Java Boutique :

Reviews:

Summaries of the latest Java IDEs, tools, and products for programmers and non-programmers alike.

NetBeans 5.5: Java IDE Comes into Its Own
The latest NetBeans IDE release includes features that rival the finest in the market today. Find out why NetBeans is making substantial inroads into the vast IDE market previously dominated by Eclipse.

Stripes Takes Struts to the Next Level
Struts has done a good job all these years, but it may be time for a new framework's day in the sun. Learn about some of Stripes' features and how developing a Stripes application is a step up from Struts.

Agile Development: An Expert Roundtable
At the last No Fluff, Just Stuff symposium in New York, Barry Burd asked three experts to explain Agile development. Here's what they had to say.

FreeMarker: Separating the Model and Presentation Layers
Though MVC was designed to separate the model and the view layers of application, rendering languages like JSP have had difficulty clearly separating these layers. As applications get more complicated, model elements eventually creep into the view layer, creating a maintenance nightmare. Find out how this open source tool outshines the others when it comes to clearing the path between design and development.

Object-relational Mapping with Cayenne ORM
The trend towards using system-generated classes has fueled the market for JDO-based systems and object-relational mapping (ORM) tools. Find out how Cayenne ORM compares to some of the best tools in this arena.

WebWork: The New Framework on the Block
This framework distinguishes itself from others on the market by having understood their common limitations and working to eliminate them. Read about this MVC-based framework's unique features—and it's future as part of the new Struts release.

Rich Internet Applications Made Easy with the Composite Application Integrator
New strategies are emerging to make Rich Internet Applications (RIA) the wave of the future. SoftwareAG's new AJAX-based Composite Application Integrator hopes to lead the way. Drew Falkman investigates.

Ruby on Rails vs. Java: An Expert Roundtable
At this year's No Fluff, Just Stuff symposium in New York, Barry Burd asked three experts to compare Java with Ruby on Rails--a framework, built on the Ruby language. Here.s what the experts had to say.

Time Management Made Easy with the Quartz Enterprise Job Scheduler
Why not just use the Java timer API? This open source scheduling API boasts simplicity, ease-of-integration, a well-rounded feature set, and it's free!

Streamline Content Management with CRX
Most developers currently use disparate systems, tools, and applications to handle a variety content for a myraid of different purposes within their organizations. Wouldn't it be nice to have a centralized content repository--with a standardized interface —through which to manage it all? Drew Falkman investigates.

Open Source Java Application Management: BlueGlue and MyJavaPack
Community development might give us all better tools, but working with open source can be a logistical nightmare. As open source proliferates, a new genre of tools is emerging with simpflification as its aim: open source infrastructure management. Drew Falkman investigates.

Java Studio Creator 2 Trading Ease-of-use for Performance
Is Java Studio Creator 2 the IDE beginning and small-scale application developers have been looking for? With its low cost, drag-and-drop GUI, and easy database connectivity, the answer may be yes—but be prepared to make some trade-offs.

Open Source Java Game Utilities: LWJGL 0.98 and Game Gardens
Faster processors and improvements to JVM technologies mean you can start doing some pretty cool stuff with graphics and interactivity—good news for game development. Drew Falkman investigates two open source game libraries that can help you take advantage of the latest advancements.

James: The Java Apache Mail Enterprise Server
This open source, 100 percent pure Java e-mail server, developed by the Apache Software Foundation, has all the qualities of an industrial-strength e-mail server. Learn about the additional qualities that make James a unique option for your e-mail server needs.

Review: Wicket 1.1
Why do we need another Web framework for Java? This new open source framework boasts that it's a unique combination component model and easy-to-use HTML interface, with a list of killer features. Drew Falkman investigates.

Review: Chart FX 6.2 (Beta) for Java
When it comes to graphing, Java developers turn to third-party applications because there's no graphing support built into the Java API. Software FX's Chart FX goes the extra mile, proclaiming to be the easiest way to integrate charts into Java and J2EE applications. Drew Falkman investigates.

Interview: Bruce Tate on the "Poltics of Persistence"
Author Bruce Tate talks aboout the major Java persistence frameworks, the politics involved in which framework dominates, and the future of Java technology in general.

Review: Altova UModel 2005
Though UML is widely supported by key development players such as Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM, the cost of UML tools has prevented it from becoming widespread. Altova aims to change that by offering an inexpensive UML tool designed specifically for the smaller development shop. Is it time for you to start working with UML? Drew Falkman investigates.

Review: Omnicore X-develop Professional 1.0
Today's heterogeneous environments require developers to be able to switch between multiple environments, thus incurring the need for multiple IDEs. But Omnicore's X-develop may make the hassle of multiple IDEs a thing of the past. Drew Falkman invesigates.

MX4J: An Open Source JMX Implementation
MX4J is an open source implementation of the Java Management Extensions (JMX) specifications provided by Java. The JMX spec is designed to allow clients to manage applications and their subcomponents remotely at runtime, so that routine management tasks can be done without affecting the main application. Many of the latest application servers and Java applications in the market today use JMX to manage servers, database pools, and other management components through JMX.

Review: InterSystems Cachi 5 Database
This "post-relational" database combines object-oriented data storage with a robust relational database. It's generated a lot of buzz, but what does it offer for Java developers? Drew Falkman takes a look under the hood.

OpenEJB: Modular, Configurable, and Customizable
Why reinvent the wheel when most of it already exists? Find out how OpenEJB's modular, configurable, and customizable architecture allows you to leave the details to its subsystems and concentrate on what you're really good at.

IDE Wars: Has NetBeans 4.1 Eclipsed Eclipse?
Word on the street is that the latest NetBeans release surpasses Eclipse—in terms of both performance and functionality. Drew Falkman investigates.

Review: dotJ Custom Tag Library 2.0
While JSP custom tags allow you for the reuse of code snippets, many developers never look futher than the standard tag library. Find out how the dotJ Custom Tag Library can help you to build better applications in less time.

Review: Laszlo 2.2
As Rich Internet Application (RIA) development proliferates, so does the number of RIA tools. This open-source platform takes Flash as its client and uses LZX, a standards-driven XML and Javascript language. Drew Falkman investigates.

Review: Gluecode JOE
Gluecode's JOE is a set of open source projects tied together to make a coherent platform for developing Java applications. It promises all the benefits of open source with less of the headaches. In this month's review, Drew Falkman finds out whether JOE delivers.

Review: M7 NitroX 2.0 J2EE IDE
It's ironic that J2EE is pushing its fifth version soon and it's still all but impossible to find a good integrated development environment (IDE). OK, yes, there are a few proprietary ones--but doesn't that go against the whole notion of using an "open" platform? Drew Falkman stumbled upon M7's NitroX recently, and had a good feeling about it. They were saying all the right things, so he thought he'd take it for a test ride.

Review: JInspired JDBInsight 3.0 Early Access
One of the largest potential bottlenecks that J2EE developers have to deal with is between the application and the RDBMS server. And of course, this is also one of the most difficult areas in an application to test. JInspired's JDBInsight looks to solve our problems in this regard and Drew is taking it for a test ride.

Logic Explorers CodeLogic for Java 1.5
Nothing can save development time like good documentation. Understanding the big picture allows developers to go deeper faster. CodeLogic 1.5 will allow developers to dynamically generate documentation on the fly. This week Drew Flakman's going to tell us how this new tool stacks up.

Java 5 – Unleash the Tiger on Your Next Project
Sun has let loose the Tiger. The next version of the Java platform was just released as Java 5 with many enhancements. What happened to 3 and 4?

iSpheres Halo 4
Just in case you haven't heard yet, there is a new Three Letter Acronym in the J2EE development world, BAM. BAM is short for Business Activity Monitoring, and at the core of BAM is a new breed of Event Servers, whose sole responsibility is to monitor business activity in real time.

Review: iTKO LISA
Is development testing driving you crazy? Are you looking for a simplified answer to the many aspects of testing, J2EE applications, websites and web services? iTKO's LISA may be the answer to your sanity. This month Drew takes this all in one program for a test ride to see if how it performs.

Review: Sun Java Studio Creator Early Access Release
Sun's anticipated release of Java Studio Creator is here at last and Drew was hard at work the day of release. Find out why J2EE developers may have a new addition to their toolbox.

JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA 4
Is your IDE pulling it's weight? This month Drew looks at JetBrains newest offering to see if it's time for a change.

Converting XML to JavaBeans with XMLBeans
Is your company looking for a new XML-to-JavaBeans conversion tool? The newest development from BEA touts the ability to handle any XML schema. Hype or fact, you decide?

Oracle JDeveloper 10g (9.0.5)
Looking to remove the complexity from J2EE development? Oracle is currently previewing their 10g version of JDeveloper and it might be what you are looking for.

JProbe Suite 5.0.1
Having performance problems with your J2SE and J2EE applications? Quest's JProbe arrives on the scene with a suite of tools to monitor and troubleshoot your applications.

Macromedia Flex
Finally J2EE developers have a decent rich client development platform. Well, we almost do. Macromedia's new Flex offering looks to serve up a native J2EE rich Internet application development platform that uses the ubiquitous Flash Player as the rich client.

ESRI MapObjects - Java Edition 2
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software allows for the integration of database information and mapping services. This week we take a look at one of the formeost software developers of GIS software and there product.

Davisor Offisor 1.5.1
This month we look at Offisor, a handy little tool used to convert MS Word documents to XML. You might find this tool very useful.

Canoo ULC 5.1
Canoo Ultra Light Client (ULC) is a new paradigm for developing network-enabled rich client applications and we're going to take a look at it.

Jcorporate Expresso
Jcorporate is the mastermind behind Expresso, a Web application development framework that has a number of plug-in applications. This month Drew gives us the skinny on this framework that appears to be utilizing open source to eliminate development costs, while at the same time offering something valuable and unique from an open-source project.

Enforce Coding Style with CheckStyle
The world of programming is tricky and it gets trickier when it comes to employing a standard, enter CheckStyle! This month Samudra sheds light on this application and shows us how it helps us define and enforce a Java coding standard.

Aqris RefactorIT 1.3.2
Refactoring is a crucial step in any object-oriented development project, especially in corporate environments where many applications are outsourced or developed by employees who often come and go. Aqris addresses this need with there new offering RefactorIT 1.3.2.

Eclipse 3.0 Milestone Build 2
The oft-hailed and well-used Java Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Eclipse has just released it's second milestone build of the upcoming 3.0 release. This release promises to be a significant upgrade to the existing version and many in the Java community are eagerly awaiting it's pending release. This month Drew will preview the plans for 3.0 and evaluate what has been completed thus far in Eclipse.

Instant Messaging & Collaboration Servers
The growing Enterprise Instant Messaging and Collaborative application server space has become the vortex of a new standards war. In the midst of this war, many developers are questioning which of the two competing technologies to choose, or to wait until there is a winner. In this review, I discuss the war and also take a look at some potential interim solutions.

Corda OptiMap 5.0
Imagine a web-oriented mapping tool that shows real-time database information in a geographical format. Say hello to OptiMap. Drew Falkman inspects the goods and gives us the low down.

Enterprise Portals at Non-Enterprise prices (free, that is)
An Enterprise Portal can be a million dollar project. Are there really open-source solutions? Drew's quest for open-source portals has some interesting results.

5 Components Worth Buying
One of the key precepts that drove the creation of JavaBeans and Enterprise JavaBeans was to promote code reuse and code exchange of components. This month Drew investigates components that save developers time and money by capitalizing on these precepts.

ObjectAssembler 2.5
Looking to scale up your J2EE developement efforts without emptying your pockets? ObjectVenture's ObjectAssembler 2.5 may be your answer. Take a look at why this mid-priced tool is playing with the big dogs.

Java Development Tools You Never Knew Existed
The world of software is ever-growing, and though we all like to stay on top of all the tools available to us, who has the time? Well Drew Falkman took the time to bring you his five favorite tools you didn't know existed.

AccelTree Fulcrum 1.2
If you look at most programs, you will discover that they essentially are comprised of code segments that are very standard in nature. For example, code to validate a data item in a database, or code to insert a record set in a set of tables. Fulcrum is a sophisticated template-based code management system that enables Java developers to maximize code reuse and simplify the programming process.

Macromedia JRun 4
This application server offers not only all of the features you would expect from a J2EE application server, but a host of other features and advantages for both developers and administrators. Read why Drew Falkman says 'JRun 4 is the most exciting release of this product by far'.

Other Resources

Reviews at Other Internet.com Sites

GUI-Based Java Application Development
MCM Software hopes to simplify the development of Web applications with JEvolution, a graphical, no-Java-knowledge-required tool that can create Java applications complete with backend database connectivity.