Tim Cull is an experienced software developer and architect. As founder of Thedwick, LLC, a boutique software consultancy specializing in high-leverage software development, Tim has helped many companies wrestle with legacy software as well as understand emerging technology trends.
Even Java systems can be "legacy" systems. This article explores 8 quick and relatively low risk ways to improve even the crustiest Java application. Applications that may have previously been written off as dead can find new life by using these tips to improve performance, reduce operations overhead and grease the gears of the development lifecycle.
This week, MuleSoft released version 3.1 of its enterprise service bus, Mule ESB. Mule 3.0 was released in September with one major focus: "simplify everything...to make Mule 3 more accessible to everyone". This week, Mule 3.1 takes the simplification further by focusing on Mule Cloud Connect, Mule Flow and BPM.
Just before the new year, JBoss finalized its JBoss AS 6 application server with a GA release. The release includes enhancements for Java EE 6, improved handing of JSF and upgrades or changes to many of the included libraries like Hibernate and caching.
This month, JetBrains announced it released Intellij IDEA 10, a major upgrade to its integrated development environment. As a major revision, the new Intellij has a long list of changes and improvements. A selection of the improvements include: performance improvements, enhanced support for various frameworks and technologies, improved version control support.
This week, Red Hat announced it acquired Makara, a cloud based platform as a service company. Makara is unusual among PaaS providers in that it doesn't have any infrastructure of its own. InfoQ examines some of the details about where Makara differs from other providers.
This month, Yahoo! released a new open source framework for "processing continuous, unbounded streams of data." The framework, named S4, allows for massively distributed computations over data that is constantly changing. InfoQ examines some of the examples and compares S4 to other technologies.
InfoQ doesn't normally report on contests and calls for registration . But for the Antonio Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest, this time we decided to make an exception. The Pizzigati Prize is a $10,000 prize awarded to "a software developer who adds significant value to the nonprofit sector and movements for social change". Nominations are open until December 15.
Last week SpringSource released a first milestone for Spring Social, a Spring-based template for accessing Twitter, LinkedIn, Tripit and Facebook from within Java programs. Rather than exposing generic, URL-based APIs, the Spring Social APIs are designed specifically for each site and make integrating with those sites straight forward. InfoQ examines the new API as well as some alternatives.
Microsoft researcher Holly Stewart highlighted last week that Java has recently surged ahead of Adobe Acrobat as a favorite target for hackers wanting to take over computers. InfoQ looks at the specific exploits used as well as which patch of Java fixes them.
