I have gotten hooked on RSS news. There are so many great aggregators of content out there, interesting web logs, and other content… and it all comes to my news reader. This is PUSH done right.

I implemented RSS feeds for my site, TheServerSide.Com.
As I did this, I got to playing with various RSS news feeders, and my current favourite is FeedReader.

I have liked web logs, but it is hard work going through the various blog sites, trying to get at the gems amoung the masses of content. It is like the web…. so much out there, but only a small amount that I care about.

Since most of the weblog sites syndicate their content with RSS, I am not able to plugin the RSS urls into FeedReader and let it grab info from the weblogs, news sites, and any other place of interest. When something interesting comes in, it appears in my system tray and I can read it right then if I want to.

This is revolutionizing the way I view the web, and I recommend other people try it on for size. With a bit more time, the viewers will get better, there will be more content, and we will be able to supply “rules” for what we want sent to us.

Cool stuff.

Related link: http://www.theopenenterprise.com/story/TOE20021025S0001

Here’s a Q&A with Sun’s software group executive vice president Jonathan Schwartz. In it, he talks about the relationship with Java and LAMP, as well as open source and its impact on Sun’s server strategy.

What do you think of his views?

Related link: http://www.middleware-company.com/offer/j2eepatterns1.shtml

This is a quick article that discusses lessons learned in a J2EE Patterns course. This article is useful for people who want to learn a few things about J2EE Patterns, and get a flavor for what it might be like in a course. The Middleware Company and TheServerSide.com are offering this for free as well as asking developers if they wish to attend a 5-day course on J2EE Patterns later this year.

Related link: http://jakarta.apache.org/site/jspa-position.html

According to JavaWorld.com, “Sun and Apache have released details of Apache’s TCK license, which could become the prototype for open source TCK licensees working within the JCP. From the Jakarta Project.” Click on the URL to get details on this announcement as it pertains to the TCK license with an explanatory side letter from Rob Gingell at Sun.

What do you think of this news about the TCK and its impact on the JCP and more?

Related link: http://jcp.org/jsr/detail/109.jsp

The following JSR is pending final approval, as excerpted from jcp.org.

This JSR’s objective is provide a programming model and runtime model for web
services based on JSRs 67, 93 and 101 and future JSRs oriented toward individual
web services standards, similar to what the EJB specification did for RMI
(RMI-IIOP) and JNDI. This is an analogy only, and this JSR will build on but not
extend the EJB specification.

Specifically, we will focus this JSR on:

This JSR would provide documentation on the programming model, APIs
and runtime service model. It would provide a reference implementation
for any J2EE compliant application server and would have open source test
cases for interoperability and compliance. The specification would rely
on the existing J2EE application packaging.

Related link: http://www.machack.com/

“Ken Arnold, Chief Architect of EventMonitor will keynote MacHack 18.” EventMonitor seems to be down (I haven’t been able to connect to it all weekend). But if I had to guess, I’d say that it’s not a SUN project.

One of SUN’s leading visionaries has apparently left the building.

Anyone know what EventMonitor is up to?

Related link: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/2002/postseason/

Amidst all the Java doom and gloom that’s gone round recently, it’s good to see an absolutely beautiful use of a simple applet. So go to the above URL, and look for the “ScoreCast” link.

Note that this is a very simple use of an advanced technology– lots of people could write this applet. And note that this applet is about information delivery, not about fancy graphics or complex animations. It’s a simple, clear, easy to understand GUI that tells me everything that’s going on in the baseball game, as the game is being played.

I’m impressed.

Seen any great applets lately?

Related link: http://www.handspring.com/products/treo300/index.jhtml

I’ve been using a Treo 300 for over a week now. Using it is just like the experience of going from a dialup, 56k modem to a DSL line: “Oh, yeah. This is the way it was meant to be.”

The Handspring Treo 300 is a combination PalmOS PDA, Sprint PCS cell phone, and Internet handset, with an email client and a Web browser as the primary network applications. I still carry a pocket knife, but with that one exception every other useful device I carry around is collapsed into this one product. The Treo was originally released several months ago, but the Treo 300 is a significant step forward — primarily because Sprint has an excellent cellular network, and because that network features always-on connectivity (you make one connection to the network and leave it on all the time). (Steven Den Beste gives a long and interesting perspective on the different U.S. digital cellular network standards, and why Sprint has a leg up in the competition.)

For many years I’ve used a Palm V, and I’ve never really been tempted to upgrade it for much of anything. Color screens looked cool but none of the devices containing them seemed better in any other way, and usually they were worse; Springboard seemed like a neat idea but not enough for me to switch; the Palm VII and i705 seemed like substantial downgrades from the Palm V. So I waited, and waited. The Treo 300 is exactly the right sort of upgrade: everything about it is better. The screen is color and very nice; the keyboard replacing Graffiti text entry is extremely well-done and usable; the rocker switch on the side replaces a huge number of otherwise clumsy operations; having a phone in the device means I no longer have Nokia-data and Palm-data to synchronize by hand; and the added functionality of mobile email and Web makes the device much more than the sum of the devices it replaces. It’s interesting to see how easy it is to change Palm devices, too — just hotsync and you’re ready to go.

I had experienced mobile email with the Blackberry some time ago, but the added drag of the Blackberry device always kept me from really enjoying it. Now, with an all-in-one device, what I’ve found is that my ability to keep up with email has gone way up. I can deal with messages progressively during the day rather than in clumps when I get time at my desk. This is a big improvement. On the Treo, the email client polls a special server which in turn polls your mail account; this increases the lag time over the Blackberry’ push model. However, as a practical matter I don’t need to receive email more often than the app polls (every half hour) — anything more urgent can go to the cell phone, which is included.

There are some early adopter rough edges: the email application doesn’t let you “take” an address from mail you receive and easily import it into your contact list (cut and paste works around this just fine); similarly, the phone application doesn’t import information from caller ID to the contact list; the email client doesn’t recognize URLs and allow you to load them into the Web browser; Sprint doesn’t seem to have worked out SMS yet (but see Treo300SMS — let’s hear it once again for open platforms); and the device doesn’t have an SD slot (I don’t much care for SD, but the Treo 90 has a slot, and I’d rather have Palm and Handspring agree on an expansion format than not; plus I think Margi System’s Presenter to Go is cool and wish I could use it). All of these, though, are requests for improvement — not impediments to using the device.

The main thing Handspring should concentrate on is creating a full, intergrated, mobile replacement for Exchange. The Treo 300 is perfect for office environments, and having email and a calendar on one device is great. If the calendar were an Exchange-style shared scheduling system, and if the email system didn’t require Exchange to run, there would be no reason to use Exchange at all, and that is the ideal outcome for Handspring. It would be great if Handspring became the communications platform for the enterprise. They have the foundation for it; Palm doesn’t seem likely to succeed at it given the devices they’re cranking out (cute but nothing near the Treo in utility or design); and if you give Microsoft enough time, they’ll do it instead. If the Treo requires Exchange and runs off Exchange and doesn’t replace Exchange, which competitor does that benefit most? Here’s hoping that doesn’t happen — Microsoft’s PDA attempts have been far less functional and productive than their competitors’.

Great job, Handspring — this is an outstanding device and the first big step up in the PDA market since the Palm V. If you carry a PDA and a cell phone, particularly if you’re a heavy email user, you’re wasting your own time and space if you don’t go buy a Treo.

Update: Sprint today announced that they are lowering the cost of data connections for their PCS service plans. According to TreoCentral, the new plans will feature unlimited data access for $10/month.

Related link: http://www2.theserverside.com/home/thread.jsp?thread_id=16014&article_count=17

According to TheServerSide.com’s Floyd Marinescu: “A Forrester Research Report entitled ‘Web Services Platform Shootout’ says IBM and Microsoft have the best Web Services strategy and platforms and labels Sun Microsystems as falling behind. The report also predicted that BEA might be a target for acquisition from companies such as Sun, SAP, HP. BEA officials quickly dismissed the prediction.”

It’s a prediction that makes sense. Specifically, I believe HP will likely acquire BEA Systems over the next year or two, depending on timing, BEA stock price, and more.

It makes sense. HP already gutted its own Java middleware division and strategy. Remember Bluestone? It wasn’t making an impact in the market share or with HP’s server sales. Instead, HP is betting on a market share leader in BEA. By bundling BEA Systems’ Java middleware, WebLogic, with its servers, HP is offering its customers a complete hardware-middleware solution. Also, some former HP executives have migrated to BEA’s board of directors and management.

What about HP’s vested interests in .NET. Well, HP is also bundling many of its other servers with Windows and IIS for those clients who prefer to develop and deploy with .NET. HP is both a Java and .NET shop. HP is really the only major vendor that plays both sides of the fence while IBM is firmly entrenched in Linux/Java and Sun is Solaris/Java, although Sun is making a mover to Linux as well with its Cobalt server boxes.

In the long-run, HP is better positioned with its Compaq acquistion giving it more access to a large Windows consumer and business client base along with investment from Microsoft to grow .NET among this base. And for the Java base of clients, HP will certainly be at an advantage if they acquire BEA Systems and its WebLogic application server middleware/software suite, which includes IDE and more. The only thing that may be missing in this suite is a database. That’s where a company like Oracle or even Sybase comes in. Look for HP to acquire Oracle or Sybase, or BEA to merge with Sybase as part of a HP acquisition of BEA.

IBM, look out. At least IBM has the strong Java and Web services client base and product following with WebSphere and DB2. IBM and Microsoft are dictating the Web services specification through the W3C standards body and Web services consortium. Sun now trading under $ 3 per share is in a far worst position with Sun ONE middleware/software suite trailing in market share behind BEA, IBM and at times Oracle. Web services are a problem for Sun because they’re strangely not a primary player on the W3C or in the new consortium founded mainly by IBM and Microsoft. Additionally, Sun doesn’t have a competitive or market leading database product to complete its suite offerings. Moreover, Sun has banked too much on the success of Solaris, and may also be late to the Linux party with its Cobalt servers, but it’s better late than never. Is Dell still in the picture for Sun as a possible acquisition target?

Bottom line, if HP acquires BEA, HP will be as competitive, if not more, with IBM. Sun, the other major server vendor, will be third of these three — the Big 3 server vendors.

What do you think of a HP acquistion of BEA; and how will this impact the market?

Related link: http://java.oreilly.com

Look for the following new Java books from O’Reilly & Associates:

width="3" height="9" border="0" alt="Bullet" />	href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/javanio/">Java NIO – New!
width="3" height="9" border="0" alt="Bullet" />	href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/jserverpages2/">JavaServer Pages, 2nd Edition – New!
width="3" height="9" border="0" alt="Bullet" />	href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/jswing2/">Java Swing, 2nd Edition (November)
width="3" height="9" border="0" alt="Bullet" />	href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/jxtaian/">JXTA in a Nutshell – New!
width="3" height="9" border="0" alt="Bullet" />	href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/learnjava2/">Learning Java, 2nd Edition – New!
width="3" height="9" border="0" alt="Bullet" />	href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/netbeans/">NetBeans: The Definitive Guide (October)
width="3" height="9" alt="bullet" />	href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/jakarta/">Programming Jakarta Struts (November)
width="3" height="9" border="0" alt="Bullet" />	href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/weblogicworkbook/">WebLogic Server 6.1 Workbook for Enterprise JavaBeans, 3rd Edition – New!
width="3" height="9" border="0" alt="Bullet" />	href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/websphereworkbook/">WebSphere 4.0 AEs Workbook for Enterprise JavaBeans, 3rd Edition – New!

Are you looking for Java books on different topics? What Java books would you like to see published by O’Reilly in the near future?

I need testers. It will take about 20 minutes of your time.

In my daily life, I work as the Chief Architect at Hipbone Inc. Right now, we’re preparing for a large-scale performance test of our software.
What we’d like to do is have people from around the world attempt to use a public server and see what happens. Different browsers, different operating systems, different levels of net connectivity, lots of users.

So I need volunteers. You have to be running some form of Windows or Mac OS 9. Windows users have to be using Internet Explorer 5 (or greater); Mac users have to be using some form of Netscape 4.

The Test is on Friday, October 18, from 2 to 4 PM PST

Please e-mail me at my work address (wgrosso@hipbone.com) if you can help out. I’ll send you more details about what we’re planning to do, and how to join in.

Related link: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html

According to c/net News.com: “The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)has decided to publish online all its course materials–a $107,840 value.” The goal of this site is to fight the “commercialization of knowledge, much in the same way that open-source people are fighting commercialization of software,” says Jon Paul Potts, MIT spokesperson.

Unfornately, after reviewing this site myself, keep in mind that this is a pilot project. Most academic units only have several courses listed. Over time though, there should be more offerings.

Related link: http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/10/09/021009hndevsurvey.xml

According to InfoWorld: “Web services supremacy between the Java and Microsoft .Net camps is far from over, according to a survey released this week…”

“The Evans Data’s North American Developer survey, the results of which were announced this week, found that the battle for Web services technical standards is undecided at this point The more than 600 developers surveyed virtually split on development plans for Java and .Net. The survey, completed in September, found that 40 percent are developing applications for .Net now but 63 percent will target .Net in a year, while 51 percent develop for Java today and 61 percent plan to do so next year… Web services adoption, meanwhile, will jump from 57 percent now to 87 percent in 2003, according to the survey findings.”

What do you think? Have you decided?

Sure, IDEs are soooo attractive. They make a lot of promises and get you all excited about what a great time you’ll have with them. But every IDE I’ve ever gotten involved with has broken my heart. Until now.

I’m a vi user - have been for decades. I like it, we’ve been together a long time. It satisfies my needs. Over time, plain old vi blossomed into vim, which evolved syntax coloring and window splits. Life was good.

My development environment has traditionally been a few shell windows and a web browser. I’d edit in one, compile in another and maybe run “tail -f” on a log file in a third. Javadocs were right there in the browser. I could save changes from vi, hotkey-flip to the compile window and hit “up-arrow/return” to rerun Ant faster than I could reach for the mouse to work the buttons of an IDE. It was good. It was enough.

I’ve tried various IDEs. They all had character flaws that drove me away. Foremost among them was code editing. They all use the pointy-clicky-draggy style so common on Mac and Windows. There’s nothing wrong with that style, but my brain is wired for the move-yank-put style of vi. I come from a hard-core Unix/X Windows background (I actually like xterm cut/paste). I formed my editing habits in a glass-tty world; I was using vi before Microsoft stole windows from Apple (who stole it from PARC, who borrowed it…). I found myself always wanting to “escape” to vi to do some “real” editing. No IDE gave me the option of native vi-style editing.

IDEs offer the promise of many time saving conveniences: code-completion, macros, context-sensitive docs, automated builds, integrated debuggers, etc. These are all good, but I found they were often as much hinderance as help. And the usage models were often non-intuitive for me; miles of menus and forests of tree widgets. I tried to make it work, I really did. NetBeans and I spent an entire Saturday trying to work out our differences. At the end of the day we decided to part amicably, it just wasn’t working out.

Then a friend introduced me to IntelliJ/IDEA. It wasn’t love at first sight. IDEA also uses the pointy-clicky-draggy editing style, which at first made me think it was just like all the others. But IntelliJ has other redeeming qualities. Foremost among them is continuous syntax checking - I don’t know how I ever lived without it. IntelliJ not only tells me when my code is syntactically correct, but also when it’s semantically correct. It shows me when I’m doing something wrong before it can slip past me to become a bug. It even anticipates what I want to do, without hindering or distracting, which makes it almost effortlesss to do the right thing the first time.

IntelliJ has a multitude of talents. Its support for refactoring is something else that won me over. Smooth integration with Ant and CVS and extreme customizability also make it very attractive to serious coders (I easily configured a one-key shortcut to pop into vi when I just got-ta got-ta). But the bottom line is this: I’m more productive with it than I was with vi. IntelliJ earned my affection and respect by delivering on what it promised.

I won’t bother enumerating the extensive list of features, you can visit IntelliJ’s web site for that (also visit the Early Access area, the upcoming 3.0 version has an amazing list of
new features). IntelliJ/IDEA won my heart with a powerful combination of features (and a lack of unnecessary frills) that pamper the coder in me. It takes care of me and doesn’t expect me to change to meet its preconceptions of what an IDE/coder relationship should be.

I’ve become very fond of IntelliJ/IDEA and expect to stick with it for some time to come. I suspect many of you feel the same way.

Related link: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/19/presentations.html

Looking back at the Java programming track from last week’s O’Reilly Mac OS X Conference, you’ll find the following including some with presentations.

Java Servlets on Mac OS X

OK, so you know how to program a little Java and want to run Servlets on your Mac OS X machine. Ian Darwin discussed everything you need to know, including installing and configuring Tomcat (the Open-source Java Web Server from the Apache Foundation) as a standalone web server and Java Servlet/JSP engine under MacOS X.

Once it’s up and running, learn how to deploy Servlets, JSPs and complete “web apps,” as well as how to integrate Tomcat with the Apache HTTPD–you may want to do this for performance reasons or because part of your website depends on software outside of Tomcat’s realm. By the end of this session, you’ll have (or know how to get) your Tomcat web site up and charging!

Download Java Servlets on Mac OS X session presentation here.

Java Media: QT or Not QT?

As Mac programmers, we find QuickTime to be an old and trusty friend; as Java programmers, we usually tend towards Sun’s API’s because they’re de facto “standards.” So what to do when we want to write media apps in Java on our Macs? We can choose between QuickTime for Java and the various JavaSoft media API’s, including Java Media Framework (JMF), JavaSound, Java 2D (and Java 3D) and Java Advanced Imaging (JAI). So how do we make the choice?

Java consultant Chris Adamson offered an overview of the two sides of Java media, helping those who haven’t invested deeply in one or the other (or both) see the issues that face Java media programmers:

Supported platforms: The status of what works where, and how well
Supported media types and codecs: What can you play or display, and how much freedom you have to work with it
Deal-killers: Which framework has MIDI device support that doesn’t actually work with physical MIDI devices? Which has broken sound-input support? Which doesn’t play nicely with Swing?
MPEG-4: Is it really the future, and how can we work with it?
Future support: Will QuickTime keep pace? Is JMF dead? Does it matter to you?

Aimed at Java programmers new to media programming, Adamson’s talk provided both a taste of the media API’s and a road-map for how to use them.

What made Adamson pick this topic for his presentation? “Client-side java seems to get the short-end of the stick, even from JavaSoft sometimes, and the idea of doing media work in Java seems inconceivable to some people–adding MP3 support to Java is one of the top-10 feature-requests on Sun’s website, even though playing an MP3 is a one-line program with the Java Media Framework, and maybe five lines with QuickTime for Java. Since Mac people tend to be so media-savvy, I’d like to help them see that if they’re java programmers too, then robust media API’s are here today, they work, and that we should start doing great things with them.”

Download the Java Media: QT or Not QT session presentation here.

Tutorial: Java and Mac OS X

Every Mac OS X box ships with Java 2 installed. From the familiar command line applications to Apple’s free IDE, Daniel Steinberg gave a half-day tutorial on how to develop Java applications on and for Mac OS X from three perspectives:

The tools: What are the tools available for you for developing Java applications on your Mac? Many of your favorite open source and commercial applications just work on Mac OS X. Others work better on the Mac and still others are available only on the Mac. You’ll have a comprehensive overview of configuring your toolset on Mac OS X.

Platform Advantages: There are features that you can take advantage of when you target Mac OS X for your Java application. You may be interested in adding Spell Checking, or Speech Synthesis and Recognition. You may want to use Java to control your QuickTime movies. This section highlights the benefits of bringing your Java application to Mac OS X.

Targeting the Mac: A Java application can be made to feel almost native on Mac OS X. We’ll explore options in deploying your application as well as the tweaks you should make to your code to make it more “Mac like.”

Check back later for a link to his tutorial presentation.

What did you think of the O’Reilly Mac OS X Conference and the Java tutorial and session track? Share your views here.

Related link: http://www.wgrosso.com/emerging

Chris Crawford’s talk on Understanding Interactivity has been postponed due to a family emergency.

There will be no meeting of the emerging technology group this month.

Related link: http://www.lambdacs.com/debugger/debugger.html

Bil Lewis showed off his ominiscient debugger at the Java SIG the other night.

Even though it’s not feature complete, it’s amazingly nice. And very useful.

There’s not much more to say except this: if you’re a java programmer, you should download the omniscient debugger and check it out.

What development tools for Java are you amazed by?

Related link: http://www.ejbsig.com

This Enterprise JavaBeans Special
Interest Group (EJB-SIG) site is dedicated to EJB/J2EE related news and know-how in general. The site features a news section, news feeds, forums, chat, event calendar, commented web link collection, reviews, polls, FAQ section etc.

Related link: http://servlet.java.sun.com/javaone/apps/cfp/sf2003/

The Call for Papers and Create Team functionality opened on September 30, 2002 and will conclude on November 8, 2002. Submissions will be selected by December 6, 2002 and notifications will begin around December 13, 2002. If you have any questions, please contact: J1Papers@sun.com.

Related link: http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-09-2002/jw-0927-xmlglossary.html?

Here’s a XML Glossary from JavaWorld: “With XML evolving at a rapid pace, many developers get lost in a sea of acronyms. And since XML is fast becoming the way to exchange data, chances are you will need first-hand XML knowledge. Keeping up with XML means knowing when XForms, WSDL (Web Services Description Language), or RDF (Resource Description Framework) can help, or whether to use FO (Formatting Objects) or SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), and if XQuery is worth considering. To help you better understand and use XML, Joe Walker defines many XML technologies crucial to Java developers.”