On Tuesday, the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) sent out a graduation announcement of sorts. The Apache Olingo project, which provides generic Java and JavaScript libraries designed to implement the OASIS Open Data Protocol (OData), has had a status upgrade from Incubator to Top-Level-Project (TLP).
Olingo is a standardized protocol for creating and consuming data APIs. By implementing OData, which is REST-based and uses HTTP, AtomPub and JSON, Olingo is able to use uniform resource identifiers (URIs) to connect with feed resources. The aim is to simplify the querying and sharing of data across disparate apps in the enterprise, the cloud, and on mobile devices. Using OData makes it possible for Olingo to provide a uniform way to expose full-featured data APIs.
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Posted by John K. Waters on April 9, 20140 comments
News about Java Specification Requests (JSRs) don't usually make it to the front page, but the announcement that JSR-107, the spec request for a Java Temporary Caching API, better known as JCache, has earned final approval should be top-of-the-fold news -- if for no other reason than the time it took to get there.
The JCache project summary explains that the spec standardizes in-process caching of Java objects "in a way that allows an efficient implementation, and removes from the programmer the burden of implementing cache expiration, mutual exclusion, spooling, and cache consistency."
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Posted by John K. Waters on March 25, 20140 comments
The big news at the latest edition of EclipseCon North America, which wrapped up in San Francisco on Thursday, was Oracle's Java 8 announcements. The conference planners devoted an entire day at the show to Java 8 (George Saab's opening presentation on "Java Day" was standing room only). The Foundation itself is providing Java 8 language support as an add-on to the Eclipse IDE.
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Posted by John K. Waters on March 21, 20140 comments
The delays are over, the final approvals are in, and the general availability release of the Java Platform, Standard Edition, 8 (Java SE 8) is right around the corner. What has been called a revolutionary upgrade of one of the world's leading software development platforms is due on March 18. Mark Reinhold, chief architect in Oracle's platform group, has described Java SE 8 as the largest ever upgrade in the history of Java, covering the programming model, as well as a "carefully coordinated co-evolution" of the virtual machine, the language, and the libraries.
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Posted by John K. Waters on March 12, 20140 comments
The long awaited, much anticipated release of Java SE 8 is nearly upon us. March 18th is the official release date, though numerous "launches" and other events will follow. A lot of work went into this release, with contributions coming from many quarters -- including Java User Groups (JUGs) around the world who participated in the Adopt-a-JSR program.
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Posted by John K. Waters on March 12, 20140 comments
There was a time when enterprise application development teams simple threw their code over the wall to the people charged with the task of localizing it. Those days are fading, of course; software developers in medium to large companies have been generating ever greater percentages of their organizations' revenues outside the West for the past decade. And the pressure to "go global" faster is ever increasing.
Consequently, say the industry watchers at the Cambridge, Mass.-based research firm Common Sense Advisory, it's time for the team responsible for adapting U.S.-made software to other languages and cultures (a process called localization) to join the Agile team.
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Posted by John K. Waters on March 7, 20140 comments
I've been covering tech trade shows and user conferences for more than two decades, and last week's RSA conference was the first in my experience to include a comedic keynoter who actually understood the technology and the issues surrounding it. Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," gave the conference closer in San Francisco on Friday to a packed house, and killed.
"RSA developed this conference in 1991 as a forum for cryptographers to gather and talk shop," Colbert said, "and I assume breed with one another. Of course officially that's called exchanging private keys."
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Posted by John K. Waters on March 3, 20140 comments
It's been a while since I attended a conference keynote presented by a speaker as apparently pissed off as Nawaf Bitar, senior vice president and general manager at Juniper Networks. His RSA Conference talk, entitled "The Next World War Will be Fought in Silicon Valley," was seasoned with infuriation and rife with get-off-your-butt admonitions.
"Our privacy is being invaded," he said. "Our intellectual property is being stolen. The public trust is at an all-time low. The attack on our information is outrageous. But you know what? I don't think we give a damn. I'm fed up with talking about outrage. It's easy to talk about outrage."
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Posted by John K. Waters on February 26, 20140 comments