Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Does JavaSpaces have a possibility to become major?

I found an article about JavaSpaces in TheServerSide.com a couple of days ago. I remembered this name well. I had worked for it for about a year before JINI was released. Since it was almost ten years ago, I'm interested in today's situation.
In this article, the writer explains about the definition and the feature of JavaSpaces. In addition, he introduces a small example with describing how to get it work. Every part of this article is familiar to the programmer who once got involved to JavaSpaces. However, how does JavaSpaces sound to Java programmers who don't know this technology?
In the same domain, distributed processing, Web Services technology grew to become eminent. Real Web Services applications have been in action these days. Why JavaSpaces couldn't develop like Web Services? I think the concept of JavaSpaces was too innovative to be understood easily and broadly. Strict to say, JavaSpaces isn't the server-client model. It adopts the peer-to-peer communication model. The "space" provides a place to communicate; therefore, the "space" doesn't control or manage any entries. On the other hand, the concept of Web Services follows the traditional server-client model. Newly added idea was less than that of JavaSpaces. Moreover, as an internet based application, Web Services technology well suited to today's network system.
The writer shows we already have enough tools to make JavaSpaces application. It is true, but JavaSpaces might need innovative application that only JavaSpaces can realize. This would be the most difficult and effective answer JavaSpaces leaps.
What changed is that implementations have been released in public and free. What not changed is that decisive application hasn't created yet.

2 comments:

Geva Perry said...

Yoko - There certainly are already many applications where JavaSpaces proved to be the superior solution. You can find many of these referenced in the ,GigaSpaces web site in the news section and white papers. It is a much more mature area than you seem to think.

Geva Perry
GigaSpaces
http://gevaperry.typepad.com

yokolet said...

Thanks Geva. I just know the sistuation in Japan where I worked as a Java developer until two years ago. I have to update my old awareness about JavaSpaces. As you wrote, I found good information at GigaSpaces.