Latest News from Jay Johnson

IT PowerPAC WS from Eden

Fri, 26 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST

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.

Product Review: Parasoft WebKing

Tue, 26 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EDT

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.'

Cyanea/One from Cyanea - Manage and tune server clusters - plus debug your apps

Wed, 24 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EST

Sure, you can use WebSphere Studio Application Developer to debug a single WebSphere application, but how do you debug applications running together on a cluster of WebSphere servers? WebSphere Application Server has two low-level APIs that can be used to find out and adjust what goes on in a server: PMI and JMX.

IBM Rational Rapid Developer

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 00:00:00 EDT

As a long-time Rational Rose user, I'm happy with what I've seen lately. IBM is making its acquisition of Rational pay off with the creation of what seems to be the ultimate end-to-end modeler/code generator.

Bowstreet Portlet Factory

Fri, 15 Aug 2003 15:29:35 EDT

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.

M7 Application Assembly Suite

Thu, 12 Jun 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Those who have battled J2EE application development with the plethora of WebSphere tools have probably thought that there must be an easier way. Now there is a new breed of software called application assembly platforms (AAP). These toolsets make it possible to visually assemble an enterprise application without getting bogged down in the details. The components can come from multiple sources. The best of these tools are server independent or at least support the 'Big 2' application servers - WebSphere and WebLogic. The M7 Application Assembly Suite is one such tool.

Borland Together Edition for WebSphere Studio

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 00:00:00 EST

I have long been a TogetherSoft fan, having used TCC (TogetherSoft Control Center) for several years. It was a great development tool, effortlessly keeping code in sync with diagrams and providing the best reverse-engineering features in the business. TCC had lots of other goodies, such as modeling in color, metrics, and support for patterns, making it more fun to use than Rational's modeling tools. Sadly, TCC was always out of sync with IBM's WebSphere Application Server. For example, it never fully supported EJB deployment to WAS 4.0.

FlowBuilder XML Edition: XML Super Glue

Fri, 13 Dec 2002 00:00:00 EST

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.

Rational XDE

Thu, 23 May 2002 00:00:00 EDT

Developers using WebSphere Studio Application Development (WSAD) for J2EE development were left out in the cold when it came to UML-based Java IDEs. While WSAD provided an excellent testing environment due primarily to its fully-integrated Websphere test server/container, Java developers had to look elsewhere for UML support. Now Rational has taken a major step toward turning WSAD into a full-featured design tool: XDE.

Object/Relational Mapping

Wed, 24 Apr 2002 00:00:00 EDT

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.