If you've read my column before, you've mostly seen reviews of software
development tools for WebSphere. This column is a bit of a departure from the
usual. All of us have experienced calling a support desk for help, and
afterward feeling more frustrated than before the call. Support people
struggle with limited, uncorrelated information and slow, unreliable tools.
The main thing missing is the ability for the responder to efficiently
correlate existing information pertaining to the user's problem. In almost
all cases, customers must call in to report the problem and then sit through
additional calls to find a solution. Major angst can build up on both ends of
the phone line, and once led me to do something kind of radical.
I joined forces with three other software developers about 10 years ago and
started a company. Our goal was to create and sell a Web-based help de... (more)
Quality-conscious developers are familiar with the idea of coding checklists.
The code you write must measure up to all the criteria on the checklist, from
"no grammatical errors in the comments" to "performs all required functions."
Based on these checklists, we have code reviews. A good code review takes
time, but is certainly worth the effort. Such reviews can prevent many costly
errors. However, when crunch time hits, thorough code reviews are often
impossible. That's where a tool like Parasoft's WebKing can help.
For several decades tools to automatically generate and run tes... (more)
About five years ago, I worked with a pure XML-embedded database. The
advantage of such a database is unmatched flexibility. New definitions of
everything can be added or changed on the fly. It was lightweight and useful
in tight spots, but of course lacked many of the features of more rigid
relational databases. One advantage it had was that it was compatible with
everything. At the time it was obvious that an XML-based component
integration strategy could be just the thing to quickly glue a system
together.
Nowadays enterprise server-side technologies abound, but between the J... (more)
It's one of the greatest challenges in enterprise application development:
object/relational mapping. Business information lives in relational
databases, and applications are made up of objects. There is no shortage of
products that attempt a systematic mapping between tables and objects, all
with limited success.
EJBs and WebSphere add some new twists to O/R mapping, and WebSphere Studio
Application Developer provides some new solutions, which we will explore
here.
Persistence of Vision
If you work on an EJB project, you'll run into this situation very soon, if
you haven't al... (more)
For years, the holy grail of programming, at least from a CIO point of view,
was a magic software tool variously called a "code generator," a
"fourth-generation language," or an "autocoder." This tool would generate the
correct executable code to fulfill a user's wishes, based on relatively
high-level requirements. Such a tool would definitely fulfill a project
manager's wishes, since creating software is a labor-intensive process
requiring high-priced talent.
But the big questions were always "Upon what criteria is the code generation
based?" and "What is the range of functiona... (more)
Jay Johnson is a J2EE architect at Qorusoft.
David Lucas
Shaul Efraim
Terence Martin Breslin
Cory Marchand
David Hughes
James Carlini
John Iffert
Dan Stolts
Joe Zeto
