Jini
The Java Posse have posted a delightful three-part interview with Van Simmons of the ComputeCycles Project: one (#82), two (#84) and three (#86). This is an excellent introduction to Jini. I’ve been excited about Jini since it was first announced, but it kinda fell off the radar for a while and I haven’t pursued it. I might grumble about working with Java (okay I do more than grumble!), but to my mind Jini rescues it from the dustbin. I just haven’t had need for it at work, which is no excuse, and I spend as little of my free time as possible working with Java. That might change. The whole area of distributed computing intrigues me deeply. That and concurrency; it’s about time I read Java Concurrency in Practice, which is just collecting dust on my shelf.
Also of note, a presentation about Jini by Daniel Steinberg, “Beyond the Choir.”
03 Oct 2006 Sam
have you looked at jabber? its becoming quite rich. i cant help thinking it will end up swallowing some of the distributed compontent chatter something like jini could underpin.
Yes, I have, and I agree. If I had the time, I’d be tinkering with one of those nifty Jabber appliances. From what I understand, Jini lets you plug into different transport protocols, so without looking into it at all I don’t know why XMPP couldn’t enter the picture. ‘Course, I’m sure that there are easier ways to hook into what Jabber/XMPP have to offer. Getting started with Jini isn’t exactly a walk in the park. However, neither is distributed computing, so that’s probably okay.