Java Rock Star: Greg Murray

Snapshot: Greg Murray is the Sun Servlet specification lead. He was formerly a member of the Java BluePrints team where he was responsible for the web tier recommendations. He has experience with internationalization, web services, the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) standalone clients, and AJAX-based web clients.

Q: The biggest misconception among Java developers about AJAX is...?

A: The biggest misconception is that AJAX is difficult. Java developers have many options to incorporate AJAX in their applications, ranging from using JavaServer Faces components which mask all the details of JavaScript and CSS, to Servlets which allow for low level AJAX processing, and jMaki which supports both audiences. For more details on these options see https://blueprints.dev.java.net/ajax-faq.html and my blog (http://weblogs.java.net/blog/gmurray71/). Also go to session TS-2991, "Smackdown for AJAX Programming Models and Frameworks," on Thursday from 4:00 PM.

Q: Where is AJAX headed in the future?

A: AJAX is heading into the enterprise. I've spoken with many customers and companies around the world who say that their customers are demanding more interactive applications so they can be competitive. To that end, the Java BluePrints team has created a reference application "The Java Pet Store," version 2, which shows the programming model and best practices for future AJAX and Web 2.0 applications. See https://blueprints.dev.java.net/ for more details.

Q: The key improvements in Servlet 2.5 are...?

A: Servlet 2.5 was an incremental release that included annotations for Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) containers, making it easier to interact with resources such as data sources and Java persistence. This was its main improvement. Jason Hunter, a member of the Servlet expert group, has written an article on the improvements which may be found here: http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-01-2006/jw-0102-servlet.html.

Q: The Java class that you couldn't live without is...?

A: javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet. This class is at the core of the Java EE web platform.

Q: Favorite Java book?

A: Java Servlet Programming by Jason Hunter.

Q: What do you do when you feel stumped?

A: Google is my friend. Wikipedia is also a good resource.

Q: Can you describe the process of writing code?

A: I start with something that works and refine it as I go. Incremental development of code is key for me, especially when the code is in JavaScript and Java.

Q: What's the next big technology revolution?

A: Web 2.0 is becoming a reality. For those not familiar with Web 2.0, see: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html. I believe scripting will make a resurgence and Java technology will provide the services to the scripting environments. Java SE 6 (Mustang) provides a good infrastructure for this.

Q: What would you tell a student or an engineer new to Java technology?

A: Join an open source project and contribute. Share what you learn/do in a blog.

Q: What do you see as the most important API in Java five years from now?

A: I believe the APIs that allow Java technology to integrate scripting environments will be the most important. I think the JDBC API or some flavor of it will always be important as relational databases. I also see the JAX-WS APIs for web services being important as web services are not going away.

Q: What has been your biggest surprise in working with the Java programming language?

A: My biggest surprise is that the Java programming language was created more than 10 years ago and it?s the best solution for solving problems that could not even be imagined at that time. It?s flexible enough to evolve to suit today?s problems. That said, the challenge is for the Java community to make today's problems easier to solve and enable developers to be more productive.

Q: Where in the process of programming do you have the most fun?

A: When I share with others what I have learned.

Be sure to check out Greg's blog at: http://weblogs.java.net/blog/gmurray71/