People and Technology

I’ve been lucky enough to have been using Spring for just over 4 years. If you don’t know what Spring is, it solves a lot of problems in complex Enterprise Java Systems. And it makes those systems more configurable; Spring makes your code like Lego blocks. Blocks that you can take apart and use again and again (no matter what the underlying technology is). And because you can take it apart, it makes your code easier to test. And testing is a good thing - the earlier you find bugs , the cheaper they are to fix.

Get the feeling that I’m a bit of a Spring fanatic? Wasn’t always that way. It took me two projects where other people had choosen Spring to convince me. And did I mention that it’s one of the most in demand skills in the Java world?

Rod Johnson (aka ‘Mr Spring’) is speaking in Dublin at the Westin hotel Dublin on the 11st March. It’s fairly central, and it’s a breakfast briefing, so you don’t even to have to arrange the day off work. More details on the event are on the Kainos Website.

Update: The registration form to sign up for the event is here.

If you’re interested in Open Software, and you’re around Belfast next Friday (Feb 1st) , you could do worse than go to this OpenIsland- it’s in Spires, opposite Jury’s Inn , right next to the Europa Bus Station (i.e. it’s pretty easy to get to).

Title: OpenIsland - All-Island Conference on Free and Open Source Software

Location: Spires Conference Centre, Belfast

Time: All-day Date: 1st February, 2008

Cost: Free Web: http://openisland.net

The event will include talks from Bruce Perens, author of the Open Source Definition, and a senior speaker from Sun Microsystems, as well as a number of local case studies. Please note that the website says that the closing date for registration is 24th January, but if people wish to attend they can still do so by sending an email to info@openisland.net Registrants should include the following information: Name, Company, Job Title, Email, Special Dietary Requirements

We’re big fans of Sugar CRM, and have recommended it to clients in the past. It does Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - basically the numbers you have in your mobile, but at a corporate rather than an individual level. We proposed integrating it with a (Java Based) billing system - we didn’t want to have to build (yet another) contact management system, as the value add was integration. Getting PHP (the web scripting language that Sugar is written in) to work with Java is getting easier but not straightforward. But hey, that’s what we do.

So it in Friday’s Irish Times Business section (main part), I was surprised to see Sugar advertising for people for their Dublin European HQ (I obviously missed this press release back in March announcing the opening). The ad in the main part says ‘look at page 19 of the jobs section’. Page 19 exists, but no Sugar CRM ad. Strange.

Michele (him of Blacknight) talks a lot about Sugar CRM, from the hosting point of view.

Update: Link to the Sugar CRM Careers page (includes CRM Jobs in Dublin)

I’ve recently got a new laptop (more on that in another post) and have to install the usual selection of software to get productive with it.

As an experiment / not having enough time I’ve decided to go without installing Microsoft Office. I do , however have the excellent (and free) OpenOffice installed, and use Google Documents and Spreadsheets on a regular basis.

Why would I do this?

• It’s not about the money (as I have a copy of the Office disks paid for).
• It’s not about the money (2) as I’ll also happily pay for something that gives me value over the free version (e.g. my subscription to LinkedIn).
• It’s not really about getting locked into one supplier who can manipulate me at will (see the Microsoft Word 2007 File Format Conversion post) however annoying that may be.

No, it’s more about the features; with OpenOffice, I can save Word documents as a PDF , which (in my option) looks far more professional when sending to a (prospective) client.

Another reason is that as an (IT) consultant, I tend to ‘deploy’ on client sites on a regular basis, often with a bare machine to start with. Open software means that I have a ‘toolbox’ I can use to get up and running quickly , no fuss needed to raise purchase orders to buy software.

If you’re interested in this approach, the Open Source Alternative site is worth checking out. It’s not dogmatic; in fact it’s pretty even handed, listing commercial and open software for pretty much everything that you might need to do with a PC or Mac (business ,communications, graphics, security etc). That’s on top of the alternatives to Word, Excel , Powerpoint and Outlook.

It’s all about choice. Some are better , some or worse ; It’s up to you to decide which one works best for you. You’re a mug if you don’t know what the choice is.

Update 26th August: I lasted just over two weeks without installing Microsoft Office. Nothing bad with Open Office, just Microsoft playing around with Office 2007 file format. I have an important client that sent me something in Word 2007. The sort of client that I can’t (yet) ask to save in a different format and resend. Open Office does not (yet) open Office 2007 files, so I had to drop back to the Microsoft version (and install some filters) to be able to read it.

Dear Open Source Santa,

Now that you have Java in your open source toy bag, can I have Duck Typing please ? It shouldn’t be too hard to do, since the elves in Ruby-Wonder-Land have been making toys with Duck Typing for years. I’ve been a good boy all year and promise to play nicely with the .Net kids next door.

You don’t know what Duck Typing is? Sorry, I forgot that you’re more than 1000 years old. Little Jamie next door got Ruby last year and he says that ‘if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck , then it is a duck’. He says making the computer do more work makes it a lot easier to write programs.

My Teacher says not to be greedy, and that you’re very busy making Toy Trains. She says just ask for getters and setters. You know, the boring code like ‘getSomeValue()’ and setSomeValue(). She says the Apache imps have been very good with Dynaforms but that writing a Java web application is still just too slow.

Rudolph will tell you that writing get(”someValue”) is about as cool as having a bright red nose. He would also want to put ’someValue’ in one place only (the web page). Having to write config files and javabeans feels too much like homework.

Santa, I know there are other children that need changes to the core Java code more than I do, so maybe you know of an open source project that already has this.

Paul

P.S. :I still want to keep compile time type checking to make sure I don’t make any mistakes.

Check out this article. If you haven’t come across it before, TheServerside.com is a technical website where Enterprise Java people hang out.

[Link to Serverside.com]

Update: A copy of the original post can be found here.

Two posts about Oracle in One Day? Must be going mad.

I’m using Oracle Sql Developer (formerly Raptor). It’s a nice little tool to view information on an Oracle Database (and much better than Sql Plus, which was a throwback to the 1970’s). Maybe it doesn’t have all the power of Toad or Sql Navigator, but that doesn’t matter , it’s free , can run anywhere (it’s Java based) and does most of what you need.

The reason for the post? Opened it up today, and found that it has an auto-update feature (a la Eclipse). It now has support for Oracle Reports , Oracle Data mining as well as a nifty Sql formatter. It will be interesting how Quest software responds to this!

The main reason for using Sql Developer as a Java person is that allows you to test your connections; simple copy and paste your JDBC Url from your Java application, and hit the ‘test’ button. No longer do you have to pull your hair out as to why your lovely ajax web application no longer works , only to find somebody has changed the DB username and password!

Yes, it’s incredible , but true. Red Piranha is everything (well , not exactly everything) that I’ve learnt in 7 years of Java consulting, all wrapped up in a nice easy to go bundle. It’s Enterprise software that gets knowledge out of people’s heads and into a PC (no , it’s not as painful as it sounds!).

I hadn’t checked the stats for a while , so I’m astonished to learn that 25,000 people have downloaded a copy from sourceforge. What’s more amazing is that these downloads are for version 1 - a sort of ‘mini Google’. As I write this post the latest (beta) version is being made available to developers. This moves it firmly into the Enterprise Web 2.0 space, adding workflow, rules and rich internet application capabilities (including Ajax and mashups) - more on this blogpost.

By the way , if you’re looking for more information on Enterprise Web 2.0 , you can check out Jerry Bowles blog on this area.

An Article in this weeks Economist shows how Microsoft’s core business is under threat from online software. This is on top of the threat from Open Software.

And if you don’t know who Alan Cox is, check out the Wikipedia Entry on him.

Quote from the Wiki Pedia :

He (Alan)was once commonly regarded as being the “second in command” after Linus Torvalds himself.

More information is available on the ILUG site.

A while back I wrote an article for an O’Reilly sister site, Java.net , on Sprinkle Some Ajax Magic into your Struts Web Application. I’m going to repeat one thing I said in this article: while coding Ajax is cool, you really want to use a framework if you have the choice. If you don’t believe me , check out some of the podcasts on Ajaxian.com. When you listen to the problems that the frameworks have overcome (What if the ActiveX XmlHttpRequest Object is turned off? What if you want to do local storage? What if the user hits the back button?), you’ll be a convert to the ‘Frameworks are better’ approach. So which Ajax enabled framework should you use as an Enterprise Java developer?

Pre Ajax, the answer to ‘which Java presentation framework should I use?’ would have been Apache Struts. Not because it was technically better than any of the other frameworks (although feel free to leave your comment!) but because everybody else is using it. This meant
(a) using Struts is good for your client, as they can replace you if you get run over by a bus and
(b) using Struts is good for you, as you can take your Struts skills to your next piece of work.

However , in this strange new Ajax and Web 2.0 world, things are beginning to change. Javascript gone from ‘has been kiddie scripting language’ to ‘coolest thing on the planet’. User expectations about what Enterprise Web applications can are going through the roof as Web 2.0 enters the mainstream. What Java framework are you going to use to deliver these expectations?

With this in mind, I did some research on the Ajax Enabled Java frameworks that are currently (Feb 06) available. I tried to pick out the best ones (best for your career, and hopefully technically best) based on the following criteria:

• Java - Web development frameworks with Ajax capability.
• Rating based on technical capabilites, and which is most likely to be the ‘next Struts’ (i.e. become the defacto standard for Java-Web Development).
• Rating is based partly on downloading and running the projects and partly on evaluation of what the websites / other people say.
• Products must be available (at least partly) in open source form with a recognised open source licence - as these are most likely to get community traction.

Before we get into the list, there a couple of items that you may think are missing:

• Whatever you may think of non-Java frameworks (e.g. Ruby on Rails, PHP with Ajax), these are not included here. The notion of Java being replaced by Language / Framework ‘X’ is an entirely different article.
• The list also does not include several excellent ’server neutral’ frameworks such as BackBase, Dojo, Prototype, or JSON. While these frameworks are included with some of the toolsets listed below, we’re aiming to get an ‘out of the box’ toolkit for the Web tier of Enterprise Java applications.
• You’ll also probably note that there are 3 implementations of the Java Server Faces (JSF) standard on this list - MyFaces , Ajax JSF and Struts (Shale).

Think we got the evaluation wrong? Leave your comments at the bottom of this post.

Ajax Java Web Presentation Frameworks

Conclusion
The New Struts is …. Struts. Some other framework may overtake Struts to become the new standard, but I would recommend the following Struts-related frameworks based on the following scenarios

Scenario 1: Adding Ajax to existing Struts Applications. Use AjaxAnywhere - closest to the approach taken in the article Sprinkle Some Ajax Magic into your Struts Web Application. Despite writing this article , I see the frameworks evolving rapidly to the point where you would only take such an approach for adding Ajax to ‘Legacy’ applications.

Scenario 2: Need Ajax Now for a new Java Application. Use Appfuse as it gives Struts, Ajax (with DWR) and the possiblity of JSF integration now, all ‘out of the box’. This fits in well with …

Scenario 3: Medium Term. Use an implementation of JSF (either MyFaces or whatever Appfuse promotes - probably Struts Shale). Struts Shale (JSF) has so far released only ‘overnight’ builds. Apache MyFaces (JSF) tool support and Ajax capabilities are likely to improve over time. Both Struts-Shale and MyFaces are likely to play well with AppFuse , making it a safe bet for investing your time checking it out.

NoUnit is an open-source code coverage tool that shows you the effectiveness of your JUnit tests.

After a suitable pause , I’m now thinking of starting work on the next version of NoUnit. Some of the features I’m thinking of including are:

• Eclipse Plugin , so that you can run NoUnit code coverage reports as easily as you do JUnit tests in Eclipse.
• Support for JUnit 4 and Java 1.5 Annotations
• Support for EJB 2.0, EJB 3.0 and Spring - currently NoUnit only shows direct calls between Java classes.
• Various outstanding bugs and change requests from users.

Is there anything else you think should be included? Leave your comments here.

NoUnit is an open-source code coverage tool that shows you the effectiveness of your JUnit tests.

After a suitable pause , I’m now thinking of starting work on the next version of NoUnit. Some of the features I’m thinking of including are:

• Eclipse Plugin , so that you can run NoUnit code coverage reports as easily as you do JUnit tests in Eclipse.
• Support for JUnit 4 and Java 1.5 Annotations
• Support for EJB 2.0, EJB 3.0 and Spring - currently NoUnit only shows direct calls between Java classes.
• Various outstanding bugs and change requests from users.

Is there anything else you think should be included? Leave your comments here.

It now seems obvious that the Healthcare Payroll system was destined to fail. If you were working on the project, I’m sure it felt very differently at the time. How can your projects avoid a similar fate? While IT may sometimes seem disconnected from reality, the following guidelines show that ‘Real World’ lessons still apply.

1. Know what you want and stick to it. If you’re building a house and change the plans several times the builder is going to fleece you, no matter how low the initial quote was. The same goes for IT Projects - if you change your mind after the price is agreed, you’re going to pay more.
2. If you don’t know what you’re doing , find a friend who does. I know very little about houses, so when I was buying my own I got a friendly surveyor to check it out. With IT projects, this ‘friend’ should be genuinely on your side, and have something to lose (e.g. financial or reputation) if things go wrong.
3. Little and often is better. Like exercise, smaller projects that deliver results little but early are best. If the results are good, try a second (and third) round to add more functionality based on the feedback from users.
4. It’s been all done before. Tailored suits cost a lot more than ready-made ones - and most people are happy with a ‘Good enough’ instead of ‘Perfect fit’. There are literally thousands of ‘off-the-peg’ computer systems out there ready for final alteration to what you need.
5. If you don’t understand the answer, ask more questions. Thankfully the days we sat and nodded at the Doctor’s Latin words are long gone. IT Consultants may sometimes speak a different language, but if they can’t explain what they’re talking about in English that you understand, the chances are they’re trying to hide something.
6. Don’t build on sand. Like houses , projects need good foundations. For IT Projects , the good foundations are sound knowledge of the Business Processes being coded into the system. Changing processes and changing IT systems at the same time is like building on sand.
7. Sometimes the tortoise wins the race. Unless your entire business model is built around being the very first to market, then being a tortoise and letting others race ahead has very big advantages. Not only can you learn from other people’s mistakes, but the chances are you’ll get it at a much reduced cost - For example websites now cost a fraction of what they did during the dot.com boom.
8. Use a safety net. When building houses, often the first thing to go up is scaffolding, for safety reasons. The equivalent safety net in IT is called ‘Unit Tests’. Not only do they help you get there faster, but they let you know if you’ve broken something you’ve already built.
9. Be a good poker player. Good poker players never give away valuable cards. For IT projects, owning all cards mean just that - make sure that you have full rights to the solution so that you can still move tables and use a different supplier. Even if you never make the move, knowing that you can is an effective bargaining chip.

And finally …

When you are in a hole, stop digging. The decision to call a halt to the projects was no doubt a difficult one, and is to be applauded. Too often, the temptation is to keep on going and hope things will turn out right. Recognising problems at an early stage means there is more chance of being able to fix them.

Struts has been the defacto standard for developing Web Applications using Java for the past number of years.

Now that Ajax techniques have shaken up the Web, is Struts going to see it’s dominance through into the next generation, or will some other framework take it’s place? Choose the wrong framework and your company will be left with applications that nobody knows how to support. If you’re a developer, choosing the wrong framework means throwing away the time and effort you invested in learning that framework to start all over again.

Over on the knowledgebase, we posted an analysis of the current Ajax - Java - Web frameworks , and list if they’re likely to become a standard. Feel free to leave your comments here.

I have a colleague who is as much an advocate of the IntelliJ IDE for Java, as I am for Eclipse. So far, in the ‘My Java Tool is better than yours’ game, I can claim the low cost (free), the number of plugins (huge) and number of developers using it (no figures, but I suspect Eclipse is now the development platform of choice). His trump card for Intellij is that ‘you download it and it just works’ - no messing around with installing plugins for stuff like JSP and Enterprise Java editing.

While plugins are always going to be slightly messy (you don’t get the gain of extensibility without some pain in the form of configuration), the Eclipse Callisto release , due in July, is another step in the right direction. It is a simultaneous release of 10 major Eclipse projects, including BIRT (reporting tools), Data Tools, Eclipse Web Tools, the Visual Editor , Test and Performance Tools and the Graphical Modelling Framework.

It may not be a ‘download from one place and it just works’, but by removing any integration issues, it will make your life easier.