VP of Developer Relations, Curl Inc.
Richard. Monson-Haefel is the author of five best-selling editions of Enterprise JavaBeans (O'Reilly), J2EE Web Services (Addison-Wesley), and the coauthor of Java Message Service (O'Reilly). He served on the JCP Executive Committee, which oversees the JSRs (specifications) developed for the J2SE and J2EE platforms. He also served on the Groovy (JSR-241), J2EE 1.4 (JSR-151), EJB 2.1 (JSR-153) and EJB 3.0 (JSR 220) expert groups for the Java Community Process. Richard was a founder of the Apache J2EE Application Server Project (Geronimo) and the OpenEJB project - an open source EJB container. Richard was a Sr. Analyst for Burton Group covering open source, Java EE, RIA/Ajax, mobile development, and other topics for 4 years. Today, Richard is the Vice President of Developer Relations at Curl, Inc.Presentations by Richard Monson-Haefel
Developing Rich Internet Applications
With literally hundreds of RIA products (e.g., Adobe Flash, Nexaweb, Backbase) and open source Ajax projects (e.g. Dojo, GWT, Prototype) to choose from. Picking the right RIA technology for the job requires months of research. Richard Monson-Haefel has been researching and writing about RIA alternatives for two years and has already done the research so you don't have to.Understanding Open Source Licensing
What does GPL, LGPL, MIT, Apache licenses, copy left, and dual licensing mean? Richard Monson-Haefel explains both the legal and technical implications of the major open source licenses in plain English. He explains when and how you can use open source in the enterprise and in the development of software products and how to protect your organization from abusing open source licensing.10 Things Every Software Architect Should Know
An effective software architect understands that every application is different and requires unique choices regarding programming language, middleware, integration, data access, user interface design, etc. Richard Monson-Haefel has distilled knowledge from his own experience and from personal interviews with the World's best software architects to define 10 principles every software architect should know in order to be effective.Books by Richard Monson-Haefel
by Richard Monson-Haefel & Dave Chappell
- This book is a thorough introduction to Java Message Service (JMS) from Sun Microsystems. It shows how to build applications using the point-to-point and publish-and-subscribe models; use features like transactions and durable subscriptions to make applications reliable; and use messaging within Enterprise JavaBeans. It also introduces a new EJB type, the MessageDrivenBean, that is part of EJB 2.0, and discusses integration of messaging into J2EE.
- Available At: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/javmesser/index.html
by Richard Monson-Haefel
- J2EE? Web Services is a comprehensive guide to developing and deploying Web services using J2EE technology. Concentrating on standards sanctioned by the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) for maximum interoperability, the author delves into Web-service standards and the J2EE 1.4 Web-service APIs and components with clear and engaging discussions.
- Available At: http://www.amazon.com/J2EE-Web-Services-SOAP-JAX-RPC/dp/0321..
by Richard Monson-Haefel & Bill Burke
- This fifth edition, written by Bill Burke and Richard Monson-Haefel, has been updated to capture the very latest need-to-know Java technologies in the same award-winning fashion that drove the success of the previous four editions. Its easy-to-follow style and hundreds of practical examples help you simplify the complex world of EJB - without the costly trial and error.
- Available At: http://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-JavaBeans-3-0-Bill-Burke/dp..
The Clever Monkey
Richard Monson-Haefel, Sr. Analyst for Burton Group
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Since April of this year I've been working on a side project called 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know. This has been a collaborative effort among software architects and it culminated today in the public release of the "97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know" web site.The site contains axioms from some of the top software architects that I know. Each axiom is a piece of advice for software architects about everything from maintaining the vision to communicating with co-workers. To date there are 49 axioms that have been accepted but we want a lot more. We are inviting the community to come to the site, learn, get inspired, and contribute their own axioms. Hopefully one day there will be hundreds of axioms providing insight and guidance to software architects all over the world.
The "97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know" web site is only the begining. Working with O'Reilly Media, Inc. a book based on the web site will be published early next year. It will take the top 97 axioms from the web site and put them in print. Each axiom will get its own two page spread that includes the name and picture of the author. In addition, every author's biography will be published in the back of the book. This is a web and a book project created by software architects for software architects.
In the future O'Reilly will be publishing other 97 Things projects (e.g. "97 Things Every Software Project Manager Should Know") which will follow the same collaborative format as the architects book. All of these projects, whether they result in a book or not, will be made available for free on the web for everyone to access and contribute.
I'm excited about this project - I'm pretty confident people will find the site useful and I'm looking forward to seeing the community at large participate.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Well the moment I've been dreading has finally arrived. The Microsoft IE team has announced that IE 8 will include an important new feature that is not standard to Ajax: The ability to update the navigation log using JavaScript.As Waldek Mastykarz said in his blog Innovation Matters, "What concerns me is the fact, that it will be supported in IE8 only." You got it; Microsoft has drawn first blood in what will be the next browser war. As Microsoft introduces new features the Firefox team will be faced again and again with two questions:
- "Do we implement everything Microsoft does or do we pick and choose?"
- "Do we innovate through a standards process or do we choose to implement first and standardize second?"
The answer to these questions will determine whether or not Firefox falls in line with Microsoft or asserts itself as a leading browser provider. The outcome seems obvious to me: No self respecting open source team will allow Microsoft to dictate its technical direction.
The Firefox team might implement this new navigation feature for Ajax applications, but it won't implement everything Microsoft chooses to add to each new version Internet Explorer. As a result Microsoft IE and Firefox will diverge to the point that Ajax applications will no longer be portable across these two leading browsers.
The downfall of DHTML, a lack of consistency across browsers brought about the first Browser Wars of the mid and late 1990's, will be exactly the same downfall for Ajax. Microsoft and Firefox are about to rekindle the Browser Wars and its the developers and end-users who are going to suffer.
This only confirms in my mind that plug-in technologies provided by a single vendor (e.g. Flash, Curl, Silverlight, Java) are the only viable RIA solutions in the years to come. Microsoft and Mozilla can innovate and diverge all they want, the RIA plug-in solutions will be able to adapt quickly and effectively protect and encapsulate applications inside their own runtimes.
Ajax is dead RIA walking.
Update:
My old friend Dion Almaer took issue with this post in his own post on Ajaxian.com that says:
I'll admit that I didn't know that this feature was included in HTML 5. The fact that it comes from the HTML 5 standard is certainly encouraging - I really do want Ajax to survive because its a great mass-consumer solution and it provides the glue that allows us to wire different RIA solutions together.
What is interesting here is that even though Sharath said: "adopted in IE8 from HTML5" we have Richard Monson-Haefel (Curl evangelist) saying Ajax is dead RIA walking. This strong conclusion comes from the fact that IE implemented an HTML 5 feature???
Having said that - and not being one to give up so easily - there are two things of interest. First is the fact that HTML 5 is a working draft, not a finished specification. It's quite possible that the APIs in that draft will change before its finished in which case Microsoft's implementation of this feature could be broken. Will Microsoft wait for the W3C to finish HTML 5 before shipping IE8? Maybe, but I doubt it. So IE8 could ship with an API that changes.
The other issue is how much of HTML 5 and what parts of HTML 5 does Microsoft plan to implement in IE8 and future versions of IE? Which parts will Firefox and WebKit implement with what versions of their browsers? I suspect that different browser vendors will implement different aspects of HTML 5 at different rates according to slightly different versions of the HTML 5 specification. Not exactly a recipe for consistent and standardized implementations across browsers.
Just look at the the inconsistent implementation of other W3C standards such as CSS and SVG: None of the vendors implement all the features of CSS. Microsoft will pick and choose the HTML 5 features they wish to implement and by not embracing the entire specification (which is only in draft format) they will effectively make their browser less compatible with other browsers and so we are back to square one: Inconsistent implementations with features sets that are so disparate that Ajax frameworks will not be able to keep negotiating the gaps.
The fact that IE8's new feature is defined in the working draft of HTML 5 is encouraging but not convincing given the history of the parties involved and the history of implementation of W3C standards.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Well the moment I've been dreading has finally arrived. The Microsoft IE team has announced that IE 8 will include an important new feature that is not standard to Ajax: The ability to update the navigation log using JavaScript.As Waldek Mastykarz said in his blog Innovation Matters, "What concerns me is the fact, that it will be supported in IE8 only." You got it; Microsoft has drawn first blood in what will be the next browser war. As Microsoft introduces new features the Firefox team will be faced again and again with two questions:
- "Do we implement everything Microsoft does or do we pick and choose?"
- "Do we innovate through a standards process or do we choose to implement first and standardize second?"
The answer to these questions will determine whether or not Firefox falls in line with Microsoft or asserts itself as a leading browser provider. The outcome seems obvious to me: No self respecting open source team will allow Microsoft to dictate its technical direction.
The Firefox team might implement this new navigation feature for Ajax applications, but it won't implement everything Microsoft chooses to add to each new version Internet Explorer. As a result Microsoft IE and Firefox will diverge to the point that Ajax applications will no longer be portable across these two leading browsers.
The downfall of DHTML, a lack of consistency across browsers brought about the first Browser Wars of the mid and late 1990's, will be exactly the same downfall for Ajax. Microsoft and Firefox are about to rekindle the Browser Wars and its the developers and end-users who are going to suffer.
This only confirms in my mind that plug-in technologies provided by a single vendor (e.g. Flash, Curl, Silverlight, Java) are the only viable RIA solutions in the years to come. Microsoft and Mozilla can innovate and diverge all they want, the RIA plug-in solutions will be able to adapt quickly and effectively protect and encapsulate applications inside their own runtimes.
Ajax is dead RIA walking.
Friday, July 4, 2008
"Matt is a 31-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. Matt achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he'd saved to wander around Asia until it ran out. He made this site so he could keep his family and friends updated about where he is.A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt an idea. They were standing around taking pictures in Hanoi, and his friend said "Hey, why don't you stand over there and do that dance. I'll record it." He was referring to a particular dance Matt does. It's actually the only dance Matt does. He does it badly. Anyway, this turned out to be a very good idea."- Patrick Drury
See Matt dancing video.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Just in case you were fortunate enough to miss it, I was on the RIA Weekly radio show yesterday. Actually, The RIA Weekly Show hosted by Michael Cote of RedMonk (a favorite analyst company) and Ryan Stuart of Adobe (a stand up guy) is a great show. Every week they talk about current events in the RIA industry and mix in a good amount of chuckles.I was the guest on Episode 17. I spoke mostly about Curl and how its different from other RIA solutions. We also spoke a little bit about JSF, SOA, programing languages, and other topics. Over all I think it went pretty well, but its never fun to see yourself on video or listen to yourself on a voice recording. Apparently I do an in-take-of-air after every sentence as if I'm living on a respirator and need to get the mask back on or suffocate.
