Springing into Action

So I have decided that I need to become more familiar with Spring. Many consider this to be the main technology that should be learned for those making the move to be involved in Java EE development. So I am doing everything I can to learn about Spring and more importantly dependency injection.

So far I am working my way through a nice tutorial. I found a great package of examples, notes, and assignments on Java Passion. This is an excellent site for people wanting to learn more advanced Java technologies. The site creator, Sang Shin, has created a number of lessons and even has free online classes. So I will be using is to hopefully become a Spring natural. It will come in handy with a nice idea I have been working on for a local furniture business...

Hello Netbeans

After using Eclipse for many years, I am slowly making my way to using Netbeans full time. It is pretty easy to import current Eclipse projects into Netbeans (tutorial) and there are so many tutorials on the Netbeans project site that it just makes it very easy to learn new technologies. I am already using it to aid in my learning of JSF (yes, I know I am behind).

If you are still using Eclipse and have not tried the latest versions of Netbeans, I recommend you download it and give it a try. It has come a long way and is slowly becoming a tool for ALM.

Task Distribution in Legacy Application

I have been tasked with optimizing a legacy application that runs as a data calculation process within a J2EE web server. I was told that it was designed in such a way that multiple servers could be used to distribute the processing among the different servers. However, after getting into the source code I found that the data to be processed is not truly distributed among the servers and in fact they all try to process the same data simultaneously.

I need to create a true distribution of data for the various servers, but the servers do not know about each other and the current architecture is not equipped to add this feature. The only solution I have is to randomize the order of the data so that it is unlikely multiple servers will process the different pieces of data simultaneously. I think that it is a bit of a crude solution, but I feel like my hands are tied.

In an ideal world, I would modify the architecture so that it would mirror the MPP model of parallel processing. This would allow the data to be easily segmented for each server. Has anybody done anything like this before? I would love to hear about it and how you implemented your solution.

How Did I Get Started In Software Development?

I am following the lead of many other software development blogs and answering the following survey questions that have been floating from blog to blog for a while now. Here we go...

How old were you when you started programming?
I think the first time I remember writing a program was in the 6th grade. I took a class where we did some programming in BASIC, but I didn't get hard core into programming until I was 18 in college. So I guess you could say I got a late start.

How did you get started in programming?
Going into college I thought I would give the Computer Science and Engineering department a try. I was intrigued at the thought of writing software so I took a leap of faith and it worked out for me.

What was your first language?
My first language was C. I learned it in my introductory programming course at University of Texas -Arlington. I think I just showed my youth there...

What was the first real program you wrote?
Hmm... I wrote many small Hello World programs as I learned C and C++, but the first meaningful program I ever wrote was in my second year of college. I had to write a program that was a discrete event simulation of the checkout process at a local Costco. I had to model the entire process and help determine the ideal number of checkout lines that should be open during peak hours. That was the first time I got the light bulb moment in my head and thought I might be pretty good at this.

*Side note* Obviously my results were never passed on to Costco or any other wholesale store as the lines are always so unbearable...

What languages have you used since you started programming?
Wow, I've used C, C++, VB, Perl, Java, C#, and even a little Groovy. I've somehow seemed to find myself in a position where people ask me if I can do something for them in another language and I can't make myself say no. I see the language being used as more of a tool because the actual business logic is the same regardless of the language used.

What was your first professional programming gig?
When I was in college I got hired to work in the IT department for the Army Corps of Engineers. I was able to work on some of the business applications they used in-house to work with data in databases. They were nothing big, just your basic CRUD applications.

If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?
Yes, I would still have gone into the software field. I just would have started my own company a long, long time ago. I think that would have saved me a lot of stress and put a lot more $$$ in my tiny pockets. ;-)

If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?
Get the GoF design patterns book fast and learn it. This advice could have saved me a lot of time spent on refactoring and rework in the beginning of my career.

What’s the most fun you’ve ever had… programming?
That would be my senior design project back in my years as an undergraduate. We designed and built an automated baby monitoring device that included a motion pad, and A/V that could be automatically streamed to a remote computer if predefined settings were met. Those late nights in the lab only reinforced my love for this field.

That was a lot of fun. We often forget about those times when we are first introduced to something we enjoy and love. I know I had forgotten about a lot of things like that lately. I am slowly finding my way back to that and with that new ideas are coming. I am sure I will be sharing some of them soon. Stay tuned...

Why I Love Java Way More Than .NET

So tonight I just spent two hours trying to add a simple library to a .NET project so I can simply cast an ActiveReport object as the child class my team uses to represent reports. The library could be added to the project very easily, but when I would try to build I would get an error stating that the referenced library did not have a "strong name," meaning the library had not been signed. So I changed the library to digitally sign itself when it was built and then did a new build of the project... Same error this time, but for another library that was being referenced in the referenced library. As I daisy-chained my way through all the libraries, updating them to have a digital signature I began to wish that I was back working on a Java project.

In Java, all you need to do is set your classpath to include all the libraries you need. There is no need to sign your libraries and I am very thankful for that. I have got to find a way to do more Java development at work because dealing with all this .NET mess is starting to drive me crazy.