Kito D. Mann's Blog

March 2006 Archives

The Year of AJAX

If you're interested in my $0.02 on AJAX, check out my Public Static editorial in JavaPro magazine. Here's an excerpt:

If your head wasn't in the sand during 2005, you've probably heard of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). Just in case you're wiping the sand out of your hair right now, here's a brief overview. AJAX is a rebranding of technologies introduced in Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) several years ago. These technologies, branded by Microsoft as Dynamic HTML (DHTML) include HTML, an implementation of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), plus the ability to manipulate a page with JavaScript through the browser's Document Object Model (DOM).

Read, The Year of AJAX.

RIP, Software Development Magazine

I must admit I'm a big fan of periodicals. I'm a magazine junkie. I've gotten into arguments with my wife about the pile of magazines on the coffee table (now we have a six-foot tall magazine rack instead). I regularly read SD Times, InfoWorld, Dr. Dobb's Journal, JavaPro, JDJ (which finally got good), and others at times (such as ASP.NET Pro, Wired, Business 2.0, Entrepreneur, Black Enterprise, Keyboard, Electronic Musician, and so on).

And, of course, I've always been a fan of Software Development Magazine, which CMP recently announced it is killing. Of course, they say that they're not really killing it -- they're just merging it with Dr. Dobb's. Yes, you read correctly. They're merging it with Dr. Dobb's, another legendary computer programming magazines. I'm still a fan of Dr. Dobb's, but there's no doubt that its content has been watered down over the years. And while I love Software Development, it's a very different magazine.

To me, this is a troubling sign for the industry. Software Development Magazine started about 20 years ago, and it's always had rock-solid content for architects and managers. It saddens me to see it got the way of so many other good magazines, like Byte (now on-line only) and Java Report (which was folded into a newsletter before disappearing).

I'm not sure what type of magazine Dr. Dobb's will become. After the Internet bubble burst, it became harder and harder to find programming magazines on the shelves. Unfortunately, this is just the latest sign of that trend, which I think is largely fueled by the amount of on-line content out there. Even though I read a lot of on-line content, I have a warm place in my heard for print magazines. It's sad to see Software Development Magazine go.

Firefox Interrupted Part 2

So, I've been happily using Opera for a while now. I have applied a cool skin, imported my Firefox bookmarks, created and saved sessions (Opera has session-saving of tabs built-in), and so on.

There are, of course, a few caveats:

• I'm not too fond of the way Opera caches things. For normal browsing this is fine, but it's annoying for web development. For now, I've actually turned off caching.
• It's not 100% compatible with all of the sites out there. Using it reminds me of using Netscape a few years ago. It works great 99% of the time, but it crashes when I log into my Google AdSense account, and it "Could not connect to remote server" when I tried to log into the JavaOne content builder site.

  What's funny is that since I'm not used to having these problems (except on the Microsoft site, of course), it took me a minute to realize that the problem was Opera. So, to make sure everything is kosher, I use Firefox as my reference browser (back in the day, I used to use IE as my reference browser).

These issues aren't enough to make me switch back to Firefox, though. I like to have control of my computer's resources.

Vegas, here I come

There are only a few major events in the Java universe each year. The most obvious one is JavaOne, but another major one is TheServerSide Java Symposium. This conference seems to get bigger and better each year. Even though I spoke at TSS' Java in Action conference last fall, I missed their Symposium last year. Fortunately, this year they were kind enough to extend me a speaking invitation.

This year, the conference will be at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas from March 23rd-25th. It will be jam-packed with hard core sessions, from just about every popular name in the Java world: Gregor Hohpe, Jason Hunter, Bruce Tate, Linda DeMichiel, Rod Johnson, Gavin King, Geir Magnusson Jr., Dion Almaer, Ted Neward, Patrick Linskey, Craig McClanahan, Jeff Genender, and tons of other people. I've met quite a few of these people at previous events, so I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again.

I'll be talking about Portlet Development with JSF. Here's the abstract:

Component-oriented user interface frameworks such as JavaServer Faces (JSF) are growing in popularity, and organizations are also beginning to recognize the power of building application components with the Portlet API. What many don't realize, however, is the fact that JSF has integrated support for the Portlet API, making it a natural fit for building portlets. This session starts with a brief overview of JSF, portlets, and portals. It then explains how JSF portlet support works, and examines the process of developing portlets with JSF. Next, it walks through the development of a simple JSF application and deployment of that application as a portlet inside of Liferay Enterprise Portal, an open-source portal server.

The Symposium is always a first-class event and Las Vegas is one hell of a fun city. As usual, I'm meeting up with some old friends so that I can make the most of the evenings :-).

Emerging Technology Conference

I have the privilege of speaking at Chariot Solution's Emerging Technology Conference in Philadelphia, PA on March 16th. Chariot has pulled together an excellent group of people to discuss hot new technologies and the way the technology landscape is changing. Here's the official description:

This conference features an IT executive track covering the strategic impact of up and coming technologies and two technical tracks with advanced sessions to jump-start your development using JSF, AJAX, Spring, EJB3, Apache Geronimo, Ruby on Rails and more.

I'll be joined by industry luminaries such as Bruce Snyder, Patrick Linskey, and Thomas Risberg. I'll be talking about -- you guessed it -- JavaServer Faces. My session is called "Architecting JSF Applications". Here's the abstract:

Over the past year, a lot of time has been spent explaining what JSF is, and how different pieces of it work. However, little attention has been given to the process of architecting applications. This makes JSF architecture seem like a black art, since there are so many possible approaches to the application's architecture.

This session looks at different techniques for structuring JavaServer Faces (JSF) applications, and examines the consequences of each technique. In addition, it provides an overview of how different IDEs approach JSF development, and how those approaches may or may not work within your architectural constraints. Finally the session looks at extension points within JSF, and how they can be leveraged to provide features such as security, alternate templating technology, and access to external resources.

If you're located near Philadelphia, I suggest you check out this conference. And, did I mention that it's free?

New Course: JSF in Action: JavaServer Faces (JSF) with Struts, Shale and Facelets

I'm currently working with the good folks over at Skills Matter to develop a course based on my book, JavaServer Faces in Action. I'm pretty excited about this, as it will open up a specific version of my customized courses for use in the UK. In addition to covering the basics of JSF, the four day course will also several JSF products and technologies, such as IDEs, components, and open source projects like Facelets and Shale. It will be based on the case study application used in my book, called ProjectTrack.

You can view the full course outline at the Skills Matter site. I'm currently scheduled to deliver the first public course on the 9th of May, so if you're in the UK, be sure to sign up soon!

Firefox Interrupted

Like many Java developers (and an increasing number of web users in general), I have been a big Firefox supporter ever since I switched from Mozilla quite some time ago. The development plugins make it great for building web applications, tab browsing is cool, and it's a snappy little browser.

Or at least it used to be snappy. Lately, especially with version 1.5, it seems to gobble up tons of RAM and CPU. And since I use a laptop and Windows XP, I'm always conscious of how much of my 1GB of RAM is in use (not to mention the CPU). In short, Firefox has been getting on my nerves.

I was discussing this issue with my wife (who is also a developer that has become somewhat frustrated with Firefox), and she said some people were using Opera instead. I've always downloaded Opera just to see how some of my applications look, but I've never tried seriously using it -- that is, until now.

The latest release version (8.5) has full support for tabbed browsing and all of the hip standards (such as the XMLHttpRequest object), as well as integrated voice support and several other goodies. What about skins, plugins, and the large community around Firefox? Well, Opera has skins, and the next version will have widgets, which are equivalent to Firefox plugins.

But, more importantly, it doesn't eat up a ton of RAM or CPU. I can happily have dozens of tabs open and still fire up the latest version JBuilder or Eclipse and several other tools, which is a Good Thing.

So, am I switching from Firefox permanently? No. I think Firefox has a lot going for it, and I think the Mozilla foundation will address its current issues. Also, XUL is extremely powerful (not to mention compatible with JSF), and Opera doesn't appear to have an equivalent (please correct me if I'm wrong). So, I look at this as a break from Firefox, and a chance to try something different. And I'm enjoying it, too :-).

Prolific, I am not

So, if you ever read this blog, you may have noticed that I don't blog very frequently. However, I really enjoy writing (which is a good thing since I get paid to do it). I often think about blog entries and roll them over in my head. Unfortunately, a very small percentage of my in-memory blogs ever make it to disk.

In both personal and professional life, I generally attempt to resolve an issue once I realize that there is one. Often, I find that the solution is something fairly small. I decided that the best way for me to blog more frequently was to make it easy.

What could be easier than filling out a web form, you say? Well, considering that I'm often doing web development, closing browsers, launching new browser windows, and so on, a web page really isn't the right option. Also, I don't want some huge blogging client, since bloated IDEs, text editors, XML editors, and Outlook (not to mention my IM client) are all competing for system resources (most notably RAM).

It finally occurred to me that the natural way to encourage me to blog is to have a little client that lives on my desktop. That way, I can blog whenever the urge hits me, without using up too much of my precious RAM. So, I'm trying out a lightweight client called MTClient. It may not be the answer, but at least you're reading this post :-).

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