Time for the “Best Of The Week” links for the week that just passed. Here are some links that drew Java Code Geeks attention:
* Java 7: Project Coin in code examples: This article provides a short description of the new features included in Java 7 (Project Coin) accompanied with code
examples on how to use them. Also check out Manipulating Files in Java 7 and Java 7 Feature Overview.
* Apache Geronimo 3 is Java EE 6 Full Profile Certified: Apache Geronimo 3.0-beta-1 is now fully Java EE 6 Certified. Geronimo joins the rank of GlassFish 3 as an open source server that has passed both Java EE 6.0 Full Profile and Web Profile certification tests. Geronimo 3 (with an updated kernel based on OSGi technology.)
is available in 6 distributions and supports a bunch of Java EE 6 technologies.
* Android User Interface Design: Creating a Numeric Keypad with GridLayout: A nice tutorial on how to leverate GridLayout, the new UI layout introduced in Android 4.0 (aka Ice Cream Sandwich). GridLayout is more flexible than the TableLayout control, e.g. its cells can span rows, unlike with TableLayout. Its flexibility comes from the fact that it really helps to line up objects along the virtual grid lines created while building a view with GridLayout.
* Unit Testing in Java: A Sleeping Snail: This article shows how to deal with a “sleeping snail”, i.e a test that’s sluggish and takes too long to run because it relies on Thread#sleep and arbitrarily long waits to allow threads to execute before continuing with the workflow under test. Using a CountDownLatch we are able to make the test thread immediately aware of when the worker threads have completed their work.
* Software Developers Hate Worthless Tasks: A nice article that states a pretty much known idea, that software developers loathe worthless, tedious tasks and that they lose productivity when faced with tasks they perceive as unimportant work. The countermeasure for that is using some of the latest developments like convention over configuration, use of less boilerplate code or leveraging scripts for tedious tasks.
* Google Guava – Futures: This tutorial explores the capabilitise of Google Guava regarding Futures and asynchronous processing. Also check out Google Guava Libraries Essentials.
* Yammer Moving from Scala to Java: This article provides some details on Yammer’s choice to move from Scala back to Java since according to them, the friction and complexity that comes with using Scala instead of Java isn’t offset by enough productivity benefit. Some issues regarding Scala’s performance are also mentioned, along with examples that showcase perfomance in various scenarios.
* Sleeping Under Your Desk Doesn’t Make You A Success: In this article the author argues that in order to be successful, for example in a startup, you don’t have to sacrifice your personal life. He also warns about the dangers of burning up. Very interesting read.
* Stress/Load-Testing of Asynchronous HTTP/REST Services with JMeter: This tutorial explains how to perform load testing of asynchronous HTTP/REST based services with JMeter. The example includes uploading a file and then polling (thus the async nature) in order to retrieve the resource once it is available.
* The Importance of Database Testing: Nice article stating the importance of DB testing and providing some mistakes in that like not testing at all, not testing the DB schema, testing without using the production engine, not testing the creation scripts, not testing foreign keys, default values and constraints, having colliding tests etc.
* Stress/Load-Testing of Asynchronous HTTP/REST Services with JMeter: This tutorial explains how to perform load testing of asynchronous HTTP/REST based services with JMeter. The example includes uploading a file and then polling (thus the async nature) in order to retrieve the resource once it is available.
That’s all for this week. Stay tuned for more, here at Java Code Geeks.
Cheers,
Ilias
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