What's a J2EE Dev To Do?

What's a J2EE Dev To Do?
For all the mis-steps that a J2EE dev could take, BEA has some suggestions where J2EE devs could make good investments of their time.

• Learn More About Your Industry -- "Our core hypothesis is that Java developers need to better understand their business," Willis said. "And while we are offering tools that will help abstract some complexity of plumbing or integration, we don't think it's good to abstract the developer from a basic business understanding, or as a crutch for needing to learn how their business processes operate or what types of transactions support or application upgrades they need." But more than simply better understand the workings of the business, BEA execs also suggest devs pay great attention to several key technical elements, such as schema (XML), workflow, and new industry-wide standards (not just Java) coming down the pike.
  
  
• Learn More about Schemas -- For all the talk about how XML may be irrelevant to Java/J2EE programmers, BEA takes the view that in SOA all traffic will be in the form of XML documents, and ensuring communications between end points (and compatibility among document fields, such as defining a PO) will come from knowing XML. As a consequence: "A solid understanding of XML will be key, not only XML schema and XML techs like XQuery. The data is going to be just as important as having relational data and modeling skills.," a technical BEA exec told IDN.
  
  When BEA looks at SOAs, developers are dealing with services and end points that are standardized. We're basically sending XML or a document, between these end points and what's behind these end points is of almost no concern. A dev is not going to be worried about on-the-wire stuff, in fact, developers may be dealing with applications written not just in Java, but in Perl, Python, Ruby and .NET. But, you are concerned with how people treat their schemas, the schema will be what dictates the degree of success you'll have in tying your services to the end points.
  
  
• Learn More About Workflows/Orchestration -- BPELJ is just a matter of time, BEA execs say. BPEL is an agreed upon approach by Java vendors and Microsoft (on the brink of being formally adopted as a standard by OASIS for workflow). " The [development] tools layer is going to business process design and orchestration. So, any developer seriously looking at doing that with tools will do it with BPEL, which is about process workflow from machine to machine -- not human workflow at the point." BEA has also made contributions to other tools/technologies that can jumpstart J2EE devs in this area, including its work on SOA Blueprints (in cooperation with The Middleware Co.) and Beehive project -- its decision to Open Source portions of its Weblogic Workshop developer environment. (and hand-over to the Apache Software Foundation for management)
  
  
• Watch for More OASIS Standards -- BPEL and standard schemas are both for Java-to-non-Java interoperability, BEA execs say. But, J2EE devs should also keep their eyes on other OASIS standards for workflow and orchestration. Here's a business case from BEA for why devs can't have enough background on setting up and managing workflows: "If I'm working in IT for Wal-Mart, and I need to support integration of my systems with Johnson & Johnson's manufacturing or inventory systems, it's important for me to know what the correspondence rules are and what the business contract rules are, and things that make a communications go smoothly, like the definition of a purchase order or an invoice," one BEA technical exec told IDN. BPELJ and XML schema give J2EE devs a good grasp of the workings that go into this kind of project.
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