Features

JavaOne 2008: Uncommon Java Bugs

Fri, 16 May 2008 11:45:00 EDT

Any large Java source base can have insidious and subtle bugs. Every experienced Java programmer knows that finding and fixing these bugs can be difficult and costly. Fortunately, there are a large number of free open source Java tools available that can be used to find and fix defects early in the development life cycle. In this article, we'll look at a few examples of specific uncommon[1] or unusual defects that can happen in code and see how different Java static analysis tools detect them.

Open Source & Commercial Software: Both Are Crucial

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:45:00 EDT

Is software development a science or an art? The software industry treats it as a science. It uses processes like MRDs, PRDs, and functional specs to convert customer needs into software that solves their problems. Various roles like product managers, engineering managers, project managers, architects, and programmers work together to drive the process like an efficient machine.

Engelbart's Usability Dilemma: Efficiency vs Ease-of-Use

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:15:00 EDT

The mouse was the original idea of Doug Engelbart who was the head of the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at Stanford Research Institute. Engelbart's philosophy is best embodied, in my opinion, in the design of another device that he invented, the five-finger keyboard - with keys like a piano, used by one hand. The problem was, Engelbart's five-finger keyboard and mouse combination was very difficult to learn.

The 'Best of Both Worlds': Running Fedora 8 on Legacy Windows XP

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:00:00 EDT

One of the beauties of Linux from a business point of view is that it doesn't require the 'latest and greatest' hardware to run properly. This means you can increase the return on investments (ROI) for legacy hardware. As I'll show in this article, as in the case with virtualization, the 'latest and greatest' software is not required either.

The Greatest IT Bottleneck of Them All Is Finally Falling: Vendor Lock-in

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 05:45:00 EST

One of the most exciting things about the software industry is how fast it moves. Software is constantly optimizing itself around the state-of-the-art. Inherent industry bottlenecks change cyclically every five years or so. Architectures and solutions change too. CPUs too costly? Enter dumb terminals. Network running slow? Build client/servers.

Service Management and Enterprise Architecture

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:00:00 EST

Governance is currently a key topic for many IT functions. Its definition varies, but its key themes are true for all companies: effectiveness, efficiency, and reliability. Business value and risk mitigation are also at its center and represent a significant part of enterprise governance overall.

A Practitioner's Approach to IA-64 Linux Migration

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:15:00 EST

High-performance databases are optimized for transaction processing and used by several industries around the world, notably financial services and health care. They are more commonly available on 32-bit Unix platforms (Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and Linux). The trend is to 64-bit-enable them and migrate them to the IA-64 architecture.

Building SOA with Tuscany SCA

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 08:30:00 EST

Many articles have already been written about service-oriented architecture (SOA) and Service Component Architecture (SCA), for example, see references [1] and [2]. In this article we'll focus on a freely available, open source implementation of the Service Component Architecture that provides a simple way to implement SOA solutions. This SCA implementation is being developed in the Apache Tuscany Incubator project. The project started in 2006 and is being used by many who are looking for a simple SOA infrastructure. The recent Tuscany SCA version 1.0, which was released in September 2007, supports the Service Component Architecture specifications 1.0.

How Open Is "Open"? – Industry Luminaries Join the Debate

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 05:00:00 EST

In order to describe itself as an 'open source' company, need a company merely be 'a company that will help you make the switch to open source in your company' - or does it have to be one that lets users feely download, compile, and use the software in question? Where is the dividing line? How open is 'open'? At Enterprise Open Source Magazine we contacted a range of FOSS luminaries for their take on the issue.

The Development Power of Open Source AJAX Tooling

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 14:00:00 EST

Understanding the complexity of AJAX at the browser level is critical to refining and debugging rich AJAX applications that leverage Web technologies such as JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and XMLHttpRequests. Adding a third-party AJAX runtime heightens the complexity and sufficient browser tooling becomes critical when attempting to build a rich Internet application around existing libraries. The Eclipse AJAX Toolkit Framework (ATF) provides both a multi-faceted set of browser tooling features as well as support for integrating and building on existing AJAX runtimes.

ATTAP Technologies Introduces Open Source Toolkit Jitsu

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 16:15:00 EDT

The team at ATTAP Technologies announced that it is previewing Jitsu, a new web-development framework. Jitsu is an open source user-interface toolkit that enables developers to build and deploy sophisticated user interfaces for web applications. Jitsu tools include an XML markup language, a page compiler, a client-side data binding engine, JavaScript runtime, control and cross-platform libraries, an animation engine, and Ajax support.

Open Source Red Hat Announces OVAL Security Compatibility

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 12:30:00 EDT

Red Hat , provider of open source solutions to the enterprise, announced compatibility certification with Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language definitions for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4 security advisories. Red Hat will now produce and support OVAL patch definitions to provide a structured and machine-readable version of advisories, allowing OVAL-compatible tools to accurately test for the presence of vulnerabilities.

How to Bring Eclipse 3.1, J2SE 5.0, and Tomcat 5.0 Together

Sat, 07 Jan 2006 13:15:00 EST

We'll build a servlet that will demo some new Java 5.0 features and do some basic tasks like creating a session to track user visits to multiple Web pages. This code can easily be extended to store a user ID in the session that will travel with her as the site is navigated. The value of the visit counter is stored in the session so multiple visits to the page will be counted (this includes the page refreshes after pressing the browser's 'Reload' button). If the counter goes over five, the counter gets cleared.