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Rod Johnson, Creator of Spring

 Rod  Johnson

Rod is the creator of Spring, the founder and CEO of SpringSource, and one of the world's leading authorities on Java and Java EE development.

Rod is a thought leader on open source, as well as a popular speaker at conferences and symposia around the world. Spring was based on the code published with Rod's best-selling Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development (2002). This book was one of the most influential books ever published on J2EE and the sequel, J2EE without EJB (July 2004, with Juergen Hoeller), has proven almost equally significant, establishing a comprehensive vision for lightweight, post-EJB J2EE development.

Rod has specialized in server-side Java since 1996 across a wide range of industries. His hands-on experience has led him to see problems from a client's perspective as well as a technology perspective, and has driven his influential criticism of bloated, inefficient, orthodox approaches to J2EE architecture.

Rod is a member of the Java Community Process (JCP) Executive Committee (EC). EC members guide the evolution of the Java technologies by approving and voting on all technology proposals. They are also responsible for defining the JCP's rules of governance and the legal agreement between members and the organization.

Rod holds a BA with Honors in Computer Science, Mathematics and Musicology as well as a Phd from the University of Sydney.

Presentation: "Open Standards Development: Opportunity or Constraint?"

Time: Thursday 13:00 - 14:00

Location: Rutherford Room

Abstract:

Is the open standards movement as significant a development as open source? Does it translate in opportunities for you, or is standards work a barrier to free software development? Are standards-development bodies the right places to engage in software development? Should you get involved, or are standards forums a waste of time, slow and bureaucratic, and a distraction from open source development opportunities?

The participants on this panel will share with you their diverse practical experience with open standards and open source development, and they will welcome an animated exchange of opinions. Bring your questions and comments, engage with the experts, and judge for yourself how open standards can help to move technology forward.

Presentation: "Spring Today and Tomorrow"

Time: Thursday 15:45 - 16:45

Location: Westminster Suite

Abstract:

In a broad ranging talk, Rod will talk about best practices in Spring 2.5+, new features in Spring 3.0 and the broader goals of Spring and SpringSource technology initiatives in 2009. He will conclude by discussing the major challenges of enterprise Java today and how infrastructure vendors and communities can address them.

The talk will cover:

- Configuration best practices in Spring 2.5 that can simplify applications and accelerate development

- The Spring Expression Language coming in Spring 3.0, and how it can further simplify configuration

- The unified Spring web stack, from Spring MVC through Spring Web Flow, including comprehensive AJAX and JSF support

- Enterprise Java productivity: What's still to be done to make Java quicker and easier to develop in?

Presentation: "Java enterprise application standards and why the industry moved to lightweight open source"

Time: Friday 10:45 - 11:45

Location: Abbey Room

Abstract:

In the late 90's, the J2EE standard was greeted with much enthusiasm, as a legion of Java developers were looking to escape proprietary vendor lock-in and ill-conceived technologies and embrace a standard, expert-designed specification for building enterprise applications in Java.

Unfortunately, the results were mixed, and included expensive failures like CMP/BMP entity beans. History has shown that both committee-led standards and container-managed frameworks gave way to open source driven innovation and lightweight POJO-based frameworks.

What went wrong, and what can we learn from these mistakes to help ensure that Java technologies do not again go down a blind alley?