A Java geek

Apr 14, 2013 commerce hybris solution

The middle path approach

I’ve been doing software development for most of my career, so that I think myself as a software developer (or software architect), even though I’ve dabbled in solutions engineering more than once. This surely has an effect on how I see the architecture landscape, but I’ll try to be as objective as possible. Historically, there have been two approaches in providing software solutions to business requirements.

Apr 7, 2013 javascript

JavaScript namespace and restricted access

I began developing with JavaScript more than 10 years ago in order to handle DOM updates on the client-side. At this time, this usage was called DHTML and I was one of the few Java developers that had some interest in it. Still, JavaScript was considered a second-class language, something that was somewhat necessary but wasn’t professional enough. Fast-forward: the year is 2013 and JavaScript is everywhere: developers are using JavaScript both server- and client-sideHTML5 uses JavaScript

Mar 30, 2013 devoxx html5 jboss spring

Devoxx France 2013 - Day 3

Classpath isn’t dead… yet by Alexis Hassler Classpath is dead! — Mark Reinold What is the classpath anyway? In any code, there are basically two kinds of classes: those coming from the JRE, and those that do not (either becasue they are your own custom class or becasue they come from 3rd-party libraries). Classpath can be set either with a simple java class load by the -cp argument or with a JAR by the embedded MANIFEST.MF. A classloader is a class itself. It ca

Mar 29, 2013 devoxx gwt scala

Devoxx France 2013 - Day 2

This is a a sum-up of talks I attended on the second day of Devoxx France. It includes Scala, GWT, a comparison of web frameworks and not-mainstream data structures.

Mar 28, 2013 angularjs devoxx html5 vaadin

Devoxx France 2013 - Day 1

Rejoice people, it’s March, time for Devoxx France 2013! Here are some notes I took during the event. It includes Java EE, Angular JS, Gradle, HTML5 and Vaadin.

Mar 17, 2013 Architecture

KISS your architecture

The project I’m working on these days is not properly legacy but has seen some twists that renders it less than ideal. On this project, one of the worst point that has been an obstacle for me to develop a simple feature is layered architecture. What, shout all experienced developers, layered architecture is at the root of maintainability! and I agree wholeheartedly. So, how could layer architecture be an obstacle?

Mar 10, 2013 javaconfig spring

Consider replacing Spring XML configuration with JavaConfig

Spring articles are becoming a trend on this blog, I should probably apply for a SpringSource position :-) Colleagues of mine sometimes curse me for my stubbornness in using XML configuration for Spring. Yes, it seems so 2000’s but XML has definite advantages: Configuration is centralized, it’s not scattered among all different components so you can have a nice overview of beans and their wirings in a single placeIf you need to split your files, no problem, Spring let you do that.

Feb 24, 2013 search solr

Solr overview from a beginner's point of view

I’ve recently begun diving into Search Engines in general and Solr in particular. This is my understanding of it so far. Why Solr? It isn’t really feasible to execute blazing fast search queries on very big SQL databases for 2 different reasons. The first reason comes SQL databases favoring lack of radiancy over performance. Basically, you’d need to use JOIN in your SELECT. The second reason is about the nature of data in documents: it’s essentially unstructured plain

Feb 16, 2013 spring

Spring beans overwriting strategy

I find myself working more and more with Spring these days, and what I find raises questions. This week, my thoughts are turned toward beans overwriting, that is registering more than one bean with the samee name. In the case of a simple project, there’s no need for this; but when building a a plugin architecture around a core, it may be a solution. Here are some facts I uncovered and verified regarding beans overwriting. Single bean id per file The id attribute in the Spring bean fil

Feb 10, 2013 spring

The case for Spring inner beans

When code reviewing or pair programming, I’m always amazed by the following discrepancy. On one hand, 99% of developers conscientiously apply encapsulation and limit accessibility and variable scope to the minimum possible. On the other hand, nobody cares one bit about Spring beans and such beans are always set at top-level, which makes them accessible from every place where you can get a handle on the Spring context. For example, this a typical Spring beans configuration file: <bea