Advanced Grails

Many demonstrations of new technology focus on the shiny turnkey features -- "Look at what this thing magically does for you out of the box!" While Grails has many gee-whiz scaffolding features, it is a framework first. A framework should "make easy things easy and hard things possible." (Apologies to the Perl community for co-opting their battle cry.) This talk focuses on the hard things that are possible with Grails, but require just a bit of glue code to implement.

Groovy and Java: The Integration Story

I'm attracted to Groovy because of its spirit of inclusiveness. Because it extends my platform of choice, not replaces it -- include a single JAR in your classpath and you are Groovy-enabled. Because it offers full bidirectional integration with Java. Because it offers a nearly flat learning curve for experienced Java developers. Come see how you can use Groovy to augment your existing Java codebase.

Groovy: The Next Generation of Java

This is the year of the dynamic scripting language. Ruby (and Rails) has won the hearts and minds of many independent software developers. JavaScript is experiencing a renaissance thanks to the wild success of AJAX and websites like Google Maps. And Groovy (JSR-241) brings the same level of excitement and "scripting goodness" to the Java platform.

KEYNOTE: No, I Won't Tell You Which Web Framework to Use: or The Truth (with Jokes)

"Which framework should I use?" is the question most often heard on the No Fluff, Just Stuff tour. It's well worth asking. Unfortunately, there is no simple answer. After years on the tour, most speakers have crafted a response that would make any Washington politician proud -- long on style, but essentially, "Well, it depends..."

Mocking Web Services

In this talk, we'll survey the web services exposed by leading websites (Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay) and discuss how they can be easily mocked up for testing purposes and to aid offline development. You'll see working examples of RESTful, SOAP, and JSON web services, as well as strategies for unit and functional testing your asynchronous, service-oriented architecture.

Real World Grails

Scott Davis is the Editor in Chief of aboutGroovy.com. The website, in addition to being, umm, about Groovy, is implemented in Grails. This talk shows you how to get started with Grails, but also talks about the experience of using it in a live, production web site.

The Secrets of GORM

GORM (the Grails Object/Relational Mapper) is one of the many high points of the Grails web framework. GORM is a thin Groovy wrapper over Hibernate, but that doesn't begin to capture excitement of what GORM brings to the party. Imagine being able to call book.save() and book.delete() on your Book class; calling Book.get(1) to retrieve your book from the database by primary key; using Book.list() to pull an ArrayList of Book objects into your application. Now imagine getting all of that functionality (and more) for free with each new class you define. No interfaces to implement. No abstract classes to extend. Persistence that is transparent, automatic, and simple to use: GORM.

The Zen of REST

Google quietly deprecated their SOAP search API at the end of 2006. While this doesn't mean that you should abandon SOAP, it does reflect a growing trend towards simpler dialects of web services. Google joins a number of popular websites (Yahoo, Flickr, YouTube, del.icio.us) that offer all of the benefits of web services without all of the complexity of SOAP.

Enterprise Security with Spring

Spring Security (formerly known as 'Acegi') enables self-contained, consistent, and extensible solutions for securing your applications. Version 2.0 provides major enhancements including a domain-specific XML namespace, convention-based defaulting, and annotation support. This provides a significantly simpler experience for developers while still supporting the same degree of flexibility.

Message Driven POJOs with Spring

Spring 2.0 introduced support for Message-Driven POJOs meaning that it is now possible to receive JMS messages asynchronously and delegate the handling of those messages to simple objects even within a lightweight application running outside of any application server. If your POJO has a return value, it will automatically be sent to a response destination.

Spring 2.0: New and Noteworthy

Spring 2.0 has marked a major advance in the Spring Framework. While still maintaining backwards compatibility, this release adds quite a few new features. What are those features and how do they add value? Come by and see.

In this session we'll provide a practical tour of what's new in Spring 2.0. Spring 1.x users who are looking to upgrade to Spring 2.0 will love this session. If you're not using Spring already, this talk will give a great overview of the things you're missing out by not using Spring 2.0.

Spring MVC Essentials

Spring MVC is a powerful and flexible framework for building web applications. Its interface-based API promotes loose coupling, yet it also offers many convenient base classes for common functionality. Whether you use the base classes or roll your own, you will discover numerous strategies and extension points. This flexibility will be greatly appreciated once you are up to speed, but newcomers often wonder where to begin.

Advanced Selenium

This session discusses advanced Selenium techniques for testing web applications. It discusses techniques for both TestRunner and Remote Control Selenium, including data driven tests, creating branch points, testing Ajax applications, creating flexible tests, integration with continuous integration, and tons more.

Agile Project Management (With Just a Bit About Mingle)

You can read books about Agile projects, but you must consult real-world experience to really understand the dynamics of agile project management. This session discusses agile management topics including estimation, project tracking, and useful metrics (and how to obtain them). And just a little about Mingle, the agile project tracking tool from ThoughtWorks.

Building DSLs in Static and Dynamic Languages

This session discusses building Domain Specific Languages and DSL-style code in Java, Groovy, and Ruby. It discusses the different types of DSLs, details on how to implement them in Java, Groovy, and Ruby, and example problem domains where DSLs make sense.

Debugging and Testing the Web Tier

As out applications have spilled from the server across the wire to the web tier, we increasingly must debug and test in the browser. This session covers debugging and testing tools for clients, JavaScript, and Ajax.

Implementing SOA

This talk avoids SOA hype and gets to the meat of the matter: how do you implement a Service-Oriented Architecture, what are the technological pitfalls, how do you test it, and what traps should you avoid. No marketecture: just implementation details.

Productive Programmer: Acceleration, Focus, and Indirection

This session discusses how to use the Productive Programmer principles of acceleration, focus, and indirection to become a more productive programmer. This session describes these principles, but the primary focus of this session is demonstration of these principles with real-world examples.

Productive Programmer: Automation and Canonicality

This session discusses how to use the Productive Programmer principles of automation and canonicality to become a more productive programmer. This session describes these principles, but the primary focus of this session is demonstration of these principles with real-world examples.

The Productive Programmer: Practice (10 Ways to Improve Your Code)

No one writes perfect code: even the best developers fall into bad habits and traps. These topics from The Productive Programmer illustrate blind spots and helps you write better code.

Ajaxian Faces

JavaServer Faces is a perfect platform for implementing Web 2.0 interfaces with Ajax. This session explores how you can use these two potent technologies--JSF and Ajax--together to create applications that look and behave like desktop applications but run in the browser.

JavaServer Faces: A Whirlwind Tour

In April 2005, annual growth rates for jobs in JavaServer Faces, Struts, and Ruby on Rails were all at about 0%. Today, Struts' growth rate still hovers around 0%, but JSF and Rails have taken off. At the end of 2007, both JSF and Rails were growing at a rate of between 400-500% annually (according to indeed.com).

JSF has passed the adoption tipping point, and is now the Java-based framework of choice, as is evidenced by its ecosystem. From vendors such as MyEclipse and RedHat to open source projects such as Seam, Facelets, and Ajax4JSF, JSF is where the action is.

Come see why JSF is so popular. In this code- and demo-intensive session, I'll show you the fundamentals of JSF.

Prerequisite: Some knowledge of Java-based web applications, such as Struts, is a plus, but is not required. If you have a significant experience with JSF, you probably already know most of what's covered in this session.

Killer JavaScript Frameworks: Prototype, Scriptaculous, and Rico

An introduction to the popular Prototype JavaScript framework, and two frameworks built on top of Prototype: Scriptaculous and Rico.

RAD JSF with Seam, Facelets, and Ajax4jsf, Part One

In this session, see how you can get Ruby On Rails-like productivity on the Java side of the house with this compelling combination of technologies.

RAD JSF with Seam, Facelets, and Ajax4jsf, Part Two

A continuation of a 2-session presentation on Seam, Facelets, and Ajax4jsf.

The Google Web Toolkit, Part One

Developing highly interactive web applications, for the most part requires knowledge of a wide array of technologies: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XMLHttpRequest, JSP, JSF, etc.

With the Google Web Toolkit (GWT), Google turns that notion of development on its head. Instead, you implement Ajax applications by writing almost entirely in Java. You use an AWT-like API, which the Google compiler compiles to JavaScript that runs on the client.

The Google Web Toolkit, Part Two

The second part of a 2-session presentation on the Google Web Toolkit.

Web2.0 and Java

Community, metadata, ranking and websites that grow over time are attributes of Web2.0. What else? Come to Orlando, breath some fresh Florida air and feel the sunshine!. Then, stroll over to the Central Florida Software Symposium and find out. Mike Levin will tell you all about Web2.0 and show you some snippets in Java.

Java6: Exploring Mustang

Mustang, the Java6 release, is out, and even if you're not looking to adopt the new platform right away, it's important to know what's there so you can start to plan for it. In this presentation, we'll go over the major new features of the Java6 platform, including the new integrated XML services capabilities (JAX-WS and JAXB), dynamic/scripting language support (javax.script), new JVM "attach" capabilities, new annotations supported by the javac compiler, and more.

The Busy Java Developer's Guide to Annotations

Want to get the soup-to-nuts story on Java annotations? In this presentation, we'll first talk about what annotations provide to the Java language. After setting ourselves a conceptual basis to operate from, we'll look at the language definition for Java annotations, from how to use them to how to define them. Finally, we'll take a look at the other side of annotations, consuming them at source-level (using "apt", the annotation processing tool), class-level (using a bytecode toolkit such as BCEL), and at runtime (using enhancements to the Reflection API made in Java5).

The Busy Java Developer's Guide to Concurrency (Part 1: Threads)

Java's threading capabilities took a serious turn for the better with the release of Java5, thanks to the incorporation of the java.util.concurrent packages, a set of pre-built components for thread pooling and execution, synchronization, and more.

The Busy Java Developer's Guide to Concurrency (Part 2: Concurrency)

Java's threading capabilities have been a part of the Java platform since its inception, yet for many Java developers, using Threads still remain a dark and mysterious art, and synchronization beyond the use of the "synchronized" keyword is almost unknown.

Prerequisite: The Busy Java Developer's Guide to Concurrency (Part 1: Threads)

The Busy Java Developer's Guide to Java Platform Security

Permissions, policy, SecurityExceptions, oh my! The Java platform is a rich and powerful platform, complete with a rich and powerful security mechanism, but sometimes understanding it and how it works can be daunting and intimidating, and leave developers with the basic impression that it's mysterious and dark and incomprehensible. Nothing could be further from the truth, and in this presentation, we'll take a pragmatic, code-first look at the Java security platform, including Permissions, the SecurityManager and its successor, AccessController, the Policy class and policy file syntax, JAAS, and more.

The Busy Java Developer's Guide to Performance and Scalability

Wondering why your enterprise Java app just... sucks? Trying to figure out why you can't get more than 10 concurrent users online at the same time? Looking for ways to try and spot the slowdowns and ways to fix them?

The Busy Java Developer's Guide to Rules and Rules Engines Using JESS

If you've been keeping your ear to the ground, you may have heard some talk recently about "rules", "business rules" and "rules engines", but not necessarily any clear discussion on what they are, how to use or design them, or why they might be useful or important.

Advanced Java Persistence API (JPA)

This session picks up where the Intro to JPA session left off and covers some of the more advanced topics in the Java Persistence API. Some of the topics covered in this session include switching persistence providers, versioning, compound keys, entity inheritance, and finally handling both simple and complex stored procedures. Some knowledge of JPA is recommended for this session as I will not be covering the basics of JPA (that is covered in a separate Intro to JPA session). Through a combination of slides and interactive coding I will demonstrate these advanced topics using both Hibernate and Toplink JPA.

EJB3 Core Specification (JSR-220)

EJB3 (JSR-220) offers some great improvements over the prior EJB specs in terms of development simplicity and new features. In this session we will explore in detail some of the new features of the core EJB 3 specification. Included in this session will be a hands-on discussion and demonstration of session beans, dependency injection, interceptors (aop), and Message-Driven Beans (MDB). For the interceptors discussion I will be showing how to define interceptors for enabling a method trace, mocking objects, and sending JMS message notifications to be later picked up by the MDBs I will be creating. During the session I will demonstrate the new features of EJB 3 through interactive coding examples. Note: this session does not cover the new Java Persistence API (JPA) - only the core specification.

Intro to Java Persistence API (JPA)

In addition to providing a simplified API, the new EJB3 specification (JSR-220) defines a standard ORM Java Persistence API (JPA) that is rapidly gaining in popularity. As you will see in this session, JPA bears a striking resemblance to popular ORM solutions like Hibernate and Toplink. In this session we will explore in detail the new Java Persistence API offered by JSR-220. We will start by discussing the overall design and architecture of the JPA and how the major components within JPA interact. We will then look at defining mapping objects (entities) and how to use the EntityManager to manage these entities. Through interactive coding examples we will investigate the pros and cons of detached entities and merging, how to map and use entity relationships (1-1, 1-N, N-1, and N-N), discuss Lazy Loading, and finally see how to use XML mappings rather than annotations. More advanced features of JPA will be covered in a separate session.

Java Persistence: Approaching the Silver Bullet

Java Persistence has come along way since the days of straight JDBC coding and custom framework development. We have at our disposal several outstanding open source frameworks such as Hibernate, Toplink, iBatis, and OpenJPA (just to name a few), and we now have a promising and emerging standards-based solution called Java Persistence API (JPA). However, all to often we find in the Java persistence space that it is a world of one-size-does-not-fit-all. We continually struggle with traditional ORM solutions like Hibernate when it comes to reporting queries, complex queries, complex relationships, and stored procedures, and we also struggle with managing the enormous amount of SQL required for solutions such as iBATIS or JDBC-based frameworks. In this coding-intensive session we will take a detailed look at identifying and overcoming the challenges we face when using frameworks such as Hibernate, iBATIS, and JPA, and how to combine the various persistence frameworks to create an effective Java persistence solution that approaches (but of course does not reach) the silver bullet.

Making Architecture Work Through Agility

As companies continue to change the way they do business, so must the IT systems that support the business. Changes due to regulatory requirements, competitive advantage, mergers, acquisitions, and industry trends require flexible IT systems to meet the demands of the business. Software Architects must therefore make their architectures more agile to meet the flexible demands of today's business. Through real-world examples and scenarios we will explore some of the challenges facing Software Architecture and discuss several concrete techniques for applying agility to both the architecture process and the technical architecture itself. We will also look at various architecture refactoring techniques, and discuss the pros and cons of each. By attending this session you will learn how to apply various agile techniques to improve your architectures and overcome some of the challenges facing software architecture in today's ever-changing market.

The Enterprise Service Bus: Do We Really Need It?

There has been a significant amount of buzz in the community and industry about the definition and role of an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), particularly within the area of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). In this product-agnostic high energy session we will take a step back and consider whether we really need an ESB. Through real-world application and architecture scenarios we will see where an ESB would be helpful and where it would be overkill. We will take a look under the hood and find out just what an ESB is really doing, and take a quick look at JBI (JSR-208) and see the impact it has on the ESB worls. Then, using product-agnostic coding examples we will learn what an Enterprise Service Bus is supposed to do, then answer the question about whether the ESB is just a bunch of hype or if we really need it.

Building ChangingThePresent: Agility in Action

ChangingThePresent is the increasingly popular charity donations portal that lets you give donation gifts instead of another pair of fuzzy slippers. The site is built and maintained under unusual circumstances. The team is distributed, with no more than two developers in any one place. The team uses agile techniques such as automated testing, heavy customer involvement, and a SCRUM-like release plan to deliver the core features.

Effective Teams

Most conferences will try to tell you that the secret to good software development lies with a process, or a technology, or an architecture. Here's a dirty little secret. You can build working software with an outdated two tier archtiecture, a waterfall process and COBOL. How? By building a great team. These techniques were used to build one of the most unique and complex up and coming Ruby on Rails sites.

Rails for Java Programmers

The productivity of Ruby on Rails cannot be denied, but the explosion of Ruby on Rails left many developers, with hard commitments to Java deployment platforms, out in the cold. The continued evolution of JRuby can change that. JRuby is a Ruby implementation on the Java virtual machine. And yes, it runs Rails. In this session, you will learn Rails as it was meant to be learned, within the context of building a live site, from scratch.

Ruby for Java programmers

With the explosion of Ruby on Rails and the Java community interest in features like closures and continuations, the Ruby programming language is an excellent one for all developers to know. As the JRuby virtual machine picks up steam, Ruby becomes a must language to understand. The best way to learn Ruby is to see it in action.