Java Innovation
Just recently I've discovered the wealth of content at www.theserverside.com and it seems that innovation is flourishing with respect to middleware in Java land. The AOP related videos and discussions are particularly relevant to the software work I've been doing over the last couple of years. The ability to easily separate out particular implementations of persistence, caching, security, remoting etc. from the domain model source code is the kicker for me.
In particular, the following statement from the JBoss people rang true for me:
"Middleware, by nature, is cross-cutting"
Given the fact that the statement was delivered by a guy in a Joker outfit, it's understandable that you may doubt the validity of the statement. I first saw the beginning of the Marc Fleury Joker video via a Don Box post and thought: hmm... interesting approach to selling middleware services. It helps to know some context and the terminology of the people speaking though. For example POJO (plain old java object), IOC (Inversion Of Control) and the background of the people classed as jokers in the Middleware Company's Enterprise Java Whos Who list.
The AOP approach being taken in some Java land projects gives hope to being able to write business objects that aren't joined at the hip to particular container implementations or versions of container implementations. It's going to be interested to see where this AOP stuff goes and how much of it crosses the fence to .NET land.
My favourite videos at theserverside.com so far are:
- Ted Neward - Independent consultant, Editor-in-Chief of TheServerSide.NET and general troublemaker
- Rod Johnson - Founder, The Spring Framework, Author, 'J2EE without EJB'
- Marc Fleury - CEO, JBoss
- Scott Ambler - Senior Consultant, Ronin International
- Gavin King - Founder, The Hibernate Project
- Bill Burke - Chief Architect JBoss, JBoss Group LLC