David Geary
Rocky Mountain Software Symposium
Denver · November 10 - 12, 2006
Author of Graphic Java, co-author of Core JSF, member of the JSF Expert Group
David Geary is the president of Clarity Training, Inc. (corewebdevelopment.com), where he teaches developers to implement web applications using JavaServer Faces (JSF) and the Google Web Toolkit (GWT).
A prominent author, speaker, and consultant, David holds a unique qualification as a Java expert: He wrote the best-selling books on both Java component frameworks: Swing and JavaServer Faces. David's Graphic Java Swing was the best-selling Swing book, and is one of the best-selling Java books of all-time, and Core JSF, which David wrote with Cay Horstman, is the best-selling book on JavaServer Faces.
David was one of a handful of experts on the JSF 1.0 Expert Group (EG) that actively defined the standard Java-based web application framework, and David is currently on the JSF 2 Expert Group, helping to vastly improve JSF in version 2.
Besides serving on the JSF and JSTL Expert Groups, David has contributed to open-source projects and he has written questions for two of Sun's Certification Exams: Web Developer Certification and JavaServer Faces Certification. He invented the Struts Template library which was the precursor to Tiles, a popular framework for composing web pages from JSP fragments, was the 2nd Struts committer and contributed to the Apache Shale project.
David has spoken at more than 100 NFJS symposiums since 2003, and he also speaks at other conferences such as TheServerSide Java Symposium, JavaOne, JavaPolis, and JAOO. David has taught at Java University for the past three years, and is a three-time JavaOne rock star.
Presentations
JavaServer Faces: A Whirlwind Tour
In April 2005, annual growth rates for jobs in JavaServer Faces, Struts, and Ruby on Rails were all at about 0%. Today, Struts' growth rate still hovers around 0%, but JSF and Rails have taken off. At the end of 2007, both JSF and Rails were growing at a rate of between 400-500% annually (according to indeed.com).
JSF has passed the adoption tipping point, and is now the Java-based framework of choice, as is evidenced by its ecosystem. From vendors such as MyEclipse and RedHat to open source projects such as Seam, Facelets, and Ajax4JSF, JSF is where the action is.
Come see why JSF is so popular. In this code- and demo-intensive session, I'll show you the fundamentals of JSF.
JSF: State of the Art
In 2005, JSF hit its stride, as evidenced from overwhelming support from both vendors and the open-source community. JSF 1.0 had plenty of holes, but open-source projects have arisen to address those needs. This session takes a look at three of those projects: Tomahawk (MyFaces component library) FaceletsSeam
Shale: Turbo-charge your JSF Apps
JavaServer Faces is a well designed user interface framework, but it lacks a number of features you might otherwise expect out of the box; for example, JSF does not explicitly provide support for client-side validation.
So, from the folks that brought you Struts, comes Shale, a collection of useful enhancements to JSF. A top-level Apache Software Foundation project, Shale adds some really cool features to vanilla JSF, including:
Web flow: script dialog flow
Remote Method Calls: easily call JavaBean methods from JavaScript
Tapestry-like views: code views in pure HTML
Use Apache Commons Validator validators on the client or server, or both
JSF testing framework: mocks for easy JSF testing
There's a lot of cool stuff in Shale that makes JSF a much more compelling proposition. Come see what it's all about.
The Google Web Toolkit, Part One
Developing highly interactive web applications, for the most part requires knowledge of a wide array of technologies: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XMLHttpRequest, JSP, JSF, etc.
With the Google Web Toolkit (GWT), Google turns that notion of development on its head. Instead, you implement Ajax applications by writing almost entirely in Java. You use an AWT-like API, which the Google compiler compiles to JavaScript that runs on the client.
Ajaxian Faces
JavaServer Faces is a perfect platform for implementing Web 2.0 interfaces with Ajax. This session explores how you can use these two potent technologies–JSF and Ajax–together to create applications that look and behave like desktop applications but run in the browser.
Hands-on Rails
Come to this exciting preview of one of the leading web application framework contenders with the potential to be the Next Big Thing: Ruby on Rails. An innovative framework with an eye-popping array of ultra-cool features such as active record and native support for Ajax, Rails greatly simplifies web application development and puts the joy back in software development. Rails is easy, fun, and very productive; in fact, in the throes of Rails-mania, some converts have claimed that developing with Rails is at least 10 times as fast as your favorite Java framework. Could that be? Come see for yourself.