This series explores lightweight development strategies for Java developers. Based on concepts in Beyond Java and Better, Faster, Lighter Java, this series looks at techniques to reduce coupling, improve development process, and simplify code.
- Part 9: Continuations-based frameworks
Secrets of lightweight development success,
By letting you look at Web requests as a single application instead of multiple requests, continuations can make it easier to manage state, improve the way components fit together, and simplify vexing problems, such as the Back button and threading. This article explores the continuations server approach. - Part 8: Seaside
Continuations, or high-level programming abstractions, are often seen as academic toys, but a new breed of Web server can make the average developer much more productive. Continuation servers let you support the Back button in Web browsers and code with a more consistent programming style. Developers the world over recognize Seaside as the top existing continuation server, but Seaside does much more than continuations. - Part 7: Java alternatives
The Java programming language is powerful, but it has significant limitations for lightweight development. For certain problems, other programming languages such as Ruby may lead to better productivity. This article shows you what’s important for productivity in an application’s language. - Part 6: Persistence strategies
Persistence frameworks are an extremely important part of any Java technology application. The choices are daunting. So, too often, developers make the popular choice, whether it’s Enterprise JavaBeans or Hibernate. Often, you don’t need a full object relational mapping layer. Even if you do, other persistence solutions have much to offer. Hibernate is free and rich. Kodo JDO has excellent management and mapping support. iBATIS is a hybrid solution that maps objects to the result of SQL queries, rather than tables. Even JDO has its place. This article discusses each solution and gives you some ways to choose the best one. - Part 5: Agile development at conservative companies
Lightweight development works best with a lightweight process, but it can be tough to get a conservative company to adopt agile methodologies. Learn how you can propose and promote lightweight processes in your organization. - Part 4: A comparison of lightweight containers
Lightweight containers can dramatically loosen the coupling between major components of your system. Different containers embrace the same design patterns, but have otherwise radically different philosophies. This article helps you make the best choice among three lightweight containers: Spring Framework, HiveMind, and PicoContainer. - Part 3: The emergence of Spring
Lightweight containers provide a means for organizing the glue code for an application. The Spring framework is the predominant lightweight container. Spring contains a lightweight container, an aspect-oriented programming framework, and glue code that makes it easy to integrate hundreds of open source frameworks. - Part 2: How to lighten up your containers
Businesses need the enterprise services that heavyweight architectures, such as Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) technology, provide, but such architectures can be overkill for everyday problems. This article introduces lightweight containers and explains how they can provide the services your business needs without tying you to a given programming model. - Part 1: Core principles and philosophies
Lightweight development is a huge topic, and developers throw the term around so often that it’s hard to tell what it means. This first article in a series on lightweight development introduces you to the core principles and philosophies behind the movement.