A few years ago I did some work researching what I thought might be the
best possible framework for building Java and U2 solutions with UOJ.
In addition to contracting with a colleague to add in connection
pooling for the back-end, I was building the client-server framework
using Jini. I encountered several issues that ended up taking me
longer than anticipated to shake out, and ended up putting it aside,
learning a lot in the process but ultimately failing my client. But
one thing I learned was that compared to SOAP and other approaches,
there was something very sweet (even if complex in its raw form) about
Jini, which uses advancements of RMI (remote method invocation) so code
in one Java virtual machine can execute methods in another.

I'm mentioning this because I just read the Cache' article in DBTA and
it sure sounded like they were using Jini for their Cache' 2007
Post-Relational DB (which, as we know, employs a data model that
pre-dates the relational model, but I suppose marketing it as
pre-relational might not sell, yet). So, I googled it and, sure
enough, that is what they are doing. Very cool.

At a regional Spectrum when I was working on this, I passed along my
"hot tip" to a Development VP at Raining Data, discussing XML and
XQuery with their TigerLogic product in the making. I mentioned that
they might want to take a look at Jini since they were writing Java
code. No takers there, so I'm pleased as punch that Intersystems
pulled off what I was not able to do single-handedly over the course of
a few months. In spite of shelving it, I sure thought it seemed like a
wicked smaat idear (the Jini team is in the Sun Boston office).

I haven't looked at the new Cache' product and I'm not currently in the
mode to evaluate it, but I thought I would at least tip my hat to the
Intersystems Cache' folks on their use of Jini as well as adding in
MultiValue functionality. You've gotta be impressed with a company
that can be visionary in incorporating both old and new technology at
the same time. And then on top of that, they picked Jini and MV, the
same mixture I chose (before I sorta switched my focus to researching
ajax with json, but ignoring that). I'm thinking they must have some
pretty smart people there, and I'm applauding them. Maybe Jim Idle can
pass along my one-man (OK, zero man) applause to the right folks there,
for what it is worth.

Cheers! --dawn

Cool stuff.

For the longest time I assumed when people were talking about JINI
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JINI) they really meant JNI
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JNI).
Not even close.

A few months ago I heard an interview with a grid computing specialist
who was using JINI as the backbone for a grid platform. It sounded
scary powerful.

Dave P.

dawn wrote:

dawn wrote:
I will do. There are lots of interesting developments in this regard as
one of the company's philosophies is to keep up to date with such
things. In the past the technology has concentrated a lot of taking
things, such as classes, written inside cache and 'projecting' them
back to languages such as Java. However, there is now an interesting
technology "Jalapeno", which does it the other way around for Java, in
that you can import a class definition from Java and create persistent
objects (objcets that are stored in the database) without having to
code them. Without such a thing there is a fair bit of Java code to
write. It also means that your project can be Java oriented with a
database to use, rather than projecting things back from the database,
which for Java coders is a significant advantage [take a look at this
Mr. Weber ;-)]

Jim