DLinks - Links For Developers

Multicore processing for client-side Java applications

Is it acceptable that Java collection-sorting routines typically perform no faster on newer multicore machines than on single-core ones? No it's not! Kirill Grouchnikov shows you how to leverage the JDK 6 concurrency utilities to improve the processing speed of core array-sorting algorithms by up to 35 percent.

Java champions discuss JavaFX with Sun Microsystems

This morning, Sun Microsystems has arranged a conference call with about twenty five Java Champions from around the world. We were talking about JavaFX, a new language for development of the GUI for rich Internet and desktop applications. Java Champions were not shy to ask direct questions, and these are some of the interesting questions and answers about JavaFX.

JDJ Feature � AJAX, Flash, Silverlight, or JavaFX...

AJAX has forever altered user expectations regarding the experience delivered by the Web. In today's world, users sit at the edge of their seat waiting to see what scrumptious eye candy AJAX will serve them next. Some of the more notable visual effects and desktop-like interactions include Prototype-esque fades, Dojo style fisheyes, the near ubiquitous drag-and-drop, and, of course, who can live without the entertainment provided by the assortment of animated loading icons that now distract us while AJAX does its asynchronous 'thing.' Yes, it would appear that AJAX can do it all and that no desktop visual effect or gesture is safe from being outsourced to the Web.

Missing in Java SE 7: Simplicity

First, it was Closures. (If you do not understand the proposal after 2 reads, fret not - you aren't dumb. Its just that you deserve a simpler alternative.) And now its the Properties syntax that's taken center stage. We might next have a language extension where a special syntax like will make the runtime play a random MP3 from your favorite playlist. Cool, huh?

Netbeans 6.0 getting an identity of it's own

I have been playing around with the nightly builds of NetBeans 6.0 for about a month now, mainly to keep my Struts2 plugin code up to date with the changes in Netbeans 6.0. I tried out the latest nightly and was pleasantly surprised to find some cool UI upgradations in Netbeans. Netbeans 6.0 is definitely getting a look of it's own, and identity separate from it's ancestors (Netbeans 5.x). I absolutely love the new UI work, though it resembles Vista in some ways. But it's real good nonetheless. Here are some major areas that have been "upgraded" (apart from the well known by now, Welcome Screen):

Using JNI with NetBeans C/C++ Pack

I recorded a new screencast which shows how to use the Java Native Interface. You will learn how to call native C code from a Java application. The demo was created using NetBeans 5.5.1 and C/C++ Pack for NetBeans 5.5.1. Enjoy!

NetBeans Quick Tip #33 - Show Error Using Keyboard

One of my issues with previous releases of NetBeans IDE was that there was no way how to easily see an error in the editor. The code would get underlined by a red line if there was an error but to discover the error message I always had to move away from the keyboard and use my mouse to hover on the error mark. Then I could see the error and I would switch back to the keyboard to go fix it. Maybe there was a better way to do this but I didn't find it.

NetBeans vs. Eclipse, this time with attitude

After months of regular milestones and community feedback, Sun has released a Beta version of NetBeans 6.0. NetBeans is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) written for programmers who use Java, Ruby, C/C++, and other languages. It competes for developer mindshare with Eclipse, Microsoft Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEA, and many other free and commercial IDEs.

Monitor and diagnose performance in Java SE 6

Java� Platform, Standard Edition 6 (Java SE) focuses on performance, with expanded tools for managing and monitoring applications as well as diagnosing common problems. This article outlines the basis of monitoring and management in the Java SE platform and provides detailed information about the relevant enhancements in Java SE 6.

Securing Java applications with Acegi, Part 3: Access control for Java objects

Bilal Siddiqui concludes his three-part introduction to Acegi Security System by showing you how to secure access to instances of your Java classes. Learn why you need to secure access to your Java classes, how Spring creates and secures instances of your Java classes, and how to configure Acegi to incorporate class security in your Java applications.

Integrate XForms with the Google Web Toolkit, Part 2: Creating an artist and album management form

This four-part series demonstrates how to use the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and XForms together to create a dynamic Web application. Part 1 looked at the JavaScript underpinnings of each technology. Part 2 shows you how to use those JavaScript underpinnings to start mixing the two technologies together to build the rock star application.

Create a JSF Portlet with Oracle WebCenter Suite and JDeveloper

A portal provides users with a unified presentation of portlets generated from disparate data sources. Learn how to develop a JSF portlet with JDeveloper and run it in Oracle's WebCenter Framework.

New and Mildly Entertaining features in SwingBuidler

There have been some big back end changes going on in the SwingBuilder to support some fairly mild but useful features. With exciting things like bind() and animate() they can get lost in the mix. Here are some New and mildly Entertaining features in Groovy's SwingBuilder (note that some of these have shown up after Beta-3, so snapshots are still the best place to go until the despots start rolling relese candidates).

JSF and Mobile Web Applications � Part 2: The ServletFilter approach

The challenges to develop a mobile web application are two-folds: The application needs to generate different page layout and markups for different devices. This is not just about using wider layout for wider screens � it also includes using table / CSS / JavaScript for devices that support those features. The content (e.g., image, media, and text)

JSF and Mobile Web Applications � Part 1: What looks good on paper doesn�t always work out

Update: Please see Dan Allen�s comment below for an alternative view. I do agree with him that component level multi-rendering makes sense. But without a good, production ready renderkit, all the practical problems listed in this blog post still exist. The bottom line is that we need a renderkit that can dynamically detect the device,

More nonsense about open source

In the aptly titled Nonsense about Interface21, a SourceLabs employee disagrees with my contention that commit rights are necessary to provide credible open source support.

The new bean() pointcut

Spring 2.5 features a new pointcut designator � bean() that allows selecting join points in beans with a matching name pattern. Now it is possible to use the auto-proxy mechanism along with Spring-AspectJ integration to select a specific bean even when there are more than one beans of a type. Earlier, you could use BeanNameAutoProxyCreator to achieve a similar result; however, that mechanism didn't work with Schema-style or @AspectJ aspects.

Full Text search for Hibernate goes final

The Hibernate Search team is pleased to announce version 3.0 final. Hibernate Search provides full text search (google-like) capabilities to Hibernate domain model objects. Based on Apache Lucene, Hibernate Search focuses on ease of use and ease of configuration, lowering the barrier to entry of Lucene and its integration with a domain model.

Seam published to Maven

Those of you who keep up with Seam CVS will have noticed a lot of changes recently to the build system. I'm going to give a brief tour of them here, and discuss how they affect you when you use Seam.

Hibernate Search 3.0 available: provides full-text search

Hibernate Search 3.0, which brings full text search capabilities to Hibernate-based applications, has been released. With Hibernate Search, developers can easily take advantage of advanced Google-like search features, unattainable in relational databases, without the need for extra infrastructure coding.

Presentation: Rod Johnson on Spring 2 from TSSJS Vegas

Organizations integrating open source frameworks into a development effort often experience significant challenges with its implementation and use. Such organizations are subsequently unable to attain the full value from such frameworks, as they struggle with development efforts and application scalability and performance. This Tech Talk details the improvements made to the Spring 2.0 framework.

Integrating Presence into J2EE Environments

User presence is the domain normally represented by instant messaging systems, and while libraries supporting presence have existed for Java for a while, presence isn't normally represented in J2EE.

UML Modeling on NetBeans, Part IV: Generate a diagram from existing code

Now I will show about how to generate a diagram from an existing code. It also can be called reverse engineering method. This example I will generate a class diagram from my existing source codes.

How to run command-line or execute external application from Java

Have you ever confront a situation that you need to execute external programs while developing a Java application? For instance, you are developing a Java application and need to execute external application(another executable program) in the middle of the program or you may need to execute some commands such as listing directory command: dir (in windows) or ls (in Unix) while developing the program.

Accessing SQL Server on NetBeans using JDBC, Part II: Perform SQL Operations

From Part I, I have only established a connection with local SQL Server. Next I�ll show how to retrieve and modify data on remote SQL Server.

Getting Java source on the Mac

It�s been bugging me for a while that the JDK source is not included on the Mac version of Java and thus I can�t walk into the source in Eclipse. I finally got around to fixing that. If you want the source, you have to join the Apple Developer Connection (free account is fine) and find under the Java downloads the �J2SE 5.0 Release 5 Developer Documentation�. Download this (69 MB) and install the package. This will drop a src.jar, and the javadoc in both HTML and jar form at /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5.0/Home.

Web Beans Sneak Peak Part II: Injection, binding annotations and component types

This is the second installment of a series of articles describing the current status of the Web Beans specification. You can find the first installment here.

Web Beans Sneak Peak Part I: Introducing Web Beans

We're now really close to releasing a Community Review Draft for Web Beans. The purpose of the draft is to gather feedback on the component model, dependency management model and extensible context model that we've defined, and hopefully get people excited about Web Beans. We also need to get our work in front of the other EE6-related expert groups, so that they can start thinking about how they can possibly re-use and integrate with some of the mechanisms we have defined. However, the specification is by nature written in highly technical language, so this blog entry is the first in a serious of articles giving a friendly, introductory guide to Web Beans. When the Community Review Draft is released, please take the time to download and review it. But please read this series first.

Defining Your Object Model with JPA

In "Defining Your Object Model with JPA," Chris Maki walks through a blog's object model with JPA, using mapped superclasses and entity listeners to provide functionality that you might not have thought of. He starts off with some simple requirements of the object model, and then fulfills them - including some requirements that a DBA might offer.

GWT 1.4 RC2 Released

Scott let everyone know about GWT 1.4.59 today. This is mostly a bugfix release on GWT 1.4, and there are a TON of fixes, as wells as some real improvements to the Benchmarking application.

Scripting API for everyone

I definitely think that dynamic languages for Java platform is an important topic. In that context, a Scripting API as a standardized scripting framework has its own role for Java developers. It is definitely a good thing it is included in JDK 6, but the lack of proper support for earlier JDK�s, in my opinion, slows down its wider adoption.

Red Hat Developer Studio - Good but could have been Great

Which IDE is best for writing Java code? Leaving aside NetBeans (a big assumption given that it now has excellent Ruby and JRuby integration), the choice was between Intellij or Eclipse. IntelliJ while commercial, wasn�t too expensive and �just worked� out of the box. Eclipse, if you were willing to install multiple plugins, could be more powerful but more intimidating.

Java isn't Open Source it is Open Source(TM)

I remember back to this year's JavaOne, it was A LOT OF FUN to sit in that press briefing room while jon Schwartz and Rich Green (and the UN guy) talked about how Sun is focused squarely on making the�

JavaFX, you using it? + TCK Response

JavaFX: Anyone out there using it? What are your reactions? JavaFX was the big announcement at JavaOne this year, and in the intervening months, let's just say the roar of adoption and support has been underwhelming. Or has it?

Design and develop JAX-WS 2.0 Web services

Using Java API for XML Web Services (JAX-WS) technology to design and develop Web services yields many benefits, including simplifying the construction of Web services and Web service clients in Java, easing the development and deployment of Web services, and speeding up Web services development. This tutorial walks you through how to do all of this and more by developing a sample order-processing application that exposes its functionality as Web services. After going through this tutorial, you'll be able to apply these concepts and your newly acquired knowledge to develop Web services for your application using JAX-WS technology.

RSF ("Reasonable Server Faces") version 0.7.2 released

RSF version 0.7.2 has been released. RSF promotes minimal and clean designs - in contrast to the majority of current Java frameworks which proliferate with increasingly complex schemes for managing stateful components, RSF cuts through the issue by promoting and facilitating zero server state designs. This brings web development more in line with the web - as well as making fewer demands on server resources, it arguably delivers apps which users find more idiomatic and intuitive.

Apache ServiceMix is now an official ASF project

Apache ServiceMix is an extensible messaging bus for service integration, mediation and composition and its related components. ServiceMix provides a JBI 1.0 ESB and component suite.

EJB 3.1: Immediate feedback on EJB Singletons and concurrency needed

I'm looking for feedback on some new features being discussed in the EJB 3.1 expert group. Click here for full details.

Seam 2.0.0 CR1 has been released!

I am very happy to announce that we have releases Seam 2.0.0 CR1. If you are impatient, you can get it here.

Spring Batch Source Code Published

Spring Batch 1.0-m2-SNAPSHOT is available publicly (source code only for now) at sourceforge at https://springframework.svn.sourcefo...ng-batch/trunk. The m2 release proper is expected imminently. We think we can expect at least one more milestone release before we get to a release candidate. More detail, and a features list will be posted on the website at

WebLogic Event Server - Why BEA Chose Spring

Andy Piper of BEA has just blogged on WebLogic Event Server - Why we used Spring. One key driver for BEA making Spring central to this product's programming model: Spring's ubiquity. "The answer is pretty simple - use something that developers are already familiar with. Hence, in a word, Spring."

New Book: Working with Spring Web Flow

Ervacon has published the first book dedicated entirely to Spring Web Flow: Working with Spring Web Flow.

Spring Framework 2.1 M4 Released

I'm pleased to announce that Spring Framework 2.1 M4 has been released! This milestone release introduces:

Best Practices in Spring Web Services and Java

Spring Web Services has been attracting a lot of attention since its release last month. In this DDJ Interview, Arjen Poutsma, project lead for the Spring Web Services framework, talks about the importance of flexibility in addressing the O/X "impedance mismatch" between XML and Java.

Message-Driven Architectures at The Spring Experience

At last year's Spring Experience conference, Mark Fisher, Principal Consultant at Interface21, delivered an interesting hands-on session showing how to develop Message Driven POJOs with Spring 2. In ninety minutes, Mark builds out a simple trading system using Spring 2 and ActiveMQ JMS. By applying a Spring-based architecture, Mark illustrates how a messaging infrastructure can be scaled up to full JEE server environment without any change in application code.

JSF (A love and hate story, endless yet)

When I first met JSF I was having another relationship. I had been for 2 years with Struts. In the beginning it seemed to me (Struts) dull and thorny (I had just had a long affair with PHP), but when I met its parents Validator and Tiles, I fell in love. I was convinced by their configuration-files-for-everything approach, and its action-oriented workflow seemed to be a natural way to develop MVC.

Red Hat Developer Studio first contact

I've been working on a relative small project for some months ago (more than a year). Since I began it on the Old Days it was done with Struts + Hibernate. Since then J2EE community has evolved very much, and there are some technologies that make my old fashioned design look old. More specifically, I want Ajax for my users.

First RichFaces application on Netbeans 6

As part of almost sadomasochistic effort vocational software developer have, I'm doing a brief introduction to developing with RichFaces, from new IDE installation until minimal working application. The aim is not doing a tutorial, neither howto nor step by step (if you're reading this I suppose you don't want anybody to tell you to press 'next').

Richfaces 3.1 RC6

Today, Richfaces 3.1 RC6 has been released. It's not the final, stable version (which was promised for 9/6), but at least you can finally visit Richfaces 3.1 Demos. This is a long awaited version for all of us who use this library because it finally includes a must-have: calendar component.

Netbeans 6.0 beta and Glassfish V2 released today

Sun has announced the release of Glassfish V2, their open-source application server (and the reference implementation of Java EE), along with the availability of the NetBeans 6 beta. Glassfish V2 adds clustering and a good bit of performance to prior releases; NetBeans 6 adds multiple language support, and a much faster editor.