IndicThreads.com Enterprise Java Portal - Interviews With Java Experts

JavaFX Is Many Times Faster And Easier Than Swing

Jim Weaver, one of the best known names in the JavaFX world talks to IndicThreads about JavaFX Script, where it stands today, how it compares to other RIA technologies and where JavaFX looks headed. Jim gives us an overview of the development cycle for a JavaFX Script application. He also talks about the benefits of using JavaFX and the challenges faced in its adoption.

Google Web Toolkit isn't just another way to create mediocre Ajax applications

Bruce Johnson, Project Lead of The Google Web Toolkit (GWT) talks to IndicThreads about the GWT framework, it's capabilities, the team mission and more. He talks about how GWT helps developers build high-end Ajax applications using Java and without worrying about the cross-browser quirks.

With Direct Web Remoting (DWR) unnecessary complexity is a bug

Direct Web Remoting (DWR) creator Joe Walker talks to IndicThreads about Ajax toolkits for Java, the capabilities of DWR and the new features lined up. He feels that the key differentiator for DWR as an Ajax framework is that it is mostly about remoting and not widgets. He adds that one of the important benefits of using DWR is that unlike many other frameworks, DWR will fit with any project without the need to start from scratch.

Grails is a breath of fresh air for Java developers

Grails creator Graeme Rocher tells us what's special about the web framework and how it offers developers the best of the Java and the scripting world.

He also talks of how Groovy and Grails complement Java and also when it would be madness to think of using a scripting language over a language like Java.

Eclipse is focused on closing in on Visual Studio - Switching campaigns are for market followers

Java development tools affect and interest every Java developer, and Eclipse is easily the most commonly used development tool.

On 7th Nov 06, Eclipse celebrates its 5th birthday, and on this occassion IndicThreads spoke to Mike Milinkovich, the executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. Mike took charge in June 2004 and has been instrumental in driving Eclipse adoption.

Mike talks about the current state of Eclipse and what to expect from it in the near future. He also shares his thoughts on Eclipse adoption and how Eclipse enables development of innovative software solutions. As for competition from other IDEs and the NetBeans switch campaign, he says "Switching campaigns are what the market followers do. WeÂre frankly more focused on closing in on the adoption and usage rates of Visual Studio"

Swing UI is mature while Ajax is still in its infancy

Suggest Ajax web development to a Java UI developer and you will invariably get the question "Why not Java RIA? I can do all this and more with Swing."Â Is Swing as good as if not better than Ajax?

Marc Domenig, the CEO of Canoo has been in the Java RIA business for years. In this interview he talks about the Rich Internet Applications (RIA) space and why despite the hype around Ajax, Java Swing can be a much better option.

All Ajax development can happen serverside using the Backbase framework and JSF

The Ajax wave has led to the emergence of several Ajax frameworks over the past year or so, each promising to make Ajax development simple and reliable. So while developers are just about coming to terms with the concept of Ajax, they now encounter the question of which Ajax framework to use.
Backbase is one of the leaders in the Ajax market, with specialized Ajax offerings for Java as well as .NET.
In this interview Mark Schiefelbein of Backbase talks about various Ajax application development issues like security and compatibility. He also tells us about the features of Backbase's product as compared to other Ajax frameworks.

Why is open source so successful? Why should I contribute to open source?

Ted Leung recently shared his thoughts on open source with PythonThreads.com. Ted is an open source veteran and has been involved in open source initially via the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), and now the Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF). He is the author of the book Professional XML Development with Apache Tools.
As a follow up to this interview, do have a look at Henri Yandell's interview "Open-Source keeps me 'coding fit'"

Pure Ajax creates the next generation legacy applications

Ajax has been in the limelight for over an year. While interest in the technology is high, there's still large scale ignorance as regards Ajax solutions that can be implemented in Java applications.

In this interview we speak to Jonas Jacobi, who is an expert in Ajax and JSF. Jonas has some great suggestions on Ajax adoption and also points out common pitfalls that we might ignore in our excitement to adopt Ajax asap.

Test Driven Development doesn't fit my brain

Titus Brown is a well known name in the Python community. Apart from his work in Python, he is also a speaker on Agile development. In a recent interview with PythonThreads.com, he shared his thoughts on agile and test driven development.

The good and bad of XP and Agile notions of software testing

XP and Agile techniques not only have an impact on the way you develop software but also on the way the software is tested. While there are some who are excited about XP notions of 100% Test automation, there are others who feel that such an approach does not work in the real world.

Jonathan Kohl talks at length about the good and bad of the XP and Agile notions of software testing. Jonathan is a well known writer on software testing issues and has worked extensively as a tester on conventional software projects as well as scrum and extreme programming (XP) teams. He also shares his views on Ruby and the Ruby based Watir testing tool.

Groovy bridges the scripting and the enterprise Java worlds

Scripting / agile / dynamic languages for Java have been around for some time. However they seem to be getting more attention lately, because of the growing popularity of languages like Ruby and frameworks like Ruby On Rails. So the Java community looks hungry for an alternative to Ruby On Rails and a scripting language that it can easily adopt using Java knowledge. Enter Groovy and Grails.

In this interview, we speak to Guillaume Laforge, the project manager for Groovy and the initiator of Grails. Guillaume sounds very excited about the features of the Groovy language and he also feels that Grails which was originally "Groovy On Rails" is the ROR alternative for Java that the community has been looking for.

Do share your thoughts on scripting and groovy using the comments form on the last page of this interview.

Struts Action Framework 2.0 should be released by August 2006

If there's one thing the Java community has an addiction for, it's frameworks. There are 100s of Java frameworks and surprisingly there's even a passionate community of users behind many. However only a handful of frameworks have made it big. Struts and WebWork figure in that list.

The two frameworks recently announced their plans to merge into Struts Ti / Struts Action Framework 2.0, which has resulted in some anxiety and uncertainty in both communitites.

In this interview we speak to Patrick Lightbody, project lead for WebWork and now a committer at Apache Struts. He answers several WebWork + Struts queries and also talks about Ajax frameworks and Ajax support in WebWork. The interview concludes with Patrick's thoughts on Ruby on Rails and its relevance to the Java community.

Let Java retire from the spotlight of web applications in dignity

Java enthusiasts today seems to have a love-hate relationship with Ruby and Ruby on Rails. While there are some who feel it's over hyped, there are others who feel that Rails is the coolest web application development technology of our times. So who better to talk about Ruby on Rails and Java than the creator of ROR, David Heinemeier Hansson.

In this interview with Satish Talim, David talks about the growth of Rails and its features. He also tells us why Rails is relevant to Java developers and something Java developers need to look at right away.

Ajax technologies aren't particularly new or sexy

In this interview, Dave Crane not only talks about Ajax but also about how Ajax can fit into the kind of applications and frameworks we are used to working with today. He also tells us why he feels Ajax has become so popular in such a short time and what lies in the future for Java based Ajax development.Dave is the author of "Ajax in Action" and has been working with Ajax technologies for several years.

IndicThreads >> Hi Dave. Congratulations on the publication of your book “Ajax In Action”. Could you tell us a little more about yourself and your involvement in Ajax?

Programmers lose because they are unwilling to learn any skill beyond the technical

Christopher Duncan is the author of the groundbreaking books, "The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World" and "Unite the Tribes Ending Turf Wars for Career and Business Success". In this interview he talks about and provides solutions to a variety of issues that software professionals face everyday. He also touches on how a software programmer needs to change his perspective to not only ensure that he succeeds but also help his organization do better.

NetBeans was the early bird but has Eclipse caught the worm?

Rich Unger is currently on the NetBeans Governance Board and has been a contributor to NetBeans for several years. He was honored at this year's NetBeans Software Day for his valuable contribution to the NetBeans platform.

In this interview Rich talks about NetBeans 5.0, NetBeans Profiler and the changing Java IDE market. He shares his views on plugin development for the NetBeans platform and on Eclipse. He also elaborates on why he thinks the field is wide open for client frameworks for desktop java apps and how it could come down to Swing vs SWT.

Why pick JTiger Java Unit Testing Framework over good old JUnit?

When it comes to unit testing in java, one framework prominently comes in mind i.e. JUnit. But there's a new kid on the block that offers more. It's the JTiger Unit Testing Framework for Java 2 Standard Edition 1.5.

In this interview, Tony Morris, the creator of JTiger talks about unit testing, JTiger and how it is different from other unit testing frameworks - especially JUnit.

JDeveloper is the most comprehensive Java IDE available

Oracle's recent announcement that JDeveloper 10g will now be available free of cost, has sparked a lot of fresh interest in the IDE. In this interview we speak to someone who is in a great position to tell us more about JDeveloper and Oracle's other products for the Java community.

In this interview, Roel Stalman states that JDeveloper won't be moving to Eclipse or any other IDE platform. He also tells us what's planned for JDeveloper and Oracle Application Development Framework, and shares his thoughts on topics like EJB 3.0, AJAX, BPEL and JSF.

The future of the Java platform lies in the mobile world

John Zukowski is a writer and developer specializing in Java and related Web technologies. He has used Java and written about it right from the very beginning. He is the author of several books on Java and has written over 200 articles on Java related subjects. He was part of the Expert group for JSR 176: J2SE 5.0 (Tiger) Release.

In this interview, John speaks about how the Java language has evolved over the past 10 years. He tells us what he likes in J2SE 5 and about the future of Java in the mobile world. John recently published a book on Swing and he shares his thought about Swing GUI and compares Swing with alternative GUI technologies.

>> Books by John Zukowski