March 2003 Archives

Well, just finished my presentation on Introduction To XPath in Java with Jaxen. I think it didn't suck too hard. Definitely having Pete Kazmier and Jeffrey Brekke reviewing the slides gave me confidence. I was a little dismayed to have only 7 folks attend. Apparently an XPath talk not involving XSLT at 8:30am on the last day of a conference is just not a very popular combination.

Anyone who is interested can view the slide deck here.

note to self: figure out how to get this Toshiba displaying on both the external VGA port and the LCD at the same time. Got a crick in my neck craning around to look at the 15' screen behind me to see where I was in the presentation.

Maybe the first of several updates, or maybe not, but...

I attended the reception for speakers and met Floyd M. (sorry, but I have no hope of actually spelling his last name correctly) from The Server Side, Jason Hunter of JDOM, Craig Russell from Sun (JDO spec lead), and Elliotte Rusty Harold of Cafe Con Leche. Luckily, Floyd didn't smack me in person after my recent blog entries. Had nice random chats with ERH and Jason regarding Jakarta and such. And Craig gave me some insight on how Sun deals with JSRs and reference implementations (bottom line: "it's complex").

It's always weird meeting someone for the first time in meatspace after interacting with them digitally for years sometimes. Personally, I know that I ascribe arbitrary faces and voices to people I've never met. Of course, I'm seldom accurate. I can only wonder how folks envisioned me (if at all) before this evening.

I did note how much more quickly conversations occur when they aren't being handled through email.

So, maybe more useful notes tomorrow, after I actually attend some of the presentations.

Just a heads-up that I'll be in the Santa Clara area for SD-West 2003 conference, where I'll doing a seminar about XPath and Jaxen from Tuesday until Saturday.

So, if you're in the Bay Area and want to grab a beer, talk about open-source, or offer The Werken Company some work, let me know either via bob@werken.com, or if it's time-critical, meet AT werken.com (obfuscated so I don't get some much spam on the shoephone) which will deliver 160 characters to my right hip.

Thanks to Floyd of TheServerSide for being responsive to my issue regarding not being able to get off a mailing list. They found a problem in their email process which has now been happily resolved.

Okay, I'm fed up.

TheServerSide has added me to their freaking spam list and provide no way to remove myself. I've logged on, and the box saying "Subscribe to TheServerSide newsletter and Event Notification" is unchecked yet I still get their crap. The mails contain no removal instructions.

Likewise, Java Developers Journal added me to their spam list somewhere along the way. Yes, their mail offers removal instructions, but they are futile. I've removed myself from their list at least a half dozen times, and yet they persist in sending them to me. It seems that they clone their original master list for each vendor they sell it to. Any unsubscribe requests only seem to affect the clone, and not the master.

So, guys, this is pure bad practice and is going to garner you some bad press.

So, if Floyd, Alan or anyone else associated with either of these two organization reads this, you need to get your act together and stop irritating your readers.

Here's an article that discusses some of the potential intellectual property issues around BPEL4WS. I would hope that by now, folks would have realized that even if you hold a patent or other claim, free and open specs benefit you in the long run. XML-DEV has a bazillion messages regarding the W3C discussion about reasonable and non-discrimatory licensing of any protected intellectual property, if you're interested in the details of this issue.

If BPEL4WS becomes the de facto standard for Web services choreography and transactions, will the intellectual property owners take advantage of you? That's not absolutely clear. Implying that there are barriers to BPEL4WS becoming a W3C standard, the W3C's Janet Daly said, "BPEL4WS has a [intellectual property] statement that, as it stands, makes it questionable as to whether it could be used as a foundation piece." That stands in stark contrast to the promise for WSCI, should it progress to the ratification stage at the W3C. The W3C recently adopted a royalty-free position with respect to the standards it ratifies.

Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 1.2 working draft has been published. I'm sort of forced to care due to how WSDL is used by BPEL4WS. But, I do appreciate WSDL in the fact that it shows that web service is not a synonym for SOAP.

This document describes the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 1.2, an XML language for describing Web services. This specification defines the core language which can be used to describe Web services based on an abstract model of what the service offers.

JSR 208 also looks interesting, but I'm not really sure how it is distinct from 207.

This JSR extends J2EETM with business integration SPIs.

JSR 207 might be interesting. I've nominated myself to the expert group. We'll see.

Definition of an annotated Java syntax and APIs for programming business processes in Java.

After doing the two steps forward, one step backwards dance for a week or three, I think werkflow's flexible syntax layer is ready to start implementing some syntaxes, such as BPEL4WS or BPML.

I'm still working on the generic syntax, but someone with an interest in BPEL4WS and an affinity for Jelly and web-services could certainly jump in, hack in the BPEL4WS module and win fame, glory, fortune and prestige.

If interested, pop on into irc.werken.com at the #werkflow channel, or ping me at bob@werken.com.

BPEL Learning Guide contains a smattering of information about BPEL4WS

Java developers need to publish synchronous and asynchronous Web services and compose them into reliable and transactional business flows. Web service orchestration standards (SOAP Conversation, BPEL4WS and WS-Transaction) are emerging and need to be packaged into a reliable and easy-to-manage software solution. So we've gathered a wealth of information to get you up-to-speed quickly.