JavaOne Conference Blog

Java Rock Stars 2011!

Tori Wieldt — 2012-02-02T12:19:05-08:00

The 2011 JavaOne Rock Stars have been selected; they are the top rated speakers from JavaOne 2011. You, their peers, have spoken. These speakers were recognized in conference attendee surveys for outstanding session content and speaking ability. We applaud their contributions to the JavaOne conference, and their commitment to the technology community. Because there were more sessions at JavaOne 2011, there are more Rock Stars than previous years (36 total!). In addition to being immortalized on the Rock Star Wall of Fame, the Rock Stars receive an award that showcases their name and session title. And, of course, the accolades of the Java Community. Rock on!

Save the Dates: JavaOne Russia and JavaOne India

Tori Wieldt — 2012-01-17T08:22:56-08:00

JavaOne Russia and JavaOne India are regional events that allow learning about all aspects of Java--from better programing with the new features of Java SE 7 to using other languages on the JVM. Learn from the experts how to use Java better, about the Java roadmap, and how to choose and use tools in the Java ecosystem for your development work. Meet with other Java developers and explore new possibilities at JavaOne Russia and JavaOne India.

JavaOne Russia
Moscow, April 17-18, 2012
Russian Academy of Sciences

JavaOne India
Hyderabad, 3-4 May, 2012
Hyderabad International Convention Center

Call for Papers, registration information and details are coming soon.

JavaOne Latin America: Videos and Podcasts

Tori Wieldt — 2011-12-13T05:21:44-08:00

JavaOne Latin America was last week and there were lots of videos and podcasts recorded there. Here are some of the highlights (add your favorites in the comments, please):

The JavaOne Community Keynote
The JavaOne Community Keynote was informative and funny. (Thanks to Loiane Groner for taping it!) The discussion ranged from the top 5 developments in Java in 2012, to women in technology, to how to brew coffee with Java (done on stage), to the announcement of jDuchessBR for Brazilian women using Java, to what developers do when they aren't coding. (in Brazilian Portuguese). Don't miss the video used to conclude the keynote, an improvement of the "Code Hard" video entitled "The Real Java Developers."

OTN Interviews
I interviewed Java Experts, including Fabiane Nardon (Java EE), Loiane Groner (Java and Javascript), Jim Weaver (JavaFX) and Geertjan Weilenga (NetBeans). Yara Senger also interviewed her 80 year-old grandmother about her use of Java as a physicist. Those videos are now on Youtube/Java (look under Recent Activity). Another nice video from the OTN Lounge is this short discussion on why and how Juliano Viana works on Java EE 6 with LogicStyle's customers and how he uses GlassFish.

Java Spotlight Podcasts
The Java Spotlight Podcast Episode 60: Live from Java One Latin America includes an interview with Yara and Vinicius Senger on Global Code's 10th Anniversary, and with Mike Lehmann, Oracle senior director of product management, providing insight on the Weblogic 12c release. If you like your podcasts deeply technical, listen to this Java Spotlight Podcast with Alan Bateman on NIO2 APIs in JDK 7. There's nothing like the engineer working on a project to get into the technical details.

Thanks to all the developers in Latin America that made JavaOne Latin America such a success!

Talk to Java Experts at JavaOne Latin America

Tori Wieldt — 2011-12-03T08:01:36-08:00

If you are attending JavaOne and Oracle Open World Latin America, drop by the Oracle booth for a chance to have conversations with Java Champions and Oracle ACEs. Do you have a question about JavaFX? How to tune a JavaEE app for zero downtime? Java and the cloud? Java Champions are the experts who are using Java technology in the real world, and they have answers. Don't have a question? Drop by and say hello anyway!

Schedule in English (below), Portuguese, and Spanish.

Tue, Dec 6
11:30 - Fabiane Nardon (Java Champion - JavaEE and GlassFish)
1:30 - Gustavo Gonzalez (Oracle ACE - Oracle Apps), Francisco Riccio (Oracle ACE - DB), Marcus Vinicius (Oracle ACE - DB), Ricardo Porthillo (Oracle ACE - DB), Bruno Souza (Java Champion - JavaSE/JavaEE/Cloud)

Wed, Dec 7
11:30 - Stephen Chin (Java Champion- JavaFX), James Weaver (Java Champion -JavaFX)
1:30 - Gustavo Gonzalez (Oracle ACE - Oracle Apps), Francisco Riccio (Oracle ACE - DB), Marcus Vinicius (Oracle ACE - DB), Ricardo Porthillo (Oracle ACE - DB), Bruno Souza (Java Champion - JavaSE/JavaEE/Cloud)

Thu, Dec 8
11:30 - Miguel Palacios (Oracle ACE - DB), Rodrigo Almeida (Oracle ACE - DB)

JavaOne 2011 Recap

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-13T13:15:29-07:00

The 2011 JavaOne Conference, the sixteenth, had its own distinctive identity. The Conference theme, “Moving Java Forward,” coincided with the spirit that seemed to pervade the attendees – after more than a year-and-a-half of stewardship over Java, there was a clear and reassuring feeling that Oracle was doing its part to support Java and the Java community. Attendees that I spoke to felt that the conference was well put together and that the Java platform was being well served and indeed, moving forward.

For me, personally, it was a week in which my feet barely touched the ground as I rushed through tours from session to laptop to session, dashing off blogs and racing back to events, socials, awards ceremonies, BOF's and more.

The Keynotes

Start with the keynotes. Monday’s Technical Keynote debuted and open-sourced JavaFX 2.0, looked ahead to Java EE on the cloud and reminded us that there are about 6.5 billion people in the world and five billion Java Cards.

Tuesday’s Java Strategy Keynote offered Oracle's long-term vision for investment and innovation in Java.

Thursday’s Java Community Keynote while touched by the awareness of Steve Jobs’ passing, celebrated Java User Groups, Duke’s Choice and JCP award winners, and was capped off with the inimitable Java Posse.

Sessions, Sessions, and more Sessions

And then there were the sessions!

JavaFX 2.0, which was represented in more than 50 sessions, deserves special mention.

There was a lively panel discussion of the future of Java EE and the cloud.

Oracle’s Java Technology Evangelist Simon Ritter, in his session, showed off a fun gadget that worked via JavaFX 2.0.

Oracle’s Greg Bollella and Eric Jensen, gave a session titled “Telemetry and Synchronization with Embedded Java and Berkeley DB” that presented a vision of the potential future of Cyber-Physical Systems

Java Champion Michael Hüttermann explained best Agile ALM practices in a session.

Oracle’s Joseph Darcy took developers deeper into the heads and tails of Project Coin.

A JCP panel talked about JCP.next and the future of the JCP.

The JCP Awards gave recognition to some well-deserving people.

Oracle’s Kelly O’Hair gave a session on OpenJDK development best practices.

Oracle’s Terrence Barr showed developers how to get started with Embedded Java(http://blogs.oracle.com/javaone/entry/getting_started_with_embedded_java).

The Duke's Choice Awards reminded us of the sheer ingenuity of Java and Java developers.

Adam Bien, Java Champion, Java Rock Star and winner of Oracle Magazine’s ninth annual Editors' Choice award as Java Developer of the Year was all over the place.

Go to Parley’s.com to take in some of the great sessions.

All in all – a considerable success! Now get some rest.

JavaOne Latin America Call for Papers

Tori Wieldt — 2011-10-11T04:37:56-07:00

JavaOne is the world’s premiere conference for Java technology visionaries, developers, and users. JavaOne Latin America will be 06-08 December in São Paulo, Brazil at the Transamerica Expo Center. Now is the time to submit proposals for innovative presentations that demonstrate your passion for using Java technology in real-world scenarios or leading-edge cases.

To ensure the best content for Java developers, the Java community is looking for interesting and relevant submissions on the following topics:
   •   Client Side Technologies and Rich User Experiences
   •   Core Java Platform
   •   Java EE Web Profile, Platform Technologies, Web Services, and the Cloud
   •   Java ME, Mobile, Embedded, and Devices

If your paper is selected, you’ll receive a complimentary pass to JavaOne Latin America. There, you can connect, communicate, and collaborate with the energetic community of Java developers.

Submissions should be:
   •   Java-related topics (not other technologies...unless it's specifically a topic about how they INTEGRATE with Java)
   •   Non-product pitches
   •   Interesting/innovative uses of Java
   •   Practical relevant case studies/examples/practices/etc.

The call for papers will close on Monday, October 17 at 11:59 pm local time. We look forward to hearing from you. Submit Paper

Not Submitting? You should still attend JavaOne Latin America! Register now!

It's a Wrap

Tori Wieldt — 2011-10-10T09:26:12-07:00

Thanks for being a part of JavaOne 2011! Here are a few more things you can do to keep that Java buzz:

Provide Feedback
Take the conference survey and session surveys.

Register for Next Year
We know JavaOne 2012 will be bigger and better (you did fill out the feedback survey, right?). Register between now and October 21 for JavaOne 2012 and save $800—that's 40%!

Get Session Content Two Ways

1) Download presentation .pdfs from Content Catalog.
The slides for a large number of the sessions at JavaOne are available without charge at You'll need to do a search in order for the sessions to show up -- just clicking the Search button will do the trick too. The slides can be downloaded by clicking on the PDF icon. Many thanks to the JavaOne staff for making these available for everyone now and removing the paywall that was there last year. :-)

2) Videos on Parleys
There are also about 20 or so presentations that have recorded audio as well as slides from the conference available on Parleys.com. Approximately 160 presentations (40%) were recorded and three presentations per week will get released with a first batch of 20. The JavaOne 2011 channel on Parleys.com has already received 2790 views and 320 downloads!

Watch Videos
JavaOne Keynotes on Demand
Oracle Technology Network interviews with Java community members (click on JavaOne OnSite Interviews)
New videos all the time YouTube.com/java

Go Global

JavaOne comes to Latin America December 6-8, 2011 (Call For Papers closes next week!), and Japan April 4-6, 2012.

Stay Connected
Twitter/@java (all things Java), Twitter/@javaoneconf (JavaOne specific)
Facebook/IloveJava (all things Java), Facebook/JavaOne (JavaOne specific)
Blogs.oracle.com/Java (all things Java), Blogs.oracle.com/JavaOne (JavaOne specific)
Find a Java User Group (JUG) near you!

Greg Bollella and Eric Jensen on the Future of Cyber-Physical Systems with Embedded Java and Berkeley DB

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-07T10:09:07-07:00

Greg Bollella, Chief Architect for Embedded Java and Eric Jensen, Oracle Principal Product Manager and a former embedded developer, gave a session (25143) titled “Telemetry and Synchronization with Embedded Java and Berkeley DB”. Bollella has been a leader in the Embedded Java and real-time Java space since Java was first applied there.

The presentation offered a vision of the potential future of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), defined as, “a system featuring a tight combination and coordination between the systems computational and physical elements,” that was so powerful that even if the expectations turn out to be exaggerated, CPS technological change will, in a decade or so, significantly alter our lives in pervasive and unforeseeable ways. Bollella went so far as to say that CPS applications have the potential to dwarf the 20th Century IT Revolution.

He drew a contrast between where CPS applications are in use today and where they will be in use tomorrow.

Today: High confidence medical devices and systems; assisted living; process control (metal smelting, chemical plants, refineries); traffic control and safety; advanced automotive systems; energy conservation; environmental control (electric power, water resources, and communications systems); distributed robotics (telepresence, telemedicine); defense systems; manufacturing; smart structures; home automation; building automation; transportation (rail, air, water, road); retail systems (point of sale and monitoring); entertainment industry; mining; industrial control (power generation).

Tomorrow: Distributed micro-power generation; highly advanced autonomous driver assistance features; networked autonomous automobiles; networked building automation systems; cognitive radio (distributed consensus about bandwidth availability); large-scale RFID-based servicing systems which could acquire the nature of distributed real-time control systems; autonomous air traffic control; advanced industrial and home networked robotics; intelligent traffic control systems; intelligent autonomous power (gas/electricity); distribution systems; networked personal medical monitoring devices.

A lot to take in – the technology all around us growing in intelligence! In 2009, 3.9 billion embedded processors were shipped – the number is expected to double to roughly 8 billion by 2015. Some predict that by 2025 the number will be well into the trillions. And currently, an estimated five times more embedded software is written than all other software today. If the reality is anywhere close to the projections and estimates, we are in for an interesting ride on some intelligent transport.

Telemetry

Bollella went on to discuss telemetry, a term frequently used by NASA and defined as a technology that “allows remote measurement and reporting of information”. Central to telemetry is the idea that the information does not persist on the device after measurement. Uses of telemetry in the automotive realm include streaming operational data from the vehicle to the manufacturer’s IT system for analysis, services for vehicle operator, failure prediction, and feedback to design teams on wear and failure rates. For industrial automation, telemetry is used for failure prediction and to process monitoring and reporting

Synchronization

Bollella explained that his use of synchronization is idiosyncratic to database technology and involves two synchronized databases containing the same set of data and relationships. Any change in one database appears (after some indeterminate delay) in the other. The information on the device persists on the device as long as it does on the backend

The use cases for synchronization are widespread and include:

•   Healthcare: Telemedicine, Home health systems, Mobile health practitioners
•   Industrial: Manufacturing, Mining
•   Energy: Smart Grid, Energy Management
•   Entertainment: TVs, set top boxes, automotive rear-seat entertainment
•   Distribution/Shipping: Everything from local deliveries to transoceanic cargo shipments
•   Government: Border Control, Resource Management, Customs, Immigration, Land Management, Forest Service, etc
•   Law Enforcement/Military: Police officers and soldiers in the field, also aboard Naval vessels
•   Retail: Real time inventory linked to point-of-sale transactions
•   Distribution/Shipping: Everything from local deliveries to transoceanic cargo shipments

Bollella acknowledged that serious development challenges remain. The current state of CPS connectivity is poor, with the vast majority being standalone. Given the highly connected world of social networking, mobile devices, and the web, this might be surprising. But it is important to consider that these are two technological areas have evolved in environments with different demands. CPS is focused on real-time, predictability, safety, security, and fault tolerance; the Web is a different matter.

CPS requires real-time with predictable control loops -- there are no standard communication protocols or Ethernet or “IP-over” functionality on devices. There are harsh environments, especially in spacecrafts, that can affect wired Ethernet, and there exists incompatibility of data formats and communication protocols with IT standards.

Perhaps of greatest importance, there has been little perceived need for CPS connectivity with devices. But this is changing rapidly, and with it, obstacles are being overcome as one of the major trends in embedded is connectivity development. Bollella admitted that there were a lot of unknowns going into the future, but the challenges are not insurmountable.

Oracle’s Eric Jensen took over and gave some details about the Oracle Berkeley DB and the Oracle Database Mobile Server, which he characterized as the best way to synchronize mobile or embedded applications that utilize SQLite or Berkeley DB with an Oracle backend. The embedded Java platform, when coupled with Berkeley DB and Database Mobile Server, has the ability to manage networks of embedded devices using existing enterprise frameworks in a way that could prove to be quite revolutionary

It will be interesting to look back in 10 years and see how much Cyber-Physical Systems have, or have not, changed the world.

Java Community Keynote: Enabling Collaboration, Enabling Innovation

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-06T13:53:09-07:00

IBM, Java, and the Cloud

The morning began with the IBM Keynote, offered by Jason McGee, IBM Distinguished Engineer, Chief Architect, Cloud Computing. McGee focused on Java and Cloud computing-the challenges in the language and the JVM for running in the Cloud, how to make your applications elastic and scale well in the Cloud, and the latest innovations (driven by IBM and others) for deploying applications to the Cloud.

McGee explored several recent IBM offerings for the Cloud-including WebSphere eXtreme Scale, a Java based, in-memory data grid product for elastic scalability in Cloud environments; and IBM Workload Deployer, a Cloud deployment and management system for existing virtualized hardware. McGee ended by reiterating IBM's commitment to the Java community, noting their membership in OpenJDK as of 2010.

Community: Best Practices, Innovation, and Learning Resources

Sharat Chander, Principle Product Director, JavaOne Program Committee Chairperson, Oracle began his portion of the keynote by offering a moment of silence in respect for the passing of Apple's Steve Jobs, noting his passion and innovation in the world of technology. The Apple logo briefly appeared on the large screen.

Chander emphasized that Java isn't just about technology, it's also about community. Within this context, he first recognized Mike DeNicola, John Rose, and Patrick Curran, for their outstanding participation and leadership within the JCP this past year. And as part of ever-broadening the Java community, Chander next paid tribute to the Java Dutchess program-with over 400 groups around the world, globally connecting women in Java technology.

From there, Donald Smith, Director of Product Management, Java Platform Group, Oracle invited onstage a panel of representatives from the global Java community: Martijn Verburg, London Java Community; John Duimovich, OpenJDK; Deepak Bhole, OpenJDK; Stephen Chin, SvJugFx; and Bruno Souza, SouJava. The group noted that this was the first JavaOne conference with a community-themed keynote. In true connected community fashion, the group invited those watching the presentation to informally vote (via text message) on Java technologies and initiatives of current and future interest.

The panel members all urged active participation in Java User Groups, from both a technical and professional advancement perspective. Such community involvement not only drives open standards, they declared, but also drives innovation among vendors. The OpenJDK representatives then explored the challenges and promises of the initiative, agreeing that participants should have high expectations for openness, and to push on that. They strongly urged developers to download OpenJDK, and to use it.

Community: Moving Java Forward

Smith explored with the panel how the Java community can best take part in moving Java forward. The consensus was that the process ideally involves vision, innovation, and execution, and that the community can participate at all of these levels-getting involved via JUGs, as well as testing and submitting bug reports, and thereby helping Oracle and other Java vendors build the best and most innovative technologies. One technique being explored at some JUGs, to better facilitate participation, is to both stream them live and offer audio archives via Parleys.com. Within the context of making community content as available as possible, Oracle announced their agreement with Parleys.com to host many of the JavaOne sessions on the learning site-including video, demos, and synchronized audio/slides.

Duke's Choice Award Winners

What JavaOne would be complete without acknowledging the Duke's Choice Award Winners (this year with community input in the selection and review process). Featured onstage were representatives of Rockwell Automation, for their Java Embedded factory floor automation solutions; Sodbeans Project, for their NetBeans-based accessibility suite to aid blind software developers; and JHome, a Glassfish/Java EE-based home automation system for the control of almost any device in the home, including lamps, gates, coffee machines, and more.
Java Posse Comes to Town

To the tune of Spaghetti Western soundtrack music, representatives of the fabled Java Posse next took the stage (to Sharat Chander's mock amazement). The Java Posse site has long been known for its podcasts offering news, discussions, interviews, and "general mayhem" surrounding the world of Java. The Java Posse members emphasized what they see as the three elements of Java-the language, the platform, and (most importantly), the Java community. "We have a development community that other development platforms dream of having," they said. They promised in-depth appearances from many of the Duke's Choice Award winners. And in parting the stage, they deputized Chander as an official honorary member of the Java Posse, presenting him with a 10-gallon hat.

In closing, JavaOne participants were urged to get involved and make their voices heard-to participate in the JavaOne Community Steering Committee, to participate in the JavaOne Program Committee, to submit speaker papers, to participate in the OpenJDK project, and to join a local JUG. Chander parted by noting that JavaOne 2012 would feature a community member as one of the keynote speakers.

Learn More:

WebSphere eXtreme Scale
IBM Workload Deployer
Java Dutchess
2011 Duke's Choice Award Winners
Parleys.com
The Java Posse

The Road to Java EE 7: Is It All About the Cloud?

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-06T10:41:26-07:00

With considerable enthusiasm I attended “The Road to Java EE 7: Is It All About the Cloud?” (23423) session, a panel of EE experts, late Wednesday morning. I always find Java EE developers and architects to be among the smartest people around. Last year’s Java EE panel session, covered on otn/java and titled, “Where We Are and Where We’re Going” was fraught with more uncertainty about the future of Java EE. This year, it’s clear: Java EE is heading towards the Cloud. The session this year was packed even in a much larger room than last, with roughly three times the number of attendees as last year.

The panel consisted of the following people:
--Adam Bien, Consultant, Author, Java EE Expert
--David Blevins, Apache Software Foundation
--Emmanuel Bernard, JBoss Platform Architect, Red Hat
--Reza Rahman, Senior Software Engineer/Community Outreach Activist, Caucho Technology
--Linda DeMichiel, Java EE 7 Specification Lead, Oracle

The panel, moderated by Oracle’s Alexis Moussine-Pouchkine, Java EE Developer Advocate, Oracle France, addressed many issues, including:
• The current state of Java EE 6 adoption
• The motivations for Java EE 7
• What the cloud really means for Java EE 7
• Modularity in Java EE.next
• Better streamlined component models
• Status of ongoing work in the JCP
* Services and resources provisioning.
* Virtualization intersection between virtualization and PaaS?
* Meta-data: are XML deployment descriptors good after all?

Look for a detailed blow-by-blow account of the discussion on otn/java in coming weeks.

Interfacing with the Interface: JavaFX 2.0, Wiimote, Kinect, and More

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-06T06:34:39-07:00

Oracle’s Java Technology Evangelist Simon Ritter, one of the most fun-loving Java developers I know, with a long history of JavaOne gadgetry, gave a session (25011) on Wednesday afternoon showing how “open source APIs for the Kinect, the Wiimote combined with a tilt-compensated compass, a head-mounted stereoscopic display, and some old Sun SPOTs can build a truly immersive application.” The large audience appeared immersed throughout the session in Ritter's colorful and clearly delineated demos.

He explained that the way we interact with computers is rapidly changing and that the days of the keyboard and mouse are gone. (Maybe so, but I'm sitting here using a keyboard and mouse.) And with his usual dramatic flair, Ritter invited attendees to behold the rise of something he calls the “gestural interface”.

The presentation used the latest JavaFX 2.0 "pure Java" implementation and began with an overview of the different components being used and explained how they are all brought together to enable the user to interact with interfaces in ways never before possible. Building an interface with the new JavaFX 2.0, Simon pointed out, is a continuation of the JavaFX product line, which is now a Java API with no scripting language and most APIs ported across while features such as binding and animation have required more thought. JavaFX now embraces more web technologies and enables the use of CSS for all JavaFX controls and a web specification for Drag-and-Drop. Also, developers use Scenegraph instead of DOM. He pointed to both pro’s and con’s of using JavaFX with gestural interfaces. On the plus side, it has built-in features such as data binding and animations, is a relatively simple API, and is able to build rich, visually appealing interfaces. On the negative side, JavaFX is currently limited to a 2D environment. The engineering team is currently working on 3D support.

He contrasted this with jMonkey Engine (jME), a game engine made especially for modern 3D development, written purely in Java and consisting of a collection of libraries that has game engine facilities and a full physics engine, but is hard to program and focuses on games and not generic interfaces. Ritter proceeded to demonstrate how to use the Nintendo Wiimote with a Java interface. The Wiimote communicates using a Bluetooth stack that needs to support L2CAP, has JSR-82 Java Bluetooth API implementation plus Wiimote-specific Java APIs (IR sensors, accelerometer, etc), most of which is free and open source.

He then presented a demo making use of the Sun Spot controller, a gyro sensor for precise rotation data, three bend sensors for finger movement for head tracking and data gloves, hand and head tracking sensors and hardware and more.

This followed with a demo using the Kinect Sensor with Java for 3D sensing. Not to be lost are his larger points: Java is still a really cool and powerful language. It is easy to interface with exotic hardware using free and open source libraries to build interesting applications using modern hardware.

After a brief Q&A, Simon -- as he always does -- implored attendees to be inspired and go build their own FUN stuff.

JavaFX 2.0 Arrives and is Open Sourced

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-05T16:43:18-07:00

Among the big news at JavaOne 2011 was the release of JavaFX 2.0 and announcement of its open source status. As Oracle’s Chief Architect, Client Java Platform Richard Bair observed, “We think this is going to be a really big deal in the industry.” JavaFX 2.0, touted as the next step in the evolution of Java as a rich client platform, is designed to provide a modern Java environment that shortens development time and eases the deployment of data driven-business and enterprise client applications.

Its key features include:

• Java APIs for JavaFX

• FXML -- an XML-based markup language for defining user interfaces

• Seamless integration into Swing applications

• High-performance hardware accelerated graphics

• Embedding of web content into JavaFX

• High-performance media engine

• Improved UI controls library

JavaFX 2.0 enables developers to leverage their existing Java skills and tools to develop JavaFX applications. It offers a clean separation of application UI and logic and simplifies code maintenance while integrating Web content and media seamlessly in Java applications. Developers can more easily create scalable, graphics-rich applications without performance penalties, build sophisticated user interfaces, extend existing Swing applications, and deploy applications in the browser, as desktop, or Web Start applications.

Java APIs for JavaFX include:

• End-to-end Java development

• Java language features—generics, annotations, multi-threading

• Reduced static footprint of runtime and applications

• Fluent API design for UI construction

• Development in alternative languages (e.g., JRuby, Groovy) with JavaFX

• Leverage sophisticated Java IDEs, debuggers and profilers

• Java APIs preserve convenient JavaFX Script features (e.g., bind)

Other features to take note of in JavaFX 2.0:

FXML

• Scriptable, XML-based markup language for defining user interfaces

• Convenient alternative to developing UI programmatically in Java

• Easy to learn and intuitive for developers familiar with web technologies or other markup based UI technologies

• Powerful scripting feature allows embedding scripts within a FXML file. Any JVM scripting language can be used, including JavaScript, Groovy, and Clojure, among others

New Graphics Pipeline for Modern GPUs

• New hardware accelerated graphics pipeline (Prism)

• New windowing toolkit (Glass) for Prism

• Java2D software pipeline for unsupported graphics hardware

• High-level support for making rich graphics simple: Shadows, Blurs, Reflections, Effects, 2D and 3D transforms

Rich Set of UI Controls

• Over 50 components for form-based UI, including charts, layout and form controls

• CSS3+ skinning and layout of UI controls

• Advanced UI controls, including table, tree view, rich text editor

Web Component

• Embed Web content in JavaFX applications

• HTML and JavaScript rendering based on Webkit

• DOM access and manipulation from Java

Browser Plug-in Refreshed for JavaFX 2.0

• Loading of JavaFX applets based on Prism

• Preloader for JavaFX applets for improved user experience

Powerful Properties Model

• New collections ObservableList, Sequence and ObservableMap

• New design and implementation of bean properties

• Low level binding API for high performance, low footprint bindings

• High level binding API for simple usage

Improved Animation Engine

• Optimized implementation of transitions

• Complete overhaul of API to simplify usage and in preparation of optimized and more stable implementation

Approximately 50 JavaFX 2.0 sessions can be found at JavaOne given by leading JavaFX movers and shakers. JavaFX is the next step in the evolution of Java as a rich client platform. Congratulations to all involved!

Java Champion Michael Hüttermann on Best Agile ALM Practices

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-05T13:17:49-07:00

Java Champion and Agile ALM expert Michael Hüttermann gave a session, "Agile Application Lifecycle Management (18180)" on Tues., Oct. 4, designed to help Java developers integrate flexible agile practices and lightweight tools into software development phases. Hüttermann is the author of Agile ALM and CEO of Systemtechnologie Hüttermann.

He covered:

* Task-based development for aligning activities with tasks, resulting in traceable artifacts

* Advanced continuous integration, which involves frequently and systematically integrating, building, and testing applications

* Agile approaches to release, configuration, deployment, and requirements management

* State-of-the-art-tool chains

The standard criticism of ALM is that it causes vendor lock-in, which increases the overall cost of an application, leaving developers with the challenge of balancing the pluses and minuses of Agile ALM. While Hüttermann admits that this has traditionally been true, his conception of Agile ALM results in flexible, high-quality processes and tool chains that are sufficiently open to change to avoid lock-in. By relying on lightweight tool chains, developers can improve flexibility because they can readily replace small units of the overall infrastructure without touching other parts. One of the main purposes of Agile ALM is to minimize accidental complexity.

Among the take-aways from the session:

* Continuous integration (CI) refers to the automation of the build, test, and release process with the goal of integrating the activities of colleagues and the work items others produce. This can result in a build ecosystem in which a new-code commit directly triggers a continuous build.

* Agile ALM defines task-based activities that are aligned with requirements, which means the activities are linked to requirements and all changes are traceable to their requirements.

* Agile ALM Tools are no longer cumbersome, monolithic vehicles that can restrict development. They need no longer cover all facets of the ALM ecosystem. Mashups of lightweight, focused, service-oriented, customizable tools are gaining momentum. Developers should feel free to switch from one tool to another.

Agile ALM aficionados should check out the forthcoming Java Magazine article by Hüttermann, set for publication in the November/December issue. If you haven't registered for the magazine, run, don't walk. It's free!

And be on the look out for a forthcoming otn/java interview with Hüttermann as well.

Finally, this JavaOne 2011 presentation can also be viewed @ http://parleys.com/d/2666.

The Heads and Tails of Project Coin

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-05T05:21:41-07:00

Joseph Darcy, Member of the Oracle Technical Staff, spoke to a very large,
packed conference room in his “The Heads and Tails of Project Coin” (22641) session Tuesday.
Project Coin, a central part of Java 7, was described by Darcy as “a suite of language and
library changes to make things programmers do everyday easier.”

Project Coin makes life easier by removing extra text to make programs more readable;
encouraging the writing of programs that are more reliable; and by integrating well with past and future changes.
Darcy emphasized that these are small language changes related to specification, implementation and testing;
there are no JVM changes. Project Coin was written to coordinate with forthcoming larger language changes.

Project Coin has strong IDE support:
• IntelliJ IDEA 10.5 and later
• Eclipse 3.7.1 and later
• NetBeans 7.0 and later

The six Project Coin features are:
• Binary literals and underscores in literals
• Strings in switch
• Diamond
• Multi-catch and more precise rethrow
• try-with-resources
• Varargs warnings

Diamond and varargs warnings enable easier-to-use generics. Multi-catch and try-with-resources allow for more concise error handling. Strings-in-switch and literal improvements result in greater consistency and clarity.

Darcy proceeded to demonstrate five of the six Project Coin features to a highly engaged audience.
Check out his session slides and you can also view this talk @ http://parleys.com/d/2663.

What’s ahead for Project Coin in Java 8? Look for very small language changes on the horizon.

JCP.next, JSR 348 -- Towards a New Version of the Java Community Process

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-05T05:09:54-07:00

Tuesday's mid-day JCP discussion, presented by Heather VanCura, Oracle Manager, JCP Program, and Patrick Curran, Chair, Java Community Process, Oracle, explored some big news about the JCP. Oracle's commitment to greater transparency, participation, and openness is coming through loud and clear in JSR 348, "Towards a new version of the Java Community Process" -- otherwise known as JCP.next.

The main improvements, at this stage, involve gaining greater transparency by requiring, rather than suggesting, that all development is done on open mailing lists and issue trackers. Furthermore, the recruiting process for Expert Group members will be publicly viewable, and ways to disclose TCK testing process results will be investigated - currently, the public is rarely aware of the results of the TCK testing process. All of these developments are designed to result in a more public, open, accessible and transparent JCP.

JSR 348 passed through a Pubic Review Ballot in mid-September with results for the SE/EE Executive Community showing 14 YES votes, one Abstain (Google) and one non-vote (VMWare). Oracle expects the initial version of JSR 348 to be concluded in October 2011, offering simple changes that will be quickly implemented. A subsequent second JSR, to be filed soon afterward, will tackle more complex issues, including any changes required to the Java Specification Participation Agreement (JSPA).

The JSPA is defined by the JCP as "a one-year, renewable agreement between you [[the participant in the agreement]] and Oracle America. It entitles you to review and comment on JSRs during the Community Review period - after they are initially approved by their sponsoring Expert Group and before they are open for Public Review. The agreement carries an annual fee, depending on your Member category."

The success of the Java community depends upon an open and transparent JCP, so JCP.next is worthy of our praise and attention.

The Ninth Annual Java Community Process Program Awards

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-05T05:01:00-07:00

In a festive room full of Java luminaries and fine food, the 9th annual JCP Program Awards were handed out Tuesday night at the Anzu Restaurant of the Nikko Hotel. The award categories were: JCP Member/Participant of the Year; Most Innovative JSR; and Outstanding Spec Lead.

The nominees in their respective categories were:

JCP Member/Participant of the Year

--Mike DeNicola, of Fujitsu, for his role as JCP.next Working Group Lead: While not officially Spec Lead of JSR 348, Mike has contributed a lot in getting the JCP reform plans where they are at a great pace, compared to earlier efforts. Helping the JCP to be fit for the next decades of Java following the Oracle-Sun merger.

--SouJava: For tirelessly promoting the JCP, JSRs, openness, transparency and our community at large (to say nothing of Bruno Souza's marvelous cape!).

--IBM: For their participation in the OpenJDK project, which has significantly increased the momentum of Java SE.

--London Java Community: For their efforts to involve the developer community in the activities of the JCP.

--Doug Lea: After a long and distinguished tenure on the JCP EC, Doug Lea (along with Tim Peierls and The Apache Software Foundation) felt he had no choice but to resign at the end of 2010. In doing so, he demonstrated integrity, independence, and courage that truly sets him apart. If the JCP is to retain any shred of legitimacy and relevance in the future, it will be through the actions other members who display the traits exemplified by Doug: integrity, independence, and courage, coupled with unparalleled technical expertise and a genuine love for the Java ecosystem.

Most Innovative JSR

--JSR 321: Trusted Computing API for Java. Beside a picture book example for Agile and Transparent Expert Group work, JSR 321 also anticipated another vision of JCP.next, by being the first JSR with a known implementation in a language other than Java, called Hybrid JSR by JCP.next (Part 2 and beyond). Apart from all that, Trusted Java holds the key to a safer more reliable and trusted usage of PaaS/Cloud or other Pervasive Technologies like Social Networking and Mobile.

--JSR 334: Small Enhancements to the Java Programming Language (Project Coin): Due to the process it was run under and the requirement of participants to 'put some skin in the game'.

--JSR 292: Supporting Dynamically Typed Languages on the Java Platform: As the first JSR specifically designed to support languages other than Java, JSR 292 will ensure the long-term success of the Java VM.

Outstanding Spec Lead

--John Rose: (JSR 292 Supporting Dynamically Typed Languages on the Java Platform) Due to his excellence in ensuring consensus across the community -- both EG members and the wider JVM language community.

--Alex Buckley: (JSR 901, Java Language Specification and JSR 924: Java Virtual Machine Specification.) For his leadership.

--Mark Reinhold: For his leadership and promotion of the first Java SE platform JSR in several years.

The Winners

JCP Member/Participant of the Year: Mike DeNicola of Fujitsu

Most Innovative JSR: JSR 292, John Rose, Oracle, spec lead for JSR 292

Outstanding Spec Lead: John Rose, Oracle: JSR 292 Supporting Dynamically Typed Languages on the Java Platform

Community Leadership Award

Finally, the JCP Executive Committee gave a special Community Leadership Award to Patrick Curran, Chair, Java Community Process, Oracle, who was recognized for the fabulous job he has done coping with a period of substantial change and conflict in the JCP over the past 18 months.

Obviously, the work of John Rose and his team was singularly honored. But as Rose himself graciously emphasized, it was itself a great honor to be counted among his fellow nominees.

Congratulations to all involved!

OpenJDK Development Best Practices

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-05T04:43:59-07:00

Oracle Principal Member of Technical Staff, Kelly O’Hair, has a session, (18020), set for Wednesday, 03:00 PM, (at the Hilton San Francisco -- Golden Gate 6/7/8) on “OpenJDK Development Best Practices” that offers a lot of useful practical advice. He will discuss current OpenJDK development procedures such as building, testing, code review, and creating a changeset, and integrating that changeset into a team repository. In addition he will cover "OpenJDK Developers' Guide" topics and look at the challenges of integrating a change.

So what are the best practices when working on the JDK? Here’s a preview.

● When in doubt, ask
● When something does not work, report it
● Always be careful, rushing in changes is dangerous
● Do no harm, have a backup or backout plan
● Stay calm, nervous people make mistakes
● Be prepared for anything, because it will happen

When editing sources:
● No TABS
● Never edit the legal notices
● Respect the existing formatting
● Small surgical changes are best, easiest to review
● Well written comments are critical
● Do not assume anything about the compilers

Testcases are critical and not optional:
● Create a new one or modify an existing testcase
● Must be solid and work on all supported systems
● Must not be a resource hog (open 20,000 files)
● Must work in a shared VM mode (like a JUnit test)
● Assume someone else might be running the same test at the same time, and that someone might be you
● Continuous Build & Test
● Test gates or baseline testing
● But before you even get started making changes you must be able to completely build it and test it on your own system, this is a fundamental
● Linux builds are the easiest, so let's see what needs to happen

He offers some best practices short cuts for building:
● Always use local disk space
● Use /tmp if it has the space
● Try export HOTSPOT_BUILD_JOBS=4
● Try export ALT_PARALLEL_COMPILE_JOBS=4
● Use export NO_DOCS=true to avoid running javadoc
● Use ALT_JDK_IMPORT_PATH=${HOME}/jdk1.8.0

Kelly will offer detailed principles related to testing, testing prep, editing, code review, changeset creation, why a push fails, and the team repository model.

His core ideas:
● Pick your environment, Linux is easiest
● Pick a stable state of repos, promoted build, oldest best
● Learn to build and test it, over and over, know what to expect, create a jdk to use as your import
● Editing working set files, read the Mercurial book
● Problemlist, changeset creation

This session looks to be one that a variety of Java developers could benefit from.

Moving Java Forward -- Java Strategy Keynote JavaOne 2011

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-04T18:10:58-07:00

Tuesday's Strategy Keynote offered Oracle's long-term vision for investment and
innovation in Java. The session offered a broad range of technologies, partners,
announcements, and roadmaps -- from mobile and handheld devices, to the desktop, to
the Cloud.

The morning began with David Ward, CTO and Chief Architect, Platform Systems
Division, Juniper Networks. Ward detailed the need for developers in the era of the
Cloud to recognize and leverage the modern era of programmable, "software-defined
networks." Ward explored new application interfaces to directly program the network, to
inform it of desired behavior, along with network facilities to determine real
location/topology, end device capabilities, real time usage demands, and more. Together,
they form a bi-directional interaction and programmability. "Coming from the network is
real time understanding of the topology, and going into the network from the application
space is the ability to steer traffic through optimal paths," said Ward.

Moving Java Forward: Three Pillars
Next, Hasan Rizvi, Senior Vice President, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Java, briefly
explored the three main pillars of "moving Java forward"- proven technology, the Java
community, and Oracle's leadership/stewardship of Java. Within this context, Rizvi
offered a scorecard of recent milestones, including the summer release of JDK 7, ongoing
EE 7 development (with significant community involvement), JavaFX 2.0, and the just-
announced preview release of JDK 7 for Mac OS X. He also noted IBM, Apple, and
SAP as members of the OpenJDK community, with others to follow.
From there, Jason Gartner, Director, Java Technologies, Intel; Dr. Mark Little, Senior
Engineering Director, RedHat; and Steven Chin, Director of Software Engineering, Intel
joined Rizvi on stage. Gartner announced last week's delivery of Java 7 on the IBM
platform, and noted that in spite of the ongoing competition between Oracle and IBM,
the collaborative standards-based nature of the Java platform is one of its greatest
strengths. Little discussed the open development efforts of EE 6, the involvement of the
community, and its benefits for their JBoss product. And Chin discussed the
collaboration between Oracle and Intel, with the resultant 14x Java performance
improvements on Intel hardware over the past 4 years.

Expanding Java's Reach
Adam Messinger, Vice President in charge of Java SE and Java ME product lines,
discussed the goal to expand Java's reach, across new application models, and new
device types. One vehicle for this is through modularization, which is planned for Java SE
8. Meanwhile, Project Coin in Java 7 and Project Lambda in Java 8 are aimed toward
greater developer productivity. The road ahead is clearly mapped out:

Rob Benson, Director of Runtime Systems, Twitter, then joined Messinger onstage.
Benson detailed Twitter's use of Java in terms of needing a mature, highly scalable,
technology. "We handle about 230 million tweets per day, our streaming API pushes
about 6 terabytes of data per day, and our public API serves about 13 billion requests per day.

So we wanted a runtime that could handle traffic now and into the future." Twitter also chose

Java because of their need to have a runtime that would support multiple
languages, and that includes a large, vibrant open source community. Twitter announced
onstage that they had joined the OpenJDK, as well as the JCP.

Messinger reiterated the strategic importance moving forward of JavaFX, Oracle's
premier development environment for rich client applications, including interoperability
with existent Swing applications, and the visually driven JavaFX Scene Builder tool.
Messinger's colleague, Nandini Ramani then offered a demo of an experimental
prototype JavaFX game running on various tablet devices -- including Windows, Linux,
and even an Apple iPad.
Messinger also announce Oracle's plan to open source JavaFX, first the components, and
then the rest of the framework. That will happen as soon as there is approval from the
OpenJDK community. And they also plan to standardize JavaFX, to make it a standard
part of Java SE, probably post-Java 8.

Three Goals for Java Mobile and Embedded
Messinger next touched upon Oracle's three main goals for the Java mobile and
embedded world -- bridge the divide between Java SE and Java ME (synchronize CLDC
and JDK releases/converge CDC and Java SE Embedded), offer full coverage of
embedded vertical markets, and provide deep integration of content and services in terms
of runtimes and tools. This will ultimately result in Java Card technology being used for
extremely small devices, Java ME for the small embedded space, and Java SE for the
larger embedded market.

Within the real world embedded realm, Lance Howarth, Executive VP of ARM, explored
a future of "pervasive computing," As manufacturers of ubiquitously employed 32 bit
RISC microprocessors (6.1 billion ARM based devices shipped), Howarth envisions smart
computing devices that we're barely aware of and sees Java as key in bringing this about.
From there, Ilya Lars, CEO of GetJar, a mobile phone application store, explored their
vision for the mobile space, and the appeal for them of the open standards of Java.

The Java EE Roadmap
Cameron Purdy, Vice President, Development, Oracle, next detailed the roadmap for
Java EE. Purdy noted that Java EE is "the only standards based development platform
for enterprise applications," with input across the community, and multiple vendors and
open source implementations. He added that Java EE is now the #1 choice for enterprise
developers, with over 40 million downloads. The goal is to make EE even easier for
developers -- to take tasks that used to be complex and convoluted, and make them flow
more naturally for Java developers, while establishing an open, community driven, and
standards-based platform for the next generation of enterprise applications. He explored
many Java EE 7 initiatives (multi-tenancy, capacity on demand, auto-provisioning) to
enable advanced Cloud applications, and Platform as a Service.

ESPN's Sean Comerford then discussed with Purdy their choice of Java EE for
ESPN.com's current era enterprise needs. "Glassfish gave us the same performance, with
a much higher degree of scalability than all the other options. Our first production
deployment tested at handling over 3,000 requests a second." For ESPN, the name of the
game is scalability, along with the future potential of offering their services anywhere, on
any device.

Adam Messinger then closed the session with an introduction to Project Avatar, Oracle's
hybrid programming model for dynamic rich clients, integrating HTML 5 on the browser
as the UI, with Java applications as the controller and the model, and then Java EE 7 in
the Cloud at the back end -- unifying Java ME, Java SE, and Java EE.

Learn More:
Juniper Networks
Java 7 Features
JavaFX
Project Lambda

The "Java Life" Rap Music Video

Tori Wieldt — 2011-10-04T05:49:38-07:00

The JavaOne Keynotes included the "Java Life" rap music video. For those of you who asked, lyrics are below. You can watch more videos at the new youtube/java channel. Enjoy.

The "Java Life"

SPOKEN:
In the cubicles representin’ for my JAVA homies…
In by nine, out when the deadlines are met, check it.

CHORUS:
We code hard in these cubicles
My style’s nerd-chic, I’m a programmin’ freak
We code hard in these cubicles
Only two hours to your deadline? Don’t sweat my technique.

Sippin’ morning coffee with that JAVA swirl.
Born to code; my first words were “Hello World”
Since 95, been JAVA codin’ stayin’ proud
Started on floppy disks, now we take it to the cloud.

On my desktop, JAVA’s what’s bobbin’ and weavin’
We got another winning app before I get to OddEven.
Blazin’ code like a forest fire, climbin’ a tree
Setting standards like I Triple E….

Boot it on up, I use the force like Luke,
Got so much love for my homeboy Duke.
GNU Public Licensed, it’s open source,
Stop by my desk when you need a crash course

Written once and my script runs anywhere,
Straight thuggin’, mean muggin’ in my Aeron chair.
All the best lines of code, you know I wrote ‘em
I’ll run you out of town on your dial-up modem.

CHORUS:
‘Cause…
We code hard in these cubicles
Me and my crew code hyphy hardcore
We code hard in these cubicles
It’s been more than 10 years since I’ve seen the 404.

Inheriting a project can make me go beeee-serk
Ain’t got four hours to transfer their Framework.
The cleaners killed the lights, Man, that ain’t nice,
Gonna knock this program out, just like Kimbo Slice

I program all night, just like a champ,
Look alive under this IKEA lamp.
I code HARDER in the midnight hour,
E7 on the vending machine fuels my power.

Ps3 to Smartphones, our code use never ends,
JAVA’s there when I beat you in “Words with Friends”.
My developing skills are so fresh please discuss,
You better step your game up on that C++.

We know better than to use Dot N-E-T,
Even Dan Brown can’t code as hard as me.
You know JAVA’s gettin’ bigger, that’s a promise not a threat,
Let me code it on your brain

WHISPERED:
so you’ll never forget.

CHORUS:
We code hard in these cubicles,
it’s the core component…of what we implement.
We code hard in these cubicles,
Straight to your JAVA Runtime Environment.

We code hard in these cubicles,
Keep the syntax light and the algorithm tight.
We code hard in these cubicles,
Gotta use JAVA if it’s gonna run right.

We code hard in these cubicles
JAVA keeps adapting, you know it’s built to last.
We code hard in these cubicles,
Robust and secure, so our swag’s on blast

CODE HARD

Oracle Announcements at JavaOne 2011

Tori Wieldt — 2011-10-04T05:14:47-07:00

There were lots of announcements at today's Java Strategy Keynote at JavaOne. Here are links to the Press Releases:

Java SE - Oracle Continues to Move Java Forward and Details Java SE 8 Roadmap

Java EE - Oracle Highlights Java EE Momentum at JavaOne Conference

JavaFX - Oracle Releases JavaFX 2.0

Java ME - Oracle Increases Investment in Java ME

Duke’s Choice Awards - Oracle Announces Winners of the 2011 Duke’s Choice Awards

NetBeans - Oracle Previews NetBeans IDE 7.1: Delivers Support for JavaFX 2.0

Moving Java Forward!

Getting Started with Embedded Java -- Sense, Control, Connect, Store, Sync

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-03T14:56:56-07:00

Terrence Barr, Senior Technologist, Mobile & Embedded, Oracle Germany, presided over a two-hour HOL (Hands-On-Lab) on Monday in which he taught developers how to build an embedded Java solution that senses and controls the environment, stores data, and connects to back-end databases for synchronization and further processing. The session offered considerable detail along with step-by-step exercises as participants learned how to create the embedded EnviroTracker system and application which tracks and processes environmental data. The application interfaces with a microcontroller to read sensor input (ambient light brightness), to control output (and LED), and then further processes the sensor data.

The lab focused on:
• The benefits of Java technology in the embedded space
• The components of embedded Java platforms
• Setting up an embedded Java platform
• Interfacing between the embedded Java platform, the microcontroller, and I/O
• Accessing and controlling I/O from Java
• Processing sensor data

Barr took developers through seven basic tasks or exercises:

1. Create the EnviroTracker
2. Install the OJEC (Oracle Java ME Embedded Client) on the Development Host
The Oracle Java Micro Edition Embedded Client (OJEC) implements the CDC Platform configuration.
3. Develop and Test Your First Embedded Java Application..
4. Install OJEC on the Target Platform and Run Your Java Application
5: Understand I/O and the Arduino Microcontroller
6: EnviroTracker V1: First Contact
7: EnviroTracker V2: Continuous Monitoring and Processing

By the end of a rigorous and demanding, but satisfying two hours, attendees had built a real-world embedded system and created the EnviroTracker Application to track environmental sensor data. They learned how to install and use embedded Java runtimes and tools, and how to interface with I/O devices and microcontrollers from Java applications.

The take home message: Creating sophisticated embedded Java systems and applications is easy due to the platform independence of the Java language and runtime, the scalability of pre-existing Java skills to embedded development, and the comprehensive support provided by mature and feature-rich developer tools.

For more info, go to Terrence Barr's blog.

Evolutionary Next-Steps - Technical Keynote JavaOne 2011

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-03T14:30:37-07:00

Monday morning's Technical Keynote began with Doug Fisher, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Software and Services Group’s System Software Division, Intel. Fisher and a number of Intel colleagues reviewed Intel’s long association with Java, and their collaborative work with Oracle to optimize the Java platform (for both the JVM and Fusion Middleware) on Intel hardware.

From there, Ashok Joshi, Senior Director of Development NoSQL Database, briefly discussed performance tuning with Intel of the newly announced Oracle NoSQL Database product.

From Evolution to Revolution: Java 7 to Java 8

Following Joshi, Mark Reinhold, Chief Architect of the Java Platform Group at Oracle, reviewed the history of Java 7, and its “Plan B” paradigm of including Project Coin (JSR 334), InvokeDynamic (JSR 292), and the Fork/Join Framework in the just-released Java 7, while incorporating Project Jigsaw and Project Lambda in the upcoming Java 8. Reinhold then explored the evolutionary benefits of these key new features of the Java 7 release -- offering both greater ease of development, and significant performance benefits. “Not only are these features available in Java 7 today,” noted Reinhold, “but as of last week, they are now supported in all three of the major Java IDEs.”

Reinhold next detailed plans for the upcoming Java 8 release, which promises more revolutionary features beyond the evolutionary offerings of Java 7. Project Lambda (JSR 335) will bring closures to the Java programming language. And Project Jigsaw (JSR TBD) aims to define a standard module system -- not just for application code, but for the platform itself.

JavaFX 2.0 is Here!

Richard Bair, Chief Architect, Client Java Platform, Oracle, then dove into the official debut of JavaFX 2.0, along with some stunning demos of the new facility, presented by several colleagues. Java FX 2.0 is Oracle’s premier development environment for rich client applications. Bair emphasized that JavaFX 2.0 was designed to offer:

Cross Platform
Leverage Java
Advanced Tooling
Developer Productivity
Amazing User Interfaces.

“We naturally want user interfaces that look good and work well,” said Bair. “It used to be just eye candy, but now it’s becoming a required feature for the things we write. We’re announcing today the general availability of JavaFX 2.0, at JavaFX.com. We think this is going to be a really big deal in the industry.”

An important aspect of any UI technology is a good visual development tool, and Bair next announced early access for the JavaFX Scene Builder, which will first be made available to select partners, then expanded to a general beta, and then a full release. But for those at JavaOne, an early build of the tool will be running and available for demo at the DEMOgrounds.

A series of stunning demos -- several of them BSD licensed caused much enthusiasm -- then took JavaFX 2.0 out for a spin, and clearly showed the possibilities and potentials of the new release -- including animated 3D audio EQ mapping, and a navigable 3D virtual room that featured live video of Oracle colleague Jasper Potts displayed on a wall monitor, along with real-time mimicking of Potts’ movements by a virtual Java Duke figure.

Bair noted that there are over 50 JavaFX sessions at JavaOne, and said that for anyone who attended all of them -- “I’ll buy you dinner!”

Moving Java EE into the Cloud

From there, Linda DeMichiel, Java EE 7 Specification Lead, explored the upcoming Java EE 7 release. “What’s new with the Java EE platform?” asked DeMichiel. “We’re moving Java EE into the Cloud. Our focus on this release is providing support for Platform as a Service. We want to provide a way for customers and users of the platform to leverage public, private and hybrid clouds. With Java EE 7, our focus is on the platform itself as a service, which can be leveraged in cloud environments.”

DeMichiel’s colleague, Arun Gupta, then demonstrated deployment of a Java EE application as a PaaS, using Glassfish 4.0. Both the application and instructions on how to replicate the demo are available online.

More Java Cards than People?

Lastly, Hinkmond Wong, of Oracle’s Java Embedded group, covered the latest in mobile and embedded Java, noting the three billion Java enabled phones and five billion Java Cards in the world today. “There are about 6.5 billion people in the world,” noted Wong, “and five billion Java Cards.”

2011 saw the introduction of Near Field Communication (NFC) payment system, including e-Passport in Java ME, allowing for mobile-to-mobile and machine-to-machine transactions with embedded security. Wong detailed the many new Java ME releases for 2011, along with several mobile and embedded technology demos—from cell phones to Blu-ray players.

The overflow crowd left the opening technical keynote energized – a real good start to this JavaOne!

Learn More:

Java 7 Features

Java SE 7 Features and Enhancements

A Look at Java 7's New Features

Contribute to JDK 8

JavaFX Homepage

JavaFX Overview

Java EE at a Glance

Java for Mobile Devices

Oracle NoSQL Database

Oracle Technology Network for Java Developers

And The Winners Are.......The Duke's Choice Award

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-03T11:00:44-07:00

On Sunday evening, Oct. 2, at the JavaOne Open House, Oracle welcomed and celebrated the 2011 Duke's Choice Award winners, all talented developers who have demonstrated extreme innovation in the creation of Java-powered applications.

Drum roll: And the winners are...

• Arquillian Project - Arquillian is a platform for simplifying Java integration testing. We transparently handle the pesky scaffolding like server startup, framework initialization and deployment - leaving you to focus on the task at hand: writing your test logic.

• dooApp - Infiltrea is an end-to-end solution, built with JavaFX and Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE), designed for green building professionals whose job is to measure the air tightness of buildings.

• Inductive Automation - Ignition is a Java-based web application that includes a business scorecard to integrate different manufacturing machines using a central web-server. It creates systems that cover the full spectrum between Human Machine Interface (HMI), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and Manufacturing Execution System (MES), enabling rapid project development and deployment.

• Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) jHome - A complete home automation API open-source for Glassfish/Java EE, enabling developers to control anything in their homes such as lamps, LED lights, and coffee machines.

• JFrog - JFrog's Artifactory is the world's first binary repository manager. Built with the Content Repository API for Java (JCR) specification, it is helping to change the way developers build and manage software modules by delivering high concurrency and unmatched data integrity.

• JRebel - JRebel is a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) plug-in that enables Java developers to instantly see any code change made to an application. It allows developers to skip the build and redeploy phases and has prevented 39 million redeploys.

• LMAX - The LMAX Disruptor is a multi-threaded, open-source concurrent programming framework designed for high-performance and low-latency transaction processing. Part of LMAX's Java-based trading platform, the LMAX Disruptor replaces and outperforms java.util.concurrent.ArrayBlockingQueue by up to 80 times.

• Rockwell Automation - Rockwell Automation is creating its next generation, Java-enabled HMI device line of products that will allow for the automated communication and exchange of data to factory floor lines.

• Sodbeans Project - The Sodbeans Project is an open-source, NetBeans-based module suite designed to enhance accessibility for the blind in modern programming environments. The NetBeans module suite includes a new programming language designed for ease-of-use, a text-to-speech engine designed to make NetBeans compatible with screen readers on multiple platforms and a number of features designed to make programming easier for the blind.

• The Netty Project - The Netty Project is a Java-based new I/O (NIO) client server framework that enables quick and easy development of network applications. It greatly simplifies and streamlines network programming such as TCP and UDP socket server.

Congratulations to all!

Java Champion Adam Bien at JavaOne

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-10-03T09:27:22-07:00

Java Champion, JavaOne Rock Star, and winner of Oracle Magazine’s ninth annual Editors' Choice award as Java Developer of the Year for his expertise, hard work, enterprise, and enthusiasm, Adam Bien, once again has a strong presence at JavaOne this year with participation in four sessions.

Session ID: 29621
Session Title: Part 1: GlassFish Community—The Foundation for Opportunity
Venue / Room: Moscone West - 2020
Date and Time: 10/2/11, 12:30 - 14:30

Session ID: 21641
Session Title: Java EE 6: The Cool Parts
Venue / Room: Hilton San Francisco - Imperial Ballroom A
Date and Time: 10/3/11, 12:30 - 13:30

Session ID: 21622
Session Title: Rethinking Best Practices with Java EE 6
Venue / Room: Hilton San Francisco - Imperial Ballroom A
Date and Time: 10/5/11, 13:00 - 14:00

Session ID: 23423
Session Title: The Road to Java EE 7: Is It All About the Cloud?
Venue / Room: Hilton San Francisco - Imperial Ballroom A
Date and Time: 10/5/11, 11:30 - 12:30

His “Java EE 6: The Cool Parts” session is full so Bien has agreed to repeat it on Monday, Oct. 3, from 5:30pm-6:30pm at Parc 55 Embarcadero, though he admits he’d rather spend the time checking out other sessions or hobnobbing with other developers.

The "Cool" session demos such non-obvious Java EE 6 tricks and techniques as the following:

• Flexible configuration
• Implementing plug-ins with convention over configuration
• Generic logger injection
• Integration of legacy POJOs
• Observer and factory pattern killers
• Stateful components and always-attached JPA entities
• Implementing schedulers and asynchronous events
• Comet with Servlet 3, EJB 3.1, and CDI
• Easy monitoring with JMX and JAX-RS
• Using transactions for speed and consistency
• @Singleton, the perfect cache
• Automatically starting dependent services Track Java EE Web Profile and Platform Technologies Optional Track

According to theserverside.com’s Cameron Mackenzie, Bien “made a huge splash at TheServerSide Java Symposium this year, not only by presenting great content, but by delivering it with flair and enthusiasm.”

Look for equally great content from Adam Bien at JavaOne!

And, also look for Adam's articles in Java Magazine and on otn/java.

JavaOne Keynotes: Watch Live!

Tori Wieldt — 2011-10-02T16:17:55-07:00

If you are attending JavaOne, you'll be lucky enough to see the keynotes in person. If you can't attend JavaOne, the keynotes will be streamed live at oracle.com/javaonelive and will also be available on demand after JavaOne. Here's the full schedule:

Monday, October 3

JavaOne Technical Keynote

8:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m PT

Speakers: Mark Reinhold, Chief Architect, Java Platform; Richard Bair, Chief Architect, Client Java Platform; Linda DeMichiel, Member of Java EE Technical Staff; and Hinkmond Wong, Member of Java Embedded Technical Staff

This year’s JavaOne technical keynote focuses on the next steps in Java's evolutionary path. Areas discussed include Java SE advancements, implementation of non-Java languages that target the Java Virtual Machine, modularization of the platform, building immersive desktop applications using JavaFX, principles that are guiding the design of the Java EE platform and cloud-based opportunities, new Java technologies and approaches for the embedded market, a fresh look at Java ME and mobile improvements, and more.

Intel Keynote

In this year's JavaOne keynote, Doug Fisher, Vice President, Software and Services Group (SSG), and general manager of SSG's Systems Software Division, will discuss Intel's longstanding focus on Java performance, and how Intel Architecture innovations continue to provide Java developers the optimized platforms needed to meet ever-increasing requirements.

Tuesday, October 4

JavaOne Strategy Keynote

8:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m PT

Speakers: Adam Messinger, Vice President of Development, Oracle Fusion Middleware; Cameron Purdy, Vice President, Development; Hasan Rizvi, Senior Vice President, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Java.

In this keynote, Oracle presenters share Oracle's vision for strengthened investment and innovation in Java and describe how Java will continue to grow as the most powerful, scalable, secure, and open platform for the global developer community.

Juniper Networks Keynote

In this keynote, David Ward, Chief Architect & CTO of the Platform Systems Division at Juniper will dig into the architectures, protocols and platform landscape and describing how programmable networking is critical to application development.

Thursday, October 4

JavaOne Community Keynote

8:45 a.m. - 10:00 a.m PT

Speakers: Sharat Chander, Principal Product Director, JavaOne Program Committee Chairperson; Java Community Members

This keynote brings key Java technology luminaries and visionaries together on stage to address topics relevant to the broader community. Subjects covered include Java educational resources, information on community activation, and more. A few special community personalities will be on hand to entertain the crowd with their always-interesting Java-related wit and humor.

IBM Community Keynote

In this year's JavaOne keynote, Jason McGee, IBM Distinguished Engineer and Chief Architect of WebSphere Cloud Computing, discusses Java readiness for Cloud and new applications, making Java apps scale well, deploying and running on the cloud and IBM's long history and commitment to Java.

Chat with JCP Reps At JavaOne 2011

programmarketingOTN — 2011-10-01T15:05:30-07:00

Representatives from the JCP will be at the Mason Street Cafe in the Community Hub Stage area each day starting Monday October 3rd to present information and answers your questions. The schedule is as follows -

Monday at 12:30pm - JCP topic: JSR pre-proposal on Social extensions to Seam/CDI, presented by Werner Keil and Red Hat

Tuesday at 1:40pm - JCP.next, details on JSR 348, Towards a new version of the Java Community Process, to be implemented as JCP 2.8, presented by Patrick Curran and Heather VanCura

Wednesday at 10:40pm - JCP EC Elections, The latest on the EC Elections and Candidates, presented by Dan Sline, Heather VanCura and others

Thursday at 1:40pm - JCP.next, Open discussion on plans for what comes after JCP 2.8, presented by Patrick Curran

Restaurant Recommendations for JavaOne

Tori Wieldt — 2011-09-30T06:44:14-07:00

If you are thinking about where to eat while you are at JavaOne in San Francisco, you can use OpenTable to make reservations (from the JavaOne homepage, just select Network > OpenTable). Since it lists over 600 restaurants, we'd thought we'd give you some of our personal favorites.

Close to JavaOne
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Old Siam is right around the corner on Ellis street, and a good spot to eat Thai food. It's not fancy, but the food is good and pretty cheap. Mango sticky rice is a great dessert. Farallon: has light fixtures that look like jelly fish, and is a great seafood restaurant. Kinda pricey, but great food and dream-like underwater ambiance. They advertise a happy hour of six oysters for six dollars (4:30 - 7:00 daily). Colibiri has award-winning Mexican food and a huge tequila selection. Great bar. Reservations suggested.

Financial District & The Ferry Building
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There are some great restaurants nearer downtown (go towards the Ferry Building at the end of Market street). Tadich Grill has an old-world feel, with waiters in white jackets. They have the best cioppino in town. Hog Island Oyster Co, in the Ferry Building, serves up fresh, local oysters and Manila clams raised at their farm on Tomales Bay, just north of San Francisco. The Slanted Door, Great dockside location in the Ferry Bldg. Nice ambiance and amazing Vietnamese cuisine. If the weather is nice, you can have a true SF experience by heading down to the Java House for a burger and beer. Right by the Bay Bridge, it offers outside benches where you get a great view of the Bay. A very popular spot right now is Waterbar. The two-story high fishtanks prove this place is all about fresh seafood, and it has a great view of the Bay Bridge. $1 oyster happy hour (11:30-6:00pm everyday).

Fisherman's Wharfish

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Scoma's: Yes, it's on Fisherman's Wharf, but don't hold that against this seafood mecca. I usually take family and out-of-town guests and they haven't been disappointed. They don't take reservations, so get there early. Complimentary valet parking, if that applies. There is also the,Pier 23 Cafe, a pleasantly funky dockside hang-out with excellent bar food.

Farther Afield
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In the Mission, there's El Toro Taqueria, very casual, but great burritos. Rosamunde Sausage Grill has turned sausages upscale, with sausage and beer pairings (it's right by the 24th street Bart station). Also, Monk's Kettle has with a great selection of beers. In the Castro, I can recommend Tangerine, with its fine Pacific Rim cuisine. Love the spicy corn fritters appetizer. Starbelly is a neighborhood café serving "California comfort food."

Or, just grab some bread made with Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis, cheese, sausage, come into the Mason Street Tent, and watch the SF parade go by.

Finding Your Way Around JavaOne

programmarketingOTN — 2011-09-29T06:03:19-07:00

Imagine: You are at JavaOne and you forgot to print out your schedule! What do you do? Or, you know your next session but not how to find it. Here are some pointers:

To find session times and locations while onsite at JavaOne: 1) At registration, you'll get a schedule overview 2) the JavaOne Mobile App is available for Blackberry, Android and iPhone, 3) you can use the Connection Centers in the Zone where you can look up schedule time and location.

To find sessions, the JavaOne team has done the additional things to help you find your way around:

   • Maps of the hotels to download (PDF)

   • Lots of signs, banners, and wraps, inside and outside of the hotel

   • All JavaOne keynotes are at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square, Grand Ballroom

   • People to help you find your way (we call them "human directionals," you can just smile and ask for directions)

   • Color-coding of both exteriors and interiors of the Hilton San Francisco Union Square (Green), Hotel Nikko (Blue), and Parc 55 Wyndham (Purple)

• Hotels "themed" with track-specific content, the majority of sessions in each track are in one hotel:

Track	Primary Hotel (Color)
Core Java Platform	Hilton (Green)
Emerging Languages, Tools, and Techniques	Parc 55 (Purple)
Enterprise Service Architectures and the Cloud	Hilton (Green)
Java EE Web Profile and Platform Technologies	Parc 55 (Purple)
Java ME, Mobile, Embedded, and Devices	Parc 55 (Purple)
Java SE, Client Side Technologies, and Rich User Experiences	Nikko (Blue)
The Java Frontier	Parc 55 (Purple)

Now that you've found your way, get ready to soak up all that great content!

JavaOne Community Activities on Sunday

Tori Wieldt — 2011-09-26T09:47:03-07:00

JavaOne kicks off Sunday with lots of community activity! You can go to the Content Catalog and search Type: User Group Forum (Sunday only) to get details. Here are some key activities:

Java User Group Community Day
12:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Moscone West Room 2022

JUG Community Day opens with a general session that discusses the format and topics of the rest of the sessions. You don't need to be a member of a JUG to attend, just be interested! Some session have been submitted in advance (Care and Feeding of Java User Groups, JUGs and the JCP, Running a Successful Umbrella JUG and Regional JUG), however, most sessions will be run as more of an unconference and everyone will be encouraged to participate.

GlassFish Unconference and Community Event
12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Moscone West Room 2020

Learn about community contributions, get the latest news about new Java EE features, and hear from fellow contributors about their experiences with GlassFish Server Open Source Edition. Take this opportunity to meet the development team and provide feedback on what you'd like to see going forward. Your feedback and direct participation are desired, so the agenda will be driven by you in an unconference format. Attend and get a free limited edition 2011 GlassFish T-shirt!

Java Community Process (JCP) Open Meeting
3:45 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.
Hilton Hotel, Union Square Room

Meet members of the JCP Excecutive Committee. Bring your questions to this meeting; it is open to all members of the Java community(you qualify just by reading this!).

JavaOne OpenHouse
5:30pm to 8pm
Mason Street Cafe

Meet old and new friends for food, drinks and music. Make and compare plans for the coming week of Java immersion. A special guest will drop by to announce the Duke's Choice Award winners. Food, drinks, and music start at 5:30 p.m.

See you Sunday!

A JavaOne 2011 Mobile and Embedded Show Guide

Janice J. Heiss — 2011-09-23T09:03:08-07:00

Terrence Barr, Oracle’s Java Mobile & Embedded Community Ambassador, has published his annual two-part JavaOne Mobile & Embedded Show Guide, which I highly recommend.

Mobile and embedded developers might check out Part One for a general review of the conference and Part Two to get a better grasp of specific sessions.

Terrence is the author and speaker at these two sessions:

* Getting Started with Embedded Java: Sense, Control, Store, Connect (24605) (Mon, 5:00 pm, HOL)
Here you’ll get to build a simple but complete embedded Java solution called EnviroTracker.

* Top 10 Free Tools and Libraries for Building Better Java ME Applications (24860) (Tue, 4:30 pm, BOF) You’ll learn about free tools and libraries that help you build Java ME apps better and faster and maybe add some new ones yourself.

In addition, here’s a list of recommended mobile and embedded sessions:

Mobile
* Getting the Most Out of the Series 40 Java Platform (24326)
* Develop Mobile Apps with Java and Oracle ADF Mobile Client for iOS, Android, and More (25089)
* Rapid Java ME Development with the Open Source Tantalum Java ME Library (24440)
* Small Screens Playing a Big Boys’ Game: A Playbook for Java ME in Emerging Markets (24101)
* CLDC Mobile Platform Evolution (23223)
* Open Discussion on Emerging Markets (22721)
* Oracle Java Wireless Client: A Java ME Optimized Stack for Low-End Platforms (22741)
* WAC Widgets: New Direction for Java ME Phones (23361) Where Do the Killer Java Applications Preloaded on Your Phone Come From? (24310)
* Why Operators and Manufacturers Are Passionate About Application Quality (25021)

Embedded and Consumer
* ARM: Over 6 Billion Served—”Want That Java Superoptimized? (24242)
* Use Your Body to Interact with the JVM: Or How to Use Kinect on the JVM (22040)
* Embedding Java VM in Smart Devices (25061)
* Java Powering Smart Grid Devices (24355)
* Building a Home Security System with Java (25172)
* Get Physical! An Arduino Introduction for Java Developers (25281)
* Java and OSGi Enable Many Applications on Many End Devices (25802)
* Oracle Java Micro Edition Embedded Client (25063)
* An Embedded Service Platform for Uninterruptible Processing (24567)
* DVB GEM: Java TV Goes Over the Top—Hybrid and 3-D (23364) Ginga, Lightweight User Interface Toolkit, Java DTV, and You 2.0 (26280)
* Java Card Platform: Embracing M2M and Other New Markets (23453)
* Java-Powered Home Gateway: Basis of the Next-Generation Smart Home (24328)
* Service-Oriented Architecture with Java SE for Embedded Devices: A Smart Meter Use Case (24925)
* Telemetry and Synchronization with Embedded Java and Berkeley DB (25143)

Again, for more help in navigating through this session-rich JavaOne, check out Terrence's Guide. So many places to go, so many people to see! Enjoy!