Java Thoughts and Other Stuff

Its 1997. Is there a reason to choose Java over Scala?

2008-02-22T10:57:00.003-06:00

There is a growing buzz around the blogs (including this one) about Scala, and wondering if Scala is a better Java. I don't think the goal of Scala is to be a better java, but its easy to see how that statement is made, since Scala has a lot of features folks want in a language, yet compiles to .class files and can be used almost seamlessly in an existing java project. I was asked why someone

A Simple Scala, Spring and WebWork/Struts2 Test

2008-02-20T16:17:00.004-06:00

Nothing earthshaking here..as i am just running another simple test to check out how Scala plays with Spring. Some might ask if Spring is even necessary with Scala. I cant answer that (with my small understanding of Scala), and its a different discussion anyway. I just wanted to see if Scala and Spring would play together. So, I updated the code from my previous Scala and WebWork test to add a

Using Scala in Webwork/Struts 2, Part 1

2008-02-14T08:40:00.003-06:00

I have been searching for a language to learn, in addition to java, for 3 years now. For various reasons I wont get into (there are enough blogs about that topic as it is), none of them totally excited me for one reason or another, until I started reading about Scala the end of 2007. I bought the Scala book from Artima and have read a bit of it, and also read Daniel's excellent Scala intro

I Finally Found the PERFECT MP3 Player

2007-10-08T08:42:00.000-05:00

Well, after using various mp3 players the past few years (archos, ipod, creative zen sleek photo, sansa), I FINALLY found the perfect mp3 player. My creative player finally gave it up 2 weeks ago, so i began the search to replace it. Because I have a Rhapsody To Go subscription, i have to own a PlaysForSure compatible device, which rules out the ipod and the zune. I was left with iriver, creative

NetBeans 6 Daily Build frustrations

2007-09-11T09:33:00.000-05:00

As much as I love NetBeans 6..I have to do a bit of venting. I've been using NetBeans 6 milestone 10 since it was released. I, like others, thought M10 was a bit slower than 9. So, today, i decided to try the latest daily build. here is where the fun starts. I didnt want to uninstall milestone 10, to make sure i had a working IDE in case the daily builds had problems. So, i downloaded the

Back from my blogging break

2007-09-04T15:19:00.000-05:00

I know its been quite awhile since i posted last. I decided to take a break for the summer, but now that fall is coming around (finally), I plan on making regularly blog entries again starting this week.

Looking for Struts 2 Recipe Ideas

2007-05-15T15:41:00.000-05:00

Hi, I am in the very early stages of a possible Struts 2 recipes type book, and was wondering if anyone who happens to visit here had any particular recipes they would like to see? The other author has posted some ideas in his blog here. Some of the specific recipes i had in mind, in addition to those listed on Mark's blog, were: 1) Paging 2) generating a pdf using itext 3) Custom/restful

Netbeans 6 is AWESOME

2007-04-18T14:31:00.000-05:00

As part of the subclipse problems I blogged about a couple of weeks ago, i started playing around with other IDEs again. In addition to the subclipse issue, i was tired of the less than robust jsp editing...neither the Web Tools or MyEclipse, in my opinion, are totally there yet. Though I've used MyEclipse for a couple of years now, i've never loved it. I just used it because it was the best i

The ridiculous java bashing needs to stop

2007-04-12T21:28:00.000-05:00

I've been blogging for several months now, guess its time for my first rant post. After reading this article by Bruce Tate, I decided I couldnt keep quiet anymore. I dont have a problem with the article overall, I just want to speak out on a couple of points that I keep hearing brought up by the ruby folks. (And no, I'm not going to bash ruby or rails..every language has its place in different

Do subversion and eclipse work together for anyone?

2007-04-05T21:54:00.000-05:00

I've run into several problems with subversion that last few months, but 2 rather big ones have happened this week that have just about put me over the edge. I've mostly been using the eclipse 3.3 milestone builds the past couple of months, but i have had subversion issues occassionally throughout the project. I use the subclipse plugin for subversion functionality within eclipse. The problems

A small rant about Netbeans & Eclipse Updating

2007-03-07T19:20:00.000-06:00

I read another blog this evening that mentioned dissatisfaction with the Netbeans update manager. This echoes the thoughts I've had for quite awhile now for both Eclipse and Netbeans. I am current running Eclipse 3.3M5 and the latest Netbeans 6 milestone (i forget the milestone number). Unless I am missing something (and i would be happy for that to be true), there is no way to update the core

Upgrading tips from Webwork 2.2 to Struts 2 Part 1

2007-03-01T13:49:00.000-06:00

I've begun the process of upgrading our site from WebWork 2 to Struts 2. There is a guide on the Struts2 site detailing most of the migration tasks here. The list below are some additional changes I had to make: struts.xml changes (was xwork.xml) 1) Change dtd to:

Is iBatis really over twice as fast as JPA?

2007-02-08T15:52:00.000-06:00

So, i've been reading up on JPA off and on for awhile now. Yesterday, i finally decided to get it working. After a day and a half of frustration trying to get jpa (hibernate provider) and Spring 2 working (mostly due to hibernate and JPA issues)...I finally was able to get a simple query to work. Our live site has used ibatis since its inception. However, i know that you can make JPA look a lot

Webwork performance update part 2

2007-01-29T15:57:00.000-06:00

I've been reading some posts on the Struts2 developers list the last week, and it sounds like some developers have found that Freemarker might be contributing more to the slower tests results some of us have blogged about (instead of the blame lying solely with OGNL). Some of the webwork performance tips can be found here: Webwork Performance Tuning I plan on making the Freemarker changes as

Looking for single machine load testing advice

2007-01-29T15:33:00.000-06:00

This is a follow up to my first post of today, Webwork Peformance Part 2. Anyone have any good tips for load testing an app that runs on the same machine as the test tool? I want to just make these changes locally to my dev machine, instead of getting the Ops group involved. I know the real numbers wont mean anything, but a comparison of before and after tests should still be relevant. For now,

What do you listen to while you code?

2007-01-16T12:56:00.000-06:00

I always wondered what other developers listened to (music, talk radio, etc) while they worked. Since i work at home, its a little easier for me to crank up the tunes if i want, whereas most others who work in an office have to rely on headphones. I have a Rhapsody To Go subscription, so i usually stream albums from there while i program..Bruce Springsteen, Ryan Adams, Tonic, Counting Crows,

The Beauty Of Webwork & Spring - Reusing code in a non-web application

2007-01-12T12:33:00.000-06:00

I ran into an interesting situation this week. I had written a new piece of functionality for our website, that allows us to ftp to provider sites, download xml files, parse them and save them to the database. That process also involves downloading images, and creating thumbnails..among other things. Technically, this is a non-web based flow. A job is started that will start this process every

Java 7 aka Groovy 1.0

2007-01-10T21:12:00.000-06:00

Just a short post this time, as i'm a bit sleepy this evening. It seems like a lot of blogs lately have been mentioning some of the features proposed for jdk 7. Admittedly, I'm only going on blog headlines plus a small bit of reading on the blogs..so i might be making some wrong assumptions. The 2 points i have read about the most..the property operator and null handling..both of these are

Help me "get" Component Oriented Java Web Frameworks

2007-01-08T20:31:00.000-06:00

In my last post, i made a comment about having no interest in java component based web development. I know there are lots of fans of it out there, so i thought i would ask anyone who happens to read this blog, and is a fan of component web frameworks, what's the appeal for you? Specifically (with examples, not marketing talk) how do they make your development job easier? I understand the idea

My Wish for 2007: A Stripes and Struts 2 Merger

2007-01-04T21:45:00.000-06:00

So I've spent the last couple weeks being frustrated with the state of web frameworks in java (no offense..not a fan of the component frameworks..i'm an action framework guy). I know there are a ton of them, so you would think I could find one i LOVE. I actually thought i had, after playing with Stripes off and on the last 2 months. However, when attempting to write a new piece of code in

Tomcat 5.5 startup faster in jdk6

2006-12-12T13:56:00.000-06:00

I decided to be an early adopter apparently, and downloaded java 6 this am. I wanted to see if tomcat and our site functioned correctly under the new jdk. So far, so good. Havent run across any errors yet, so we might be able to move to java 6 early next year..further testing is definitely needed. I want to do a load test, similiar to the test we did for webwork vs struts. Due to the holidays,

Struts =Cobol, JSF Doubling (Not So Sure)

2006-11-17T14:09:00.000-06:00

This is a quick response to a blog i just read which can be found here:Struts is the new COBOL; Demand for JSF doubles in 5 months I actually am only taking issue with the assertion that Rick makes about JSF demand doubling in the last 5 months..and the tongue in cheek "In your eye" to JSF doubters. To check out his claim..I went to indeed.com and did a global search on JSF..returned 290 or so

OGNL vs EL (briefly)

2006-11-17T13:00:00.000-06:00

Saw this interesting post on java.net yesterday: EL Comparisons It sorta backs up my idea that the biggest performance difference between Stripes and WebWork is most likely OGNL. If you look at the chart in the blog link above, OGNL is quite a bit slower than Commons-EL (which, since we run tomcat, was used by my Stripes version of the test). There are some cool things about OGNL, but i just

Webwork and Stripes: A Simple Performance Comparison

2006-10-27T08:23:00.000-05:00

Well, it took a bit longer to run the load tests than i thought (due to finishing some work for the next build of the site), but we finally got around to it yesterday. Like I mentioned in the previous post..I decided to rewrite one of our pages in Stripes, and perform a load test to compare the Stripes version to the WebWork 2.2.2 version. To briefly recap the last post..the ONLY differences in

Migrating from WebWork to Stripes, Pt 1

2006-10-16T21:34:00.000-05:00

The first in a series of blogs about converting an application from WebWork to Stripes. To begin with..we arent officially moving our architecture to Stripes..at least not yet. Our site just went live in September, so switching a framework at this stage would probably cause folks to hunt me down :) However, when i first proposed the webwork/spring/ibatis architecture way back in early December