EJB 2.0 is testimony to the fact that the J2EE model has come a long way. You can do a lot of things with 2.0 that were tedious and error-prone in EJB 1.1. The Container Managed Persistence (CMP) relationship management alone makes it worthwhile. Just define all database access through...

I've always believed that we should pass on our knowledge to our peers, then, over time, we'd have a network of programmers who had a firm foundation in how Java works. To that end I try and help out where I can.

Where do market analysts get their figures? When you get a job as an industry or market analyst, do they give you a complimentary calculator that has a single button with a label marked 'Random' on the front?

It has been far from quiet on the JDJ forums front this month ­ a result of the recent news item we broke regarding the now infamous Gartner report. This report claimed that there will be a major shortage of Java developers in the forthcoming year. Which is good news...I think! So why ...

About three months ago, my two-year old son discovered the word 'cup.' He would call everything a cup, though he had no clue what a cup was. Finally we figured out a way for him to call a cup a cup ­ we pointed to a cup every time he uttered the word. In my technological world of J2EE,...

According the Standish Group, 84% of all IT-related projects are not delivered on time or within budget. Now when the world reads 'IT-related projects,' the automatic assumption is that the IT department is to blame.

Apparently it hasn't been a good quarter for many PDA makers. Shipments were down from the same period last year so, of course, doom and gloom are predicted by all and sundry. Actually I'm exaggerating; one of the reports I read was fairly evenhanded in its approach ­ another was about...

At times, I wonder just how far short the computer industry has fallen of its promise of a few decades ago. I'm not talking about the lofty ideal of the computer of the future that science fiction authors were predicting we'd be using by now, such as machines capable of holding a prope...

This past June, the crew and I spent a week in one of the best cities in the world. New York City played host to SYS-CON's Web Services Edge Conference & Expo, where all the major players in the Web services market come under one roof to talk and debate the emergence of this new wave o...

I'm sure you've heard many of the cannibal jokes. One of my favorites is a news flash in a cannibal tribe announcing the invention of the 'pressure cooker': 'We have news of a device that cooks a man within minutes, and even lets out a whistle when it's done.' Though technology brings ...

You may be aware of a radio program in the UK called 'Desert Island Discs.' Basically, well-known people choose which records they would want if they were stuck on a desert island (I've yet to hear anyone say they're taking a CD player). Something of a similar nature is happening to me...

When I wrote my last editorial I was on a plane to Toronto. What I neglected to tell you was where I was off to after Toronto. It was to Redmond, Washington, as the guest of Microsoft, where they showed me the virtues of their .NET framework. It was a very interesting visit and I learn...

Here's a short pop quiz: Have you ever built an application in J2EE and taken it through the entire product life cycle? Or, for that matter, any distributed computing application? If the answer is 'Yes,' then answer this one: Have you handled all the facets of the application on your o...

There's no escaping that the evolution of programming languages has its advantages and disadvantages. The addition of the java.util.regex package to the JDK1.4 API is a perfect example of Java's development since 1995. However, there's a group of programmers who know only Java and no o...

A recent press release from Palm got me thinking about their PDAs, as well as why Palm (in the UK) never returned my e-mails...but that's another matter (and half a world away now). In any case, according to the release, 5,000 Palms are to be purchased as part of a three-year grant pro...

Fly me to the moon...let me walk among the stars' or at least America. I am at present sitting in a Continental plane flying over the beautiful Scottish islands, sun beaming in through the window, contemplating the week ahead of me. My destination is Toronto where I will be attending t...

Some years ago I did all my coding in vi, then later in Emacs. I still believe these are great editors; I just don't use them anymore for Java development, especially J2EE application development. I'm much more productive if I use an IDE whose sole purpose in life is to facilitate prod...

This month I'm at peace with the world so this editorial may seem somewhat relaxed and, dare I say, floppy. I've recently taken up Yoga - calmness in the mind, strength in the body, peace in the soul (or words to that effect). I mention this because I've felt the need to relax more out...

I've been thinking a PhD student should consider doing a thesis on the life expectancy of a pen after it's purchased. I've come up with an approximate calculation for mine: LE (Life Expectancy) =DWU (Date of Wanting to Use)-1; in other words, a pen will go missing the day before you...

The whole wireless space has been an interesting one to keep an eye on for the past couple of years, in particular how it relates to the Java space. Sure, we've heard wonderful tales about the vast millions of phones in Japan and how quickly Java is being adopted there, but for the res...

I'll never buy a Casio watch again. Not just because they break down - that's just the luck of the draw - but because of their extremely poor service. I've spent months trying to get my $200 watch back from their service center, but to no avail. It isn't the money that matters; it's th...

If you read my editorial last month (JDJ, Vol. 7, issue 4), you'll recall that I was trying to work out just who the Java community was and whether or not you or I feel a part of it. Well, I think I met the community at JavaOne 2002.

JavaOne is over, and it's time to sit back and reflect...and to sift through the hundreds of press releases and announcements that ricochet around the Internet like balls around a pinball machine. While I couldn't be there myself, when I checked my e-mails each day, I felt as if I was...

The Pros and Cons of Certification. 'To Be or Not To Be Certified...' (Vol. 7, issue 2) by Keith Brown is a great editorial. Finally someone is standing up and saying what the entire community is thinking: certification is just another money-making route for Sun.

As Nat King Cole famously sang, we have to 'face the music and dance...' This month's editorial is coming to you with a reader beware warning! I've been engaged in some great debates over the last month on a variety of topics, but the one that has caught my interest is the old chestnut...

You want to develop a new business application based on your particular business problem. You get a software team to pull together the right mix of technologies to build the required software components. You choose an architect to capture your business requirements and to define the ri...

By the time you read this, JavaOne will be over and I'll have experienced my first visit to the world's grandest Java conference. For various reasons I've never been able to attend before, but this year (knock on wood), the gods have smiled on me and the constellations are positioned i...

A strange accident occurred on my flight back to New Zealand. Somehow, the plane flew through a rip in space-time and we wound up in a freak alternate dimension. The thing is, it was initially very difficult to tell that we weren't in the right dimension anymore, because everything was...

Guess what? It’s JavaOne month. That came around fast – and don’t panic if you’re sitting there wondering where the year went; it hasn’t, well not yet anyway. JavaOne is earlier this year, with only a nine-month gap from the previous one. It’s moved ...

By the time you get this issue, JavaOne will be around the corner. Or you picked up this issue at the conference itself. This is JavaOne’s seventh year – and for J2EE, it seems that the middle-tier component wars are over, with J2EE clearly emerging as the winning platform ...

My mother bought a computer for her birthday, the usual affair – Windows, printer, scanner, speakers, etc. She’s a complete novice and needless to say, she’s having a hard time working the thing. Her main complaint (I think in relation to word processing) is that it d...

A few months ago Alan mentioned that he had finally shifted to Star Office. As someone who has been using the software suite since Sun took it over, I applaud his decision to move away from that other office package. However, the shift doesn’t come without a few challenges that c...

A mobile phone (or cell for our American friends) is like a wristwatch in many respects. You don't change it too often, putting up with its little idiosyncrasies, loving its familiarity; you need something pretty spectacular to lure you away and start the hassle of getting to know anot...

In a tough competitive market one of the biggest challenges vendors face is what message to put around their product to distinguish it from their competitor's. The question of which features to focus on is a tough call. The dilemma is paradoxical. With the emphasis on standards, all ve...

Yesterday I received an A4 piece of cardboard from Sun Microsystems signed by Scott McNealy. I peered at the signature and angled it to the light to see if it was a printed signature or a real one from the pen of Mr. McNealy himself. It was hard to tell. The piece of cardboard said tha...

I've been hearing lately that Bluetooth is making a comeback. Considering that it had hardly gotten started when it was written off in certain quarters, it's amusing to see a comeback prediction so soon. In any case, I can see that short-range wireless protocols, such as Bluetooth, wil...

It's the start of a new year; what fruits will our computing orchard serve up this season? This time last year the industry was excitedly preparing us for how Web services would take over. Sun was gearing up for their Sun ONE announcement in February after Microsoft had begun filtering...

Welcome to 2002 J2EE. The year 2001 has been a learning experience for all of us in the Java technology universe. The lesson has been a painful one - focus on the business problem and apply technology to ensure the right ROI. About a year ago, several folks were riding out the fant...

Happy New Year! I trust you had a good festive break...not drinking or eating too much. Who am I? Good question. My name is Keith Brown and I'm the new J2SE editor of Java Developer's Journal. As this is the first issue of the new year, our editor-in-chief felt it was the perfect ...

I was reading a forum discussion recently that argued that J2ME was a mess. The general consensus (admittedly there weren't that many messages) seemed to be that this conclusion was correct. My automatic response was 'What a complete load of bollocks' (which I think means I've been...