IBM will use its worldwide developer conference next month to show how its application lifecycle management software stacks up against Microsoft Corp.s recently announced Visual Studio 2005 Team System, a new version of the Microsoft tool set targeted at the entire application development lifecycle.
In an interview prior to Microsofts TechEd 2004 announcement of its Visual Studio Team System, code-named Burton, Grady Booch, an IBM fellow and chief scientist of the IBM Rational division, said Rationals rich history in addressing the overall application lifecycle with features such as modeling support and team development support is second to none.
At its worldwide developer conference, IBM will also feature examples of the integration of Rational Softwares technology into the IBM middleware portfolio. IBM acquired Rational in February 2003. The conference combines for the first time IBMs developerWorks Live! Technical Conference with the Rational Software Development User Conference. It will be held at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas, July 18 through 22.
IBM announced the conference Tuesday, along with a new version of its open source aspect-oriented extension to Java.
The conference will feature more than 200 sessions spread over eight tracks, the company said. IBM will announce there additional plans for its IBM Software Development Platform, as well as new strategies for IBM WebSphere Studio, Eclipse, support for Linux and updates to the Rational product road map.
The conference also will enable developers to learn more about topic areas such as business-driven development, Model Driven Architecture (MDA), the Unified Modeling Language (UML) 2.0, service-oriented architectures (SOAs) and the role of software development in creating an on-demand operating environment.
In a statement on the conference, Mike Devlin, general manager of IBM Rational, said: “IBMs growing sphere of influence among the global developer community is a pivotal reason for bringing together these two popular industry events. It will allow IBM to showcase its latest tools, resources and programs for developers worldwide.”
Meanwhile, IBM also announced a new version of AspectJ, an IBM-led project that provides developers with access to the AspectJ aspect-oriented extension to the Java language. AspectJ 1.2 features enhancements to the AspectJ compiler and tools, including compile times as much as twice as fast as AspectJ 1.1.1. In addition, an “ajdoc” tool has been added to create “javadoc”-like documentation for AspectJ programs.
The AspectJ project originated at the Palo Alto Research Center Inc. (PARC), a subsidiary of Xerox Corp., under the leadership of Gregor Kiczales, now a professor at the University of British Columbia. To encourage the growth of the AspectJ technology and community, PARC transferred AspectJ to the open-source Eclipse organization in December of 2002.
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