Linked List - Week 33

It's been a long time since that last one, but now that the summer lull is reaching an end, I'll try and make my updates to the blog more frequent.

First link of interest is a Glassfish Wiki page created to contain all the screencasts related to GlassFish. I have to admit, I know very little about Glassfish to date - I'm hoping these screencasts will change that. To keep up to date, I'd recommend visiting The Aquarium blog.

Currently, I'm working on an update to a PHP site I wrote a few years ago, which lead me to find this article about the 5 tools every PHP Programmer should know about.
And while on the topic of the rework on the site mentioned above, I wish that YouTube would publish an Upload API so that I don't need to go round to YouTube to force video uploads each time - there has been a workaround written, but it's based on the POST format - if that changes, I'd need to change round my own code. Lazy I know, but that's what APIs are for. Anyway, rant over. If you're messing around with PHP, this best practices article is a worth scanning through.

Google Interviews - anytime I see a link about them, I have to check it out. I found two such links this week. This one discusses someone's interview experience with Google, from start to finish (without the interview questions of course!). Makes for good reading. Also, this guys talks about his telephone interview, with even more detail on the interview (with code) here.

Finally, a useful link here of the best free web hosting providers - if you're looking!

Looking Ahead to Java7

Java.net has started a new column about Java7 here .

It lists projects of interest, discusses the release schedule, which at the moment looks like early 2009.
There's some good links in there to keep track of what's going on.

Linked List - 25 June 2007

Been a little busy recently, so this list will hopefully act as a catchup for the past week or so..

• Replication in JavaDB
  Open source addition to Apache Derby to enable replication.
  
• Effective Unit Testing with DBUnit
  Good article focusing on easy database unit testing
  
• Introducing Continuous Integration
  How Continuous Integration reduces assumptions :-)
  
• The Top Ten Questions Every Programmer Should Ask On A Job Interview
  
• Slides and Examples From SpringONE 2007
  In particular, Spring & OSGi.
  
• 10 Ways To Reduce Stress
  
  
  

Linked List: 15 June 2007

• John Ousterhout on Software Production
  The use of metrics in software, how to judge a project's health and developer attitudes.


• Can ITunes do what JINI couldn't
  When you install ITunes, Apple's open source Bonjour software is installed too- making your pc part of a dynamic network....

Getting Started With OSGi

Useful tutorial series to get you started with OSGi from EclipseZone, http://neilbartlett.name/blog/osgi-articles/

And if you're wondering what OSGi is, here's a link to the Wikipedia entry.

Eclipse News

Eclipse Europa, part 1: Modeling project supports SOA is a really good article, that shows just how important modelling is to the Eclipse project (and a lesson to software development everywhere). The Eclipse Modelling Project technology can be used to bridge from a Web Services front end to an OSGi service running inside.

With the Eclipse Europa release on June 29th, there will be a lot more news coming up on it.
There's this this interview interview with Mike Milinkovich on "The Vision for Eclipse"

Also, there's a whole new way of downloading Eclipse based on profiles - (see Help Wanted : Test the new download page and packages) - Java Developer, J2EE Developer, C/C++ Developer and RCP/Plugin Developer. Quite clever really.

Linked List: 8 June 2007

• Downloading a Binary File From a Web Service using Axis2 and SOAP with Attachments
  Good tutorial into using Axis2 for handling attachments
• Project Failure Prevention: 10 Principles For Project Control
  Theory into how to prevent a project from being a flop.
• Java 6.0 New Features: Scripting Language For The Java Platform
• Java 6.0 Features: New Features in JDBC API 4.0
• Coding Against The Grain
  How to recognise when code is about to go wrong.
• What is GlassFish? New Sun Article Explains All...
  For people who haven't been keeping up, here's a good introduction to GlassFish.

Automate Your Home With Java!

I've been threatening to do this for ages, so maybe I'll finally get around to it now - Home Automation.

There's a Java library currently being written (it's early days yet 0.3) - jHomeNet

The suite can be used to collect sensor data and controls devices around the house. It interfaces with Dallas Semiconductor's 1-Wire and X-10 network hardware.

If you've had any experience using this suite, let me know.

Sun Tech Days Presentations

Found these presentations these presentations from the Sun Tech Days on the Sun web site.

Good to see this stuff is made available to those of us who can't make it to them.

Interesting bits:

• Ajax and Web 2.0 Frameworks
• Java SE: Beyond Basics - JMX and Concurrency
• Visualizing and Developing BPEL and SOA Applications in Java EE

Linked List: 7 June 2007

• How To Get Rich Programming
Interesting....

• Another 10 Things I Wish I Had Known...
  Another list of things someone wishes they knew before they started software development
• I Finally Get It - Dependency Injection
  A good explanation of Dependency Injection and it's advantages
• Six Ways To Write More Comprehensible Code

Linked List: 5 June 2007

• Netbeans with BlueJ
  Netbeans 5.5.1 BlueJ Edition helps teach Java and make the jump for BlueJ to Netbeans.
  
• Rod Johnson - Are We There Yet?
  Good video presentation from Rod Johnson, of the Spring Framework.
  
• [Podcast] Open Software Factory
  This project provides a set of tools and methods for effective Model Driven Software Development


• Making Sense Of Web Service Standards
  SOAP, WSDL, XML Schema and Transport Protocols are all covered here.


• Tutorial - Threads - the how and why of threads
  Interesting tutorial into using Threads in Java.


• Five Common Errors in Requirements Analysis and How to Avoid Them
  In the waterfall approach, getting requirements is the most important phase, so here's how to not mess it up.


• [Microsoft] Visual Studio 2008 Shell
  Build applications on top of Microsofts Visual Studio 2008 Shell.
• Advice to a newbie
  Article about starting off as a developer, and how pure coding is just one piece of the software development landscape.

Linked List: 30/31 May 2007

• Podcast - The Value Of Code Reviews
  The role code reviews play in the development process.
• Agile Architecture
  What makes a good architectural description and why the architect should inspire developers.
• An Introduction to Struct2.0
  An introduction to Struts 2.0 and it's new validation features.
• JavaFX sends Sun back to the future
  Will JavaFX put Java back on the desktop
• How to run standalone JavaScript Files in Eclipse
  If I was a web developer, I'd want to do this
• 30 Java Interview Questions
  If you're looking around at the moment, these might be useful.
• Unit Testing Overuse
  Something I've always believed in - at least someone else is saying it now. Don't write unit tests just to get code coverage.
• Google goes Offline with "Gears"
  Using Google's online applications offline.

EclipseZone Podcasts

From www.eclipsezone.com I found a lot of podcasts, covering some very interesting (and appropriate for me!) topics.

• Ed Merks of the EMF project
  Discussing why people get confused by EMF and why it's worth sticking with it.
• Richard Gronback of the GMF project
  Discussing the past, present and future of the GMF project.
• Jeff McAffer of the RCP project
  Discussing OSGi and the Eclipse RCP effort.
• Wenfeng Li and Jason Weathersby of the BIRT project
  Discussing the BIRT reporting framework's success to date
• Sri Doddapaneni of the TPTP project
  Discussing TPTP - the testing and performance tool for Eclipse.
• Tim Wagner of the WTP project
  Discussing WTP and where it's going
• Gili Mendel and Joe Winchester of the VE project
  Discussing the Visual Editor project.

And if you had time for another Java Conference...

Then I think JavaPolis is the one. From Dec 10 - 14 in Antwerp, Belgium, this must be the best value conference in the world at only 80 euro per day!

You can get a DVD of last years talks, and load of them are online as videos already.

Here's a selection, from the latest newsletter:

• Closures For Java
• Typical Pitfalls in Agile Software Development
• Beyond Ajax - Java Rich Internet Applications
• XFire Web Services
• A Software Framework for Human Interactions

Linked List - 29 May 2007

Not so much going on today... maybe tomorrow

JFXBuilder
JavaFX, the big news from JavaONE, already has an IDE on the way

Spring 2.1 Video Interview
An interview with Rod Johnson about Spring 2.1 on TheServerSide
The Top 10 Dead (or dying) computer skills
An interesting list of 10 technolgies considered to be on the way out - Cobol, ColdFusion, PowerBuilder, C, and a few more

Linked List - 28 May 2007

Here's today list of Java news:

• Interview with Josh Bloch from JavaONE 2007
  Interview with Google's chief Java architect, and co-author of Java Puzzlers.
• Install JavaFX into Eclipse
  How to use the Eclipse plugin for JavaFX rather than NetBeans.
• A Comparison of Eclipse Extensions and OSGi Services
  Which one is best?
• Getting Started with Java Web Development in Eclipse and Tomcat
  Useful tutorial to get you going with JSPs and Servlets in Eclipse.
• 8 Reasons Not To Use MySQL (And 5 to Adopt It)
  An investigation into MySQLs suitability for enterprise applications.
• 10 Things to Consider When Choosing an AJAX Framework
• The Foundations of Web Services: From Novice to Expert
• Free E-book - "Java Programming for kids, parents and grandparents"
• Free E-book - "Starting Struts 2"
• Apache POI 3.0 Released
  The MS-formatted file API now has additional support for PowerPoint.
• Alistar Cockburn on what's agile, what's not
  Very importantly, compiles a Top10 list of how to know you're not agile.
• Mini-guide: Apache Web Services
  SOAP, REST, WSDL and Axis2. This page is a gathering of resources to help point you in the right direction

Tutorial - Converting Eclipse EMF Models to Custom XML

First off, I think EMF is great! It provides a great basis for Model Driven Architecture, which we all know is very cool.

While my first post about EMF really should be about how to use it, I believe that any developer should be able to follow the tutorials provided on the Eclipse EMF site quite easily.

So, I've been using EMF for a while, and I had a problem with how the data was peristed using the default XMIResourceFactoryImpl. It's good, it works on saving and on loading, but I needed to pass the XML to another device.
The default implemtentation stores each object as an XML element, but each attribute for the object is an XML attribute.
I can't really disagree with that way of doing things, but it didn't suit my needs.

I found this tutorial ( Persisting EMF Models with WTP ) that describes in detail what I needed to do, but I'd like to break it down into a few points in this post here (more for my own records than anything!).
The tutorial tells you which plugins are required - if it's missing any post a comment to this post and I'll list the plugins I had to use.

• Normally when saving, you use
  
  ResourceSet resourceSet = new ResourceSetImpl();
  resourceSet.getResourceFactoryRegistry().getExtensionToFactoryMap().put(
  Resource.Factory.Registry.DEFAULT_EXTENSION, new XMIResourceFactoryImpl());
  
• This default XMLResourceFactoryImpl should get replaced with your own ResourceFactory extending TranslatorResourceFactory
  

resourceSet.getResourceFactoryRegistry().getExtensionToFactoryMap().put(
Resource.Factory.Registry.DEFAULT_EXTENSION, new MyResourceFactoryImpl());

In "MyResourceFactoryImpl" the createResource method must be overridden, using your own TranslatorResourceImpl, which we'll call MyResourceImpl for this tutorial.

Provide an XMLMapping class to provide constants of the XML element/attribute names you wish to use in the outputted XML.
The getDoctype method in MyResourceImpl should refer to a root element definition.
Most importantly, you'll need to create a translator that is returned in the getRootTranslator method. This is covered more in the next step.

MyTranslator should extend RootTranslator. The constructor will have to pass through the mapping name of the root element, along with the root EClass that is to be used.

MyTranslator needs to provide a getChildren method which in turn creates an array of Translator. The translators then get created along the levels, the first level being the creation of translators for the root element, and then for each element underneath.
The example in the tutorial above describes this quite well.

That should cover all you need to know. The Eclipse tutorial linked above really does provide everything you need, this post just condenses it into a few points.

If you to go one Java conference this year.....

Then maybe this is the one to go to - Jazoon'>Jazoon 2007 on June 24th in Zurich.

I found out about this a few months back on the java.net events page. It's on in Europe, which is a big plus for me.

And the speaker list is fantastic - Erich Gamma and Neal Gafter. Those guys are bound to have some interesting things to say.
There's so much covered in the conference schedule. Everything from Model Driven Architecture, J2EE5, Web Services and SOA, to JavaFX... and a lot more in between.

Welcome To JResource

The idea for this blog is simple - to provide quality links and tutorials related to Java, and to software development in general.

Previously, I used Erik's Linkblog http://erik.thauvin.net/linkblog/ to get my daily roundup of links related to Java, but that blog has been discontinued now.
I hope to provide a set of links daily to interesting Java news.

Also, I have a lot of tutorial material to add to my blog - some of it links to other sites, and some of it I have written myself. This week I'll be starting off with some tutorials on two Eclipse technologies - the EMF and the CNF.

Finally, I plan to do a weekly chart of the top 5 podcasts that have caught my attention.

If there is anything else you'd like to see let me know.
James