The lightweight Web framework for Kotlin and Java known as Javalin reached a milestone with the release of version 2.0 last week -- and then promptly issued a point release (v2.1) this week, underscoring the growing popularity of this type of minimalist framework in general and the momentum of this project in particular.
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Posted by John K. Waters on August 28, 20180 comments
The nominations for the 16th annual Duke's Choice Awards closed this week. The winners will be announced at The Developer Conference Formerly Known as JavaOne in October. (Okay, it's Oracle Code One. I'll get used to it eventually.)
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Posted by John K. Waters on August 14, 20180 comments
The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has been working hard on its first release of the NetBeans IDE since Oracle contributed the popular software development environment to the ASF in October 2016. The community has finally given a thumbs up to Apache NetBeans 9.0. All that's left is the tabulation of a final vote by the project management committee (PMC), the compilation of the results of a community survey, and the final vote by the incubator managers.
The ASF has gathered the final vote by the Podling Project Management Committee (PPMC) -- essentially, a group of community members charged with helping a nascent project, called a "podling," learn how to govern itself. According to the ASF, a PPMC works like a regular PMC, but reports to the Incubator PMC instead of the ASF Board. Initially, this group includes the podling's mentors and initial committers. The PPMC is directly responsible for the oversight of the podling, and it also decides who to add as a PPMC member. (Click here to read the related Apache NetBeans dev mail thread.)
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Posted by John K. Waters on July 25, 20180 comments
The annual Eclipse Release Train chugged out of the station right on time again this year, with 85 projects in tow, but with this release, the Eclipse Foundation threw a switch (pardon the tortured metaphor) that put the train on a much faster track. The new quarterly rolling release cadence, announced today, is more of a rebranding of a process started last year with the quarterly point releases of the Oxygen Release Train.
The Foundation's executive director, Mike Milinkovich, characterized the change as "the end of an era." And it has been a remarkable run: 13 years without a miss. That's a tough act to follow, and yet the Foundation actually raised the bar for itself with the new quarterly coordinated release schedule. And they did it while taking on responsibility for enterprise Java.
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Posted by John K. Waters on June 27, 20180 comments
Last month, Oracle's chief architect, Mark Reinhold, said during a conference Q&A that one of Oracle's long-term goals is to change the way Java handles object serialization. In fact, he called the decision to adopt the current serialization feature a "horrible mistake," and a virtually endless source of security vulnerabilities.
Java object serialization is the process of converting an object into a stream of bytes for transport and storage. Oracle is currently planning to develop a plugin mechanism that will allow developers to choose a serialization format, such as XML, JSON, YAML. They'll also be able to choose the existing native serialization. Oracle says it is also developing a new, safe serialization format based on a new language feature called data classes, which is part of the project Amber.
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Posted by John K. Waters on June 11, 20180 comments
So much has happened in the enterprise Java space over the past few months that it kind of boggles the mind. Fortunately, the rockstars, gurus and industry watchers have been busily sorting out the whats and wherefores of this epic transformation in the blogosphere. (You thought it was just me, right?) Seems like a good time to pass along a bit of that wisdom with some recommended reading.
Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, should definitely go first here, because his was the calm and experienced voice in the middle of the early dear-god-don't-call-it-EE4J storm. His writing on the Eclipse Foundation's "Life at Eclipse" blog provided the urgently needed clarity of facts as the process of moving Java EE from Oracle to his organization stirred a blinding cloud of rumors and fears. His blog was also often interactive, a place where the new regime reached out to the community for its opinions and concerns, at times literally surveying the people most directly affected by the changes. One of my fav posts: "On Complexity and Good Intentions." (Great title, too.)
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Posted by John K. Waters on May 30, 20180 comments
The Eclipse Foundation today unveiled its game plan for Jakarta EE, published the results of a community survey on the future of that technology platform, and explained the open source governance model it will use to manage its development going forward.
It almost goes without saying that taking over the responsibility for the development of enterprise Java is an enormous undertaking. But I didn't realize until I spoke with the Foundation's executive director, Mike Milinkovich, that his organization would also be taking over the responsibilities of the Java Community Process (JCP), guiding and approving the Jakarta EE technical specifications going forward.
I talked with Milinkovich about these changes last week.
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Posted by John K. Waters on April 24, 20180 comments
The annual RSA Conference gets under way next week in San Francisco, which means the Moscone Center will be packed with infosec mavens from "the frontlines of the cybersecurity landscape." (So cool.)
The speaker list includes Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Christopher D. Young, CEO at McAfee, and RSA President Rohit Ghai. And topping my list of presentations: "The Five Most Dangerous New Attack Techniques, and What's Coming Next."
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Posted by John K. Waters on April 11, 20180 comments
Now that Oracle has handed off the technology formerly known as Java Enterprise Edition to the Eclipse Foundation, and the resulting EE4J Project will be developing that technology rebranded as Jakarta EE, I can't help wondering what will become of the group of enterprise Java jocks that, arguably, made this transition happen.
It was two years ago last month that the Java EE Guardians formally announced themselves, though its founding members had been meeting quietly for months before that. The group led a very public push to get Oracle to attend to its duties as steward of enterprise Java. Its members assembled and published evidence to support their assertion that Java EE is critical technology that needed more attention from Oracle. They launched a Web site, published a letter to the execs at Redwood Shores, followed up with a petition demanding action, and just generally became a thorn in Big Red's side.
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Posted by John K. Waters on April 11, 20180 comments