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News - Articles/Tutorials/Code/Reviews - JSP/Servlet Hosting Companies - Links |
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***** IN THIS ISSUE **************************************************
News
1:Updating the JSP Buzz
Rambles
1:Open Source Wars
2:XSL, XSP and Cocoon
Links
1:Servlet 2.3: New Features Exposed
2:J2EE Clustering, Part 1
3:Java Jobs Easy to Find; Skills Hard to Come by
4:Object Oriented Java: Getting into Interfaces
5:Open Source Java: Ant
6:JSP vs. XSP
7:Features of JSP Custom Tag Libraries
8:A Designer's Journey
Product Releases
1:Struts 1.0 Beta-1 Released
2:Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) 1.1 Released
3:Cloudscape V3.6 Released
4:J2EE Forte/IDE Toolkit Software 1.0
Main Topic
1:Thanks from the JSP Buzz.
Like this newsletter? Tell a friend about the JSP Buzz!
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THE LATEST NEWS
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1) Updating the JSP Buzz
It's been a slow week or so for JSP news items, so it's a good time
to announce a slight rearrangement of the JSP buzz layout. The product
announcements have been moved out of the news section and into their own
section. Please send us an email if you learn about new products or major
updates to existing products that the JSP community would like. Also, if
you have a product you would like us to review send an email.
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Rambles by Casey Kochmer
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****************** Open Source Wars ******************
I really wanted not to mention Microsoft in this issue. However, when
Microsoft declared that 'Open source is an intellectual-property
destroyer,' I was left speechless -- but still able to type ;). As
discussed in the last issue, this all part of a big mind game that
is going on among the big players right now. For developers such as
ourselves open source has been a great resource and provider of high
quality tools. I am left to conclude that Microsoft fears open source
as major competition to their own products. All in all, this is the
biggest endorsement for open source I have read to date!
News item on Microsoft statement about open source products.
Some interesting feedback can be found at the ServerSide.
****************** XSL, XSP and Cocoon ******************
I received several great emails from the last JSP Buzz regarding
XSL (I am using XSL in the larger sense of XSL, XSLT and XPATH). The
conversation quickly turned towards XSP and Cocoon which heavily uses
XSL. Basically, the emails concluded that XSP/Cocoon has great potential
as a server-side language. Also, it is clear that Cocoon is still young
and extremely difficult to debug.
I feel XSL has had a great beginning but it also is still young. XSL is
not as simple as it appears nor is it non-programmer friendly. While XSL
will become a standard tool for programmers, it still needs to address
two issues:
1) XSL support needs to be built into more client-side tools.
2) The development tools for XSL need to get more robust and
become easier to use.
Once these two hurdles are overcome then XSL will become a workhorse
for our industry. As a result, XSL is having a slow start. I think it
will take at least a year and most likely two years before it is truly
mainstream.
All of this leads me to conclude that XSP's greatest strength is also its
greatest weakness - XSL. This means the growth of XSP will be slow until
XSL reaches maturity. So while, XSP is a great server-side language my
initial reaction is one of caution.
Having said this, you should know I am using XSL and plan on using it
on most of my future projects. While using it, however, I grit my teeth
more than I would like to admit. Based on my personal experience I suggest
new XSL users plan on giving yourself some extra training time before
fully committing to it.
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Links of Interest
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[Article] Servlet 2.3: New Features Exposed (Jason Hunter 1.2001)
This article gives an overview of what to expect in the new servlet
release. Servlets 2.3 has many exciting features which developers
have been wanting for JSP for a while now. The addition of listeners
and filters are the two most promising aspects of the Servlets 2.3.
If you haven't look at the new specs yet then this is worth the time
to read.
[Article] J2EE Clustering, Part 1 (Abraham Kang 2.2001)
Thinking about building a large JSP site? With quite a bit to learn,
this article is a good place to start for some of the information you
will need. The article itself is an introduction to building high
traffic and scalable web sites using clustering. A cluster is a group
of application servers that run together as a single server. Clustering
is very important for failover situations. That is, if one machine goes
down another machine is available to keep a site running smoothly.
Overall, this is an excellent introduction to the subject!
[Article] Java Jobs Easy to Find; Skills Hard to Come by
(Christie Vincent 2.6.2001)
This state-of-the-union review for Java programmers concludes that Java
programmers are still in demand despite the current dot com bust. The
second most important point is that training people to learn Java can
take longer than expected unless the programmer already has an object
oriented background. Finally, quite a few people are still learning Java.
[Article] Object Oriented Java: Getting into Interfaces (S. Gokul 2.19.2001)
This quick and simple tutorial about how to use Java interfaces and
abstract classes is only for people new to Java.
[Article] Open Source Java: Ant (David Thomson 2.22.2001)
Ant is just an awesome tool. It is quickly becoming a very widely used
tool for building Java-based projects. It is flexible, fast and easy to
use, especially when a project is distributed across many platforms.
This article reviews and examines how to use Ant.
[Article] JSP vs. XSP (Sue Speilman 2.21.2001)
This article provides a general overview of XSP as well as directly
comparing JSP and XSP.
[Article] Features of JSP Custom Tag Libraries (Sue Speilman 1.18.2001)
This excellent article also functions as a tutorial for JSP tag libraries.
For programmers needing help understanding how tags work, this is a must
read.
[Article] A Designer's Journey (Zeldman 2.16.2001)
This is the story of Zeldman's quest to build a standard compliant
site. While a bit long, the point is very important. The mythical
standard compliant web site is closer to reality. The difficulty is
deciding when the time is right for your site. I expect this is still
over a year in the making for the average site, and even longer for
other sites, depending how fast the tools catch up to the standards.
With everyone talking about Internet time, how come it takes forever
for the web to really change??
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Product Releases
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1) Struts 1.0 Beta-1 Released (2.2001)
This latest version of the popular JSP open source model II framework
is considered to be of production quality. For new JSP projects it is
really worth the time to check out Struts as a starting framework for
the project.
2) Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) 1.1 Released (2.14.2001)
The latest release of the Java XML API is the standard Sun interface to
parse and transform XML documents using pure Java. A great feature is
the built-in support for various Java XML processors.
3) Cloudscape V3.6 Released
This inexpensive database has excellent Java support. In fact,
the J2EE reference implementation comes bundled with a copy of the
Cloudscape database. A free developer edition is available
for downloading if you are curious to find out more. Personally,
I am actually planning on switching to Cloudscape as my training
database for future JSP tutorials. After having had a chance
to use it more seriously, I will post a review.
4) J2EE Forte/IDE Toolkit Software 1.0 (2.2001)
Users of Forte may want to check out this expansion pack. This release
is geared toward making Forte a user-friendly application development
environment for the J2EE SDK. You will need to create an account with
the developer connection site to download this tool.
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MAIN TOPIC by Casey Kochmer
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******************* Thanks From The JSP Buzz *******************
It's been quite hectic the past few weeks, but more so since we
are also getting ready for the International Java Conference in New York.
So, the main topic will have to wait for the next issue. However, I
wanted to take the time to say thanks to all the JSP Buzz readers. It
is great getting the feedback from everyone and the Buzz is a blast to
write. Have a great week and see you in the next Buzz!
Casey
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