This newsletter is sponsored in part by Veritas

Download the first e-Book in the VERITAS Software J2EE Expert Series. Learn best practices for J2EE applications from industry experts including * Architectural tradeoffs involved in J2EE application design * Challenges involved in deploying applications using EJB * Performance impact of architectural tradeoffs * Deployment considerations using modern application management tools. Download your FREE e-Book Now!

Tales From TheServerSide
 o Happy New Year to TheServerSide Community

New Articles
 o Test-Driven Development Series - Concepts and Tools
 o What's New in the eXo Platform

Tech Talks
 o Vincent Massol on Agile Methodologies in Offshore Development

Key J2EE Industry News Headlines
 Some key headlines:
 o JBoss 4 Direction Shown with Roadmap Document
 o IBM Releases Developer Preview: J2EE 1.4 Compliant Server

This newsletter is transmitted twice a month. It is printer-friendly and available online

Happy New Year to TheServerSide Community

The TSS team would like to thank the entire TheServerSide Community for a great 2003. We appreciate your continued support throughout the year and look forward to an interesting 2004. The year of 2003 brought us J2EE 1.4, and the emergence of simplicity via: lightweight frameworks, transparent persistence, and tools. What will 2004 bring? We hope to see: JDK 1.5 (Tiger), work on J2EE 1.5, JDO 2.0, and JavaServer Faces. Will JavaServer Faces take over the web application world? Will Aspect-Oriented Programming continue to grow and break into the mainstream? Will JDO 2.0 become accepted?

For fun, here are the top posts in 2003.

Top 10 TheServerSide Posts of 2003 (based on replies, not view)

Opinion: Extreme Programming Is Evil
For the Love of Open-Source: JBoss Unveils Profit Sharing
Tech Talk with Rod Johnson on J2EE Design, AOP, Spring Framework
Opinion: Is .NET a rip off of Java?
JBoss: A modern day plague?
How to Interview a Programmer
Claim: .NET Performance Still Seriously Lags Java
Tech Talk with Bill Burke on JBoss 4 and the AOP Framework
TMC Releases Performance Case Study Results
Introduction to Hibernate

Also, TheServerSide will be holding another TSS Symposium on May 6th - 8th in Las Vegas.

Thanks again,

Dion Almaer
Editor-in-Chief, TheServerSide.com

This newsletter is sponsored in part by Oracle

A new approach to J2EE development is here. Oracle JDeveloper 10g gives you productivity with choice. Build EJBs, Struts applications, JSPs, Web services with visual tools and a J2EE application development framework. Access the code at any time. Deploy to any J2EE application server. Download the preview of Oracle JDeveloper 10g FREE.

Test-Driven Development Series - Concepts and Tools

By Wellie Chao

This article, the first in a four part series on test-driven development (TDD), introduces TDD and provides references to tools that are useful for TDD. Upcoming topics covered in this series include unit testing of EJB components and POJO classes, black box and in-container testing of servlets and JSPs, and in-container testing of Struts web applications.

What's New in the eXo Platform

By Benjamin Mestrallet, Tuan Nguyen, Hatim Khan, Ove Ranheim

The eXo platform is an open Source, JSR 168 compliant enterprise portal and Content Management System (CMS) built built upon tools, APIs and frameworks such as JavaServer Faces, Pico Container, and AspectJ. This article describes the changes - both technical and managerial - incorporated since the previous article was published on The Server Side site, September 2003. The eXo platform 1.0 beta 4 is now available both in its express and enterprise editions for multiple application servers

Vincent Massol - Creator of the Apache Cactus project. Author, JUnit in Action.

Topic: Agile Methodologies in Offshore Development

Vincent discusses agile methodologies, and how they can be applied to offshore, collaborative development. He looks at various communication tools used between projects, how two teams apply continuous integration using Maven and plugins such as CheckStyle, DBunit, and Clover. He talks about how Cactus and Mock Objects can be used for testing and integration and describes his experiences with the Cactus project.

Analyst starts debate when recommends Microsoft to buy BEA

The Yankee Group released a report named "Why Microsoft Should Buy BEA Systems" which says "Microsoft could use BEA to stave off competition to .Net from IBM". People have come out against the report, saying that it isn't thought out, and that it won't happen.

---

Erich Gamma on Improved User Experience for Eclipse 3.0

Eclipse committers are upgrading features for Eclipse 3.0, release - summer 2004. Improvements include a generalized Eclipse platform for building non-IDE applications, increased UI responsiveness, and generalized Java tools to support Java like languages. Erik Gamma has been interviewed on the direction for Eclipse 3.0.

---

JBoss 4 Direction Shown with Roadmap Document

Bill Burke and Scott Stark have authored a document that details the direction for JBoss 4. This road map document contains items for the short term (J2EE 1.4 compliance), and the long term (POJO AOP). Here you will see what it is going to take JBoss to get to compliance, and what they want to see as "Aspect-Oriented Middleware".

---

IBM Releases Developer Preview: J2EE 1.4 Compliant Server

IBM has announced WebSphere Application Server Technology for Developers V6. The code provided is an early release of the WebSphere Application Server with the latest J2EE Version 1.4 for Windows specifications. IBM claims that this is one of the first J2EE 1.4 compliant servers out there.

---

MSDN Article comparing ASP.NET and Struts

MSDN has an article comparing ASP.NET with Struts. They define both architectures and then try to compare. In some areas J2EE folks would argue with their facts. They don't mention JAAS in the security section, or the localization support in JSTL (rather than passing Locale objects around). They also manage to sneak in a section called "Migrating Struts and J2EE Applications to ASP.NET".

---

J2SE 1.5 Early Access Available Now

Javalobby has been working closely with Sun to help make the upcoming J2SE 1.5 code available earlier in the development cycle. A Tiger "alpha" release is now available.

---

If you are receiving this newsletter it is because you signed up as a member of TheServerSide.com and elected to receive our newsletters. To unsubscribe from TheServerSide.com's bi-weekly newsletter, log on to TheServerSide and edit your user profile. Email webmaster@theserverside.com if you are having problems editing your profile.

This newsletter and contents are Copyright (c) 2002 The Middleware Company