Saturday, May 20, 2006
Intro to Web Services Presentation
In May 2006, I gave another presentation to the Kansas City Java User Group (KCJava). The topic of this presentation was an introduction to Web Services.
The presentation gives a high-level picture of what Web Services are and what are its key standards and technologies. It also shows the Java API's that support Web Services. Finally there is an example service and client built using Apache Axis.
This was my first in-depth look at Web Services and I was surprised at the complexity of the subject. In contrast, I was surprised at how easy Apache Axis made it to implement a Web Service. I also found that the Java Web Services Developer Pack (JWSDP) 2.0 has some similar features that I plan to learn more about.
The presentation gives a high-level picture of what Web Services are and what are its key standards and technologies. It also shows the Java API's that support Web Services. Finally there is an example service and client built using Apache Axis.
This was my first in-depth look at Web Services and I was surprised at the complexity of the subject. In contrast, I was surprised at how easy Apache Axis made it to implement a Web Service. I also found that the Java Web Services Developer Pack (JWSDP) 2.0 has some similar features that I plan to learn more about.
Labels: java, presentation
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Ajax Presentation
About a month ago with the help of Shashank Date I gave an introductory presentation on Ajax to the Kansas City Java User Group.
During my research I found Ajax to be much more fascinating than I had expected. My expectations were that it was just a technology for "spicing up" web interfaces with simple features like auto-completion text fields.
However, articles like Jesse James Garrett's made me realize that Ajax has a much grander vision. The vision is what is represented by his "Ajax engine". When done correctly, this layer will decouple the web user interface from the web itself. Instead of being constrained by the request-response model of the web, the web interface will interact with the services provided by the Ajax engine. In doing so the web interface can be much more responsive and feature-rich.
All of this is a pretty tall task given that Ajax relies on the major browsers to uniformly implement Javascript. However, it would be nice to be able to use web applications that are as interactive as today's desktop apps.
During my research I found Ajax to be much more fascinating than I had expected. My expectations were that it was just a technology for "spicing up" web interfaces with simple features like auto-completion text fields.
However, articles like Jesse James Garrett's made me realize that Ajax has a much grander vision. The vision is what is represented by his "Ajax engine". When done correctly, this layer will decouple the web user interface from the web itself. Instead of being constrained by the request-response model of the web, the web interface will interact with the services provided by the Ajax engine. In doing so the web interface can be much more responsive and feature-rich.
All of this is a pretty tall task given that Ajax relies on the major browsers to uniformly implement Javascript. However, it would be nice to be able to use web applications that are as interactive as today's desktop apps.
