The Jedi mind trick is a Force power that can influence the actions of weak-minded sentient beings. Vendors will often try to apply the Jedi mind trick in selling silver-bullet software solutions that solve global warming and stop celebrity feuding while enabling service-based architecture development. Let's quickly put on our aluminum foil caps and repel the Jedi mind trick by turning to open source solutions. Service-based architectures are being touted as the next step in reaching programming nirvana. With these marching orders it's often difficult to build a framework that allows for simple service creation. This framework should also be flexible, scalable, and lightweight as well as easy in exposing services externally. Without the correct framework(s) and guardrails in place your application services can quickly become a jumbled mess. Circular dependencies, massive Ant scripts, zero component reuse, and painful Web Service creation are just some of the problems faced by developers today. This article will demonstrate concepts on software lifecycle automation as well as a lightweight approach to creating a service-based architecture.
