Articles by Rick Hightower

Job Trends: JSF Catches Swing

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:00:00 EST

JSF did well in 2007. Let's put it this way: If job demand for the Struts framework and JSF were a stocks and you invested in it in April of 2005 by July of 2007 you would barely break even with Struts, but with JSF your investment would have grown 700% as of July 2007. (According to indeed.com.) Struts continues to do really well; it is still number 1. Yet after Struts, JSF is doing well and Struts growth is as flat as EJBs.

GWT: The Most Important Announcement at JavaOne?

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 11:30:00 EDT

Time is a brutal enemy of youth and exuberance. Time makes cynics of us all. Time is the universal truth serum that reveals all authenticity. Time will tell, but the announcement at JavaOne 2006 by Google may change the face of AJAX development; strike that, Google's announcement may change Web development forevermore.

i-Technology Viewpoint: Google's GWT "May Change Web Development Forever"

Fri, 19 May 2006 10:45:00 EDT

Time is a brutal enemy of youth and exuberance. Time makes cynics of us all. Time is the universal truth serum that reveals all authenticity. Time will tell, but the announcement yesterday by Google may change the faces of AJAX development, strike that, Google's announcement may change web development forever more. This cynic heard an announcement yesterday that changed his viewpoint and beliefs on the future of web development.

Interesting Times in the Java Enterprise

Fri, 05 May 2006 11:00:00 EDT

Robert F. Kennedy once said, 'There is a Chinese curse which says, 'May he live in interesting times.'' The enterprise Java space is 'interesting.' Not too long ago, folks like Bruce Tate, Gavin King, and Rod Johnson were pushing lightweight frameworks such as Spring and Hibernate, and there is still a lot of true innovation going on with AspectJ, Spring, Hibernate, WebWork, JBoss (method invocation handlers), and more. This lightweight POJO revolution shook the enterprise Java world.

i-Technology Viewpoint: "Spring Good!"

Sat, 08 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST

'If you have not looked into Spring yet, it is time.' That's Rick Hightower's New Year's advice. 'As Rod Johnson once put it: Spring puts the OO back in J2EE development,' he continues. What makes Spring different than the other frameworks and containers, Hightower explains, is that Spring goes beyond just being an IoC container or an AOP framework.

"JSF Good!" Says Rick Hightower

Mon, 20 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EDT

'Apparently it is popular to bash Sun and J2EE,' notes Rick Hightower. But 'JSF does not deserve it,' he adds. Hightower finds JSF a lot more productive than Struts: 'I was amazed how fast I could crank things out. The only other framework I would consider using instead of JSF would be Tapestry. In short, I dig JSF.'

BeanShell & DynamicJava: Java Scripting with Java

Sat, 01 Jul 2000 00:00:00 EDT

The past three articles in this series have highlighted the strengths of scripting languages. They're interactive and dynamic, and allow you to experiment, debug and prototype solutions quickly. However, the most common response when I speak to die-hard Java fanatics is, 'Yeah, but I'll have to learn another language and I already know Java' (I consider myself a die-hard Java fanatic to a degree).

Extending Your Applications with Bean Scripting Framework

Thu, 01 Jun 2000 00:00:00 EDT

Part 4 of a series discussing the many languages that compile and/or run on the Java platform

NetRexx Programming for the JVM

Mon, 01 May 2000 00:00:00 EDT

This article is Part 3 of an interactive series that discusses the many languages that compile and/or run on the Java platform. Java Developer's Journal invites you to vote for your favorite non-Java programming language in the JDJ forum. Your vote will decide which languages will be covered by the series, and in what order. A lot of languages work in the JVM, but this series will cover only the most popular, as determined by your votes.

Interview...with Mike Cowlishaw

Mon, 01 May 2000 00:00:00 EDT

R. Hightower: Have you considered an open- source license? M. Cowlishaw: Until recently the licensing issues seemed something of a minefield with so many different ideas on what open source should be. Also, my translator/compiler is very much a research scaffolding (for example, it has hooks, which look like dead code, for multiple input syntaxes). At the moment I'm (finally) implementing the interpreter pathways, which is very much a work in progress; this sort of thing is much easier to do when only one person is working on the code as a whole.

Python Programming in the JVM

Wed, 01 Mar 2000 00:00:00 EST

What This Series Is About. This article is Part 2 of a series that discusses the many languages that compile and/or run on the Java platform. This is an interactive series. Java Developer's Journal invites you to vote for your favorite non-Java programming language in the JDJ Forum. Your vote will decide which languages will be covered by the series, and in what order. The last time I checked, JPython and NetRexx were neck and neck. NetRexx, though not mentioned previously, will be covered in the next article.

Programming Languages for the JVM

Tue, 01 Feb 2000 00:00:00 EST

Back before Java became popular, I was a C++ bigot. I programmed in nothing but C++. I lived, ate and breathed C++. If it wasn't C++, it was rubbish. I thought C++ was the alpha and omega of object-oriented programming. I had "operator overloading" for breakfast, "templates" for lunch and "multiple inheritance" for dinner, and I always went back for seconds.

How to Use COM/DCM: Part Two

Mon, 01 Nov 1999 00:00:00 EST

How can Java classes be used as scriptable components? DCOM, like CORBA, provides both static and dynamic invocation of objects. DCOM uses type library to provide metadata to do the dynamic invocation and introspection similar to CORBA's interface repository or Java's introspection mechanism.

Developing with DCOM & Java

Thu, 01 Jul 1999 00:00:00 EDT

Developing distributed components with Java and DCOM (distributed component object model) simplifies developing distributed applications. If you know CORBA or RMI, DCOM is easy to learn. Microsoft's Java Virtual Machine makes developing COM and DCOM components painless.