Development Track 1

The New Frontier for Client Software: Rich Internet Applications on the Service-Oriented Client

Christophe Coenraets, Senior Technology Evangelist, Adobe Systems

The advancement of SOAs is enabling organizations to revamp their middle and back-end technology tiers and unlock the value of information previously contained in separate application silos. However, what about the front end and the ways in which people interact with newly minted Web services enabled by SOAs? Unfortunately, the demand to build applications of increasing complexity continues to outpace capabilities in traditional Web browsers. IT executives are realizing that traditional Web browsers are the Achilles heel of today's SOA strategies. Browsers cannot connect natively to Web services or interact with message-based data. They are also OS dependent, making software development and testing extremely arduous and time consuming. To tap the full value of SOAs and Web services, a new breed of client software is required, and it is already gaining momentum: Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) based on the service-oriented client (SOC).

This session will look at: how to combine SOAs with RIAs to radically transform how business is conducted and how people interact with systems; how developers can marry revamped back-office infrastructures with exciting new types of front-office applications, all while capitalizing on the popularity and ease of use of the Internet and intranets; RIAs as OS- and client-agnostic systems that combine the dynamic, graphical experiences of traditional client-server programs with the reach and connectivity of the Web; and how developers can use a combination of Ajax and Flex to design and deploy higher performance, data-rich applications, rich communication and collaborative applications, and larger-scale applications that include rich audio and video, local storage and cross-domain access capabilities.

The Web Inside: Composing Software with URIs for True Web Applications

Peter Rodgers, President, 1060 Research

Web 2.0 systems demand scalable and flexible data services. However, today's server-side technologies are constrained by a legacy mindset. What if software truly embraced the Web? What if the Web's URI addressing didn't stop at the edge of the application server? What if software were addressed by URI and composed from URI services? Based on a REST-microkernel written in Java, NetKernel is a third-generation, production-proven infrastructure. Originating from years of advanced research at Hewlett-Packard Labs, NetKernel offers a unifying abstraction that converges REST, Unix and dynamic languages. This presentation introduces RESTful software composition and demonstrates how a unique solution supports the symmetric use of Ajax on both the client- and server-side applications. Discover how to build applications that are as malleable and scalable as the Web itself.

Enterprise Composite Applications — The New Mashup

Sanjay Sarathy, CEO, Above All Software

Web services hold the promise of improved integration capabilities, especially when it comes to providing syntax-level communication across different systems along with the promise of reuse. For many companies, composite applications based on Web services have become a gateway to launching SOA initiatives — using integration projects to demonstrate the flexibility of services, Web-based or otherwise. Over the last few months, terms such as "enterprise mashups" have been discussed in Web 2.0 circles with the idea of bringing Web-based mashups — for example, Google Maps and Ticketmaster to locate and purchase tickets for events — to enterprise computing. In fact, some use the mashup term almost interchangeably with composite applications. How are they similar and how do they differ? This presentation will discuss the critical issues that developers need to understand surrounding composite applications and mashups when developing and deploying these technologies in enterprise settings.

The Remote Control for Web 2.0

Jon C. Bostrom, Senior Chief Architect — Java, Nokia Inc.

Since the first simple Java for mobile devices was introduced in 1999, mobile device capabilities have grown significantly. Processing power, memory, networking and power management all have made enormous strides, yet the programming architecture and focus has changed very little in the mobile space. Most development on mobile devices is still focused on creating simple end user applications. This presentation will focus on how the addition of OSGi Java technology on the mobile device addresses this problem by creating a framework that allows middleware services to be developed, deployed, executed and managed in a predicable way. The use of this "universal middleware" platform and the services it provides will create new innovative solutions for higher interactive Web 2.0 applications that will make the mobile device into a much richer computing system.

Secure, Reliable, Compliant Web 2.0 Applications: Organizational and Process Impacts to Quality

Wayne Ariola, Vice President, Corporate Development, Parasoft Corporation

Making Web 2.0 applications secure is not an easy task, and the longer you put it off the more difficult the task will be. This session will discuss and demonstrate common pitfalls associated with ramping up secure, reliable and compliant Web 2.0 applications, including common pitfalls such as cross-site scripting, executing rogue code on a page, and access permissions, as well as what are the "must haves" to ensure Web 2.0 applications are not at risk. This session is targeted toward Web application developers who are confronted with security, reliability and compliance issues when developing rich Internet applications for the Web 2.0 environment.

Using Atlas to Ajax-Enable an Existing ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site

Miguel Castro, Consultant and Trainer

All these new technologies with which we keep getting hit are great for developing applications. With Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) we can write next-generation Windows applications; Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) will allow better communication between systems and components; and WF gives us a platform on which to build workflow systems. Atlas also introduces a lot of features to make the development of Ajax-enabled ASP.NET applications easier, but what about those of us with existing systems? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to bring our existing applications up to speed on the new technologies without having to re-architect them and rewrite a lot of code? There are many tools in the Microsoft Ajax Framework and its accompanying control toolkits that allow us to do just that. In this session I'll demonstrate a small, non- Ajax ASP.NET site and show you how you can make minor additions and changes to it using Atlas to completely change the user experience.

Web 2.0 Trends and Interoperability

Marina Fisher, Staff Engineer, Sun Microsystems and
Greg Murray, Ajax Architect, Sun Microsystems

The struggle to integrate business assets across the .NET-J2EE technology divide is legendary. According to Gartner, 95 percent of medium and large-scale enterprises support both .NET and J2EE, and 30 percent or more of new application development will include both by 2009. However, significant and additional challenges arise when enterprises try to run Web 2.0 applications across these disparate platforms. This session will explore the unique interoperability and security challenges introduced by Web 2.0 development techniques such as Ajax and Ajax toolkits in the enterprise and present specific recommendations for overcoming them. The second half of the session demonstrates how to build an Ajax application using the jMaki Ajax framework, which enables developers to build Web 2.0 applications. The speakers will also discuss Open Ajax Hub and Open Ajax Alliance initiatives as part of the industry standards convergence, which is essential for interoperability.

The Role of the Flash Developer in a Flex World

Tim Walling, Software Architect, Allurent Inc.

It's not uncommon for developers to pose Flex and traditional Flash development as an either/or choice on a project. Flash developers not familiar with Flex and its capabilities tend to either a) shun Flex or b) feel like they have to go back and learn a new technology. In reality, Flash developers are greatly needed as Flex is adopted by more companies using it to develop rich Internet applications. Minimal Flex background is needed to get started in custom component development as well as styling and skinning of Flex applications. The target audience is Flash developers who want to understand how their skills can be utilized in a Flex development environment. A background in writing basic classes in Actionscript 2 is preferred. Familiarity with Flex 2 or Actionscript 3 is a plus, but not required. Attendees will walk away with an understanding of how they "fit in" on a Flex project. Armed with a basic understanding of Flex, its capabilities, and how to create components without having to touch Flex Builder or learn a new IDE, they will have a better idea of how Flex isn't a replacement for what they do, but rather an opportunity to utilize their Flash skills in new ways.

Reviving Structured Content on the Web

William Cava, CTO, Ektron Inc.

Since the 1990s there have been many efforts to standardize the way we describe types of information using XML, such as mathematical symbols and MathML. While these definitions prove useful for many applications, their usefulness failed to translate to the Web. There are several reasons for the failure. Web applications often fail to deliver content, retaining the structure found implicitly in XML repositories and databases. Rather, Web applications typically take this structured data and transform it into unstructured HTML. Also, Web applications that deliver content retaining its structure rely on browsers having explicit knowledge of how to display it. For example, for MathML to properly display in a Web browser, it must have a plug-in. Today, given the popularity of XML-based, Web-friendly grammars, such as XHTML and RSS, a new movement is afoot to deliver on the original promise of XML and structured information for the Web.

Several communities are working to take advantage of metadata by providing tools to create and syndicate structured information in machine-readable formats, which empowers other applications to understand it. For example, microformats and structured blogging present simple, open data formats built on existing and adopted standards. Instead of throwing away what works, they intend to solve simpler problems first by adapting to current behaviors and usage patterns. This presentation will provide an overview of emerging trends for microformats, structured blogging and RDF/RDFa; describe some of the common data types that are inherently structure-able, such as events/calendars, reviews, recipes, directions and contact information; and look at the benefit of their real-world application in Web content management systems, XML authoring tools, syndication and blogs.

Tracking Users with the New Personalization Features in ASP.NET 2.0

Paul Sheriff, President, PDSA Inc.

Although ASP.NET has always supported storing information about users in Session state, that information only persisted as long as the session was active. What if you need to save information about the users of your site long term? You could create your own data access layer and business layer to handle this common need, but ASP.NET 2.0 makes this storage simple. Using the Profile class, you have strongly typed access to information that you define to keep track of users, either authenticated or anonymous. This session drills into using this new ASP.NET 2.0 feature, which can save you hours of time for each site you build.