Java (General)

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.

Read more ...

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.

Read more ...

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.

Read more ...

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.

Read more ...

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

Read more ...

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.

Read more ...

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.

Read more ...

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

Read more ...

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.

Read more ...

Immutable Java Objects

dmarx — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:56:00 -0400

Immutable objects are highly desirable. Because an immutable object's state cannot be changed, they are particularly useful in concurrent environments. Immutable options can simplify code and reduce chances of unanticipated and undesired state in objects.

Read more ...

Inconstant Constants in Java

dmarx — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:05:00 -0400

In their 2009 JavaOne presentation Return of the Puzzlers: Schlock and Awe (PDF), Joshua Bloch and Neal Gafter presented seven more puzzlers and extracted lessons learned from each of these puzzlers and their solutions.

Read more ...

Java Arrays: Copying, String Representations, and Collections

dmarx — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 10:45:00 -0400

Since the introduction of the Java Collections Framework with JDK 1.2, I have used Java arrays significantly less frequently than I used to. However, I still use arrays occasionally, often because a library or API I am using makes heavy use of arrays.

Read more ...

Java's goto

dmarx — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:09:00 -0400

There is an old programmer joke that goes something like this: One programmer in anger says to the second programmer, "Go to Hell!" The second programmer replies in obvious repulsion, "Ugh, you used goto!" The point of this nerdy humor is that to many programmers, use of "goto" is just about the worst offense one can commit.

Read more ...

Static Imports and System.out

dmarx — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:17:00 -0400

In Cay Horstmann's recent blog posting Are You Using Static Import? he asks the question, "Have you switched from System.out to out with a static import?" I found this to be an interesting question because it got me thinking about a different ways that my Java coding has changed over the years and over the different versions of Java.

My Use of System.out

Read more ...

New Blog for Java Developers: CertPal

dmarx — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 16:43:00 -0400

Many of the most popular software development blogs are long-running blogs. This is not surprising because it is obvious that the longer a blog exists, the more opportunity there is for it to be discovered and featured on sites like DZone. If a blog is long-running and consistently offers material readers feel is worthwhile, the blog can become extremely popular.

Read more ...

Faithful Old Development Tools

dmarx — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:39:00 -0400

I had the opportunity to visit Yellowstone National Park this past week for the first time in many years. One of Yellowstone's most famous attractions is the Old Faithful geyser. This geyser is so named because it relatively faithfully keeps to its eruption schedule. There is some variance, but most of us who have gone to watch it erupt at its scheduled time have not gone in vain.

Read more ...

ByteOrder: Especially Useful with Groovy Scripts

dmarx — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:15:00 -0400

The Java New I/O (NIO) class ByteOrder can be useful in determining the native byte order (or Endianness) used by the underlying platform.

Read more ...

Using Groovy to See the Future of Java

dmarx — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:06:00 -0400

Besides being a language that can be used for scripting and for writing applications, Groovy also provides the benefit of giving us a taste of new features that might be added to the Java programming language in the future.

Read more ...

2009 JavaOne: VisualVM

dmarx — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:19:00 -0400

VisualVM

Read more ...

Diagnosing and Resolving StackOverflowError

dmarx — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:04:00 -0400

A recent JavaWorld Community forum message (Stack Overflow after instantiating new object) reminded me that the basics of the StackOverflowError are not always understood well by people new to Java.

Read more ...

2009 JavaOne: Still Effective Java

dmarx — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:27:00 -0400

As evidenced by several previous blog posts (including What Makes a Great Technical Book?) I am a big fan of the book Effective Java.

Read more ...

Java Enums Are Inherently Serializable

dmarx — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:09:00 -0400

More than once, I have seen code such as the following (without the comments I have added to point out flaws), in which a well-intentioned Java developer has ensured that their favorite Enum explicitly declares that it is Serializable and has even provided a serialVersionUID for it.

Read more ...

Viewing Names Bound to RMI Registry

dmarx — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:37:00 -0400

When working with Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI), there are times when it is helpful to know which names are currently bound to a particular rmiregistry on a particular host/port combination.

Read more ...

Thread Analysis with VisualVM

dmarx — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:27:00 -0400

Although jstack (Java Stack Trace) is a useful tool for learning more about a how a Java thread is behaving, VisualVM is an even easier method for obtaining the same type of information.

It is easy to run jstack as demonstrated in the next screen snapshot:

Read more ...

Heap Dump and Analysis with VisualVM

dmarx — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:47:00 -0400

In previous blog posts, I have covered using VisualVM to acquire HotSpot JVM runtime information in a manner similar to jinfo and how to use VisualVM in conjunction with JMX and MBeans in a manner similar to

Read more ...