James reports on the latest news on JavaCard 3.  JavaCard (wikipedia, spec site) is what we all have in our pockets (ATM cards) and/or our phones (SIM cards). The JavaCard 3 comes in two Editions: Classic (for SIM/ATMs) and Connected. The new kid, Connected, supports most of the JDK6 VM as well as Servlet 2.5, extended and classic Applets, HTTP and HTTPS, etc. The target of JavaCard3 Connected includes secure USB tokens and personal DBs, Embedded Servers, WebDAV-Compliant Thumb Drives, etc.

JavaCard Connected seems it may deliver on the promise of "connected" Java devices everywhere; we will see how it gets adopted. There is a new project at Kenai focused on learning about JavaCard Connected. The project includes the NetBeans Plugin (see sneak preview).

NetBeans 6.8 beta is now available (Download, NB 6.8 Home Page). NB 6.8 has a number of key features, from support for GlassFish v3 to JavaFX to PHP frameworks like symfony. The NB6.8 website links to other documentation that is being updated as we get closer to fcs, including Tutorials and Screencasts. NetBeans screencasts can also be found in the NB Channel at Channel Sun (for example, see the Symfony Support recording; and that of kick butt).

I had forgotten how many frameworks are covered in the NetBeans set of quickstart documents; check out the list:

• Introduction to Developing Web Applications • Introduction to the Spring Framework • Introduction to the JavaServer Faces Framework • Introduction to the Struts Web Framework • Introduction to the Grails Web Framework • Introduction to the Wicket Web Framework

GlassFish v3 is scheduled to go final at the end of November and the builds are stabilizing quickly. Our test suites are very exhaustive but the only way to be sure that the final artifacts work for you is if you try them in your specific configuration. I was looking through the list and it made me think that FishCAT for GF v3 just completed its first week (See Judy's mail and report) and that team filed more than 20 bugs and more than half have already been fixed. so...

If you use one of the Java Frameworks, or your favorite app or framework, with the latest GF v3 builds and find issues, help us, and the rest of the community, by filing a bug. Thanks!

A couple of weeks we provided an update of the GlassFish v2.1.1 Schedule; it's now time to do the same with that for GlassFish v3.

The key driver for GlassFish v3 is JavaEE 6. This means GFv3 leverages the expertise of the wide JCP community and our users have the benefits of a standard but... it also means we don't control all the variables - which is ultimately good, but can be painful in the short-term.

We knew things could get complicated when JSR 330 appeared in mid-May, after the PFD for most of JavaEE 6, and was later accepted by the JCP EC. The relationship between JSR 330 and JSR 299 was resolved recently and both will be part of JavaEE 6, so it was just a matter of doing the numbers, and... The answer is about 8 weeks. The updated GF v3 Roadmap puts the FCS at Nov 24th, just in time for Thanksgiving@USA. The change propagates to NetBeans 6.8 (roadmap) as well as follow-up releases to GFv3 (exact dates still shimmering).

So, that's the new date. It's actually quite good, considering the magnitude of the last-minute change. Overall, I know 330 will make for a better release - just let's hope that next time submissions don't come so late in the cycle... See GlassFish+v3

Ludo seems to win the race to be the First to Announce it, but NB6.8 M1 is now available for download. This is the first build that provides JavaEE 6 support, including a bundled GlassFish v3 (b57). See New And Noteworthy and Ludo's Post for details. Download the different bundles from the NB6.8 M1 page.

Added - Reviews from:

• Adam Bien - "Netbeans 6.8m1 - The (lightweight) Java EE 6 IDE"
• James Branajam - More About NB 6.8 M1

NetBeans 6.7.1 is now available. The main new feature is that the JavaFX 1.2 Plugin is now included and bundled. See the Release Notes and the announcements from Octavian, Charles and Tor. Download it from the Usual Location.

The NetBeans Community Acceptance Team (NetCAT) was created to facilitate wide community participation in validating the quality of the NetBeans distributions. The same principles are now being applied to two new areas: Bug Fixing and New Development

The new programs are NetFIX (mailing list) and NetDEV (mailing list). In both cases the principle is to encourage participation through a support group and some direct help from more experienced developers.

NetCAT has been very successful and we applied it to GlassFish via FishCAT (Wiki, entries@TA) In the past we had explored ideas like "adopt-a-bug" and "starter bugs" for GlassFish; perhaps the NetFIX and NetDEV ideas would be applicable too.

Check the project websites and also see Toni's post for more details.

NetBeans 6.7 is now available for download. The site includes their usual screencasts (see specially the Overview) and Tutorials. The new features I find most interesting are the Connected Developer and the Build Tool support (including Hudson and Maven). Other features include support for more Dynamic Languages, Java Desktop/Swing and Web and Java EE; bundled JavaEE 6 and JavaFX 1.2 will be in later releases. Related entries tagged netbeans

Evans Data just published their User's Choice on Software Development Environments. The survey asks for satisfaction of the respondents on the IDE features they used and weights them based on the aggregated priorities to determine satisfaction indexes. The overall satisfaction rankings are: IBM's Rational Tools, MS's Visual Studio, NetBeans, JDeveloper, Sun Studio, Delphi, IntelliJ, Eclipse.

Note: my biggest issue with the EDC Users' Choice methodology is that they do not weigh in number of users for a given option, not do they disclose enough data to assess the relevance of the samples. So, as far as I've been able to determine, a few very happy customers can give a small, narrow, vendor the top ranking. Another caution area is the weights assigned to each feature to compute the overall ranking, but that is easier to navigate by using the per-feature rankings that are included in the report. As always, if you are interested in the topic, I recommend you to check out the report for details.

The Release Candidate 3 for NetBeans 6.7 is now available and so are several posts highlighting some of its new features. Check out: • Petr on Hudson Support, • Geertjan on Maven Support, and • Octavian on Subversion Support Check out previous entries tagged NetBeans for highlights on other features like the Connected Developer (and Kenai), more scripting support, and how to use NB 6.7 with GlassFish v3.

The second release candidate for NetBeans 6.7 is now available - check RC2 Download Page and James' Writeup. The next RC should be the final.

Note that NB 6.7 still includes the old "GFv3 Prelude" release and you need to manually install GFv3 Preview (the J1 release). For example, check Arun's writeup for has a detailed explanation on how to use NB 6.7 to write Servlet 3.0 and EJB 3.1 Applications

Somehow this one popped into my head:

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
(...from A Visit from St. Nicholas)

Replace Christmas with JavaOne, and the "not stirring" with "releasing furiously"... and there we are :-)

Three major releases today: GFv3 Preview, OpenSolaris 2009.6 and NetBeans 6.7 RC1. NetBeans 6.7 comes with Connected Developer features like integration with Project Kenai and integration with Bugzilla, native Maven support, out-of-the box Grails 1.1 support, support for Hudson and easy integration with GlassFish v3 Preview. More details in the RC1 Info page, the New and Noteworthy page and the Download page. Also see the blogs by SDNNews and James.

And, if you are at JavaOne, check out TS5055 and Bob's technical keynote tomorrow afternoon.

Portal Development (especially with WebSpace) is made even easier with the recent release of Portal Pack 3.0.1 [download]. Several new features are added, including theme development (including code completion for Velocity), directory deployment/deploy-on-save for rapid testing, Liferay service builder support, and more. for questions and tips, make sure to visit one of many of the community venues, including the mailing lists or #webspace IRC Channel, or contribute on the growing Wiki.

Also, don't miss the Portal Pack and WebSpace teams at the UnConference, and at CommunityOne and JavaOne.

NetBeans 6.7 Beta is Now Available. I'll highlight two of the Many Features: Kenai Integration and Hudson Integration. The first one continues to flesh out the story of the Connected Developer; the second is yet another example of Hudson Adoption. Check out the Home Page, the Release Notes or go and just Download it!

The connected developer story is beginning to look pretty good; I'll come back to it after I find time to write a few background posts needed to provide context for the story.

Added - Also see JAG's post on the topic.

I recently noticed several new books based on GlassFish Server, like Yuli's book on Java EE and DBs, Using MySQL and GlassFish and Antonio's book on Java EE 6 with GF v3. Looking a bit more I also found that David also has a new book on NetBeans 6 and Java EE 5 (w/ GF) and Adam has one on the Netbeans 6 RCP that also uses GlassFish in many places.

Below is a quick table of the books I know (in random order); please (continue to) send me omissions and I will update it.

Added - Masoud's GlassFish in Action is in Early Access Edition.