August 2010
Java development 2.0: Sharding with Hibernate Shards
Among various sharding implementations, Hibernate Shards is possibly the most popular in the world of Java technology. For some shops, sharding means being able to keep a trusted RDBMS in place without sacrificing data scalability or system performance. In this installment of the Java development 2.0 series, find out when sharding works, and when it doesn't, and then get your hands busy sharding a simple application capable of handling terabytes of data.
5 things you didn't know about command-line flags for the JVM
Java virtual machines come with hundreds of command-line options, which more experienced Java developers can use to tune the Java runtime. Learn how to monitor and log compiler performance, disable explicit garbage collection (System.gc();), extend the JRE, and more.
Introduction to Java programming Part 1
In Part 1, learn the essentials of object-oriented programming on the Java platform, including fundamental Java syntax and its use.
Introduction to Java programming Part 2
In Part 2 explore the more-sophisticated syntax and libraries you will need to develop complex, real-world Java applications.
Learning FC++: The C++ functional programming library
C++ is usually synonymous with object-oriented programming (OOP), and further replenished in no small measure by popular technical literature. This article tries something different—functional programming with C++ using the open source FC++ library from Yannis Smaragdakis and Brian McNamara. Learn how you can use FC++ to implement basic functional programming.
Evolutionary architecture and emergent design: Building DSLs in Groovy
Internal DSLs are possible but cumbersome in the Java language because of its restrictive syntax. This article covers some of the capabilities you can exploit and issues you'll encounter when using Groovy to build internal DSLs.
5 things you didn't know about Java Database Connectivity
JDBC, or Java Database Connectivity, is one of the most frequently used packages in the entire JDK, and yet few Java developers use it to its fullest — or most up-to-date — capacity. This article offers an introduction to newer JDBC features.
July 2010
Evolutionary architecture and emergent design: Leveraging reusable code - Part 2
Once you identify idiomatic patterns in code, the next step is to harvest and use them. Understanding the relationship between design and code can facilitate the discovery of reusable code. In Part-2 learn two techniques for harvesting idiomatic patterns: capturing patterns as APIs and using metaprogramming techniques.
Evolutionary architecture and emergent design: Leveraging reusable code - Part 1
Once you identify idiomatic patterns in code, the next step is to harvest and use them. Understanding the relationship between design and code can facilitate the discovery of reusable code. In Part-1, learn the relationship between code and design.
February 2010
Debugging and testing Swing the easy way
The two open source tools that this article introduces — Swing Explorer and FEST-Swing — can make debugging and testing of Swing UIs simple and reliable. This article shows how to use them to understand a UI's structure, test how it functions, and troubleshoot issues.
OpenID for Java Web applications, Part 1
Walk through the steps of incorporating OpenID into a sample Java application. Rather than implement the OpenID Authentication specification by hand, author J. Steven Perry uses the openid4java library and a popular OpenID provider, myOpenID, to create a safe and reliable registration process for a Java application written in Wicket.
January 2010
Get to know Apache Click Java EE
Get introduced to Apache Click, a Java EE Web application framework that enables the creation of Web applications without using MVC patterns or JSP. This article provides examples of displaying a simple Web page and creating a Web form that submits data that is displayed on a different Web page.
Considerations and techniques for agile architecture
This installment of Evolutionary architecture and emergent design tackles a variety of topics related to evolutionary architecture, including the important distinction between design and architecture (and how to tell them apart), some issues that come up when you create enterprise-level architecture, and the difference between static and dynamic typing in service-oriented architectures.
Java development 2.0: Gaelyk for Google App Engine
The introduction of the Google App Engine saw a wave of frameworks emerge to facilitate developing applications targeted for it. The Gaelyk framework, one such framework written in Groovy, eases development of lightweight applications that leverage a datastore. And the scalability you can achieve is impressive.
November 2009
Explore amazing refactoring functions in Eclipse JDT
This article describes the various refactorings available in Eclipse Java™ Development Tools (JDT), including what each refactoring does, when to use it, and how to use it. It also explores the refactoring script functionality in Eclipse, which allows library developers to share code refactorings with their clients.
Use Sun SPOTs as your build canary
SPOTs are small wireless devices that run Java programs. Find out how to turn a new, open source wireless device — Sun's Small Programmable Object Technology (SPOT) — into a highly visible indicator of the health of a continuous integration build.
Patching in Eclipse Galileo
Eclipse Galileo includes new features for applying patches. This article provides an overview of the method for creating and applying patches, and includes an overview of the patch format used by Eclipse. Here are examples of creating simple patches.
The pitfalls and solutions of Java Benchmarking
Program performance is always a concern, even in this era of high-performance hardware. This article, the first in a two-part series, guides you around the many pitfalls associated with benchmarking Java code. Part 2 covers the statistics of benchmarking and offers a framework for performing Java benchmarking.
New to Java programming?
This provides an overview of Java technology basics and explains how the technology fits into the context of contemporary software development. Links to relevant introductory Java content, other educational resources, as well as IBM downloads and products give you a rich starting point for further investigation.
IBM Monitoring & Diagnostic Tools for Java
The IBM Monitoring and Diagnostic Tools for Java - the Health Center provides live information and recommendations about classes being loaded, the virtual machine environment, garbage collection, locking, and profiling. This article introduces you to the Health Center and shows an example of how it can be used to check the impact of a source code change in a Web application.
Native-looking eSWT Java apps for mobile phones
As mobile platforms become increasingly sophisticated, the demand for mobile computing will increase. In this series, learn about the embedded Standard Widget Toolkit (eSWT). In Part 1: Use simple widgets to quickly build mobile apps. In Part 2: Use advanced controls for your mobile apps.
September 2009
The Clojure programming language
Lisp is a programming language known for its expressiveness and power, but it was often thought of as not being well suited for general use. That has all changed with Clojure, a Lisp dialect that runs on the Java platform. Now you can harness the power of Lisp anywhere you have a Java Virtual Machine handy. In this article, you will see how to get started with Clojure and learn some of its syntax, as you take advantage of the Clojure plug-in for Eclipse to help you along the way.
Introduction to the eSWT mobile extension
As mobile platforms become increasingly sophisticated, the demand for mobile computing will increase. Learn about the embedded Standard Widget Toolkit (eSWT). You can use eSWT to develop native-looking Java™ applications for a variety of mobile phones. This article explores how to use eSWT mobile controls. Code examples walk you through using five of the classes in the eSWT mobile extension.
Mastering Grails: Creating a custom plug-in
In this Mastering Grails installment, Scott Davis shows you how to create your own Grails plug-in. Once you see how effortless it is to create a plug-in, you'll understand why more than 250 Grails plug-ins are available now, with new ones being added all the time.
Java Web services: JAXB and JAX-WS in Axis2
Apache Axis2 supports a range of data-binding technologies, including the official Java standard, JAXB 2.x. Axis2 also supports the Java standard for Web service configuration, JAX-WS 2.x, as an alternative to its own custom configuration technique. This article demonstrates how you can use JAXB 2.x and JAX-WS 2.x with Axis2 and discusses some of the limitations of Axis2's current support for them.
