Java George

Many developers are discovering that the front end of a Web application can be a dangerous trap. Sure, it seems simple at first: just grab one of the HTML application development tools and knock out a quick front end and connect to the tool's back end. This works well as long as the application remains a simple HTML application that isn't going anywhere. But, developers are quickly discovering that what begins, say, as a simple little intranet application becomes so popular that suddenly people are clamoring to put it onto the extranet, and even on the Internet where it can be accessed by the general public. As soon as the developer tries to redeploy the application, he or she falls into the front-end trap. The nice, clean, simple little HTML front end connecting to some tool's proprietary Web application back end can't support the functionality required for new de... (more)

Getting SQL Results From An Application Server

The way some people hobble their application servers, you'd think they considered the server as pointless middleware. Most Java developers, however, want to unleash their application servers to do right by their applications. "Doing right" in application-server terms means getting the stuff an application needs from various sources and delivering stuff from the application. When talking about data sources, getting and delivering corresponds to reading and writing data. In general terms, application servers get and deliver stuff to three broad classes of systems: relational databas... (more)

Java - Into Its 4th Year: Part Two

Networked Applications Bring Distributed Computing to Life Never has distributed computing been as commonplace as it is in these days of Web applications or Networked Applications. The requirements on such applications for distributed processing across multiple servers has brought distributed objects into the mainstream. In the beginning of Java there was the home-grown approach. Certainly, there are plenty who have ventured down the road of establishing a TCP-IP socket from a Java client in order to remote control a related Java process on a server to get remote processing. We we... (more)

COBOL to the Rescue

Got a call from Pam the other day. She is an eminently successful marketing person who has hit a couple of startups and has the Porsche Cabriolet to prove it. I don't know what Pam does, but she seems to be at every trade show and memorizes the hot buzz words before they are hot. I guess she feels sorry for me because I hear from her about every six months, when a new software trend is emerging and when I am in the job market. "Hey, Joe!" I heard on the other end of my phone line. My head was still reeling from a day of job interviews. "It's me, Pam." Pam is much too happy to be... (more)

The Quest

Old Joe here is cranking up his network. My current employer, once described as the next Netscape, is turning into the next Borland. My team is bailing out and I can't give them any good reasons to stay. Now it is my turn to pull the ripcord. It happens a lot. Company didn't make the IPO window, the promotion to director never happened after your beta test crashed "Byte Magazine"'s entire network, whatever. Blame it on Karma, blame it on Bill Gates, but it is time to move on. Got a call from two Java programmers I know. They are so different, I refer to them as Ying and Yang. Y... (more)