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JSP Buzz: Vol. II Issue #18

JSP and Java Newsletter

9.25.2001

Table of Contents
  1. To Attacks' Toll Add a Programmer's Grief
  2. Proof Linux can replace Windows 2000?
  1. Recent Tragedies
  2. .Net and Web Services and J2EE
  1. JSP Security
  2. Introduction to Jakarta Struts Framework
  3. The Shape of J2EE Market Place
  4. Talk SOAP
  5. Latest JSP Syntax Card
  1. Apache Tomcat 4.0 Final Release
  2. OSCache 1.6.1
  3. dotJ Custom Tag Library
  4. Coldjava Tags
  5. ServletExec 4.1
News
To Attacks' Toll Add a Programmer's Grief
Washington Post  September 21st, 2001 
The aftermath of the terrorist attacks is one that will be years in understanding the impact. This piece reflects on the toll it has on the use of encryption. In the up coming weeks, months and years of trying to clean up and prevent similar attacks, the cost of freedom and privacy will be re-examined, lets hope not too much is lost.
Proof Linux can replace Windows 2000?
Vnunet  September 21st, 2001 
A cost study which shows that Linux can easily replace windows 2000 in the professional work place with a large cost savings.
For the full study
Rambles
Recent Tragedies
Casey Kochmer 
This will be a quick buzz this week. As with most people in the world the events of the past few weeks has left myself a bit on the numb side. The effects of the tragedy will have effects that ripple out in ways most of us could not imagined. My hopes and best wishes go out to all the JSP Buzz readers. I hope we all have the patience to help and lend a hand to people who need aid and to our leaders in assisting them in making the right choices in the times ahead. I believe that this is not a time of silence. Rather we are at a point where we need to be both more active and stand up for what we find important. It's a time where we need to resist the urge to be angry and work even harder to promote human decency and kindness. Lets hope anger and fear do not rule the months that lie ahead.
Crypto-gram Security Newsletter
I will leave a link to Bruce Schneier's newsletter and some commentary from an information technology point of view of the recent events.
.Net and Web Services and J2EE
Casey Kochmer 
Ok this ramble is based off of the following article:
Microsoft's .Net: Not A J2EE Killer
To summarize, the article says while .Net is an improvement, it isn't a threat to the J2EE server market.
However, I think the study misses the point. In looking at market places, the analysis looked at the J2EE application server market while Microsoft is looking at several markets, most specifically rapid design and web services. In this respect .Net is faster and easier to use than a similar Java based solution. Granted Sun is grooming J2EE towards using web services. However, currently, using web services in the land of Java is not something one does lightly without serious experience. The fact seems to me, after playing with web services for a while, that web services are currently not for the average developer. The .Net environment does simplify using web services and aims squarely for the average developer.
So while Sun is concentrating on making web services easier to use from J2EE, they also need to make using web services easy to use from JSP and Servlets. Granted JSR's are in place which will make web services easier to use, but currently .Net is far ahead in this respect. The saving grace for Sun is that it will be close to a year before web services best practices and web service infrastructure are mature enough to be prime time. More than enough time for Sun to catch up to .Net. My ramble and warning is then aimed at Java J2EE developers. I must warn J2EE developers from being complacent in ivory towers, for .Net is aiming at the foundations of future application development, a market that is still under construction and in a state of constant change, in other words a market that .Net will directly influence and will be a much larger player than most Java J2EE programmerwould expect.
Links
JSP Security
Jordan Dimov  September 18th, 2001 
I would recommend this article to most JSPBuzz readers. I considerthis article to be of mid level. It covers security issues brieflybut with enough detail to help educate even a new JSP programmer in the do's and don'ts of building secure JSP pages.
Introduction to Jakarta Struts Framework
Sue Spielman   September 11th, 2001 
The start of a series of Struts article. Fairly simple introduction to struts. If you haven't used or looked at struts yet, then this article would be of interest to give you an overview on how struts works.
The Shape of J2EE Market Place
The Serverside  August 11th, 2001 
With BEA and IBM dwarfing the rest of the J2EE servers in market share, what is the market place like for the rest of the J2EE servers? If you ignore some of the ranting in the thread, there are some interesting opinions shared on the various J2EE servers.
Talk SOAP
Amit Asaravala  September 2001 
Just a high level discussion of the possible benefits of SOAP on the Internet.
Latest JSP Syntax Card
Sun  September 2001 
These are quick reference cards and guides for JSP 1.2, 1.1, and 1.0. The latest JSP 1.2 version has just been added to the site.
Products
Apache Tomcat 4.0 Final Release
Jakarta  September 18th, 2001 
It's official! The Servlet 2.3 and JSP 1.2 specifications are now final, and so is Apache Tomcat 4.0, which implements the new features of these specifications plus a host of other functionality improvements over the current production release (Tomcat 3.2.3). Please read the "RELEASE-NOTES-4.0.txt" file in the top level directory of the distribution for the latest information on recent changes and known issues.
OSCache 1.6.1
Open Symphony  September 17th, 2001 
OSCache is a JSP tag library and listeners that cache JSP content. This results in massive performance benefits on any servlet engine, as well as providing graceful error tolerance (e.g., in the event of a DB failure, cached content is served). A great product.
dotJ Custom Tag Library
dotJ Software  September 2001 
A great collection of tag libraries for use in your JSP Project. The price is very reasonable and I suspect over time dotJ will be adding more tags to the mix, which makes it a good spot to keep your eyes on for future releases.
Coldjava Tags
ColdJava   
A collection of 52 tag libraries. Cold Java has recently added several new ones over the past month. All products from this site are free for any non-commercial and non-government use. Prices for commercial use are not listed and you need to contact the ColdJava developers for pricing information.
ServletExec 4.1
New Atlanta  September 20th, 2001 
New Atlanta is pleased to announce the release of ServletExec 4.1, which implements the final Servlet 2.3 and JSP 1.2 specifications. Additional information is available from New Atlanta's web site: ServletExec 4.1 is a servlet/JSP engine for Microsoft IIS, Netscape Enterprise Server (NES), iPlanet Web Server (iWS), and Apache. ServletExec 4.1 is supported on Windows NT/2000, SPARC Solaris, Linux, and AIX.

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