VP of Developer Relations, Curl Inc.
Richard. Monson-Haefel is the author of five best-selling editions of Enterprise JavaBeans (O'Reilly), J2EE Web Services (Addison-Wesley), and the coauthor of Java Message Service (O'Reilly). He served on the JCP Executive Committee, which oversees the JSRs (specifications) developed for the J2SE and J2EE platforms. He also served on the Groovy (JSR-241), J2EE 1.4 (JSR-151), EJB 2.1 (JSR-153) and EJB 3.0 (JSR 220) expert groups for the Java Community Process. Richard was a founder of the Apache J2EE Application Server Project (Geronimo) and the OpenEJB project - an open source EJB container. Richard was a Sr. Analyst for Burton Group covering open source, Java EE, RIA/Ajax, mobile development, and other topics for 4 years. Today, Richard is the Vice President of Developer Relations at Curl, Inc.Presentations by Richard Monson-Haefel
10 Things Every Software Architect Should Know
An effective software architect understands that every application is different and requires unique choices regarding programming language, middleware, integration, data access, user interface design, etc. Richard Monson-Haefel has distilled knowledge from his own experience and from personal interviews with the World's best software architects to define 10 principles every software architect should know in order to be effective.Understanding Open Source Licensing
What does GPL, LGPL, MIT, Apache licenses, copy left, and dual licensing mean? Richard Monson-Haefel explains both the legal and technical implications of the major open source licenses in plain English. He explains when and how you can use open source in the enterprise and in the development of software products and how to protect your organization from abusing open source licensing.Developing Rich Internet Applications
With literally hundreds of RIA products (e.g., Adobe Flash, Nexaweb, Backbase) and open source Ajax projects (e.g. Dojo, GWT, Prototype) to choose from. Picking the right RIA technology for the job requires months of research. Richard Monson-Haefel has been researching and writing about RIA alternatives for two years and has already done the research so you don't have to.Books by Richard Monson-Haefel
by Richard Monson-Haefel
- J2EE? Web Services is a comprehensive guide to developing and deploying Web services using J2EE technology. Concentrating on standards sanctioned by the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) for maximum interoperability, the author delves into Web-service standards and the J2EE 1.4 Web-service APIs and components with clear and engaging discussions.
- Available At: http://www.amazon.com/J2EE-Web-Services-SOAP-JAX-RPC/dp/0321..
by Richard Monson-Haefel & Dave Chappell
- This book is a thorough introduction to Java Message Service (JMS) from Sun Microsystems. It shows how to build applications using the point-to-point and publish-and-subscribe models; use features like transactions and durable subscriptions to make applications reliable; and use messaging within Enterprise JavaBeans. It also introduces a new EJB type, the MessageDrivenBean, that is part of EJB 2.0, and discusses integration of messaging into J2EE.
- Available At: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/javmesser/index.html
by Richard Monson-Haefel & Bill Burke
- This fifth edition, written by Bill Burke and Richard Monson-Haefel, has been updated to capture the very latest need-to-know Java technologies in the same award-winning fashion that drove the success of the previous four editions. Its easy-to-follow style and hundreds of practical examples help you simplify the complex world of EJB - without the costly trial and error.
- Available At: http://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-JavaBeans-3-0-Bill-Burke/dp..
The Clever Monkey
Richard Monson-Haefel, Sr. Analyst for Burton Group
Monday, February 4, 2008
I'm really looking forward to joining the No Fluff Just Stuff (NFJS) symposium series this year. I originally joined the tour back in 2003 before starting work at Burton Group, but I haven't participated since. The NFJS is a traveling developers workshop that visits something like 20 cities in the United States over the course of a year. They have always had great presenters and most people agree that its one of the best developer conferences available today. Here is a list of past presenters I worked with in 2003:- Dave Thomas
- Ted Neward
- Bruce Snyder
- David Geary
- Howard Ship
- Matt Raible
- Ron Bodkin
- Stuart Halloway
- Tom Mars
- Ben Galberath
- Dion Almer
- Eric Meyer
If you have never attended a NFJS show, I highly recommend it. They hold it on Friday afternoon through Sunday ? so it doesn?t disrupt your day job. The show itself has traditionally had a Java focus and that hasn't changed. They do however branch out into things like Ruby on Rails and Ajax. What I like about the show is that's its fairly small with something like 100 ? 300 attendees. That means each session is intimate allowing the speakers to really connect with the attending developers. Getting back in touch with the development community is important to me.
I'll be giving six 90-minute presentations at each show (I've tentatively agreed to do nearly all of the shows this year). Over the course of the year the topics will probably change but for the first couple of shows I'll be presenting on EJB 3.0, JPA, JMS, Open Source Licensing, 10 tips for Architects, and Rich Internet Applications. I hope to add a couple of sessions on Curl before too long ? its too cool of a platform to ignore.
My first NFJS conference will be the weekend of March 1st in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. You can learn more about the NFJS symposium and the cities we'll be visiting checking out the NFJS site.
Friday, February 1, 2008
It's funny how people react when you tell them you've left a great job for something totally different. In my case, some of my friends think I've gone nuts. The conversation usally goes something like this:Friend: So let me get this straight. You joined a RIA company that is very new to the U.S. It a proprietary technology based on a browser plug-in and they've hired you, an EJB guy, to help them compete here in the U.S. against Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flex?
Me: Well, I'm not just an "EJB guy", but yeah that's about right.
Friend: That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. What's the Hell is wrong with you? Are you nuts?!
Me: Probably.
What my friends don't understand is that Curl really is the best RIA technology out there. I know, I've been researching and writing about RIA for close to three years. I know all the commercial vendors, most of the Ajax open source frameworks (160+), and I understand the market.
Here is my opinion of what is happening right now.
- There are too many Ajax frameworks which creates a tyranny of choice for enterprise developers.
- Folks are seriously considering proprietary RIA technologies (e.g. Flex, Silverlight, Curl) over open source solutions.
- Good tooling, comprehensive APIs, and ease-of-learning are finally being valued over hype.
You don't have to go along with the crowd. Take a stand, get crazy and choose the best technology rather than the one you hear about the most. If you know nothing about Curl than you owe it to yourself and your customers to check it out. I'm convinced that if you do, you'll discover what I did. Curl is the best RIA solution available today.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
WebSphere Journal has an interesting article that predicts that 2008 will be the "Perfect Storm" for RIA technologies. I couldn't agree more! In fact I would call the coming year absolutely pivotal to commercial and non-commercial RIA providers.2008 Is a "Perfect Storm" for Rich Internet Applications
? 'Which RIA platform to choose? Whichever one can deliver the best functionality combined with industrial-strength reliability, performance, and scalability will win the race.' That, in the view of Bert Halstead, is the long and the short of it. And many of his fellow executives in the Rich Internet Applications business agreee.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
People (i.e. clever monkeys) are the most important "asset" of any organization. It's people who decide what products and services to sell. It's people who design the products and services, create marketing campaigns, and handle business operations. People are the platform on which every organization runs. This establishes the first axiom of the "People are the Platform"1st Axiom: An organization is only as good as its people.
This first axiom dictates that having more productive and effective people translates into a more competitive business. How do you make your people more effective and productive? There are two ways: Social engineering and technology. Social engineering is all that soft-and-fuzzy stuff like interpersonal communication, group dynamics, leadership and so on. I know next to nothing about social engineering so I'm going to focus on technology - something I understand a little better.
In addition to tools (e.g. stapler or hammer) and machinery (e.g. injection modes, trucks, robots), its information technology that makes people more productive and effective. Companies didn't adopt information technology over the past 50 years for the fun of it. We need it. Information technology makes us more productive and effective and therefor more competitive. This establish a second axiom of the "People are the platform"
2nd Axiom: Information technology helps people be more effective and productive.
If the strength of an organization depends on its people and its people are made stronger through information technology then information technology is as critical the success of an organization as are the people that use it. Use it. Use IT. Usage of IT is the key to the third axiom of "People are the platform"
3rd Axiom: Information technology is only as useful as it is usable.
Usability is a term that is given a lot of lip service but is, at best, poorly understood by 99% of the clever monkeys that depend on it. Wikipedia provides an pretty good definition:
"Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal."
The easier an IT system is to use the more productive are the people that use it. This can only mean one thing: The usability of IT is critical to the success of an organization. This establishes the 4th and final axiom of "People are the platform" and brings us full-circle.
4th Axiom: An organization is only as good as its IT systems are usable.
If you have great people and fantastic information technology, but your user interface to that technology sucks - your business will suck. If people cannot easily input and extract information from your IT systems, they are going to be less productive and effective and your organization is going to be less competitive.
The foundation of "People are the platform" is that people, information technology, and user experience (i.e. IT usability) are all critical to the success and competitiveness of an organization. Remove or ignore any one of these three pillars (i.e. people, IT, usability) and you've made your organization less competitive.
Usability has largely been ignored by organizations in preference to IT, but IT is only as useful as it is usable (3rd Axiom). Luckily the playing field remains very even despite the fact that user experience is largely ignored because everyone is ignoring it. It's as if everyone is playing Chess without a Queen. No one misses what no one has.
The organizations that figure out that usability (aka User Experience) should be a 1st order priority will dominate their niche of industry - assuming they are also competitive in terms of people and IT.
User Experience is one area in which organizations can focus energy and gain a true competitive advantage. It's the easiest area to work on because no one pays it much attention. Everyone is focused on an acquiring the best people (a scarce resource) or the IT arms race.
If you are tired of fighting over the best people and sick of trying to keep up with the blistering rate of change in IT, try focusing on IT usability. Make your people, on which your organization depends, more productive and effective. Focus on IT usability and you'll be the only one playing Chess with a Queen.
