Persistable bean values in Spring BeanFactory

I was thinking if the following scenario could be achieved in Spring BeanFactory:

• use property placeholders inside the definitions ( i mean ${prop.value})
• apply programmatically a PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer to obtain the real values and retrieve the beans
• apply another PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer and obtain another set of beans

Actually this behavior is not available. After applying the first PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer the values ${prop.value} are lost foreever, so applying another PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer will do nothing in fact. The solution I see for solving this are:

• either clone in a way the BeanFactory and apply PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer on the clone (till this moment I couldn't figure out a way to implement this)
• or create a custom BeanFactory (probably by extending DefaultListableBeanFactory) that will be able to keep the original values after applying a property placeholder

Does anybody see any other solution for this?

Independent IoC-ish unit testing

The following is for the moment only a disertation on the possibility to ease the development of unit testing for the product I am working now. As a preamble I would say that in order to be able to test some parts of the product a developer would need a very long/complex/repetitive fixture. The first solution that came to me was to create unit tests using an IoC solution. Interesting... but this will link my test to a IoC solution (I like Spring Framework very much [smile/], but I don't like too much dependency). A better solution would be to have a single test base that according to some other configurations to be able to load the required context. But this will not completely solve the dependency problem and may result in time in a large number of different base unit tests (specialized in different initialization types). What if I will remove completely the dependency to the IoC from my tests? How? .... using AOP. As you probably know both TestNG and JUnit provide very clear points where the fixture is (for those who don't know this: TestNG declares a fixture method using a Configuration annotation; JUnit provides this by means of setUp method in TestCase or by extending TestSetup). Right now all I have to do is to write down some simple aspects that will initialize the test unit with the required info. For the moment the only AOP solution (I might be wrong here [sigh/]) that is able to cover both cases (normal pointcuts and annotation based pointcuts) is AspectWerkz. So starting with a solution that presented a high dependency I have finished with: any IoC solution (Spring, Pico, etc), any unit testing framework (TestNG, JUnit) and AspectWerkz. What do you think about this? (if you see any possible drawbacks don't let me go a wrong way [smile/]).

Firefox plugin kicking ...

This plugin really kicks ass. Install it and you will be able to navigate to any link inside a page by simply typing a number. Even if from time to time there could occur some problems (with annoying popup alerts) it is worth it. You don't need a mouse anymore to navigate. Update: if you find it problematic to have all those numbers everytime you visit a page you can easyly change the javascript to solve this. If you need a hint about this,just drop me a line.

dtoGen and the buzz of love and hate DTO

Martin Fowler has revisited the DTO pattern following a discussion started by Data Transfer Objects makes me sick!. I think that dtoGen™ falls into the right category of DTO. I have made a new release of dtoGen™: 0.5.2. Changes:

• start of code refactoring
• fixed bug 1050632
• documentation update

You can find the documentation here: dtoGen™ book.

Netbeans ... what's that?

This morning I have received a proudly announcement about the early availability of Netbeans 4.1. Wow, stop for a moment and read again. Oh yes, 4.1. I think the guys feel how they are missing their targets and how far behind they are against the other competitors and I guess they decided to recover this by launching numbers. Yes indeed, numbers. Netbeans 4.0 is not yet out and they already announce a 4.1. I don't consider this a bad strategy (take for example Eclipse which is very dynamic about their releases, or even IntelliJ IDEA), but do not forget that they have praised this release for about 1 year. I guess that, between the lines, we can read: "Hey guys we have missed it again. Don't bother for 4.0 as we already realized there will be soon a 4.1. Go for that one instead."

JDocs Search with proxy

I guess you all know that piece of gold on documentation called JDocs. I am not sure you know about JDocs Search Plugin, but if you use Eclipse and like to have JDocs search capabilities inside your IDE please go on and try it. The post was not meant to be an advertiser [smile/] - even if I feel it would, but it's a solver for a problem (fake problem) we had with the plugin. It seemed that the Eclipse Browser widget was not able to work behind a proxy. The author (Jozsa Kristof) investigated the problem and received an answer ("either use the browser's native proxy settings, or dunno") that triggered me the correct answer: on windows configure your IE (even if it is not your default browser, as is my case) to use the proxy. Than you will have a nice surprise: Eclipse Browser widget will start working and so you will have JDocs Search Plugin working from behind a proxy.

Javadoc scanners available???

I am facing some kind of problem right now. I am looking for a very light javadoc scanner something in the direction of QDox or xjavadoc which is able to work with java 1.5 sources. I have checked the QDox mailing lists and I couldn't find any references to the roadmap to 1.5 and the project is from quite a while on version 1.5 (it is indeed stable [smile/]). Unfortunately the same I can tell about xjavadoc. Why on the earth is it necessary for such an easy question to go and check out the sources and start from there??? Are there any other solutions for this? Please drop me a hint and you'll receive my gratitude.

Feelings from the (Apache) Forrest!

In my search for generating project documentation I have reached a forrest (thanks to an anonymous suggestion). Right now, I am returning from some 2 hours wandering in the forrest... Apache Forrest. The walk seemed interesting, with fresh air (other types of site organization and skins) and with the trees and flowers I like all over (xdoc based documentation source, Ant based process, XSL transformations). But, unfortunatelly not completely relaxing. After figuring out the paths, I have tried to customize my way (customize the site look), but with no real success. Much of the indicators (custom properties - like colors, headers) are in place but are pointing to dead-ends (the corresponding XSL fragments are either not working or they are missing completely). I sat for a moment in the first clearing I have found and I was thinking that with all this beauties around maybe it would be great to continue. I just came out for a moment to tell you that I am not yet lost! This was my first metaphoric walk in the Apache Forrest. I will go deeper into its XSLTs and I will be back with a more technical description. Maybe I will try some more uptodate version (even if it is a night build). Generating documentation series:

• Generating project documentation
• Writting documentation

PS:I hope that by now you have already realized that I am far away from a web developer so for me hacking into html, css and alike is unfortunately quite a killer.

Firefox hack

For about 2 years I have become an unusual Windows user - at least some may consider this, cause I was not using IE and Outlook anymore (damn, I must confess that from time to time I fire IE to visit Flash enabled pages and to print some pages - it still renders better). So, I was using Mozilla suite for a long time - yep everything from Mozilla worked oke with me (browser, mail client, etc). I have tried from time to time Firefox and also Thunderbird (I still think this last little brother doesn't equal the Mozilla Mail features, but it will). Uptill version 1.0PR I have found big problems using Firefox, but the last preview release touched my heart, convincing me to give it an extensive chance. So here I am using Firefox as my default system browser and Mozilla Mail as my default mail client. From time to time - as I always have liked to have things happening exactly as I expected on my computer - I had to go deeper in the confs of Mozilla and Firefox (I have posted here some other tricks). After moving to Firefox PR1.0 I have experienced some problems with the handling of mailto URIs. Even if Mozilla Mail is my system default mail client, Firefox kept fireing Outlook - and surely I don't like this. I have scanned the available infos and I have found that even if Mozilla registers correctly as the system mail client it doesn't correctly register for handling mailto URIs. The suggested solution was to change the file type association of (none) URI mailto to Mozilla Mail client. Unfortunately this doesn't work as the suggested:

mozilla -mail %1

which in fact is translated to

mozilla -mail mailto=mail_address,subject=mail_subject

doesn't really trigger a new mail composer. Continuing to search through Mozilla documentation I have found out that the correct command line should look like:

mozilla -compose to=mail_address,subject=mail_subject

. At this point it may seem that there is no solution as the URIs parameter is mailto (which in fact should be to). But wait! I don't give up so easy. Searching again I have found a Mozilla/Firefox mozex plugin which allows some external programs configuration. In the documentation page is said there is no need to configure mozex as long as you already did the previous trick. Unfortunately again, this didn't work. Something else that haven't work at this step was the mozex preference page in Firefox, and so I had to install it under Mozilla (where the preferences are in place) and go to the trick a like most about:config. From there I have extracted the mozex preference keys. Armed with these I go back to Firefox and using again about:config I have set

mozex.command.mailer mozilla -compose to=%a,subject=%s

and .... TA DAAAA: now it works. Even if this full configuration took me a while I think it's worth it: I have my things doing back what I expect. Mozilla/Firefox related posts

• Firefox trick
• Solving Firefox trick

Writting documentation [revisited]

A few days ago I have mentioned my ramblings on document generation tools. After trying the solutions described in the post (except the solution suggested by Andreas Mecky and Matt Raible, not because I do not like it, but I am still waiting for the Eclipse plugin), this morning (in fact an hour ago) I have started to write down my proposal for document generation solution. A few minutes later I was disturbed by the sound of my mail notification: a comment was just posted on this blog. Subject: Generating project documentation. Suggested solution: Apache Forrest. So I saved the few lines I have just written, fired Firefox and here it goes: Apache Forrest. I few minutes later a demo site was generated automatically by Forrest. , which did in background some interesting stuff (created the documentation directory structure, copied some document templates and a skin and voila!). A quick look in the internals of Apache Forrest revealed that it uses xdoc as page sources (it even gives you some DTDs), offers an Ant build file (damn this is nice [smile/]) and includes some site templates which are quite clean. The first two arguments are encouraging me to continue investigating (they are according to my goal - but about this I will write in the Writting documentation [final] later). I have to pass again over all my requirements and see how Apache Forrest behaves, but for the beginning I must say I am quite satisfied (even more than satisfied [smile/], and so I was joking about disturbing: thank you very much Anonymous for your suggestion. Please come back to see what's happening next [blink/]). Unfortunately this will make me be a little late with the first public release of the new and cool rjxconfig tool, but be sure that when I figure all about generating site documentation it will be here!

What should I index for you today???

I feel very sorry that I must come again to this subject but my anger has grown in the last hours. The product under discussion is indeed Google Desktop Search, and all of this just because there is a lot of movement around it. The download page states that Google Desktop Search will index for you Outlook/Outlook Express mail, AOL IM, IE, Word, Powerpoint, Excel and text. Wow... a lot of file types! Let's see: should I index your Outlook mails? Nope... I use Mozilla. Should I index your AOL IM? Nope... I use GAIM (he he - I am gonna trick you as GAIM saves discussion as text files). Should I index your IE? Ahhh... nope again. I am using Firefox. Should I index for you Powerpoint, Excel and Word? Ahhh nope, there is no need for these as I have about 2 ppts, and maybe 10 docs. Now I guess I should ask the program: Are you able to index my mbox mails? ahhh, sorry no. Are you able to index my PDFs? ahhh, sorry no. Hmmm, I think you cannot help me. Damn, and everybody is screaming about you! What is all this buzz about??? Update: I think I have found an usage for it: index my 1GB of java sources. At least this I can take from him.

MBox and Google Desktop Search

I will start by saying something similar to what Cedric said yesterday about Google Desktop Search: sorry to blog about it. I am only posting this to complain about the decision to scan only Outlook and Outlook Express mails. I am not very sure why this solution, but I must find a way to correct this (maybe at some later time the scanner will support this too). For the moment I think that the only solution is to copy mbox files - which are in fact plain text files (ehhh, with some formatting indeed) - under some name with txt extension. Than you will have Google Desktop Search indexing these files too. The next step will be to find a way to refer only the mail and not the entire file (a mbox file keeps all mails in a folder). If you feel like having any ideas just let me know - I really need this.

dtoGen 0.5.1

A have just release the new version of dtoGen™ which is only a minor bug fix in the building process. This was reported by one of dtoGen™ early users. I am planning to a 0.6 which will bring some new features into scene, but for the moment I will keep the surprise (still working on 'em [smile/]). Update: fresmeat.net announcement

Optimistical AOP

A few weeks ago a long discussion took place on the AOP is not here subject. Now, Bruce Tate expresses his leap of insight. In big lines, but with more style and tact than me, Bruce suggests that we must try it before saying it is not here. I agree with you Bruce! Every piece of good technology must be tried and given a chance before puting the stamp on it or screaming out it is not here.

Maven (bad) experience

I am feeling that I must write down this. As I was saying yesterday I convinced myself to give a chance to Maven for its site and/or xdoc goals. After passing through a number of files and looking into some CVS projects on my harddrive I have succeeded in creating the project.xml (the POM - in my mother language this means tree [blink/]). Continuing on the same tracks I have written also my maven.xml and some little xml-s for my documentation. Till now nothing too difficult. I start playing with the colors for the site and after a while when I felt confortable with it I have tried to move the new colors to the xdoc properties (this task consumed me a lot because I can say I am pretty blind when it comes to web design and also web colors). And here comes the surprise: after matching the CSS classes to the property names and running again nothing happened. I have checked again the documentation and for a while I have tried to fix this, but no chance. Now I find myself stareing at it and keep asking: what is going on????

New dynamic AOP framework

A new dynamic AOP framework was made public: JoyAop. I have quickly passed through the tutorial (while downloading it and so I might be wrong on what follows), and here are my impressions:

• being based on interceptors it only offers around advice
• offers the possibility of defining interceptor precedence
• pointcuts are defined using regular expressions or based on interface
• supports mixins
• aspect definition come in the form of an XML definition (a la AspectWerkz or JBossAOP)

.

AJDT 1.2.0 M1 is out

A few minutes ago Matt Chapman announced on the ajdt-dev mailing list that the M1 of AJDT 1.2 is out. If you like working with AspectJ and you are using Eclipse you should go and give it a try (I am already downloading it [smile/]). An extenside New and Noteworthy is provided. You can also check Release notes while downloading it.

Generating project documentation

I am currently looking for a solution to generate the documentation for some of my projects. My requirements are quite simple:

• documentation should be written in an easy format(xml, wiki-style)
• the generation step to be automatic and in simple way configurable (to allow through simple configuration a degree of customization for the generated html)
• the generated documentation must be html

I would have one more, but this represents in fact a plus: plugable in Ant. Till this moment I have tried to use DocBook (which corresponds to all my requirements, plus Ant integration through style task). But I've found it hard to configure and moreover too many tags to use in order to have it looking as I wish. A second choice I am analysing now is Maven xdoc. I have passed over my unpleasant feeling about Maven (Hani you are not alone [smile/]) and start trying this. While it seems pretty configurable and the document format seems very neat, what I find difficult is to configure Maven to run my goal (yep, I can call this a goal). I have already received a suggestion from Andreas Mecky (author of JConfig): to use a Wiki-like tool which have export to static HTML feature. Unfortunately I do not have such a tool for the moment. I was talking with Channing Walton (author of Eclipse Wiki Editor Plugin) if such a feature is on his list, and surprinsingly I have found out that I am not the first one asking about the Export to HTML feature. I am looking forward to this. Concluding, for the moment I do not have a really nice solution for the generation of project documentation. I will keep looking and I would much appreciate if anyone of you have some suggestions/solutions for me. I hope my requirements are not too high. Our users/customers are always expecting great documentation from us. Give me the tool(s) to provide it!

AOP revisited

I have to add more reference entries for AOP from blogs of Adrian Colyer (AspectJ), Jonas Boner and Alex Vasseur (AspectWerkz). The previous are published here.

• Using AspectJ with Spring Adrian Colyer
• Spring and AspectWerkz - A Happy Marriage Jonas Boner
• AspectJ Hacks - #1 From System.out.println to switchable debug output Adrian Colyer
• Implementing caching with AspectJ - part I Adrian Colyer
• Implementing caching with AspectJ - part II Adrian Colyer
• AspectWerkz in WebLogic - domain wizard Alex Vasseur
• AOP in J2EE, Tomcat tutorial Alex Vasseur
• AspectJ and AspectWerkz compared... sort of... Val's blog

Transactions [update]

In a previous post a have listed some resources for J2EE transaction. Here is a reference one High Performance Transaction Systems Workshop. I hope the following days I will have the time to pass through'em.

Blogging for certification

Reading around I have found two very interesting blogs posting on different subjects for Java certification. Sriram Srinivasan is blogging on SCJP, while Ed Schepis is writting for SCEA. I will present here some of their entries:

• Patterns - An Introduction
• Classes
• Methods design
• Inner classes
• Thread states
• Analysis classes
• Use cases
• Distributed object frameworks protocols
• Capabilities Definitions
• Architectural Terminology
• Steps in Software Development
• Definitions of Architect and Architecture

Error recovery parsing

The last weeks I have spent some time working (in fact, to be realistic, I was just scratching some problems) on the code folding plugin Coffee-Bytes for Eclipse. (I start loving the code folding idea a long time ago, since the first usage of JEdit - if I remember well, and for a long time I was wondering why so many editors do not use this feature. But about this maybe other time). The current investigations are for an error recovering parser. What I mean by this? A parser that is able to continue parsing (and maybe even return the broken nodes skeletons) after a failure (an unrecognized structure, a structure not according to the grammar). I have some backgrounds on writting parsers (using JavaCC and ANTLR), but till now I have written only parsers that abort the operation on the first error. Moreover, this time I have to rely the parsing on Eclipse support. This job seems pretty interesting, but as you probably know all the documentation I have is the javadocs. So I would like to hear from you any ideas how such a parsing must work.

JDocs on Xalan and XSL

Two interesting comments are added for Xalan usage with XSL:

• Compiled Stylesheets are faster
• More on closing the InputStream

out-of-the-box essays on demand

Please make a little effort and read the essay. Quite a piece! But run down that page and see the real surprise: it is a completely meaningless generated bullshit essay. Wooow. Very neat! For some explanations about this project (or whatever we can call it) here is the original intro. Made me think of Guantanamo project (oops, I am mean, or I am just not getting into Guantanamo mood). (Links provided by a commenter on some blog - sorry for no names, but from time to time I am experiencing the same syndrom as Lasse. However many thanks!)

books [the must category]

I have updated the list of future readings - the must category. Here it is.

• Foundation of ORM [Mark L.Fussell]
• Concurrent programming in Java [Doug Lea]
• Effective Java [Joshua Bloch]
• Expert One on One J2EE Design and Development [Rod Johnson]
• Java NIO [Ron Hitchens]
• Java Performance Tuning [Jack Shirazi]
• Better, Faster, Lighter Java [Bruce Tate, Justin Gehtlant]
• Expert One on One J2EE Development Without EJB [Rod Johnson, Juergen Hoeller]
• Hibernate in Action [Christian Bauer, Gavin King]
• Java 1.5 - A developer notebook [David Flanagan, Brett McLaughlin]
• Mockobjects

Later today I will complete the list with authors and corresponding links. (I wait you back [blink/]).

JBoss is moving fast, but

Wow. JBoss guys are really moving fast (I wish I know what will come from hani on this). Bill Burke has announced the EJB 3.0 Preview Release. This project led by Gavin and Bill can be pluged in JBoss 4.0 and is based on the EJB3 spec. Hibernate3 is there taking the big share. Afaik Resin was the first one to offer something similar till this moment.

blogging keywords for the 1st week or hit-oriented blogs

The top rank of the keywords used in the 1st week of october are as follows: C++ and Java, FireFox, IE and FireFox, sucks (it is also importantt who sucks [smile/]), SUN's billion/millions, etc (if you have more please add them). Let me rephrase it (I am a Java developer [smile/]): if you are a hit-oriented blogger and you didn't use the buzzwords of the week (I will continue the research the following weeks) than your product (the blog itself) doesn't have a fare share of the market. I am not counting the blog-hall-of-fame as they have always their share (you may think of them as Microsoft, SUN, IBM of the blogospehere). A post on their blog will be however visited without containing any of the keywords, as they have always something to say that matters (and that can create big waves). But for the hit-oriented bloggers there will be no success without figuring out the week keywords. PS: I have also found and used some of the week keywords [smile/]. Look:

• I really do not get this Java to C...
• FireFox Late?
• Solving the FireFox Trick
• FireFox trick
• 65% on non-IE browsers

Disclaimer: this blog is provided as it is (or ... I am not a hit-oriented blog).

I really do not get this Java to C...

Mark Lin tries to create a new rant Stop trying to turn Java into C !!!. I really do not get this. For so much time the community pressed SUN to include some features in Java, and now somebody tries to scream that Java si going C++ way! Maybe I do not find too many usages for vargs and the new printf, but I sure can talk for a while about generics and enums. And this guy seems conviced by the fact that Java has these features now to look like C++. Damn... I really do not get it. Update: I am sorry for the broken link of a previous post today. Someway I screwed Blogger.

Firefox late?

I have found this Mozilla Firefox 1.0 Roadmap. It seems that FireFox is a little late on its promise. I am wondering what is stopping the guys. I really love the 1.0PR and I am anxious about the 1.0. I hope I don't have to wait too much long (I may go for IE - sure just kidding).

Should I keep it for myself?

With all this buzz about the new specification for J2SE/J2EE persistence, a long time thought came back and started again moving around through my braincells. Once in a while, at the beginning of a new project, you must go again over your experience memories, browse a little bit to replace the broken links and answer for the x-time at the same question: what solution should I choose for persistence? From pure JDBC, passing through ORMs and finishing with JDO and CMP you have each time quiet a lot of options. But each and every time you should answer the question:

Which one fits best my current problem?

Maybe each time you have just a few to take out and decide upon. But sure you will have 2 (or 3) semifinalists! And now my question is how should I decide? On what metrics should I base my decision? I quick answer would be: on your experience. But what if there is no experience for this kind of problem? Wouldn't be nice to have a place where to find out how other people passed through this decision chain? (I would surely love such a place!). An experienced guy should come out screaming: You have such a place (at least something that looks very much alike). Go check Object Relational Tool Comparison. Another possible answer would be: use this simulation/testing framework, configure it for the problem and analyse the results. But as many guys involved in this field already suggested, this is not always relevant. A third answer would be: choose between the semifinalist the one that best fits your team knowledge (this is for the cases when the time frames are short - hey where are those projects with good time frames?) One could say: "Base your decision on common sense? You cannot go with CMP for 10 tables or you shouldn't go JDBC for 250 tables!". Yes, I know. But in too many cases these are not the real numbers. At the end I would like to confess: (for me) every time the semifinalist are

• pure JDBC
• iBatis
• Hibernate
• JDO

I prefere Hibernate in many situations as I have much successfull experience with it (but I don't rely my decisions on my feelings). I like iBatis as it is very intuitive. I know a few good JDO solutions. I know I am not going to reinvent the wheel. And I do believe that sometimes JDBC can be the solution. Wouldn't you say that this is a hard decision? And now I will scream out loud: guys give me your hints. I will place them in my knowledge base and never ask this again! (after this I will rest my persistence braincells). PS: wow I've lost the number of each and every I have used. So I would bring them to the same level: each, each, each and one every. Now they are equal. [smile/]

the wise men voices were listened in the SUN (updated)

Seems that (once again (?)) the guys at SUN listened to the many voices out there talking about an independent persistence solution that will unify JDO and persistence inside containers (EJB). I have wondered from the beginning why persistence inside a container should be different from persistence everywhere. Moreover, I have wonderer why at some point it was decided that 2 gangs must dispute about the best solution in persistence (and a 3rd one win :-)). Now what is left is to assure that the solution will not be another unusable spec. So good luck guys and put the best of you inside this spec. Update: It is interesting to see that many people consider that any persistent object must go to a RDBMS. Guys, wake up! Persistence is by no means equivalent with ORM. Persisting entities does not mean JDBC. Maybe persistance to RDBMS represents a large percent of the available solutions, but taking into account the legacy systems we must consider the other solutions/options too. Having a common spec for persistence will improve/ease our solutions. Update: This interview with Craig Russell and Rick Cattell (pdf link) clarifies a lot of the fog floating around.

Nice entries for AOP world

Today I have found two blog entries very interesting for the people playing or working or evaluating AOP. The first one came from Adrian Colyer (I hope you all know his involvement in AspectJ, appreciate you Adrian) and clarifies the configuration of pathes used by AspectJ. Paraphrasing Adrian I can say that after reading I have three friends standing there [AspectJ] for me. The second one published by Jon Tirsen can be considered one of the best examples of AOP appliance. I heard lots of voices screaming about the lack of real examples. Here you have one that will proove AOP can take the weight out of your shoulders: undo action. I place it on my hall of fame examples for AOP near the Swing constraint verifier published by Ramnivad Laddad in AspectJ in Action (Ramnivas your book rocks!). Damn .... I almost forgot the third one (you know: there were once two friends: Foo, Bar and Baz). If you are trying to evaluate which AOP-way you go today (SIC), check the JBossAOP vs Aspectwerkz. The future looks bright!

We have a Sun, who wants to buy?

Rick Ross analysis the possibility of SUN running out of business or being acquired by some other company. While the possibility of closing is fast eliminated, the author chooses 2 giants which are supposed to be capable of acquiring SUN: IBM and Fujitsu. The analysis is quiet interesting, but I must say that there is no sign of such a movement, and as far as know when talking about large companies I always think that the solution is a jointventure. Another name that is not contained in the analysis is Oracle. I think Oracle can be interesting in keeping Java on its side (even if Oracle might not be interested in SUN hardware). But I let the future decide what we'll have.

Solving the FireFox Trick

Yesterday I've posted a question about a possible configuration for FireFox. I think I have found the solution for it. First of all I must tell you that the option is not available from a menu (Mozilla has it, check the previous post). Oke. Let's go. Open the browser and type in the Navigation bar: about:config. If you didn't know this trick from Mozilla, this is the time to find out. Here you can access all the properties/configuration Mozilla/FireFox uses. Changing a value here will be taken into account immediately (this is also important, as you may change the preference.js, but you will be required to restart Mozilla/FireFox). Here the important keys for solving the trick are:

• browser.cache.disk.enable (true/false): enables/disables harddisk cache
• network.http.use-cache (true/false): enables/disables html caching
• browser.cache.check_doc_frequency (integer): configures the number of times after which the browser will check the cached page against the network page. Yupiii

Concluding: if you want that FireFox check the network page every time you access the corresponding URL set browser.cache.check_doc_frequency to 1. Note: the explanations of key meanings are mine so if I am wrong please correct me.

Middlegen releases version 2.1

Yesterday I have published a list (by no means complete) of source generators. Today the guys from Middlegen releases a new version (which I want to announce, as I feel a little bit involved in the source generators) Middlegen 2.1 Released!. Overview of changes/fixes: * Hibernate plugin - various fixes and patches. * Torque plugin (new) - generate Torque config files. * XMI plugin (new) - generate some XMI diagrams from the generated code. * Adapter plugin (new) - making it easier to switch persistence layer for generated Struts/JSP code. * Many core/plugin bugs fixed."

Why should I? (or changing from usable to unusable)

The title Build scripts with Groovy and Ant lead me to a nice thinking process before I start reading it. I thought that Groovy was integrated with Ant the way javascript through Rhino is integrated, the way Python is integrated, so on. But no, the article suggests that I can move my Ant to a Groovy source. For me this sounds even worse than moving from Ant to Makefiles (if I were Hani I should say instead moving from Ant to Maven? [blink/]) or moving from maintainable to unmaintainable. I find myself wondering why should I do this? Update: the story continues. Filip took the time to answer and obviously I continued. I wonder if we can build something out of it? What do you think?

freshmeat.net: Project details for dtoGen

Yep. dtoGen™ was also announced on freshmeat.net. I think I will announce it also in some mailing lists (XDoclet) and maybe Cedric Beust will have time to take a look too (he is the author of EJBGen and SGen).

Another refactoring method

I would like to start this as a fairy tale: it was sometimes ago, a system got developed very quickly in order to convince a customer about the power of the team. And then much of the team has left the building, leaving behind a pile of bloated code, some kind of spaghetti with tomato souce, but what is very important a running system (storyteller intermezzo: the previous fragment shouldn't be read as an acusation. I understand you guys. Under that kind of presure and with that time frame and with that so etherogenic team and no technical leading maybe most of us would have done the same). And as in every fairy tale, the master had learnt that as long as the system works you don't have to change it. But, the white prince came into scene (don't be afraid this is not me [blink/]) from the customers wanting more and more features. This way the master had understood that its domain proverb is not good and approved some big refactoring times. And now let's come back to our times. The first steps were done during the spring, when the whole client UI framework was refactored. Everything became more clear and easier to develop using a hierarchical model-view-controller design (the client is Swing [smile/]). Now it is the time to refactor the main business logic, as this prooved itself to be very expensive (in terms of both memory and time). The problem I am facing is that there is no test. Not a single line of unit testing. Moreover I am not able to find out a good spec of the involved processes. I think for the beginning I am going to mock the real processes (or this) in order to let me create a correct domain model. I was able to find a lot of available mocking frameworks (I will have to see what is best suited for me - you can see the steps of the process here - any suggestions?):

• EasyMock
• MockObjects
• DynaMock
• MockMaker
• MockEJB
• VirtualMock
• MockObject
• jMock

The next step will be to attack the processes themself, but more on this as at a later time. I would like to find out how many of you have been in this position of refactoring a system without any available tests and spec? Come on, tell me and maybe we will convince the leaving guys to create/leave something more behind them [blink/].

Joining source generators

Yesterday I have announced the first public release of dtoGen™. I thought I would create a list of other java source generators available (the next step would be to categorize them). So here it is:

[database-driven]
• Middlegen
• XCodeGen
• SQL2JAVA
• JET Code Generator
• Jaxor
• OrindaBuild
• Emeraldjb

[XML/Schema-driven]
• Castor sourcegen
• XMLBooster
• Zeus
• XML2Java
• JBind
• hyperjaxb
• JaxMe2

[Model-driven]
• AndroMDA
• XCoder
• MDGen
• Java Application Generator
• iQgen
• ArcStyler
• javacodemaker
• JCatalyst

[EJB-driven]
• ModelJ
• ejen
• EJBCreator
• JBossDruid
• EJBGen

[Test-driven]
• MockDoclet
• JUnitDoclet

[generic]
• XDoclet
• SGen
• Jostraca
• dia2code

[DTO-driven]
• XSnapshot
• dtoGen

Even if it seems that dtoGen enrolled on a very covered field, I still believe that it can find its place. And this is not based on the fact that I am the author [blink/], but because of the freedom of definition allowed and also its consistency.

FireFox trick

Hmmmm... I got some kind of issue with FireFox 1.0PR. I am not able to find out how I can force it to revisit the page everytime I visit the URL. I am thinking of a solution: to set the cache on 0, put I guess this is not the one I am looking for. In Mozilla this is quiet simple: Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Cache. But where is it in FireFox? Update: As you may expect setting the cache to 0 is an option, but not the best. Maybe I wasn't clear enough: I am looking for an option "Revisit/Check page every time". However thanks to Neel and Anonymous.

Java 5.0 and its spec lead impressions

A very concise but interesting interview with Calvin Austin - the J2SE 5.0 Spec Lead was published. Even if the interview presentation is not quite good (I really hate reading between images - I feel like skying on paper), the thoughts of Calvin on JDK 1.5 adoption are awsome.

dtoGen official release 0.5

I am very happy to announce the first official (open to public) release of dtoGen™. I think its documentation is quite good so I would like to invite you to check it now and give it a try. I wait with interest your feedback.

more on annotations

I finally got the time to install JDK 1.5.0 (or J2SE 5.0). I took the time to update the list of interesting links on JDK. Starting with the list of new features presented on this conversation with Joshua Block I have categorized them

• Generics
• Annotations

I intend to finish this reference list including also the rest of new features.

Transactions in J2EE

Some resources for a good introduction to Transactions in J2EE :

• A Guideline to Transaction Management in J2EE Applications by Debu Panda - July 08, 2004
• XA Exposed III.I by Mike Spille - March 09, 2004
• XA Exposed III by Mike Spille - January 29, 2004
• XA Exposed, Part II by Mike Spille - January 13, 2004
• XA Exposed, Part I by Mike Spille - January 05, 2004
• XA Exposed: How 2 Phase Commit works in J2EE by Dion Almaer - TheServerSide - January 05, 2004
• Transactions - J2EE 1.4 Tutorial - November 16, 2003
• Transactional services in WebSphere Application Server Enterprise V5 by Peter Kovari and Daniel Cerecedo Diaz - IBM Redbook - September 24, 2003
• Transaction in J2EE by Peter Kovari and Jan Smolenski - IBM Redbook - June 11, 2003
• [FR] Les transactions dans le contexte J2EE - Objectiva - December 05, 2002
• Transactions - J2EE 1.3 Tutorial - April 24, 2002
• Understanding JTA - the Java Transaction API (cont.) - DataDirect - 2002 NEW
• J2EE Transaction Frameworks: Distributed Transaction Primer by Dibyendu Baksi - 05/23/2001 NEW
• J2EE Transaction Frameworks: Building the Framework by Dibyendu Baksi - 04/26/2001 NEW
• Transaction management under J2EE 1.2 by Sanjay Mahapatra - Java World - July, 2000
• Using Database Transactions in Java by Brett Spell - Java Pro Magazine - September, 1999

more on generics (references)

I have added a couple of more links to the list created by shinzui JDK 1.5. I posted them on my del.icio.us account: Java 1.5 Generics.

JWS and JNLP

Links

• Java Web Start Technology
• Developer Forums:Java Web Start & JNLP
• JavaRanch JNLP and Web Start
• Deploy an SWT application using Java Web Start
• GL Mod Java WebStart

Research

• Configuration details
• Native libraries
• SSL

Configuration details

[to come]

Native libraries

[to come]

SSL

[to come]

65% on non-IE browsers

RE_INVIGORATE reports that 55% of my readers are using Mozilla, Firebird and/or Netscape. Only 35% on IE versions. Other browsers take the rest. Update: sorry for the first post. Posted through mail got messed cause I have lost a quote.

SUN Tech Tips are not too uptodate

Enterprise Java Tech Tips instructs this week on Persisting Model Components with JDO. Start learning JDO, cause soon this spec will be deprecated [blink/]. Update: I would like to comment the comment of Doug [smile/]. I agree with you that JDO is not deprecated and there will be more code written till that moment (the moment the common persistence spec is out, the moment the first implementations are released, the moment the first dev guys produce the first well done solution and so on). I know all of these, but I wouldn't choose to publish a JDO intro article a few days after an important announcement about persistence was made. I understand that Sun guys want to transmit a "stay calm" to the actual JDO involved people, but I believe the moment for attracting new users is wrong. Because at the moment the persistence spec will be out JDO will be deprecated (this at least is my impression based on the first draft of EJB3 spec). The EJB3 draft persistence solution is based/uses many ideas taken from ORMs (as Hibernate, TopLink) and these solutions, even if at surface don't look not so different from JDO, they are in fact way too different.

Test tool recommendations

A nice list of testing tools on Testdriven.com: TDD Tools Advisory. Read short description and choose what you need. Testing tools are guaranteed to improve your work quality.

nothing you can do with clustering factor

A very nice explanation about The Clustering Factor.

programming quotes

Some nice quotes I have learned in time:

• Software is like sex: it's better when it's free. Linus Torvalds
• AOP is just the stuff that makes OOP work
• You know you've achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away. Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• The Web is the sum of all human knowledge, plus porn.

I've just received another one from a colegue (C++ guy [smile/]):

Saying that Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.

(please no offense). Update: Chuck Goetschel comes with many mores (not on programming) quotes.

Where is Java Web Start?

The project I am currently working is quiet big - the packaged distro has aprox 25Mb (Java + native custom compilers). During the spring (till late summer) we had to deliver almost weekly to our customers (they are testing a lot and we had a long period of feature requests/analysis). The prefered way to make this deliveries was an FTP archive. As you may expect the build/distribution is automated using Ant builds. But, we got some complains about the size of the download and about the bad connection (damn, this is something we cannot improve [sad/]). Right now I am thinking that a distribution based on Java Web Start will boost the update process (I expect another tough period). Even if the documentation for Java Web Start seems good enough I have some points on which I am not sure:

• how I package the native libraries/compilers
• how can I deliver native libraries/compilers according to customer environment
• how I install them afterwards (in some cases an install step is requiered
• how should I protect the download (if somebody intercepts the jnlp file, what's happening next?)

. Oouch, so many questions. If you have experience with Java Web Start and you can share it with me you will be welcome and I will greatefully thank. Update: I have found only one book related to Java Web Start: Java Deployment with JNLP and WebStart. Back in 2001 (the book year), I guess JWS was in its first version (1.0.1) out there, but I believe not too many changes occured in the following versions (1.2 and than pooooof ! 1.4.2). Update: First of all many thanks to all those that helped me posting comments [appreciate/]. I've decided to add permanent link to an entry containing my research on using JWS and JNLP and a set of usefull links. This is the post permalink (a link can be find also on the left side of my main page.).

Colin announcement: Spring 1.1.1 is Out

A new release of Spring is out. Colin is announcing it Spring 1.1.1 is Out. I am already downloading it. To see whats new check the changelog.

Groove 'bout Groovy

If you still want to evaluate Groovy maybe this will help you ONJava.com: Groovy, Java's New Scripting Language. Than come back and give me a groovy scenario for groovy. Thanks anticipated [blink/].

J2SE 5.0 ... CHM is out!

He he he... no this is not a late announcement. I have found this: J2SE 5.0, JDK1.5.0 addon, J2EE 1.4 in chm format (don't know if they are updated with the today release): Java Document CHM