Java (General)

Groovier Java TimeZone ID Handling

dmarx — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:40:00 -0500

Many Java developers are not fond of Java's standard APIs for handling Dates and Calendars. In fact, it is difficult to think of examples from the Java standard APIs that better illustrate the mistake of allowing ultimate and mostly unused flexibility to result in an unnecessarily high degree of pain for the vast majority of users of the API.

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Java: "duplicate class" and Mismatched File Name Error

dmarx — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:16:00 -0500

Developers who are new to Java can sometimes have trouble with class and package naming. In fact, the introductory Java forums are filled with threads starting with questions about these areas of Java.

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Basic Java hashCode and equals Demonstrations

dmarx — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:18:00 -0500

I often like to use this blog to revisit hard-earned lessons in the basics of Java. This blog post is one such example and focuses on illustration of the dangerous power behind the equals(Object) and hashCode() methods.

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Oracle/Sun: The Deal Has Closed

dmarx — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:20:00 -0500

"Oracle has finalized the Sun transaction and the deal has closed."

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European Commission Approves Oracle Acquisition of Sun

dmarx — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:51:00 -0500

The European Commission issued a press release today (21 January 2010) stating:

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First Solid Look at Oracle + Sun?

dmarx — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:02:00 -0500

Since the announcement of Oracle's intent to buy Sun 9 months ago (20 April 2009), many of us have been only able to speculate on what this means for all things Java.

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Reproducing "too many constants" Problem in Java

dmarx — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:29:00 -0500

In my previous blog post, I blogged on the "code too large" problem and reproduced that error message. In this post, I look at the very similar "too many constants" error message (not the same thing as the question too many constants?) and demonstrate reproducing it by having too many methods in a generated Java class.

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Reproducing "code too large" Problem in Java

dmarx — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:06:00 -0500

Code conventions and standard software development wisdom dictate that methods should not be too long because they become difficult to fully comprehend, they lose readability when they get too long, they are difficult to appropriately unit test, and they are difficult to reuse.

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Caution: Double to BigDecimal in Java

dmarx — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 01:18:00 -0500

The combination of Java's large worldwide developer base and easily accessible online API documentation has led to a generally thorough and accurate documentation of the Java SE API. There are still corners that might not be as thorough or accurate as one would like, but the API documentation is generally pretty good both in terms of thoroughness and accuracy.

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Favorite Development Cheatsheets

dmarx — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:52:00 -0500

Although modern search engines have made it easier than ever to look up various details, it is still sometimes nice to have a go-to resource to refresh my memory about certain development tasks. I first started to appreciate materials like this when I encountered the famous Oracle data dictionary wall posters (such as this TUSC-provided poster and the Quest poster).

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I Use Dead Programming Languages

dmarx — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:56:00 -0500

In the late 1990s, a well respected and visionary colleague made the surprising statement, "Java is dead." That is probably the first time I had heard that phrase. Despite my respect for his considerable accomplishments, I thought that the statement was ridiculous. More than ten years later, it is still a pretty ridiculous statement. Java will "die" one day; all languages (and, even more so, all people) do.

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What Was the Most Significant Java Event in 2009?

dmarx — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 01:22:00 -0500

I recently blogged on the software development events in 2009 that seem most significant to me. Although the list was certainly biased toward Java, it was not exclusive to Java. Nevertheless, my number one choice was the Oracle acquisition of Sun Microsystems, which will undoubtedly have a huge impact to the future of software development in general and Java development in particular.

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Java Boolean's getBoolean: Useful Albeit Imperfect

dmarx — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:58:00 -0500

The Boolean.getBoolean(String) method is a static method that can be useful now and then.

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Groovy: Java Enum Generation from XML

dmarx — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:51:00 -0500

Besides the obvious use of Groovy to write applications, Groovy is also very useful for performing Java development related tasks such building applications, deploying applications, and managing/monitoring applications. In this post, I look at an example of generating a Java enum from XML source using Groovy.

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The Positive Impact of Java Users Groups

dmarx — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:41:00 -0500

The last Java.net poll asked "Do you belong to a Java users group?" and of the nearly 300 votes (at time of this writing), well over half of the respondents stated that they are in someway affiliated with or have participated in a local Java users group. I have blogged before about my appreciation of user groups and I have definitely benefited from the existence of Java users groups.

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Java Collections Default Implementation Choices: Groovy's Opinion

dmarx — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:56:00 -0500

I think many Java developers use the Java Collections Framework like I do: start with the same basic implementations of each of the major collections interfaces for general cases and only use a different implementation when there is a need that drives it (such as need for

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Java SourceVersion and Character

dmarx — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:24:00 -0400

The SourceVersion class provides information on Java source versions and can provide some interesting details, including demonstration of terminology covered in the Java Language Specification.

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Comments on the Future of IntelliJ IDEA

dmarx — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:14:00 -0400

In the blog post Why I Think IDEA Going Open Source is Not a Good Sign, Cedric Otaku articulates why he believes that the open sourcing of IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition is not a good sign for that IDE's future.

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A Big Week for the Java Development Community

dmarx — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:49:00 -0400

This past week featured some significant news for the general Java development community. Many of us looked to this week's OpenWorld 2009 as an opportunity to learn more about the potential future of Java and the Java "ecosystem" under Oracle's stewardship.

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Java in First Days of Oracle OpenWorld 2009

dmarx — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:30:00 -0400

In Oracle OpenWorld for the Java Developer, I looked at the relationship between Sun and Oracle and considered how Java might be covered at Oracle OpenWorld. In this blog post, I point to and summarize some of the blog posts starting to come out along these same themes based in Sunday and Monday at OpenWorld.

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Oracle OpenWorld for the Java Developer

dmarx — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:38:00 -0400

Many in the Java development community are hoping to glean clues about Oracle's vision of the future of Java (assuming successful acquisition of Sun by Oracle) at next week's Oracle OpenWorld (11-15 October 2009 at

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More on the Future of JavaOne

dmarx — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:24:00 -0400

Twice previously (April 2009 and June 2009), I publicly pondered the future of JavaOne given Oracle's announced acquiring of Sun Microsystems.

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Java API Documentation: A Software Development Community Contributor

dmarx — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:42:00 -0400

For those of us who regularly write code in Java or a JVM-hosted language (Groovy, JRuby, Jython, etc.), the Java Platform API documentation is a very valuable resource. In fact, it is one of the resources I most frequently access in my Java development. However, the Java API documentation's value is not limited to JVM-based development.

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Is a Java Immutable Class Always final?

dmarx — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:46:00 -0400

In response to my recent blog posting Immutable Java Objects, Matt brought up a good point of discussion related to making Java classes truly immutable by declaring them as

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Noop: Google's Language for the JVM

dmarx — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:32:00 -0400

Perhaps the biggest news at the JVM Language Summit was the formal announcement of Google's Noop programming language for the Java Virtual Machine.

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