Tools « Development « Java Articles

Many development tools can be downloaded and test-driven for a trial period. If your developers try a tool and determine that it's useful, then adding it to the corporate toolbox is probably a good idea. Naturally, the same goes for the many fine tools available free of charge.

Although I use Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) tools (such as javac) throughout Java 101, a world of Java tools exists beyond the SDK. I would do you a disservice if I did not explore some of those tools in this column. Therefore, this month's Java 101 article introduces a three-part series that explores one non-SDK Java tool from each of the following three categories:

BEA Systems is blending open source and commercial developer tools in a release of its Workshop development tool for Java being announced on Tuesday.

John Ferguson Smart's long-awaited book, Java Power Tools, is due to be published by O'Reilly Media in March 2008. In this episode of JavaWorld's Java Technology Insider, John talks with Andrew Glover about some of the open source tools he's most likely to use for agile development on the Java platform, including Maven 2, Subversion, Hudson, DBUnit, Selenium, JUnit 4.4, and more. Tune in to this discussion where Andrew picks John's brain about some of the top tools for writing, testing, measuring, documenting, and maintaining quality code in today's fast paced and competitive development world.

March 6, 2006— Deciding to concentrate on ALM (application lifecycle management), Borland Software last month announced plans to sell off its faltering JBuilder Java IDE business, as well as its Windows tools platform, including Delphi. With its SDO (Software Delivery Optimization) for ALM, Borland is squaring off against formidable opponents in IBM and Microsoft. With nearly a month having passed since Borland's announcement, InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill spoke to Borland's Erik Frieberg, vice president of product marketing and strategy, about the company's intentions, and to get a progress report on the planned sale of Borland's developer tool lines.

Sun plans several announcements at the show, including the release of Java Enterprise Edition 5.0, which it previewed earlier this month. The newest version of the Java specification brings streamlined, easier-to-use development tools to companies wanting to make greater use of Java-based applications, according to Joe Keller, vice president of marketing for service-oriented architecture and integration platforms at Sun.

The system Sun is putting together with ActivIdentity includes the Sun Java System Identity Manager for provisioning and account synchronization, Java System Access Manager for secure access to Web-based applications, and Java System Directory Server enterprise edition. ActivIdentity's single sign-on technology will be used for access to all applications that are not Web-based.

Sun Microsystems' Java 2 SDK tools prove helpful for building small Java programs. However, they lack features for the rapid development and thorough testing that large Java programs need. Furthermore, no SDK tool simplifies the installation of a Java program's classfiles (and other files) on multiple platforms. Thus, a world of non-SDK Java tools have evolved, tools that facilitate the development, testing, and installation of Java programs. In this series, I explore some of those tools: the JCreator development tool (which I explored in Part 1), the InstallAnywhere installation tool (which I will explore in Part 3), and the Jtest testing tool (which I explore this month). Before exploring Jtest, I introduce testing in a Java context.

What task do you perform after creating your Java program with a development tool, such as JCreator, and thoroughly testing that program with a testing tool, such as Jtest? Answer: Prepare the program for installation on your customers' computers. How do you accomplish that task? Either create your own installation program, which might take as long to create as the program to be installed, or obtain a tool that creates that installation program for you. However, the J2SE (Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition) SDK doesn't provide such a tool. Although the SDK provides a jar tool that simplifies distribution by packaging a program's classfiles and other files into a jar file, that tool proves appropriate only for simple installations. For more complex installations, which might involve displaying a license agreement a customer must accept before installation proceeds, you must use an appropriate non-SDK installation tool, such as InstallAnywhere, which this article explores.

Fabiane Nardon and Daniel Lopez, the Java Tools Community Leaders, talk about their community, mobile projects in the community, and how the Mobile and Embedded Community and Java Tools Community can work together. They also share their experiences in developing mobile applications. For more information on the Java Tools Community go to their community page or look at their past newletters.

Charles Ditzel, a partner area architect at Sun Microsystems, has worked with Java technology for ten years, focusing on the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE), and on Sun Java Enterprise System architecture (formerly Sun ONE). He concentrates on helping Sun's partner companies implement Java platform applications and is passionate about Java tools. He conducted sessions at the 2006 JavaOne Conference on both the NetBeans integrated development environment (IDE) -- the original open-source, free IDE -- and the Sun Java Studio Creator 2 IDE. Before joining Sun in 1989, Ditzel worked at Boeing for 10 years. Among other things, he worked on software for robot work cells and programmed robot subsystems.

In addition to the Java 2 platform's many changes and enhancements at the programming level, there have also been significant changes made in terms of tools, set-up, and system configuration. This article details many of these diverse changes and offers a historical perspective.

In a move that could have profound implications for everything, from credit-card applications, to personal finance, to large-scale commercial banking, JavaSoft has created a new set of tools that will help Java developers write a wide variety of secure commercial applications that can run on almost any platform, including Wintel and legacy machines.

A few things are worth mentioning here. First, all of the tools that Sun delivers have a foundation in NetBeans. Second, the NetBeans IDE has proven that it's the best in its class. NetBeans has won the 2005 Open Source Tool of the Year award, getting more than 60% of the vote, no less. The NetBeans IDE is full-featured, cross-platform, and the first Java IDE to support the Tiger release of Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE). It's a significant challenge to discover any IDE that can compete with NetBeans in the areas of quality, performance, features, or broad support for the Java platform. And it's getting better. With the 4.1 release of NetBeans, developers now get full J2EE 1.4 support and some radically new and cool improvements for Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME) development, including new GUI design tools and visual layout tools for MIDlet workflow.

The new Java Tools Community (JTC) was founded to solve several challenges faced by development tool users and tool vendors. Their quest for "tool friendly" standards, tool interoperability, and open communications within the tool community should help us all.

Runner is intended to be used from the command line. It is included in org.scalatest package as a convenience for the user. If this package is incorporated into tools, such as IDEs, which take over the role of runner, object org.scalatest.tools.Runner may be excluded from that implementation of the package. All other public types declared in package org.scalatest.tools.Runner should be included in any such usage, however, so client software can count on them being available.

An increasing variety of enterprise software has become available on a hosted, subscription basis. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings now include customer management, inventory tracking, or video conferencing. Developer tools, such as source control or issue tracking have also become available lately as network-based subscription services.

By semipersistence, we mean a particular kind of persistence where only a selective substate (a part) of the class state is made persistent. Semipersistence pairs with economy. We take advantage of the persistence mechanism implemented in other classes. If we had to write from scratch the code that makes our classes persistent we wouldn't use the term semipersistent. It's only when you want to exploit somebody else's persistence, adapting it to your needs, that semipersistence comes into play.

I sometimes think that many people view agile as The Tool. The Tool accommodates tracking agile, therefore agile == The Tool. Even though the Agile Manifesto explicitly says you should emphasize "individuals and interactions over processes and tools," sometimes you have to remind people of why. The modified planning session became a team working together to brainstorm stories, not a bunch of people trying to use a tool.

Once over the curve, there's no question that significant mileage can be gained by the use of framework and tools. Take JUnit as an example: JUnit is a broadly applicable testing framework. Its learning curve is short—it can be mostly digested in a few hours, and mastered almost entirely in a day or two. It is highly extensible, brings immediate benefit, and is widely adopted—all characteristics of a "good" framework.

I have discovered many tools that support Flash in a Java context. This article introduces two of those tools to you: Transform SWF and JFlashPlayer. Transform SWF is useful for creating new Flash movies and updating existing Flash movies. In contrast, JFlashPlayer gives you the ability to integrate a Flash movie player into your software. As you read this article, you’re introduced to three Java applications that show you how to use these tools.

Many of us who have been using browsers on the web for many years have accumulated vast bookmark libraries containing many broken bookmarks. In my own case, before I embarked on my bookmark cleanup campaign, I had accumulated more than 5,200 bookmarks, many of which had probably been broken for years.