The Next Wave

Wednesday January 25, 2006

Time to Rave ... about Creator 2.0

Hey folks! It's time to Rave ... about Sun Java Studio Creator 2, now available for download (and it's available for free as well). If you need the best tool for the rapid development of standards-compliant JavaServer Faces web applications built on the Java platform, Creator 2 is exactly what you need.

For those who have been following Creator since it's inception, you may not be aware of some of it's early history. Years and years ago (I believe it was early in 2001) there was a convergence of ideas among folks like Graham Hamilton and I around the need to create a new set of tools to both promote ease-of-development (this being done at the same time we were investigating ease-of-development improvements in the Java platform itself ... but that's a story for another time). In very short order we (along with Rich Green and Ken Wallich) launched the project and under my technical guidance (some might even say totalitarian oversight :-) ), we gathered a cadre of the best and brightest folks we could attract and built "Project Rave", the first incarnation of Sun Java Studio Creator.

A historical or hysterical note: The name "Rave" doesn't mean anything today (other than still being a wonderfully cool name), but one day Ken and I were brainstorming on possible names and I came up with R.A.V.E. -- Rapid Application Visual development Environment (I'll bet you that all but a few ... if any ... of the old hands in the current Creator team will remember that little detail) ... The next time we talked to Rich, he said not to bother with the acronynm ... Rave by itself was perfect and we agreed ... Project Rave was born.

The vision behind Rave (gotta keep calling that ...) was to create something unique in the Java developer tool space, a tool designed for the rapid development of Java applications by those either new to Java or domain experts who needed an easy way to leverage the power and portability of Java without enduring the steep learning curve needed by other IDEs. The result, Creator ... with it's easy-to-use WYSIWYG design tools, simple service and data binding and it's unique and powerful roundtrip to source code facilities. With Creator 2.0, the result is a complete and well-rounded solution, with added support for such features as JSR-168 compliant portlets, a suite of new, robust and powerful JSF components, support for the Sun Application Server PE 8.1 and support for AJAX-enabled components, thus opening up the world of the rich web-client to the corporate developer.

So if you've never used Creator, if you use Creator 1.0 today or used Creator but found it wanting, I strongly suggest you download Creator 2.0 today ... give it a try, I know you'll be impressed with it's power, it's ease-of-use and the depth and breadth of it's feature set, supported systems and innovative technology. It will meet your needs (and more) ...

It's something to Rave about ... Posted by brewin Jan 25 2006, 06:02:52 AM PST Permalink