Steve Benfield

Web services has promised many things. One primary promise has been the ability to piece applications together by snapping Web services together like so many Lego blocks. The output of one service becomes the input to the next and so on. In 2001, IBM published a specification called WSFL 1.0: Web Services Flow Language. WSFL is a language used to define business processes using Web services. By implementing WSFL, you can create process definitions that can be used by any WSFL-based business process engine. In addition, any process defined in WSFL can, itself, become a Web service, allowing composition of more and more complex and coarse-grained processes. My company worked directly with IBM to interpret and implement their specification; this article describes WSFL at a high level and concludes with some thoughts on WSFL and its future. Why Business Process Modelin... (more)

Java at a Crossroads

Special Java Session! This is a crucial time for Java and J2EE. Competing market and technical interests are moving Java in different directions. IT organizations are clamoring for ease of development, faster standards adoption, and stability. The application server market continues to consolidate enough so that there may be only three major application server vendors in the near future. (Or will it be only 2?!!!) The industry is also torn between 100% standards adoption and the productivity of proprietary frameworks. Some people claim that middleware is dead-yea right! Come join... (more)

Product Review: SilverStream 2.0

To put it bluntly, SilverStream 2.0 sets a new standard for large-scale Web development and deployment. We first looked at the product in June 1997 when they were the newest entrant in the application server market. It lacked many enterprise features such as scalability, fault tolerance and CORBA support. In addition, it only offered advantages in the area of Java client development and deployment. With 2.0, things are quite a bit different. SilverStream 2.0, released in October 1998, not only fulfills the early promise of the 1.0 product but includes innovative approaches for writ... (more)

Web Services The Power to Change the World?

So, people keep asking me, "Steve, how come you are such a wild and crazy guy?" OK, sorry, a late 70s flashback there. No, they ask me, "Steve, what's your take on Web Services?" To that, I have a standard opening: There is nothing special about Web Services. Web Services will change the world. The reason I use this opening set of remarks is because before I did, I'd get one of the following reactions when getting into a conversation about Web Services: Web Services? No thanks, I already have enough contractors. Web Services is revolutionary. Are you ready to unleash a force of... (more)

JSF: The Ultimate in Flexibility? Or Complexity?

I have a love/hate relationship with J2EE. I love the idea of standards that we can all use in our development to improve interoperability, ease integration issues, create a pool of skilled developers, etc. I hate the idea that I have to wait years for the standards to evolve and become usable. And I hate having specs that seem to work well in theory but have no practical implementation behind them. This brings me to the JSF specification. How long have we heard about JSF (JavaServer Faces) and how it will make it easier to build Web pages? Why did it take more than two and a half... (more)