by the expert group, and where to go from here.

Sun ponders Open Sourcing Application Server

Sun may open source their application server under a BSD or GPL license. They are still looking into what this would mean, and exploring what type of open source license would be the most suitable. The reasoning is "getting the server in the hands of customers for free is better than not having them use it at all", and shows that Sun is willing to make a drastic move to compete.

IBM Donates Visual Editor Project to Eclipse

IBM has donated code to form a "Visual Editor Project" to be housed by the Eclipse consortium. This tool is designed to sit on top of both Swing and SWT, abstracting those APIs. Currently Swing is supported, with SWT coming soon, with help from Advanced Systems Concepts, Instantiations, and Red Hat.

Sun and JBoss forge agreement for J2EE certification

JBoss Group have come to an agreement to license the J2EE 1.4 technology compatibility kit, from Sun, to certify the JBoss application server. JBoss Group did not receive a scholarship to achieve J2EE certification (compared to Apache Geronimo). JBoss Group has created "The JBoss J2EE Founders Program" to help collect the resources required for the certification.

Macromedia launches New Rich Client Platform Flex

Macromedia has unveiled Flex, a rich client development platform that allows developers to define rich UIs using an XML-based language with rich runtime services that gets rendered into a rich app using Flash and J2EE as the standard deployment infrastructure. Flex is currently in public beta, with full launch occuring in the second half of 2004.

Sun offers its base application server as free J2EE 1.4 RI

Sun is offering its Java System Application Server (formerly Sun ONE Application Server) as the reference implementation for J2EE 1.4. The basic version of their application server will become free, while versions with added services (e.g. clustering) will still cost money.





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