Borland moving forward with SDO
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15 Sep 2004, 16:01 GMT - Borland Software took a new direction this week, with the announcement of Software Delivery Optimization (SDO).
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The Zend Developer Zone has another new tutorial from Padraic Brady talking about testing your applications (i.e. unit tests). In this new article, he expands on his previous one and dives a bit deeper into the behaviour-driven development process.   In this article, I introduce a TDD related practice called Behaviour-Driven Development which has been gathering attention for over a year and gaining converts (like me!).   He briefly covers what BDD is and how it can be used to solidify code against issues that might come up down the road (and how it compares to test-driven development). Some sample code/tests are included to give you a better idea of how it all fits together - a set of scenarios for any given "story". True to the title, Padraic writes his tests around the construction of a Klingon Bird of Prey ship.
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Microsoft plans on Tuesday to unveil what could be an industry-changing effort in application modeling and SOA with its "Oslo" project, which could significantly change the equation in the Windows application deployment space.Part of Oslo involves delivering a unified platform integrating services and modeling, Microsoft said. But instead of models describing the application, models are the applications themselves.Oslo is a codename for a set of technical investments that will be delivered in the next major versions of Microsoft's platform products, said Steven Martin, director of product management in the company's Connected Systems division. These products include Visual Studio, System Center, BizTalk Server, BizTalk Services, and the .Net Framework. Beta releases of Oslo technology are due in 2008."Oslo is a set of technologies that we think will help take model-driven design mainstream," Martin said.With Oslo, Microsoft is making investments aligned with a vision to simplify the effort needed to build, deploy, and manage composite applications within and across organizations. The effort builds on model-driven and service-enabled principles and extends SOA beyond the firewall.Release dates of Oslo-driven products have not been set. "This will make existing products we have better. Oslo doesn't have any new products. It's being injected into existing projects," Martin said.The products include:* Microsoft .Net Framework "4," which will further enable model-driven development within the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Web services platform and Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF).* Visual Studio "10," to follow the upcoming Visual 2008 package. Version 10 focuses on application lifecycle management with tools for model-driven design of distributed applications.* BizTalk Server "6," which will continue to offer technology for distributed SOA and BPM and include capabilities for composite applications.* BizTalk Services "1," which provides BizTalk capabilities within the cloud, will feature Web-based services for hosting composite applications that cross organizational boundaries. Advanced messaging, identity, and workflow will be featured.* Metadata repositories will be aligned across server and tools products, including System Center "5," Visual Studio "10," and BizTalk Server "6." Each will utilize repository technology for managing, versioning, and deployment models."System Center will be able to grab an application from the repository and deploy it easily without any intermediate steps," said Martin. Also, Microsoft anticipates that WCF and WWF will collapse into a single technology, he said.Analysts at Gartner called Oslo "ambitious.""It's pretty ambitious, and as a matter of fact, I believe we're not going to see anything concrete until well into 2008 and possibly 2009," said analyst Massimo Pezzini, vice president of the application platform strategies group at Gartner.Featured in Oslo are three fundamental components: a modeling environment, a business process server, including a significant evolution of BizTalk Server, and a new deployment model, Pezzini said.Oslo makes sense on paper, he said. "So far, there are only ideas and plans and prototypes, etc., so we have to see," said Pezzini.He added that he senses Oslo is mostly focused on enabling Microsoft Dynamics applications as work as enterprise applications via a SaaS (software as a service) model.Microsoft will need industry backing for Oslo to succeed, said analyst Nick Gall, vice president at Gartner."It's doubtful that it could really have the kind of major impact that I'm sure Microsoft and all of us would like to see unless they get the industry behind the approach," Gall said. Microsoft said it is evaluating whether to submit Oslo to an industry standards body and whether to seek industry-wide use of Oslo.SOA is related to Oslo because a services piece is offered, in which tooling and integration are improved with the .Net Framework. Also, there will be better connectivity to BizTalk Services, which provides Web-based services for messaging, identity, and workflow.Modeling, meanwhile, is important to application development, said Martin. Microsoft sees stumbling blocks with modeling as it is now: that modeling represents the application or business logic at a specific time, thus providing only a snapshot, and that models exist in isolation."Anytime you're looking at a model, you're only looking at a piece of the application because each of those models is separate," Martin said.Solving these problems involves taking modeling mainstream, he said. "Today, modeling is really only something that a select group of users and a select group of companies can do," said Martin.Whether a user is designing, developing, or deploying applications, Oslo "will simplify your job," Martin stressed.Microsoft's approach is not about Unified Modeling Language (UML), a technology of which Microsoft has not been a big supporter. But UML is a great example of a modeling language and Microsoft wants to unify its approach to modeling in general, Martin said.A modeling language is part of Oslo, but Microsoft is building a modeling language, a set of tools, and a unified repository. Microsoft's modeling language provides a way to unify existing modeling languages, similar to Microsoft's Common Language Runtime for application development.Oslo expands beyond UML to cover deployment and management, which UML does not address, Pezzini said.Key to Microsoft's effort is a unified metadata repository. Users get a view of a model being pulled out of this repository, Martin said. Deployment and policy information, workflow, and rules are maintained in one location, to prevent loss of data useful when deploying and managing an application or writing business rules against it."We think this will allow a much broader set of users to collaborate on applications," Martin said. "We think the process of building applications will be more efficient when anybody can see the application holistically."If Microsoft is successful with its plan to have application components automatically deployed based on models in the repository, it will be "a very huge benefit for the IT operations," said Pezzini.Microsoft is making available tools and guidance to take advantage of "real-world SOA." Featured are SOA resources from Microsoft and industry partners. Meanwhile, the new Microsoft SOA and Business Process Solution Center offers resources such as patterns and practices based on customer implementations.Microsoft's approach to SOA is to start out with a business problem and build services. The company will continue to work with partners such as AmberPoint and SOA Software to help round out SOA offerings, said Martin.Also at the conference, Microsoft plans to demonstrate an upcoming technology preview of BizTalk Services, with additional support for interoperability, Web 2.0 services, identity standards, and workflow in the cloud.The Oslo vision will be the subject of a keynote by Robert Wahbe, corporate vice president of the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft, at the Microsoft SOA and Business Process Conference in Redmond, Wash., on Tuesday morning. Microsoft's SOA strategy will be covered in the presentation.
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By Nolle, Tom  The wave of interest in service oriented architectures (SOA) has created, not surprisingly, a wave of speculation about the changes SOA might bring to enterprise networks.
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted the latest episode of their PHP Abstract podcast series with a focus this time on screen scraping (as recorded by Matthew Turland).   Matt has been building PHP applications since 2002. He joined the ranks of PHP-Oracle developers in 2006 when he became a programmer for METHODS Technology Solutions. He contributes to open source projects such as the Zend and Forkr frameworks. [...] We are going to veer off the beaten path today as Matthew talks to us about Screen Scraping.   You can download the mp3 directly or you can  to get this and the most recent episodes.
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Lorenzo Alberton has posted some updates about the PEAR packages that he maintains to his blog today including MDB_QueryTool, Mail_Queue2, MDB2, and Translation2.   Even if lately I've been coding way more in C/C++ than in PHP, I still keep an eye on PEAR developement: I reckon in the last month I've closed a bug a day, on average. And after my last call for help about my PEAR packages, I'm also pleased to announce that someone did indeed offer a hand. I'm happy to welcome not one, but two new developers!   Each of the items has links to their PEAR homepage and a few quick words on where the package stands (including developers involved or wanting to get involved). He also reminds developers out there that they can help out too if they want to jump in and get into PEAR.
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Application developers are getting a raft of new options this week with Sun updating J2SE, Borland upping its CORBA ante, and Compuware detailing products that will work with Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 toolbox.
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The Zend Developer Zone has republished the latest roadmap for the Zend Framework as posted by Andi Gutmans of Zend.    Although not always visible due to the infrequent release of new framework packages, there has been a lot of progress in the past few months. More than 100 community members(!) have joined the effort by singing the CLA, and are contributing via proposals, comments, patches, code contributions or documentation improvements.   Now the Summer is over and everyone is back at work, we feel it's the right time to finish planning the 1.0 release. We believe that in order to make a successfull release and get closure on the various aspects, it makes most sense to break up the framework into a limited number of subject areas and form project teams around these areas instead of components.    The following is a list of such areas and the components we believe we should focus on for 1.0. As you can see, a large amount of the work has already been done, but we now have to focus on getting closure on them and tying up loose ends.    Some of the components they've listed fall under the categories of:  Web & Web Services MVC & related Authentication & authorization Databases Documentation & translation    There is also a high-level look at what version 0.2 of the framework will contain and a return to the "post often" methodology they had before.
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Padraic Brady has posted a manifesto of sorts about the work that he's been doing on his PHPSpec library and trying to work it into the approval process for the Zend Framework.   I'll be attempting to pound the Zend Framework into submission so I can apply Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD) using PHPSpec when I write a Controller. Why? Because I feel like it, and it gives me an excuse to promote one possible incarnation of PHPMock and the PHPSpec Zend Framework extension. See? Perfectly reasonable selfishness!   He hopes to move it past the typical test-driven development process that PHPUnit offers and "kick your ass into high-TDD gear" without having to have worked much with it before then (the key is simplicity).   He includes some code examples (how it should flow) and describes some of the challenges that he's coming across so far, specifically with the way that the Zend Framework works with the Controllers and what he wants to accomplish.
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With open-source software being formally introduced Monday, WSO2 seeks to bridge the Ruby programming language and the Ruby on Rails Web framework with the SOA and Web services spaces.The company is set to debut WSO2 WSF/Ruby (Web Services Framework for Ruby) 1.0, providing a Ruby extension to support the Web Services WS-* stack. Ruby developers can incorporate security and reliable messaging capabilities needed for trusted, enterprise-class SOAP-based Web services, WSO2 said. But the product also supports the alternative REST (Representational State Transfer) Web services."Ruby, as you know, has become a very popular language the last few years, and what we are enabling is for Ruby to become part of an enterprise SOA architecture," WSO Chairman/CEO Sanjiva Weerawarana said.While Ruby has been popular in the Web 2.0 realm, sometimes it needs to talk to legacy architectures, he said. With the new framework, developers could build a Web application using Ruby and then hook into enterprise infrastructures, such as JMS (Java Message Service) queues. For example, a Web site might be built with Ruby that then needs to link to an order fulfillment system based on an IBM mainframe or minicomputer, Weerawarana said.With the December release of Ruby on Rails 2.0, the builders of Rails swapped out a SOAP library and replaced it with REST capabilities. In doing this, David Heinemeier Hansson, the founder of Rails, stressed that that SOAP and its attendant WS-* stack had become too complex.But Weerawarana stressed REST may not always be sufficient. "[The REST preference] is a perfectly fine position to take if you don't need any kind of these security and reliability infrastructure [capabilities]," he said. WSO2's framework would replace the SOAP capabilities removed in Rails 2.0, he said.Weerawarana's stance was seconded by a user of the company's products, Stefan Tilkov, CEO of infoQ, a consulting firm near Dusseldorf, Germany. While saying he likes Rails because it picks and chooses technologies, such as opting for REST over SOAP, Tilkov said businesses may not be ready to welcome Rails and the lesser known REST Web services at the same time, he said."Sometimes, you have to decide whether you want to fight all of the possible battles at once. Trying to introduce both Rails and [REST] at the same to a company can really be a challenge," he said. WSO2 is providing WS-* and SOAP capabilities for Rails, Tilkov stressed.Still, Tilkov likes REST. "I'm a very big REST fan, and I [advocate] the use of REST whenever I can," he said.WSF/Ruby 1.0 binds WSO2's Web Services Framework for C into Ruby to provide an extension based on three Apache projects. These include: Axis 2C, which is a Web services runtime to support REST and SOA; Sandesha/C, supporting WS-Reliable Messaging; and Rampart/C, for WS-Security capabilities.Also, WSF/Ruby 1.0 uses Ruby on Rails as its deployment model for providing services.Client and service APIs are offered. Support is featured for SOAP 1.1 and SOAP 1.2. The software is interoperable with Microsoft .Net, the WS02 Web Services Application Server, and other J2EE implementations. SOAP Message Transmission Optmization and WS-Addressing capabilities are included as well.Downloadable here, WSF/Ruby 1.0 is offered under the Apache License 2.0. While it is free, WS02 does sell development and production services as well as training for it. Production support prices start at $2,000, while development support begins at $2,500 for 10 hours. Training costs $400 per day per person with a minimum of five persons required.WSO2's long-term strategy includes allowing scripting languages like Ruby, Perl, and PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) to participate in an enterprise SOA.
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InfoWorld - Borland Software this week is rolling out an upgrade to its Together enterprise modeling tool for the Eclipse platform, featuring SOA capabilities.
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Will 'coding in the large' replace what we do now? Over the last few columns we have looked at how Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) based systems can be built using the Service Component Architecture (SCA) and Service Data Objects (SDO).â¦
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Borland has unveiled a software suite designed to help developers eliminate errors before their code can be checked in.
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Hasin Hayder has a post about their "yet another framework" they're about to release to the community - Orchid.   Orchid is still in preview state and we are planning to release it by the mid of January. But if you are interested you can check the orchid blog and checkout the nightly build version from svn repository. Orchid is very fast and lightweight and really painless to kickstart the development.   He includes a features list of some of the things it offers so far including segregated template components, partial caching, support for PDO, an included unit testing library and bundled libraries for Google Maps, Charts and JSON.
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At the BorCon conference this week, Borland Software will reveal its Software Delivery Optimization strategy, which leverages the companyâs ALM (application lifecycle management) and developer products to ease software development and maintenance.
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Blog: The open-source packaged application company, which is releasing the beta of a major product upgrade, is on track to go public, CEO says.
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By Mark Kellner, The Washington Times  Feb. 20--In the early days of PC computing, there were all sorts of  little programs that made life easier. One was Borland Software's Sidekick  that let people keep vital information at hand on their computers.