Steve Benfield

To put it bluntly, SilverStream 2.0 sets a new standard for large-scale Web development and deployment. We first looked at the product in June 1997 when they were the newest entrant in the application server market. It lacked many enterprise features such as scalability, fault tolerance and CORBA support. In addition, it only offered advantages in the area of Java client development and deployment. With 2.0, things are quite a bit different. SilverStream 2.0, released in October 1998, not only fulfills the early promise of the 1.0 product but includes innovative approaches for writing thin-client, HTML applications utilizing server-side Java business objects. The Application Server Market The market for enterprise-class application servers is hindered by a confused corporate IS industry. Faced with impending deadlines for completing Y2K initiatives, the majority of the... (more)

Java at a Crossroads

Special Java Session! This is a crucial time for Java and J2EE. Competing market and technical interests are moving Java in different directions. IT organizations are clamoring for ease of development, faster standards adoption, and stability. The application server market continues to consolidate enough so that there may be only three major application server vendors in the near future. (Or will it be only 2?!!!) The industry is also torn between 100% standards adoption and the productivity of proprietary frameworks. Some people claim that middleware is dead-yea right! Come join... (more)

Beyond BPM: Using Goal-Seeking Agents to Tackle Highly-Complex SOA Applications

Solving complexity has been a continuing goal of application architects & developers since we started writing programs. While SOA techniques do a great job at standardizing the interface between systems and BPEL attempts to standardize the logic flow between services, they tend to break down when systems become overly complex and uncertainty is introduced into the system. An Agent-Oriented Goal-Seeking approach to building applications has been shown to reduce the complexity of building major real-world applications and to reduce total development time by up to 75%. Goal-seeking ... (more)

What's Happening in Web Services?

So, what is going on in the world of Web services? I'm looking at a ton of analyst reports saying Web services won't be mainstream for another two or three years. One firm says that only 16% of companies will use Web services this year. I suppose it comes down to your definition of Web services. Which is another question I get a lot-what is a Web service? Some people have a very broad definition and include Web sites that execute functionality. Some have a narrow definition and only include a SOAP-accessible piece of functionality with WSDL published to a UDDI server. Some define... (more)

JSF: The Ultimate in Flexibility? Or Complexity?

I have a love/hate relationship with J2EE. I love the idea of standards that we can all use in our development to improve interoperability, ease integration issues, create a pool of skilled developers, etc. I hate the idea that I have to wait years for the standards to evolve and become usable. And I hate having specs that seem to work well in theory but have no practical implementation behind them. This brings me to the JSF specification. How long have we heard about JSF (JavaServer Faces) and how it will make it easier to build Web pages? Why did it take more than two and a half... (more)