scribbles of the perennial debugger…
Java
NetBeans 6.7
May 9th
Mark your calendar. I am still a NetBeans fan. 6.7, going to be release on June…
Java project – cancelled
Apr 15th
I am cancelling my pet project for 2009. Because of obvious time reasons, I will not be able to attend to it with much gusto. So better luck next time (hope the opportunity comes soon). I’d rather devote my full non-office time to my family…
My pet project for 2009
Jan 17th
…and it’s quite ambitious I believe.
What I intend to do for 2009 is to create an iBatis-backed implementation of JPA. I would the best of both worlds. (1) I’d have the full JPA-lifecycle, advantage and best practice, and (2) I’ll be able to tune on the SQL Map level. It’s like OR-Mapping and yet tunable for the performance intricacies of the prevalent RDBMSes out in the wild.
Now figuring out where I’d start. Perhaps, reading through the JPA specs and make myself comfortable with iBatis.
Hope I find enough time, motivation and strength to pull this through. Wish me luck.
NetBeans World Tour 2008-2009, Singapore
Sep 13th
I am marking this date. I’ll apply for leave and satisfy my NetBeans-love on this day.
Singapore — January 22, 2009
Java Rebel, a nice tool
Sep 6th
I’d like to see Java Rebel-like functionality be part of the JDK and JRE in the future. Hope Sun, like what it did for MySQL, buys Java Rebel. Imagine the productivity boost of using this tool. Couple it with the Java Debugging Interface and the Java VM Profiler Interface, it could pack real punch and make much sense.
scea, does it still matter?
Aug 21st
I used to doubt certifications. In fact, I tend to confront employment candidates that I interview if lots of logos adorn their CVs. yes, I did go through a certification. I went for SCEA. I wanted to believe that this certification, given the honesty and diligence I poured into it, will give me an edge compared to my peers at least on the CV arena.
But repeatedly, I see CVs and people from forums brandishing their “certification”, which in fact, is just the first part of SCEA. It’s neither a certification nor a valid credential if you have not passed any. And according to an agreement signed with Sun, if those morons do not read what they sign, states that you do not have the right to use “SCEA” or more so “SCEA Part 1″ if you haven’t completed all. So clearly, it’s a break of trust and contract.
Then here comes SCEA 5. I have not had the inclination to take this ever since. Why? Tell me, does Java EE 5 matter? Go out in the wild and check how many Java EE5 technology is deployed or even wanted. I am not sure even, whether there’s a good uptake of this certification. I guess the brain-dump industry has not caught up yet. But wait, I have seen the synopsis of the first part of the cert. It does not have any significant difference with the old SCEA. I guess only the part two matters and have a significant change in the graders’ criteria.
The second reason I chose to snub SCEA 5 is because certification candidates are required to go through part 1 again. I would have bitten the bait if existing SCEAs are allowed to “upgrade” directly to 5′s part two. But sadly, it all looks like a good business right now… all for the money.
UPDATE!!!:
There is! There is an upgrade exam. Hmm… I am not still not falling for it.
My take on this, no value add if you take this now. For the mean time, I remain to be a steadfast filter for those logo-brandishing peeps. So better live up to your certs or I’ll definitely eat you.
why netbeans?
May 18th
Just like mo long love affair with Java, I have seen, criticized and learned to love NetBeans since version 3.6. Now, at its latest incarnation 6.1, let me valiate netbeans.org’s top reason why we should switch to NetBeans.
- Works Out of the Box – well, my first-choice IDE, Eclipse, works out of the box too. Is there any IDE that doesn’t work out of the box? I guess the plus factor with NetBeans is the built-in Tomcat, GlassFish, and JavaDB (Derby). Another plus factor for NetBeans is that it’s always steps ahead of competition in terms of support for the latest Java EE and ME, JSRs, as well as native support for the latest Java SE. But come to think of it, there is an increasing momentum of idiom shift to Spring Framework. IBM has not embraced Java EE 5 yet, developers are starting to shun EJBs, and a lot of enterprises are still with JDK 1.4. So no big advantage for NetBeans, out of the box. Eclipse is still the best in this arena, on contemporary needs, IMHO.
- Free and Open Source – I salute NetBeans and Sun for this. GPLing NetBeans, just like Java, is the way to go. And the communities in NetBeans are really communities, not big-enterprise backed groups that serves their master’s agenda and wishes. NetBeans wins in this space.
- Powerful GUI Builder – Need I say more. Matisse and Beans Binding rocks! “Drawing” GUIs has never been this simpler.
- Support for Java Standards and Platforms – No further doubt on this, NetBeans is _the_ leader when it comes to set the first foot in anything new to Java (as long as it’s JCP sanctioned). The only caveat in NetBeans is that the ANT scripts it generates when projects are created are NetBeans-specific. This sucks. I would have loved working with NetBeans-generated program artifacts even outside NetBeans environment.
- Profiling and Debugging Tools – With NetBeans affinity with Sun, JDK and most especially, JVMPI and JPDA, this IDE should give a serious punch when it comes to debugging and profiling.
- Ruby and Ruby on Rails Support – I’m no fan of Ruby and RoR. No thanks.
- Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Support – One plus factor, of course. But the real value does not strike the core of a developer’s heart. I mean, do you really go NetBeans when your talking about integration via BPEL? My view might be myopic though…
- Extensible Platform – No comment, I’m neutral. Haven’t really used the NetBeans platform since the 3.6 days.
- Customizable Projects – customized so much that simple ANT scripts generated by NetBeans project will not build outside the IDE or without NetBeans libraries. Talk about the WORA mantra.
- Visual Web Development Support – Oh yeah. This, like matisse, is a killer functionality. But I don’t know. I have always hated web development. I am a middleware-backend guy. A console guy. So web and GUI’s not for me.
- Non-Java Code Support – Thanks but no thanks.
- Dedicated Support Available – Heavily supported by Sun, of course.
Java language features
Jan 5th
Bruce Eckel says at artima.com;
But we need to become especially conservative when considering major, fundamental language features like closures which, while they can be very appealing in theory, may have a cost that is too great in practice when they are forced into a language that values backward compatibility over the clarity of its abstractions.
I am a traditionalist. I live and breath the Java language since the days of Java 1.1 back in ’97. I have seen the goods and bads of the language and devised ways to best implement things despite Java’s shortcomings.
Just like my stand regarding additional functionalities to the language, I’d rather opt for the traditional ones. It’s not that features added since Java 5 were bad, my point is, the vast majority of Java code in the wild is still written in the old way, and sadly and I bet, in a primitive newbie-like way. Introducing new features to the language will just dilute developers’ attention and logic-formulation.
Just my piece of mind regarding Java…
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of Quality and other issues
Nov 15th
Just got a memo from a colleague and a fellow senior staff stressing quality. The memo came from upper echelon of middle management. Being one of the manager-level staff, I would beg to be the lone dissident from the popular perspective. Most, though they won’t readilly admit, blames poor quality to people and teams (and hey, blaim it on the managers as well, heh). It pains me to see that these slipups are just a result of a bigger bombshell waiting to explode. I see from a different perspective. I’d like to ask why poor quality-result?
But first, a parallelism.
Why Java EE 5? Because earlier J2EE versions’ programming model is tedious and very hard to execute.
Why Mac OSX? Because OS9 was so outdated.
Why Firefox? Because Netscape Navigator sucked badly.
Why Web Services and new standards? Because CORBA did not realize its promise and was not future-proof
Bottomline: All the stakeholders of the above realized that indeed, a rewrite, or shall I say, re-invention is the only solution.
In my opinion, quality does not emanate only from human factors such as poor-unit testing or non-compliance to defined standards. Quality goes down from the very basic: the foundation; the framework. We have built the framework from ancient cross-J2EE-J2SE approach that the technologies we use are already are already outdated as well. The bottomline is that a brittle foundation will cause a brittle application as well. It will therefore be impacting the things that are evident; foremost; Quality, development process, Time to delivery and developer morale.
I can’t further stress the importance of re-evaluation of technology and the development processes involved, rather than doing continous-rectification and counter-rectification. I say, developers given a mature process, a mature tool, a sturdy foundation component and a rejuvenated culture will err much much less.
When can change be effected? Can we survive a rewrite? Or is it better for me to go?
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No Java lately for me
Oct 4th
There has been no significant Java post in my blog for quite some time now. I used to be overzealous of Java and its up-to-date development in the commercial and in the open source world. But why the mellowing down? It’s because I have not had a kick-ass Java project or a eureka moment for a long time now. What I do in Java, in my work, is a rehash of what I already know, what I have amassed through the years since the days of Java 1.0. I am on the look for an opportunity both from my current company and or from others. I am, in many months (years?) now been looking for “that” challenge to revive my umph power in Java.
Someone might ask why I don’t do extra-curricular after-work keyboard pounding? It’s because the crunch in the workplace saps all my will to read a little more, program a little more. And besides, a family man spends time at home for, well, you’ve guessed it, for family.
Ahh, life. When will Google Singapore open up for developers?
Here’s a parting shot: “It’s our choices that define us, not our abilities” – Albus Dumbledore. As for me, I choose to strive to improve.
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