java.net Weblogs by Daniel H. SteinbergWeblogs by Daniel H. Steinberg from Java.netPatiently waiting- (Found July 2, 2008 ) Much of the content on Java Today is produced by people when the mood strikes them. We don't tell someone when to blog nor assign a topic. We don't set release dates for our affiliated communities so we can't possibly know when they will post new code or start an interesting thread in one of their forums. Mostly what we do is watch the activity and highlight it for you when it happens.http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/218 The Echo project to unify blogging- (Found July 2, 2008 ) Last week in Java Today we featured an "Also Today" item on the Echo project and encouraged you to read and possibly join in the discussion. In today's featured weblog, Simon Phipps comments on the discussion on the Echo wiki. Simon is excited by the implications of an agreement on a common content format. He provides a quick context for the discussion and interesting links to others involved in the story.http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/228 Making trade-offs- (Found July 2, 2008 ) To make code more performant, you generally have to make it less readable. Readability often involves introducing abstractions. You don't talk directly to your data base, you use JDBC. You don't follow pointers to find the next element in a collection, you ask the corresponding Iterator to return next(). The problem with this, according to Joel Spolsky, is that all abstractions leak. Today in Java Today Craig Castelaz discusses this balance in "Living with Leaks". Craig looks at Spolsky's...http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/232 The price of freedom- (Found July 2, 2008 ) My wife's email includes offers to lengthen appendages she doesn't have by 27%. The spam filter finds most of them, but she has to take the time to delete them and once in a while comes across a graphic picture of a squirrel or a topless woman. Spam, like telemarketers, is unwanted and inappropriate contact that most agree should be stopped. At Java Today we are puzzling over what to do about comments that aren't offensive so much as they are inappropriate.http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/233 Moving to beta 0.2- (Found July 2, 2008 ) It's still early days for java.net We went live a little under a month ago and still have a long way to go. We're still tagging this release as beta 0.1. We're working on content and infrastructure and would appreciate your feedback. The O'Reilly team will be meeting in Portland this week at OSCon , if you have feedback on how we can improve this site either drop me an email today or tomorrow at danieloreilly.com or use the talkback below.http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/237 Business Transactions on ACID- (Found July 2, 2008 ) In his java.net weblog entry "A Client Side Container for J2EE", Maciej Zawadzki takes a first stab at arguing for a client side container. He argues that in " multi-tier enterprise level applications, whenever we can get rid of state that is a good thing. But I feel compelled to point out that making a service stateless is not the same thing as getting rid of caching." He looks briefly at Caching and Client side deployment descriptors in the light of the ACID properties for business...http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/239 Easing navigation- (Found July 2, 2008 ) Checking our logs, many people check in with java.net each day by checking this daily RSS feed. You can subscribe in your newsreader using the Orange and Grey box in the left nav of our front page. Users asked if we could provide direct links to the stories, blogs, and pages referenced in this "What's Happening in Java Today" feed. The short answer is, yes. Starting today we link directly to the items being referenced.http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/240 Teaching OO- (Found July 2, 2008 ) At my first OOPSLA in Minneapolis I sat a couple of rows behind Jim Coplien at the Educators' Symposium. In one activity we had to gather in groups of four and decide on which eight (I think) features were most important in some setting. After a few minutes each group merged with another group, then two of these larger groups merged, and so on. The idea was that as the size of each group doubled, you were supposed to negotiate and choose the five items that were still most important to the...http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/242 Prove it- (Found July 2, 2008 ) In programming there are easy cases of programs we know are equivalent. We can change for loops to while loops or replace the names of variables, methods, or classes with friendlier names. Replacing a case statement with a State pattern may be harder to spot. In today's java.net feature we link to Bill Venner's interview with James Gosling about Gosling's new project named Jackpot.http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/246 Coding Naked- (Found July 2, 2008 ) Getting started programming in Java can be a daunting task. Experienced programmers don't think twice about creating a GUI and adding a JButton. Ken Arnold suggests that you look at the JButton class with the eyes of a newbie. It is overwhelming. Scan the number of methods that are available to you from JButton directly and from the hierarchy from which it descends: AbstractButton, JComponent, Container, Component, and Object itself. All you want to do is create a button with a label that is...http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/249 |