IBM Corp is today expected to unveil WebSphere Studio Site Developer and Application Developer 5.1.2, which implement the latest standards for drag-and-drop development of Java interfaces and data connectivity by providing tools running on top of Java Server Faces (JSF) and Service Data Objects (SDOs).

Also implemented is Enterprise Generation Language (EGL), for non-Java developers to build in Java using a 4GL environment, while WebSphere actually generates the Java code.

IBM’s WebSphere Portal is also shipping with Application Developer, so portal developers can access JSF and SDO, whilst also bringing JSR 128 to the suite. JSR 128 provides a standards-based set of APIs used in personalization, security and other aspects of portal development.

Modeling and management of applications is advanced by IBM’s Rational business unit, today expected to introduce Rational Suite 2003.06.12. The suite’s XDE environment features a Model Driven Architecture (MDA) Toolkit helping developers build domain independent models based on sets of standard patterns, while modeling for DB2 running on IBM’s iSeries server is added.

Like many Java providers, IBM is simplifying application development tools to reach non-technical programmers and those less skilled in Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE). Changes to WebSphere Studio are intended to help IBM attract Informix developers who lack a full IDE, and Notes users. The company is also chasing Microsoft Visual Basic developers and business managers with these changes.

We are talking about developers that have business domain expertise but don’t have the Java skills, WebSphere Studio marketing manager John Ward said.

Rational product manager for desktop products Eric Naiburg added it is important to provide developers building SOAs with tools in areas like MDA, to help them understand the application from architectural perspective ahead of coding.

It’s not about going out and building web services, it’s understanding how to build them, Naiburg said.

Other changes in Rational Suite 2003.06.12 see testing extended through integration between VMWare Inc’s virtualization software and Rational’s TestManager, Robot updated to support PowerBuilder 8.0 and 9.0, Oracle Forms 11i, and Delphi 7.0, and PurifyPlus and Rational Rose Technical Developer are extended to Linux.

This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire