Russell Beattie

Too much to blog about this morning, so I'm just going to make quick statements with links.

David's still hitting home runs on his blog and has all these great Struts links:

Struts book fair.

Lots of Struts articles and books swirling around the blogs and sites and bookstores and etc. OnJava has two articles: 1) Lessons from the Trenches by Chuck Cavaness author of O'Reilly's Programming Jakarta Struts and 2) Learning the New Struts 1.1, Part One by Sue Speilman author of The Struts Framework. The Server Side recently posted The Fast Track to Struts (PDF). And finally, looking at Powells I see that Goodwill, Husted, and Turner all have Struts books coming out as well. I haven't read any of them yet so please read them for me and tell me which ones are best.

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Looks like another aggregator is arriving soon, Kevin Burton just posted screen shots of his NewsMonster written in Java. Cool beans... Since he's already written Reptile, I'm sure it's not vapor either.

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Henri is delving into MVC and JSTL, with some interesting thoughts (SQL in the Controller?!?!):

... The crux of the idea being, can a technology be BAD, or is it merely the inexperienced uses people put it to. Can I happily setup an MVC structure [and with it a pattern-framework that my wife can follow in later projects] without having to launch into the depths of JDBC?

I think I can. Part of this is due to the fact that I think that SQL is a part of the Controller and not a part of the Model. Admittedly it's a part that should probably be abstracted below the Controller, but there's no great need. It's the Controller's job to decide when and where to load new model's etc, and that's what the SQL is primarily for. Indeed, the only Java will be the Model, aka a set of JavaBeans.

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Thanks to Kev who pointed out that Rusty's new XML book, Processing XML with Java is ONLINE. I wasn't paying attention when I read cafe au lait yesterday.

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JNLP gives me warm fuzzies. Codaland (who IS that?) pointed out this article on Deploying Software with JNLP on java.sun.com... Very interesting. Spaces could do with a little JNLPing...

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And finally Raible touched on a couple things that I found interesting. He received this in his email:

Download WebLogic JRockit� 8.0 Beta on November 11

From my Inbox this morning, Subject: BEA Product News - November 2002.

Designed for server-side enterprise Java applications, BEA WebLogic JRockit, will be supporting the latest J2SE release 1.4.1. WebLogic JRockit 8.0 Beta noticeably improves the startup time for server-side Java applications, and it enables easier debugging and profiling of Java applications through support for both JVMPI and JVMDI. Additionally, JRockit 8.0 Beta introduces support for Intel� Itanium� 2 servers on both Microsoft� Windows� .NET ES and Red Hat� Linux� Advanced Server.

The WebLogic JRockit 8.0 Beta will be available for download on November 11. More info >>

We just started using JRockit on our dev machnines at work and I noticed an immediate difference in response times. I was impressed... Why doesn't SUN purchase this tech instead of BEA?

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And also, Matt says this:

XUL and SWT the future of UI Programming?

SWT has created lots of love for Eclipse, and I'm willing to bet I'll write a XUL application in the next couple of years. Russell Jones from DevX.com explains how these might very well be the future of cross-platform GUIs.

The reality of a single cross-language, cross-platform GUI interface programming model is in sight, based on an XML description language supported by fast native runtimes. Will Mozilla, Eclipse, or someone else step in and complete the last mile that gives all developers a common way to design and program fast cross-platform user interfaces?

XUL seems to be simply a combination of XML and JavaScript from this example. So the question is, will you be writing HTML, XML, XHTML or XUL in the next couple of years. To stay ahead of the game, I recommend writing your web-based apps in XHTML (which is XML) and if you migrate to XUL, it'll be easy as pie.

In my opinion, if you're doing GUI dev right now, you need to start thinking about XUL. I think we need a decent XUL implementation in Java YESTERDAY. I'll expand on this thought later... but it's super important in my mind.

-Russ