Chapter 12. Further Exploration

It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in five years.

—John Von Neumann (circa 1949)

Javaspaces technology is a new way of building distributed programs. In this book we have attempted to provide a set of principles and patterns that can be used as a foundation upon which our understanding and use of the technology can mature. Throughout the book, you've experimented with the spaces programming model to build applications ranging from simple “Hello World” programs to rather sophisticated collaborative and parallel applications.

As you use JavaSpaces technology to solve your own real-world programming problems, new principles and patterns will emerge. We'd very much like to learn from your practical experience; we encourage you to contact the authors at the following address: [email protected].

In the meantime, we leave you with a set of resources so that you can further explore space-based programming and its foundational Jini technology, which we touched upon only briefly. Here you will find a mixture of historical resources, background reading on distributed systems and transactions, and official Sun Microsystems specifications that are relevant to programming with spaces.