Hibernate for Java SE  For many, Hibernate goes hand in hand with Java EE as part of their enterprise development strategy. But what if you need access to your data access objects outside of the EE container? Jason Lee offers some strategy for getting and using a Hibernate session from Java SE code.   [Java]

Ruby the Rival  Bruce Tate's Beyond Java picks Ruby as the front-runner among languages that could succeed Java among enterprise developers? But what's so great about Ruby--and frankly, what's wrong with Java? We asked some top Java bloggers, authors, and developers what they think of Ruby's challenge.   [Java]

Oracle BPEL Process Manager simplifies the orchestration of disparate web services that span applications and firewalls into business processes and service-oriented applications. With visual programming for JDeveloper and Eclipse, and simple installation on your choice of application server, you can get started in just 15 minutes. Download now.

RFID Technical Challenges and Reference Architecture  Learn about some of the technical challenges associated with implementing RFID, and the BEA reference architecture that takes these challenges into account.  [dev2dev]

JBoss Cache as a POJO Cache  Typical in-memory cache systems can trip you up in ways you don't expect, from mangled object relationships to overly expensive serialization operations. A POJO cache offers a simpler, lower-maintenance alternative. Ben Wang uses JBoss Cache to show how POJO caches work.   [Java]

Hacking Swing: Translucent Windows  All Java windows are absolutely rectangular, so you can forget about creating a nice Winamp-like window for your Swing app, right? Wrong. In this excerpt from Swing Hacks, authors Joshua Marinacci and Chris Adamson show how you can use some imaging trickery to create arbitrarily shaped windows with Swing.   [Java]

XML Annoyances
Microformats and Web 2.0  Micah Dubinko begins a new column, XML Annoyances, which will explore what's happening to and with XML, and beyond, as the era of core XML specifications comes to a close. Micah will be paying special attention to the parts of XML that don't seem to work as well as they should--or just the parts that are the most annoying. In this first column, he looks at the role of microformats in Web 2.0 apps and services.   [XML.com]

What Is Struts  Chuck Cavaness takes you on a whirlwind tour of the Struts framework--an open source Java framework for building web apps--with overviews of many of it most important features, including Struts controller components, model layers, the Struts tag libraries, and presentation validation. Chuck is the author of Programming Jakarta Struts, 2nd Edition.   [Java]

The Community of Web 2.0  In this 48-minute audio program from the Web 2.0 conference, Tim O'Reilly speaks with Sun Microsystems COO Jonathan Schwartz and Mozilla Foundation president Mitchell Baker about developer communities, distribution, architectures and expandability, and the value of open source.   [Java]

Streamlining Your EJB Tests With MockEJB  Eoin Woods and Alexander Ananiev introduce the MockEJB framework, which facilitates easy, out-of-container EJB testing.  [dev2dev]

AJAX: How to Handle Bookmarks and Back Buttons  The clever in-page dynamics of AJAX make for richer web applications, but they don't necessarily tolerate the use of bookmarks or the browser's back and forward buttons particularly well. In this article, Brad Neuberg shows off a new framework that brings bookmarking and back-button awareness to AJAX.   [Java]

Test-Driven Development Using StrutsTestCase  JUnit and DbUnit can help test your web application, but they're not ideal for testing Struts Actions. Fortunately, the StrutsTestCase framework exists to help you close this gap in your testing coverage. John Ferguson Smart looks at how it works and what it can do for you.   [Java]

Is AJAX Here to Stay?  Jordan Frank takes a high-level look at the way AJAX is changing the Web and whether it's a technology that's going to stick around.  [XML.com]

Constructing Web Services with the Globus Toolkit Version 4  Grid computing allows you to combine processing, storage, databases, and other resources across a network, hiding the details from callers. As Birali Hakizumwami shows, the Globus Toolkit makes this easier by exposing the grid as a normal web service.   [Java]

Technologies to Watch: A Look at Four That May Challenge Java’s Development Dominance  Bruce Tate has a knack for identifying successful technologies. He was one of the early developers who identified the emergence of the Spring framework; he predicted the demise of EJB 2 technologies a full year before the EJB 3 expert group abandoned the older approaches. In his new book, Beyond Java, Bruce looks at four languages and technologies that may challenge Java's dominance in some development niches.   [Java]

What Is Ruby on Rails  Ruby on Rails is an impressive web development framework that will soon reach version 1.0. While there's a lot of buzz, it can sometimes be difficult to discern the steak beneath the sizzle. Curt Hibbs walks through the features and pieces of Ruby on Rails to show how it fits together and where its big benefits come from.   [ONLamp]

What Is Spring, Part 2  In part one of this two-part excerpt from Spring: A Developer's Notebook, authors Bruce Tate and Justin Gehtland showed you how to automate a simple application and enable it for Spring. Today, the authors will cover how to use Spring to help you develop a simple, clean, web-based user interface.   [Java]

Diagnostic Tests with Ant  Determining what's gone wrong with your software--source or binary--in a remote location is no simple task. Before taking a call and walking the user through error-prone troubleshooting, why not collect information about the user's system and the application files? Koen Vervloesem shows how you can do this with Ant.   [Java]

Demystifying Security Standards  Security is a fundamental aspect of architecture. This article, part of a series looking at security standards, introduces Web Services Security (WSS), Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) and Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML).  [dev2dev]

Eclipse Web Tools  The Eclipse Web Tools Platform (WTP) project aims to make web application development easier by attacking the problem from the tool side, providing Eclipse-based tools for creating and manipulating EJBs (optionally exposed as web services), data stores, and JSPs. Committers Jeffrey Liu and Lawrence Mandel introduce this new toolset.   [Java]

What Is Spring, Part 1  In this first of a two-part series excerpted from Spring: A Developer's Notebook, authors Bruce Tate and Justin Gehtland help you understand how you can use Spring to produce clean, effective applications. In part 1, they take a simple application and show you how to automate it and enable it for Spring.   [Java]

What Is Web 2.0  Defining just what Web 2.0 means (the term was first coined at a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International, which also spawned the Web 2.0 Conference), still engenders much disagreement. Some decry it as a meaningless marketing buzzword, while others have accepted it as the new conventional wisdom. Tim O'Reilly attempts to clarify just what we meant by Web 2.0, digging into what it means to view the Web as a platform and which applications fall squarely under its purview, and which do not.   [O'Reilly Network]

ONJava 2005 Reader Survey Results, Part 2  Is there anything else you'd like to tell our Java editors? Well, 226 people responding to the 2005 ONJava Reader Survey did. In this article, we show what they said and discuss what we're doing with the site.   [Java]

What Is Quartz  Java programmers: if you've ever needed an application to perform a task at a specific time, automatically, Chuck Cavaness suggests you check out the Quartz Scheduler. Cavaness looks at this open source job-scheduling framework, explains where to get it, how it works, and reviews its feature set.   [Java]

Approaches to Performance Testing  Learn about various approaches to performance testing, including benchmarking, capacity planning, soak tests, and peak-rest tests.  [dev2dev]

What Is Hibernate  Hibernate is a free open source Java package that makes it easy to work with relational databases. James Elliott describes the "enlightened laziness" that resulted in the development of Hibernate, how it works, and when it makes good sense to use it in your projects. James is the author of Hibernate: A Developer's Notebook.   [Java]

ONJava 2005 Reader Survey Results, Part 1  We asked who you are and what you're doing, and 988 people replied in just 12 days. In this first article of a two-part series, we reveal the results of the 2005 ONJava Reader Survey.   [Java]

What Is Open Source  Answering the question What is open source? used to be a lot simpler than it is today. Dan Woods provides some insight by first explaining how open source software is developed, then delving into how different groups define the term, and closing with a look at how open source institutions continue to advance the cause. Dan is coauthor of Open Source for the Enterprise.   [ONLamp]

What Is a Portlet  The Portlet API establishes a standard for building a web page out of smaller constituent parts, all managed by a portlet container to create a portal page. In this introduction, Sunil Patil shows how to create a basic "Hello World" portlet and deploy it in the Apache Pluto portal server.   [ONJava.com]

A Backbase Ajax Front-end for J2EE Applications  Learn how Backbase Ajax software simplifies the development of Ajax-based front-ends for J2EE software.  [dev2dev]

How to Decide What Bugs to Fix When, Part 2  In part 1 of this two-part essay on making smart bug decisions, Scott Berkun covered triage and making smarter piles. In part 2, Scott covers establishing an exit criteria and early planning, as well as exceptions to all of the rules, frequently asked questions, and some bug-fixing resources. Scott is the author of The Art of Project Management.   [ONLamp.com]

Announcing the 2005 ONJava Reader Survey  The 2005 ONJava Reader Survey is underway. This is your opportunity to steer the site by helping us understand what you use, what you're interested in, and where you think Java is going.   [ONJava.com]

Building J2EE Projects with Maven  Vincent Massol offers some real-life experience building J2EE applications with Maven. Using the example of a Petstore app, Massol shows you how to generate J2EE artifacts (EJB JARs, WARs, EARs) with Maven. He is coauthor of Maven: A Developer's Notebook.   [ONJava.com]

An Introduction to Ajax  David Teare introduces Ajax, a methodology you can use to build dynamic and responsive Web applications. He shows that the key lies in the combination of browser-side JavaScript, DHTML, and asynchronous communication with the server.  [dev2dev.bea.com]

Configuring Eclipse for Remote Debugging  Debugging a server-side application? You probably don't want to dig through the log files and wonder what happened. Instead, you can run your server application in debug mode and attach to it with Eclipse, bringing the IDE's powerful debugger to bear on the remote application.   [ONJava.com]

IRC Text to Speech with Java  Paul Mutton creates a multi-platform IRC bot that uses the FreeTTS Java speech synthesizer library to convert IRC messages into audible speech. Why would you want to use an IRC text-to-speech system? By reading out messages as they arrive, you can keep working, diverting your attention to IRC only when necessary. Paul is the author of IRC Hacks.  [ONJava.com]

How to Decide What Bugs to Fix When, Part 1  There are two challenges to making smart bug decisions: first, understanding how to make good bug-fix decisions; and second, creating and following rules that makes it easy to stick to those decisions when the pressure is high. In this first installment of a two-part essay, Scott Berkun, author of The Art of Project Management, provides the core ideas you need to make your own bug-fixing rules.   [ONLamp.com]