Notes from EJB3 Talk

I’ve mind-mapped my notes from the EJB3 Talk last month. You can find an image of the mind map available at the link below:

Notes from EJB3 Talk (Mind Map)

Unless you have a ridiculously high-resolution monitor, you may want to turn off image scaling on your browser so that the text is legible.

Enjoy.

Early “Use Cases” and Domain Classes

We had an extremely productive session tonight (more on that later), but I wanted to post up the notes from the whiteboard right away. For those of you who were unable to attend, we decided to go with the ACM Library web app. We decided on some preliminary use case segments and domain model classes. I plan to post some UML very soon. For now, here’s a mind map of what we wrote on the board…

Whiteboard Notes

Welcome

This is the inaugural post for the WebSphere Application Server Community Edition 2.0 Open Source Lab, a four-part live workshop based in Chicago.

The User Group

For those just starting out in Java Web Application development, the vast array of technologies and offerings can be daunting. The Chicago Northwest Suburbs WebSphere User Group aims to focus topics such as open source, agile frameworks, community standards, and Java server architecture. The goal is to relate these subject matters to the WebSphere product line and related technology families, providing knowledge and experience for all users regardless of their skill level.  Most meetings are held downtown at the IBM Innovation Center, located at 71 S Wacker Dr on the Sixth Floor of the Hyatt Center. We meet regularly on the third Thursday of every month.

Last Session Recap

In case you are new to the group, or were unable to attend the September meeting, here’s a brief recap. September was the first in a series of four sessions highlighting WAS Community Edition and related IBM Open Source offerings. We were very privileged to be joined by the Association of Computing Machinery at University of Illinois at Chicago (ACM@UIC), who we hope to have join us for the duration of this series. In this first session, we talked about IBM’s general Open Source strategy. During several points of the discussion, we had a very lively dialog about what constituted open source, why it is relevant to businesses, and the value of the long tail. Following the general Open Source talk, we gave a high-level overview of the (then) upcoming release of WAS Community Edition 2.0. Based on the Apache Geronimo project, this fully JEE5-compliant web application server is available as a free download at the following address:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/ws/wasce/

We hope to be able to publish notes from these presentations on this blog very soon (keep an eye out).

The Lab

During the meeting, we also kicked off a four-part lab in which we will create a fully-functional web application using only free IBM and community open source offerings. This blog was set up to track the progress of the lab and share any all the relevant discussions and materials. In our first session, we set up the initial environment which will will be using throughout the project. In the next session, we will define and prototype the domain model using the Java Persistence API (JPA).

The Tools

One of the most fundamental components of this lab will be WAS Community Edition 2.0 and the JEE5 spec, which we will use to prototype and deploy our application. We will be using Apache Derby to spec the initial domain model (since it comes with WAS CE). We will also be using the Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers (Europa) for development and compilation, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as our our operating system.

The Application Concept

Going into the meeting, we planned our lab around a preconceived application. But based on the energy and creativity in the room, we decided to scrap all that and let the attendees decide what we develop. After some brainstorming, we ended up with great five ideas, each from member of the WSUG and each with real-world applications. Each of these ideas is represented in its own blog post (see Project Ideas section). In the comment section of each of these posts, there will be an area for you to vote for your favorite. Assuming we can build it over the course of the next three months, the idea with the most votes is the winner.

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Cedric

Project Ideas Have Been Posted

All project ideas suggested in last month’s brainstorm session have been posted. Please feel free to discuss the ideas and make sure vote for your favorite.

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Cedric