CompiledMonkey.com http://www.compiledmonkey.com A daily look at all things geek. Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:28:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 en Built-in “yes_no” type for Hibernate http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/10/21/built-in-yes_no-type-for-hibernate/ http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/10/21/built-in-yes_no-type-for-hibernate/#comments Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:39:04 +0000 Chris Stewart http://www.compiledmonkey.com/?p=231 Today I was working on some code and ran across an interesting situation while trying to create a Hibernate mapping file for an entity. My entity has a property called isAdministrator that has the type boolean. The corresponding column in the database table represents true/false with the character Y or N. At runtime, Hibernate would toss casting exceptions as I’d attempt to query the database for this field.

I quickly realized where my problem was and thought I’d need to write some ugly code to make this work. After a few quick Google searches I discovered the “yes_no” type. By adding this attribute to my XML configuration for the mapping, Hibernate automatically takes care of the translation process. Neat, huh? In case you’re wondering, there’s a “true_false” type in there as well.

<property name="isAdmin" column="isAdmin" type="yes_no" />

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]]> http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/10/21/built-in-yes_no-type-for-hibernate/feed/ You should be using Dependency Injection http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/10/06/you-should-be-using-dependency-injection/ http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/10/06/you-should-be-using-dependency-injection/#comments Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:02:41 +0000 Chris Stewart http://www.compiledmonkey.com/?p=223 Over the last few months I’ve been getting myself reacquainted to the Java world. I built a reasonably simple JavaServer Faces application. I tend to instinctively follow Domain-Driven Design and separate levels of abstraction reasonably well. Towards the end of the v1 release, I was informed that we’d need a build for another environment of ours. The front end code remains unchanged for the most part. What would be radically different was the service layer code I wrote that had an implementation specific to our environment.

Time was a concern, as it always is, and I nearly forked the code base to begin on a version specifically for that second environment. Before I did, I took a crack at Dependency Injection with Google Guice to see if that could be a potential solution. With my original implementation, I had a set of controllers that were marked as JSF beans. Each controller had instances of service classes as needed. Those service classes interacted with the entities and performed persistence by way of Hibernate (Yeah, I know, I should have split those). Anyway, as you can see, there was a direct dependency on the service classes and my controllers. Everything is tightly coupled in this situation.

What I did was create a set of interfaces that described the functionality in my service classes. Essentially a one-to-one, an interface for each service class. I refactored my controllers to use the interfaces in place of the concrete service classes themselves. Next, I created an “environment two” set of service classes that implemented the newly created interfaces. So, with the help of Google Guice and some refactoring, I had a single code base that adjusted its implementation based on the environment it was in and a code base that’s fully ready for unit testing.

Dependency Injection is important. In the most simplest of terms, it gives you loosely coupled software components. Having that gives you flexibility. Flexibility in the sense of what I described, or testability, or an architecture that can be reused without rewriting a lot of code. You should be using it, in every project, if for nothing more than a simplistic approach to software engineering.

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]]> http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/10/06/you-should-be-using-dependency-injection/feed/ Book Review: Seam In Action http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/10/04/book-review-seam-in-action/ http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/10/04/book-review-seam-in-action/#comments Sat, 04 Oct 2008 20:37:08 +0000 Chris Stewart http://www.compiledmonkey.com/?p=216 Not too many months ago, I was evaluating a number of Java frameworks for a project I was starting. One of those frameworks was JBoss Seam. Seam brings together J2EE technologies such as Enterprise Java Beans 3.0, Java Server Faces, POJOs, and a wealth of rich web components.

Many of us are familiar with the “In Action” series of books from Manning. They are quite simply some of the most highly respected technology books available. I purchased this book knowing the kind of quality I could expect, and I wasn’t let down. The presentation and quality of the material was as I expected. Some of the key areas of focus were those that are most important in Seam; the Seam life cycle, inversion of control, state management, persistence, and transactions. Obviously many of these topics exist outside of Seam but what the Seam framework does is provide added features for these key items. The book focuses heavily on each and really drills into the improvements made.

I’ve done a lot of scrounging around the web for tutorials, guides, and articles about Seam. This book is far and away the best resource I’ve found. Everything else has been a mere reference. If you are like me, and want a real resource on the topic, you’ll be happy with this purchase.

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]]> http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/10/04/book-review-seam-in-action/feed/ Is Agile right for every project? http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/10/03/is-agile-right-for-every-project/ http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/10/03/is-agile-right-for-every-project/#comments Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:51:21 +0000 Chris Stewart http://www.compiledmonkey.com/?p=211 With “every” in the question, you should immediately be suspicious. :)

My company has a software product that is in the neighborhood of 12 years old. I’m sure it has gone through a number of revisions, some of which were probably major. FishEye is telling me that our repository has several million lines of code in the trunk. The product is used by hundreds, maybe thousands, of people every day for critical tasks. Should we follow agile practices? Maybe. Fact is, we don’t, and it’s not a bad thing.

Many developers swear up and down over agile methodologies for developing software. In many respects, I agree with that mindset. Obviously there are always benefits to both sides. In my opinion, a large portion of the reasoning in which methodology to adopt lies in the industry you serve. Take the financial business for instance; does it make sense for weekly iterations with online banking software? Again, maybe, but I lean towards no because of the risk involved. What about mission critical health care systems? Same idea.

Now, you may not be agile in your deployment cycle in these industries and that’s understandable. But, you can certainly follow agile practices in your internal development cycles. Instead of pushing weekly iterations to production, push them to your QA or staging environment. You can still follow the processes of continuously integrating your work with your peers. You may not push to production every week, but your stakeholders might need to be involved in the process so you don’t get too far down the wrong path. In both of the industry examples above, do you think the teams could benefit from weekly iterations to a testing environment? I hate to say it again, but, maybe.

I believe that having daily meetings, pushing for progress in small steps, and developing features in isolation lead to a more refined development team. Doing these things reduces the amount of wasted cycles, keeps developers pushing forward, and helps them see progress with small steps of success.

My takeaway from this is to evaluate your needs, project environment, and industry. Every situation is different and a single methodology doesn’t work for each instance. Find ways to boost team morale and keep the project moving forward.

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]]> http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/10/03/is-agile-right-for-every-project/feed/ Microsoft Arc Mouse http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/09/27/microsoft-arc-mouse/ http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/09/27/microsoft-arc-mouse/#comments Sun, 28 Sep 2008 03:48:47 +0000 Chris Stewart http://www.compiledmonkey.com/?p=209 My son and I headed off to Best Buy earlier today to continue my search for a new laptop. I’ve pretty much narrowed down to HP or Lenovo. I’ve been hands-on with Lenovo for a period of time but not so with HP. So we decided to visit Best Buy in hopes of checking them out in person.

While we were there I noticed the Arc Mouse on display. I was immediately impressed by the design when I first saw screenshots online. The design just seems like it would be a great fit in the palm of your hand. Once I tried it out in the store I was sold.

I connected it to my MacBook Pro when I got home and much to my surprise was greeted by a fully functioning mouse without drivers, downloads, or any other intrusive process. I was really impressed by that.

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]]> http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/09/27/microsoft-arc-mouse/feed/ “A Beginner’s Guide: ASP.NET 3.5″ Is Here! http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/09/24/a-beginners-guide-aspnet-35-is-here/ http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/09/24/a-beginners-guide-aspnet-35-is-here/#comments Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:00:06 +0000 Chris Stewart http://www.compiledmonkey.com/?p=166 Earlier this year I had the opportunity to be the technical editor for McGraw-Hill’s A Beginner’s Guide: ASP.NET 3.5. After many months of waiting, the final copy hit my doorstep this morning! It’s great to see something you worked on in final printed form. It was almost surreal to see my name and bio inside the front cover.

The author, William B. Sanders, did an excellent job with the title and I can’t wait to read through it again. Of course, I highly recommend it for anyone that needs an introduction to ASP.NET 3.5.

http://www.infibeam.com/Books/info/William-Sanders/ASP-Net-3-5-A-Beginner-s/007159194X.html

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]]> http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/09/24/a-beginners-guide-aspnet-35-is-here/feed/ My interview on “The App Show” http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/09/22/my-interview-on-the-app-show/ http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/09/22/my-interview-on-the-app-show/#comments Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:25:31 +0000 Chris Stewart http://www.compiledmonkey.com/?p=162 This weekend I was lucky enough to be a guest on “The App Show“, a weekly podcast devoted to iPhone applications and platform news. The hosts were great and I had a lot of fun hanging out with them on the show. We chatted about iPhone Dev SDK, the NDA, our picks of the week, and more.

I’ve done a lot of podcasts over the last year but it was really different being on the other end. I look forward to joining the show again in the future.

http://www.theappshow.com/2008-09-21-the-app-show-episode-8-the-late-show/

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]]> http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/09/22/my-interview-on-the-app-show/feed/ Book Review: Programming .NET 3.5 by O’Reilly http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/09/11/book-review-programming-net-35-by-oreilly/ http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/09/11/book-review-programming-net-35-by-oreilly/#comments Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:14:35 +0000 Chris Stewart http://www.compiledmonkey.com/?p=159 I just finished reading a review copy of “Programming .NET 3.5” from O’Reilly. The book, published in August, is an overview of the latest .NET Framework revision. You’ll get an introduction to the topics that have been introduced along the way that include technology from .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, and the latest version; .NET 3.5. Also included are libraries such as ASP.NET MVC and Silverlight.

You can easily pick up this book and enjoy the introductions to technologies such as Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation, ASP.NET MVC, and Silverlight. Each of these topics are presented in a way that will be familiar to .NET developers. New developers, without experience in .NET, will be able to take a lot away from this book. It certainly will do more for the developer who already has a .NET background, no matter how brief it is.

That said, if you only pick up the book for the introduction to each technology, you’ll be missing the best that this book has to offer. Unlike most technology books these days, this book explains the topics within the context of best practices and real world scenarios. For example, prior versions of ASP.NET did not promote decoupled architectures. In fact, it made it difficult to achieve them. With the technology available in .NET 3.5, modeling and implementing proper architectures is encouraged and facilitated by the framework. This book will show you how that works in .NET 3.5 and introduce you to the technologies at the same time.

I highly recommend this book. It will be on my desk for easy reference for my .NET projects in the future.

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]]> http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/09/11/book-review-programming-net-35-by-oreilly/feed/ JSF One - September 4-6, 2008 http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/08/04/jsf-one-september-4-6-2008/ http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/08/04/jsf-one-september-4-6-2008/#comments Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:12:20 +0000 Chris Stewart http://www.compiledmonkey.com/?p=158 The first annual JSF One conference is taking place in Washington, DC from September 4th through the 6th. Think of it as JavaOne, but with a focus on JSF only.

I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll be able to attend. The price tag is quite high at $1,650, as is nearly every conference with the exception of Google I/O. It’s nice to see a conference taking place on the east coast. Nearly every major or interesting conference takes place in California.

They have a nice speaker lineup with representation from many types of organizations. Take a peek.

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]]> http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/08/04/jsf-one-september-4-6-2008/feed/ iPhone Dev SDK is doing well! http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/08/02/iphone-dev-sdk-is-doing-well/ http://www.compiledmonkey.com/2008/08/02/iphone-dev-sdk-is-doing-well/#comments Sun, 03 Aug 2008 00:21:40 +0000 Chris Stewart http://www.compiledmonkey.com/?p=157 I’ve started a number of websites and communities in the past and none of them have been very successful in any way. However, that has never stopped me from starting another one. It’s fun to get involved and create a community site about something you’re interest in.

In early March I started www.iphonedevsdk.com. My goal was simply to blog about the news surrounding the new development platform and to provide a place for developers to come and discuss topics related to the iPhone SDK. I got lucky and hooked up with a popular tutorial site that was also just getting started. They essentially link to my site as the official forums for their tutorial driven site.

Over time the visitors and pageviews increased to levels I had never been able to see in something I created myself. My site and the site I partnered with worked together to create a resource that people wanted to keep coming back to.

Looking at the Google Analytics report right now, iPhone Dev SDK has had 163,266 pageviews by 21,896 visitors in the last 30 days. I’m amazed by that. In only a few months the site has grown far beyond anything I ever expected. What’s really interesting is that in just the last 7 days we’ve seen a huge surge in traffic, mostly driven by the upgraded forum software. Over the last 7 days, the pageviews have been holding steady at 8,000 per day, 68% higher than the average over the last 30 days. Once the 30 day cycle completes, and assuming traffic remains steady at 8,000 per day, we’ll be looking at 240,000 pageviews a month. Amazing.

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