Developing and deploying Java on middleware and in the cloud: rise of the Virtual Appliance?
Posted by Andrew Phillips mid-morning: March 9th, 2010
From Java EE to Google App Engine to GigaSpaces, the idea of developing against a middleware or "infrastructure" API is well established in the Java world.
But these are fixed environments. With the (re-)advent of virtualization, it is now becoming feasible to package and rapidly provision your own environment, custom-designed to meet your application's needs.
As the big middleware vendors are realizing, it is not just possible to create such Virtual Appliances, but necessary: a production app's setup inevitably includes more than just a couple of EARs.
Here, we'll look at the current state of cloud and middleware deployment tooling, examine possible future developments and draw parallels between deployment and related processes.
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Implementing Deployit, part 2: technical considerations
Posted by Andrew Phillips around lunchtime: March 8th, 2010
In a recent post, XebiaLabs' CTO Vincent Partington discussed some important organizational topics you will want to address while introducing deployment automation using Deployit.
Preparing your organization is, of course, crucial to getting maximum possible benefits from deployment automation. A few technical considerations also apply when introducing Deployit, and here we'd like to go into these so that you can be sure your infrastructure is ready when it comes to carrying out your first fully automated deployment.
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Using Spring JavaConfig on Google App Engine
Posted by Andrew Phillips at around evening time: January 17th, 2010
Recently, I put together a Spring demonstration for jclouds, the Java cloud library. This quickly turned into unexpected multi-dimensional experiment in integrating Guice, Google App Engine and Spring, but after much trial-and-error I finally came across a configuration that does the trick - or at least works1 as well as seems possible on GAE. (more...)
Mocking the ‘unmockable’: too much of a good thing?
Posted by Andrew Phillips mid-morning: December 6th, 2009
Static calls, final classes, objects created in test code: there are few things some of the current mocking frameworks cannot handle. Using powerful approaches like bytecode instrumentation or custom class loaders, these libraries make code that was previously a 'no go' area amenable to unit testing. This, moreover, in an elegant and convenient manner that will feel familiar to developers used to 'standard' mocking frameworks.
The question is: does such power perhaps come with hidden dangers? Might it be possible that the ability to test more could actually result in less code quality?
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Testing the testers: code samples from a TDD framework comparison
Posted by Andrew Phillips around lunchtime: November 26th, 2009
Some while back I was preparing a presentation on mocking and testing frameworks for Java. As part of the aim was to demonstrate some real, running code, I ended up spending quite some time copying, pasting, extending and correcting various examples gleaned from readmes, Javadoc, Wiki pages and blog posts. Since then, this codebase has been extended with various new features I've come across, and I've often referred to it for experiments, as a helpful reference, and suchlike.
I imagine this kind of "live" reference could also be useful to others, so I thought I'd share it. (more...)
My days at Devoxx: 2009 Conference Review
Posted by Andrew Phillips mid-morning: November 21st, 2009
I've just come back from Devoxx 09 in Antwerp, Belgium, a conference that will probably become known as the one in which closures sneaked back in to Java 7.
Whilst I didn't feel any particular urge to return for the day 3, there was more than enough interesting material, both technical and abstract, in the first two days for me to chew on. Here some thoughts and comments on my personal "slice" of Devoxx.
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Understanding and writing Hibernate custom user types
Posted by Andrew Phillips mid-morning: November 9th, 2009
In the careers of most Spring/Hibernate developers I know, there sooner or later comes a point of no escape...they have to write a Hibernate user type. The first one is usually of the copy'n'paste variety, and by and large works perfectly well.
But when things are no longer going quite as expected - Hibernate is ignoring changes to items managed by the user type, for instance - it often becomes apparent that one doesn't sufficiently understand how these user type thingies are supposed to work. At least, that's what happened to me.
In this post, we'll be dissecting the Hibernate UserType interface, explaining the relationships between the various methods, and developing a set of base user types that capture common use cases. (more...)
Testing Annotation Processors
Posted by Andrew Phillips in the early evening: July 21st, 2009
Recently, I was writing an Annotation Processor for the @Composite project. In good TDD fashion, that first and foremost meant writing some tests.
Although I in the end come across something that was fairly workable, it was trickier than one might have hoped for.
@Composite – Macro Annotations for Java
Posted by Andrew Phillips in the early morning: June 23rd, 2009
Some months ago I attended a presentation at which Wilfred Springer demonstrated his very cool Preon binary codec library. Defining binary file formats in Preon requires quite a lot of fairly repetitive sets of annotations, and during a chat after the talk Wilfred mentioned (in fact, he blogged about it) how much more convenient it would be if one could just define "shortcuts":
@RequiredEnumProperty(column = "AGENT")
for
@NotNull @Column(name = "AGENT") @Enumerated(EnumType.STRING)
for instance - and use those instead. Sort-of "macro annotatations" for Java, if you like.
A thought that has presumably also occurred to many frequent users of Hibernate, JAXB or other annotation-heavy frameworks.
Well, it took me rather longer than the couple of days it would probably have taken a developer of Wilfred's skill, but finally @Composite is here! (more...)
Life on Tour: JAX 2009 Conference Review
Posted by Andrew Phillips in the wee hours: April 30th, 2009
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