Top 10 Destinations for Enterprise Developers at the 2004 JavaOne Conference

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Every year the JavaOne Conference gets better, with more content-rich sessions (technical and business), keynotes, BOFs, labs, booths, and other things to see and do. More than ever, the Conference gives you an opportunity to learn, exchange ideas, and get excited about what's new and cool. One especially rich strata of the Conference is designed for enterprise Java developers. Here are ten of the more intriguing destinations for enterprise developers at this year's JavaOne Conference:

1. Enterprise JavaBeans Architecture 3.0 (TS-1861)
   
   One of the main goals of EJB 3.0 is to make the architecture easier for developers to use. In this session, Sun Senior Staff Engineer and EJB Specification Lead, Linda DeMichiel, examines some of the sources of complexity in the current EJB architecture. She'll also present what the EJB architecture 3.0 expert group is doing to simplify things. Linda's EJB 2.1 Architecture talk at the JavaOne 2003 Conference drew an overflow crowd, so make sure to get to this session early.
   
   
2. BluePrints for Web Services: Designing Web Services with the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.4 (TS-2854)
   
   J2EE 1.4 adds significant support for web services, and now that the support is in place, many developers are looking for guidance in designing and implementing them. Here's the place to get that guidance. The speakers -- Sun Technical Staff members Sean Brydon and Vijay Ramachandran, and Senior Staff Engineer Inderjeet Singh -- are members of the Java BluePrints team. If you're familiar with the Java BluePrints program, you know that it's an important resource for enterprise Java developers. In this session, Sean, Vijay, and Inderjeet cover a variety of web services-related design and implementation topics, such as designing web services endpoints and writing web service clients. The content of the session is based on an upcoming Java Series book by the speakers, titled "Designing Web Services with the J2EE Platform 1.4."
   
   ... and speaking of J2EE 1.4:
   
   
3. Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Software Development Kit (J2EE 1.4 SDK) Overview (TS-1951)
   
   Find out what the significant enhancements are in J2EE 1.4 SDK (there are a lot of them) from J2EE SDK lead architect Tony Ng, Program manager Paul Ko, and Senior Staff Engineer Jerome Dochez. They also have the same responsibilities for the Sun Java System Application Server, which is the first production-quality application server that's certified to be compatible with J2EE 1.4. The session presents an overview of the SDK content, and also covers tools that can be used with the J2EE SDK, such as Sun Java Studio Creator and Sun Java Studio Enterprise.
   
   ... then come to the following BOF and speak your mind:
   
   
4. Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.4 SDK Community Discussion (BOF-2294)
   
   This BOF is designed to give the J2EE 1.4 community a forum to share experiences and interact with the product team.
   
   ... and if you're looking for some "out of this world" experiences:
   
   
5. Java Technology, Web Services, and Mars: A NASA Trip Report (BUS-1562)
   
   Can you use Java technology to develop mission-critical enterprise systems? How well do web services and Java technologies work together? Do the J2EE technologies really enable you to build middleware that is reliable, scalable, and secure? These are some of the questions that will be addressed by Joan Walton (Project Manager, NASA Ames Research Center ), Ronald Mak (Project scientist, University of California at Santa Cruz/UARC), and Elias Sinderson (Graduate student, University of California at Santa Cruz) in this session. They'll report on their experiences with the Collaborative Information Portal (CIP), a Java technology and web-based portal that supports managers, scientists, and engineers working on NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers mission.
   
   ... or more "down to earth" experiences:
   
   
6. How to Avoid Growing Pains: The Transition to a Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Application Server (BUS-2745)
   
   In this session, two representatives from Geographic Information Systems (GIS) vendor ESRI, technical analyst Marcy LaViollette, and Systems Architect Andrea Rosso discuss how ESRI migrated from the Sun Java System Web Server product using Java Servlet and JSP technologies, to the Sun Java System Application Server 7 Enterprise Edition. They did this to take advantage of services like JNDI, JMS, EJB architectures, and MDBs. They'll also discuss how ESRI's web services infrastructure has grown to support the demand for more features and more traffic.
   
   ... and for some "hands-on" opportunities:
   
   
7. Web Application Frameworks Over the J2EE Platform: JavaServer Faces and Struts Technologies (#6312)
   
   Here's your chance to use two popular Model-View-Controller (MVC)-based web application frameworks: Struts and JavaServer Faces (JSF). Led by three members of Sun's Technology Outreach Group -- Sang Shin, Doris Chen, Carol McDonald -- you'll develop and deploy both Struts and JSF-based web applications, and you'll have the chance to use JSF and Struts in tandem, leveraging the struts-JSF integration library.
   
   
8. Building Real-Life Web Applications Quickly and Easily with Sun Java Studio Creator IDE (#6611)
   
   In this lab, you'll use Java Studio Creator (previously known as "Project Rave"), Sun's Rapid Application Development tool, to build, deploy, and test several web applications that access web services and database tables. You'll develop the applications using Java Studio Creator's visual builder. You'll also use Java Studio Creator's drag-and drop user interface components. And you'll learn how to import web services.
   
   ... and lest we forget XML:
   
   
9. Java Technology to XML Binding Tools (BUS-2841)
   
   Come to this panel discussion and hear from some of the leading tool vendors for Java-XML processing. You'll learn about tools such as Castor, XMLBeans, and the JAXB RI. You'll also learn about some of the issues involved in XML-to-Java binding.
   
   ... and finally:
   
   
10. Java Technology Editors Roundtable (BOF-2842)
    
    Here's your chance to impact the coverage of enterprise-related topics in technical articles, feature stories, even blogs. In this roundtable discussion, Daniel Steinberg, the editor of java.net, brings together editors from some well-known Java technology information sites, as well as book and magazine publishers, to discuss their plans for the future. They'll also give the audience an opportunity to share ideas and suggestions about what they'd like to see covered.

... and don't forget about the JavaOne Coding Challenge, a chance for you to apply what you learn during the Conference sessions to real-world programming problems. Here's your chance to compete against your peers and have fun doing it. You can practice for the JavaOne Coding Challenge in a dedicated online practice room from May 28 to June 26. For more information, see here