Ajax applications have unique architectural challenges and opportunities. This presentation will show you how to take advantage of the Ajax's strengths, and work around its quirks.

We'll start with an overview of Ajax, and then dive right into an extended example where we add Ajax to an existing web application. Along the way we'll cover several tools that we use to aid in Ajax development: The JavaScript Shell, Firebug, and the Web Developer's Toolbar. We'll also look at two popular JavaScript Ajax libraries: Prototype and Scriptaculous.

With the example application under our belts, we'll move to a discussion of Ajax architectural questions, including:

• How do I select an Ajax library?
• What format data should my Ajax calls use: XML, JSON, HTML, or other?
• How do I handle the back button and deep linking in Ajax?

This presentation covers JavaScript from the perspective of a Java programmer. We assume that you may be using an Ajax toolkit, but still need to be able to read, modify, and test the JavaScript code in your application. You will learn the common idioms of JavaScript by looking at working code from Prototype and Scriptaculous.

All Ajax programmers need to know JavaScript. Toolkits will do some of the work for you, but your own JavaScript will differentiate your applications from others. A reading knowledge of JavaScript is also necessary when selecting an Ajax framework, and for testing and debugging applications.

We'll go straight to the interesting parts of JavaScript programming:

• Prototype-based inheritance
• Functional style
• Dynamic evaluation
• In-browser testing

We'll demonstrate these concepts using the popular Ajax frameworks Prototype and script.aculo.us.

Learn to simplify Ajax development with Prototype through a series of real-world examples. Along the way, learn to code in Prototype's modern JavaScript style, taking advantage of Prototype's extensions to JavaScript's object model

Prototype deserves its fame for Ajax support, and for easy integration with the Rails platform. In this presentation, you will learn to simplify Ajax development with Prototype as we work through a series of examples that demonstrate:

• using Ajax.Request to manage XMLHTTPRequest
• automatically updating pages with Ajax.Updater
• polling with PeriodicalExecuter
• managing forms with Form.serialize
• responding to inputs with Event.observe
• simplifying DOM updates with Insertion

But there's more! Prototype exemplifies modern JavaScript coding style. You will see how to take advantage of "Prototype as JavaScript++" by

• using JSON for parameter passing
• defining classes with Class.create and Object.extend
• using Ruby-inspired extensions to the JavaScript object model, such as Array.each

The Spring framework is one of the fastest growing open source frameworks. New job postings are gaining rapidly, and many customers are adopting Spring instead of heavier alternatives. In this session, we’ll introduce Spring. You’ll see how Spring can give you much of the power of EJB, without the complexity or pain.

Spring uses concepts like dependency injection and aspect oriented programming to ease standard enterprise development. Spring developers write plain, ordinary Java objects (POJOs), instead of sophisticated components. In this session, you’ll see a basic Spring application. You’ll also see some details about some of the enterprise integration strategies, including:

• Spring AOP • Transactions • Persistence • Model/view/controller

When the session is over, you won’t be an expert, but you should have a much clearer understanding of what Spring does, what it doesn’t do, and why it’s growing so rapidly.

Dependency Injection (DI) is the cornerstone of Spring. The core concept is quite simple, but (surprise!) actual practice can become complex. To take full advantage of Spring DI, you need to understand not only the basics on configuration, but also the container lifecycle model and the various hooks provided by the framework.

Topics will include

• The difference between DI and Continuous Integration
• Setter Injection
• Constructor Injection
• Factory Injection
• Bean lifecycle
• Method Injection
• Using the ApplicationContext
• Custom PropertyEditors

Spring offers developers a simpler, more robust method for configuring applications. These benefits extend to security through the ACEGI framework. ACEGI makes the otherwise daunting task of securing your application logical and straightforward. More importantly, through its support for single sign-on provision through Yale's CAS system and its ability to provide instance-level authorization, Spring extends the common security model of most J2EE apps beyond what they are traditionally capable of.

In this session, we'll explore:

• configuring ACEGI to authorize against an in-memory user list, a database, and a JAAS login module • page level authorization • method level authorization • instance level authorization • forcing HTTPS connections to secured sites • impersonation using the RunAsManager

Hibernate is easy to get started with, but can sometimes be hard to make efficient or secure. In fact, the default settings for Hibernate createapplications that will run slowly, cause unwanted round trips to the database, and may be more restrictive and/or permissive from a security standpointthan you would otherwise want.

This session will show advanced techniques for tuning performance, including: • advanced collection mapping strategies • lazy loading • cascading update management • lifecycle management • Hibernate's interceptor layer In addition, we'll examine the security considerations when using Hibernate. Often, single-credential data access isn't enough for sensitive data. We'll walk through using per-user credentials for data access, logging security information about and through Hibernate, and accessing data sources through secure application servers.