Book Review: Spring MVC Beginner's Guide

Spring MVC Beginner's Guide features the subtitle "Your ultimate guide to building a complete web application using all the capabilities of Spring MVC." It is published by Packt Publishing and authored by Amuthan G. Spring MVC Beginner's Guide is comprised of ten chapters and two appendices spanning over 280 pages of substantive content.

What is Spring MVC?

In case you're wondering what Spring MVC is, tutorialspoint's Spring MVC Framework Tutorial describes Spring MVC: "The Spring web MVC framework provides model-view-controller architecture and ready components that can be used to develop flexible and loosely coupled web applications. The MVC pattern results in separating the different aspects of the application (input logic, business logic, and UI logic), while providing a loose coupling between these elements." In the JavaWorld article Mastering Spring MVC, Steven Haines describes Spring MVC as "a full MVC implementation that follows the patterns and paradigms that Spring is known for, including [dependency injection]."

Preface

The Preface of Spring MVC Beginner's Guide opens by stating the objective of the book: "to introduce you to the incredible simplicity and power of Spring MVC." This Preface follows the pattern established in many other Packt books of presenting short (2-4 sentences each) summaries of its ten chapters and two appendices, presenting what readers need to try out the examples (Java SE 7 JDK Update 45 as stated in Preface, but it is stated in Chapter 1 that "Java 6 or any higher version is also sufficient"; Maven 3.1.0; Apache Tomcat 7.0; and Eclipse-based Spring Tool Suite 3.4.0), and describing the intended audience ("ideally suited for beginners and intermediate developers" with no assumed knowledge of the Spring Framework). I felt that my Spring experience made the early chapters of Spring MVC Beginner's Guide much more approachable and would recommend that readers of Spring MVC Beginner's Guide with no experience with Spring Framework at least read Overview of Spring Framework before reading this book.

Chapter 1: Configuring a Spring Development Environment

As its title suggests, the first chapter of Spring MVC Beginner's Guide is about setting up the environment for Spring-related development. The chapter includes sections on Windows installation of the JDK, Maven, Tomcat, and Spring Tool Suite (STS). These sections include text and screen snapshots, are highly detailed, and are easy to follow, but they only cover Windows installation of these products. A screen snapshot in the section on installing Java shows Java SE Development Kit 7 Update 51 being installed and the text instructions and output show that same Java 7 Update 51 installed.

Chapter 1 indicates how to download, install, and individually configure JDK, Maven, Tomcat, and Spring Tool Suite. It then demonstrates how to configure these tools to work together for a complete, integrated Spring development environment. The chapter then moves onto preliminary steps of delivering on the book's stated theme: "developing a simple e-commerce site step-by-step."

Chapter 2: Spring MVC Architecture – Architecting Your Web Store

Although the end of the first chapter introduced a simple Spring MVC-based application, Chapter 2 of Spring MVC Beginner's Guide explains the concepts behind this and presents a "deep-dive into Spring MVC architecture." The chapter introduces the Spring MVC DispatcherServlet in more detail (including discussion of the web.xml file and @RequestMapping annotation) than in the first chapter. The discussion of Spring MVC web configuration in the second chapter specifically discusses the XML elements <mvc:annotation-driven /> and <context:component-scan />.

Chapter 3: Control Your Store with Controllers

The initial two chapters of Spring MVC Beginner's Guide are primarily high-level, general, and relatively introductory, but Chapter 3 marks the beginning of the more focused chapters. This chapter focused on Controllers opens up with the statement, "Controllers are presentation layer components that are responsible for responding to user actions." In the course of this chapter's coverage of Spring MVC Controllers, topics such as the @Controller annotation and @RequestMapping annotation. The discussion under the heading "The role of a controller in Spring MVC" well into the third chapter (page 74) discusses the role the Controller plays in Spring MVC.

The third chapter also discusses general web application architecture and describes the typical "layers" in a web application: presentation, domain/model, services, and persistence. Each layer is described in text and then illustrated with code samples. Other discussed topics include handler mappings, URI template patterns, matrix variables, and handling GET request parameters.

Chapter 4: Working with Spring Tag Libraries

Chapter 4 of Spring MVC Beginner's Guide focuses on "predefined [JSP] tag libraries of Spring" that enable "[binding of] form elements to model data" and "support various other common functionalities, such as, externalizing messages and error handling." The chapter introduces the JSP Standard Tag Library (JSTL) and then introduces Spring Form Tags. Several pages of descriptive text and code examples demonstrate how @ModelAttribute can be used to bind a Java object to a Spring MVC form. The chapter also discusses and demonstrates how to customize Spring MVC binding using WebDataBinder and @InitBinder.

Moving text out of the JSP and into external properties files in Spring MVC forms is another subject covered in Chapter 4. This section demonstrates and explains how to apply <spring:messsage>. This chapter on applying Spring Tags concludes with a demonstration of adding a small portion of Spring Security to the Spring MVC application to enable authentication and authorization.

Chapter 5: Working with View Resolver

The fifth chapter of Spring MVC Beginner's Guide begins with the assertion that "Spring MVC maintains a high level of decoupling between the view and controller" and then demonstrates how this is accomplished using View Resolvers and Views. The chapter provides in-depth descriptions and code examples demonstrating use of the RedirectView, access of static resources with <mvc:resources>, parsing of request into multiple parts, and serving "different representations of the same resource" with ContentNegotiatingViewResolver.

One of the main points of Chapter 5 is that Spring MVC separates the view approach from the controller. This is demonstrated with examples of using InternalResourceViewResolver for JSP views, MappingJacksonJsonView for JSON views, and MarshallingView for XML views. Chapter 5 also discusses and demonstrates use of the ResponseStatusExceptionResolver and ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver implementations of the HandlerExceptionResolver interface for "[resolving] exceptions that are thrown during controller mapping or execution."

Chapter 6: Intercept Your Store with Interceptor

Chapter 6 of Spring MVC Beginner's Guide is about Spring MVC interceptors, which the chapter states are "used to intercept actual web requests before or after they are processed" that can be related to the "filter concept of servlet programming." The chapter demonstrates through text and code how to write an implementation of the HandlerInterceptor interface (including referencing HandlerInterceptorAdapter as an easier way to implement HandlerInterceptor). The chapter also demonstrates application of standard provided interceptor for internationalization (LocaleChangeInterceptor) as well as providing two custom interceptors for performing audit logging and for performing conditional redirection.

Chapter 7: Validate Your Products with a Validator

Spring MVC Beginner's Guide's seventh chapter explains the "basics of setting up validation with Spring MVC." The chapter begins with a discussion of Java Bean Validation (JSR-303). The first example demonstrates "how to validate a form submission in a Spring MVC application" and uses Hibernate Validator and standard annotations-based constraints defined in package javax.validation.constraints. The next example expands on this to demonstrate customized constraints. The example demonstrates writing a custom constraint annotation and applying that annotation.

Chapter 7 transitions from JSR-303 validation to "classic Spring validation." The example in this section illustrates using "classic Spring validation" to validate the relationships between fields rather than individual field values ("cross-field validation"). The chapter concludes with a discussion and demonstration on how to combine JSR 303 Bean Validation and classic Spring Validation in the same application.

Chapter 8: Give REST to Your Application with Ajax

The eighth chapter of Spring MVC Beginner's Guide is on REST and Ajax. The chapter provides a very brief introduction to REST before moving into an example of applying @RequestBody and @ResponseBody to handle transformations between the serialization format and Java objects. The chapter discusses using Postman Chrome extension as client for testing the REST application just written.

The second part of Chapter 8 discusses using Ajax for communication between client and the REST service. This section begins with brief background on Ajax and then moves onto an example that uses trendy Angular.js.

Chapter 9: Apache Tiles and Spring Web Flow in Action

Chapter 9 of Spring MVC Beginner's Guide focuses on two teaching objectives: "Developing flow-based applications using Spring Web Flow" and "Decomposing pages using reusable Apache Tiles templates." The chapter emphasizes that Spring Web Flow and Apache Tiles are two completely independent web frameworks.

The section of Chapter 9 on using Spring Web Flow states about Spring Web Flow, "Spring Web Flow facilitates us to develop a flow-based web application easily" and adds, "A flow in a web application encapsulates a series of steps that guides a user through the execution of a business task." The initial example demonstrates writing an XML-based flow control file. The chapter uses that example XML to explain the contents of a Spring Web Flow XML file including its six possible states and transitions between states. There are a couple very lengthy examples to further explain details of Spring Web Flow.

Chapter 9's section on Apache Tiles describes Tiles as a "template composition framework" that allows "developers to define reusable page fragments (tiles) that can be assembled into a complete web page at runtime." Just as the section on Spring Web Flow focuses on the SWF's web flow XML file, the Apache Tiles section focuses on tile-definition.xml. The example demonstrates using Apache Tiles to implement JSPs consisting of composite templates in a Spring MVC application.

Chapter 10: Testing Your Application

The final chapter of Spring MVC Beginner's Guide opens with an overview of and a brief discussion regarding the benefits and challenges of unit testing web applications. The chapter then explains and illustrates testing a Spring MVC application's domain object (unit testing with JUnit), validator (integration testing with Spring TestContext Framework), controller (Spring Test Context framework mocking), and REST-exposed service.

Appendix A and Appendix B

Appendix A ("Using the Gradle Build Tool") briefly describes Gradle and how to use Gradle to build the book's examples. The examples throughout the book use Maven for the builds, but the presence of this appendix focused on Gradle is a sign of the trend in Java builds. Appendix B contains the answers to the "Pop Quiz" questions that occur throughout the book.

General Observations

• Spring MVC Beginner's Guide jumps right into discussing how to apply Spring MVC without explaining what it is.
  • On the page labeled 43 that exists well into the second chapter, there is some discussion on "Model View Controller" in general before contrasting "MVC" and "web MVC" (the latter of which is implemented with Spring MVC).
  • The page labeled 45 in Spring MVC Beginner's Guide has a graphic under the heading "An overview of the Spring MVC request flow" that should probably be understood early in the reading of this book.
  • This is likely not a problem in most cases as a reader interested in reading about with "Spring MVC" in its title is likely to know what Spring MVC is.
  • A reader who is not familiar with what Spring MVC is might read a quick introduction before reading this book.
    • For those who are familiar with Spring Framework but not with Spring MVC, a review of Introduction to Spring Web MVC framework might be useful.
    • For those lacking familiarity with anything Spring, a gentler introduction to Spring MVC can be found in Spring MVC Framework Tutorial and a really nice introduction to Spring MVC (and Spring) is provided in Mastering Spring MVC.
  • I would recommend that a reader of this book have some awareness of servlets and of the Spring Framework. The "Beginner's" part of the title is in reference to Spring MVC, but this book is not an introduction to the general Spring Framework and will be far easier to read for those with some Spring development experience.
• Many of the examples heavily use Spring Tool Suite and many of the steps in the examples are made simpler because of that Eclipse-based tool. Readers with little experience using Spring or Spring MVC are well-served to use Spring Tool Suite to work through these examples.
• The PDF version of Spring MVC Beginner's Guide that I reviewed has full-color screen snapshots.
• Code samples tend to be well organized and indented, but have neither color coded syntax nor line numbers.
• Multiple versions of the JDK are referenced in Spring MVC Beginner's Guide. The Preface states that JDK 7 Update 45 or newer is required, but Chapter 1 states that any JDK 6 release or later should be sufficient and a screen snapshot in Chapter 1 indicates JDK 7 Update 51 being installed. As far as I can determine, Java SE 6 JDK is probably sufficient for examples in this book, but I cannot be certain of that.

Conclusion

Spring MVC Beginner's Guide is a comprehensive resource on Spring MVC. Although its title includes "Beginner's", I think most readers would be well-advised to have some prior experience with the Spring Framework and with JavaServer Pages and Java servlets to get the most out of this book. The "Beginner's" portion of the title applies specifically to Spring MVC rather than to the more general Spring Framework or JSP/servlet programming.

Significant Software Development Developments of 2013

At the end of each calendar year, I like to summarize some of the most significant developments in the software development industry that happened during the year that is ending. The choice of these is entirely subjective and obviously colored by my own experience, background, perceptions, and preferences. Not worrying about the opinionated content of such a post, I now present the developments in software development that I consider most significant in 2013.

10. Gradle

Gradle appeared to me to enter the mainstream consciousness of software developers in a big way in 2013. I have been watching Gradle's development and playing with it a bit for some time now, but I have noticed that numerous open source projects now mention it prominently, it's referenced in many recently published Java books that aren't even about Gradle specifically, and Google selected Gradle to be delivered with its Android Studio product announced at Google I/O 2013. It took a while for Maven to breakthrough and compete with Ant and I think 2013 is seeing the beginning of Gradle's breakthrough to challenge Maven and Ant for predominance in Java-based build systems. Three books devoted to Gradle (the short Gradle: Beyond the Basics, the more comprehensive Gradle in Action, and the German Gradle: Modernes Build-Management - Grundlagen und Praxiseinsatz) have listed 2013 publication dates.

Gradle's rapidly rising popularity is nearly matched by its torrid rate of new releases. Gradle 1.4 ("faster builds that use less heap space"), Gradle 1.5 ("optimizations to dependency resolution"), Gradle 1.6 (improved Task ordering, "JaCoCo plugin for test coverage," and support for JUnit test categories), Gradle 1.7 ("fastest Gradle ever"), Gradle 1.8 (performance improvements and more native languages support), Gradle 1.9 (bug fixes and HTML dependency report), and Gradle 1.10 ("command-line usability features") were all released in 2013.

Gradle's success does not surprise me. It's Groovy foundation alone offers numerous advantages: Groovy scripts are easier to write procedural build-style code than is XML, Groovy has numerous syntactic shortcuts, Groovy is easily learned and applied by Java developers, Groovy has full JVM access, and Groovy includes built-in Ant support. On top of its inherent advantages from being built on Groovy, Gradle builds many useful and attractive features of its own on top of that Groovy foundation. Gradle adheres to several Ant and Maven conventions and supports Ivy and Maven repositories, making it straightforward to move from Maven or Ant+Ivy to Gradle.

Ruby on Rails helped bring Ruby into mainstream international prominence and, to a lesser degree, Grails helped do the same thing for Groovy. Gradle has the potential to pick up where Grails left off and push Groovy even further into the spotlight.

9. Trend Toward Single Language Development

For several years now, there has been a definite trend toward polyglot programming (polyglot persistence was even on last year's version of this post). Although this trend is likely to continue because some languages are better for scripting than others, some languages are better suited for web development than others, some languages are better suited for desktop development than others, some languages are better suited for realtime and embedded device development than others, some languages are better suited for scientific computing than others, and so on. However, I have seen indications of the pendulum swinging back at least a bit recently.

One of the arguments in favor of Node.js is the ability for JavaScript developers to use the same language on the "front-end" of a web application as on the "back-end." In the post Top Things I learned about development in 2013, Antonin Januska writes, "Working back to front in the same language is awesome." This is, of course, the reason that Java developers have in some cases been resistant to using JavaScript, Flex, or JavaFX Script (now deprecated) for front-ends of their Java applications (and why tools like Google Web Toolkit have been so popular). Java developers who write desktop applications (yes Virginia, desktop applications do exist) often experience the advantages of using the same language front-to-back as well.

One of Ceylon's most promising possibilities is the ability to write code in Ceylon that works on both Java Virtual Machines and JavaScript virtual machines and so could be used front-to-back in a Ceylon-based application. Indeed, the Ceylon page advertises, "[Ceylon] runs on both Java and JavaScript virtual machines, bridging the gap between client and server." Languages commonly associated with the Java Virtual Machine such as Scala and Kotlin also are offering the ability to compile to JavaScript.

A final example of the trend back to a single language in many environments is the use of Python in scientific computing as covered in the post The homogenization of scientific computing, or why Python is steadily eating other languages’ lunch.

I'm not arguing that this trend means that there will only be one main programming language in the future. However, I do believe it is generally human nature to want to use the same language or approach as much as possible because it's what we're familiar with and using the same language helps us to leverage our experience more broadly in the same application. The trend seems to be for each of the major languages (C/C++, Java, JavaScript, Python, .NET languages, etc.) to continue building up their own "stack" to support end-to-end functionality within that language and its ecosystem of frameworks, libraries, and tools. It's no coincidence that once a new language starts to see significant adoption, it quickly begins to see development of a variety of frameworks, libraries, and toolkits that extend the reach of that language.

I also don't want to imply that this is the end of polyglot programming. I don't see any programming language that is the best fit in all cases and there is no doubt that the most valuable developers will be those familiar with more than one programming language.

8. Internet of Things

I first heard about the concept of the Internet of Things at JavaOne 2012 and it got even more attention at JavaOne 2013. Oracle is not the only company touting the Internet of Things. IBM is into the Internet of Things as are many others.

Some believe that 2014 will be the year of the Internet of Things. Tori Wieldt has called "Java and the Internet of Things" one of the "Top Java Stories of 2013." In 2013, two series in Hinkmond Wong's Weblog have focused on the Internet of Things with featured posts on a Thanksgiving Turkey Tweeter and on a Christmas Santa Detector.

Other useful articles with differing opinions on the Internet of Things include The Internet of Things: a tangled web, Here's the Scariest Part of the Internet of Things, The Internet Of Things Will Be Huge—Just Not As Huge As The Hype, Five Challenges For The Internet of Things Ecosystem, The Internet of things will not arrive in 2014, CES 2013: The Break-Out Year For The Internet Of Things, and Here's Why 'The Internet Of Things' Will Be Huge, And Drive Tremendous Value For People And Businesses.

On a lighter (or more dire, depending on your perspective) note related to The Internet of Things, Aaron Pressman writes, "The whole crazy 'Internet of Things' movement to put everything under network control seems tailor made for Hal" (2001: A Space Odyssey).

7. Mobile Development

If someone not familiar with our industry was to start reading our software development social media sites and forums, that person would likely come to the conclusion that the vast majority of software development today is development of mobile applications. I have long argued that blog posts and articles often skew toward more leading-edge topics than established topics for a variety of reasons (perception/reality that established topics are already well-covered, resume building, fun to play with and write about new things, etc.). That being stated, there is no question that mobile development is popular in reality and not just in perception. There is no question that a big part of HTML5's popularity and rapid adoption is the opportunity to write applications in one set of languages (HTML/JavaScript/CSS) that will run on multiple mobile devices. Numerous projects and tools are being released to allow for writing applications in one language and compiling them to native formats for various mobile devices.

6. Responsive Design

At the end of 2012, Pete Cashmore predicted that 2013 would be the "Year of Responsive Web Design" because of its "obvious benefits": "You build a website once, and it works seamlessly across thousands of different screens." I like Jordan Larkin's explanation of responsive web design:

The term "responsive web design" (or responsive mobile design) refers to websites that change and adapt their appearance for optimum viewing on all screen sizes, tablets, smartphones, ipods, kindles along with desktop and laptop computer screens. Occasionally, in the digital arts industry, it is called "fluid design", "adaptive website design" or "RWD". Unresponsive websites do not change to fit different screen sizes, which means they can be difficult to navigate and look at on smaller devices.

As a person who is using a smartphone for an increasing percentage of my daily online activities, but still uses the laptop frequently and the desktop occasionally, I am appreciating firsthand the web site authors whose web sites and pages work well on all of these devices. It's often satisfactory to have two different web sites (one for mobile devices and one for everything else) from a consumer point of view, but this obviously means essentially duplicate code for the site developers. Even from a consumer point of view, there are times when I find the mobile version of a site lacking in features and in those cases it'd be preferable to have the regular site on all devices as long as that regular site appeared nicely on all devices.

The highly informative web site A List Apart has a nice set of articles related to responsive web design.

5. Node.js

JavaScript, despite its flaws, has dominated the web browser for years. Although JavaScript on the server has been available for some time (such as with Rhino and more recently Nashorn in Java), Node.js seems to be doing for JavaScript on the server what Ruby on Rails did for Ruby: the framework is popularizing the language (or in this case, popularizing the language specifically on the server).

2013 has been a big year for Node.js. There are numerous blogs and articles written on it on seemingly a daily basis. Some of these articles include What You Need To Know About Node.js and Node.js keeps stealing Rails' thunder.

Several books on Node.js have been published in 2013. These include Node.js in Action, Learning Node.js: A Hands-On Guide to Building Web Applications in JavaScript, Node.js the Right Way: Practical, Server-Side JavaScript That Scales, Pro Node.js for Developers, Node.js Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach, Mastering Node.js, Using Node.js for UI Testing, JavaScript on the Server Using Node.js and Express, and the final version of The Node Beginner Book.

4. Big Data

Big Data holds the same #4 spot on my list as it did last year. Apache Hadoop and the R Project are just two examples of popular products/languages riding the Big Data wave. Python too, is increasingly being chosen as the programming language of choice for working with big data sets.

Readers of java.net recently answered a survey regarding Big Data in which the closest thing to a consensus seemed to be that "Big Data Is Probably Significant, but not too Surprising."

3. HTML5

HTML5 saw initial hype, disappointed for a while, and seems to be back on its rapid rise in popularity. I don't call out JavaScript individually in this post, but group it with HTML and CSS as part of HTML5 (and its also grouped with Node.js in this post). Given that HTML5, for purposes of this blog post, represents all of these things, it easily makes my top three significant software development developments in 2013. As mentioned previously with regard to mobile development, HTML5 is a popular approach for generating applications once that can theoretically run on any mobile device.

HTML5 features are seeing increasing standardization in terms of implementations in major browser. JavaScript/HTML libraries such as Angular.js and Ember.js are building on the momentum that jQuery has brought to HTML5 development in recent years.

HTML5's success is even evident in languages not considered part of HTML5 themselves. For example, one of the most heavily advertised new features of Java EE 7 is its HTML5 support. Recent versions of NetBeans IDE (considered primarily a Java IDE despite its multiple language support) have also seemed to emphasize HTML5 among their most important new features in 2013.

2. Security

As more information is online and we depend increasingly on availability of our data online, security continues to be an important issue for software developers. The trend of highly visibility security incidents continued in 2013. These incidents affected Ruby on Rails, Java, and other languages. The increasing frequency of security patches led Oracle to change how it labels the versions of Java SE.

An early 2013 article, Safeguard your code: 17 security tips for developers, outlines tips developers can take to improve the security of their applications. An earlier article in 2013 spelled out the increasing security concerns companies face. The book Java Coding Guidelines: 75 Recommendations for Reliable and Secure Programs has also been published in 2013. The 10 Biggest Security Stories Of 2013 outlines some of the biggest security-related stories of 2013.

1. Technical Dysfunction

Sadly, from a software development perspective, 2013 may be most remembered for the high profile technical glitches that occurred. Words like "debacle," "disaster," and "meltdown" have been associated with these issues and, rightly or wrongly, have reflected poorly on our industry. The most high profile dysfunction has been the embarrassing United States healthcare site healthcare.org. However, the issues that affect reputations and customer confidence have not been limited to government. Wal-Mart and Target, two major retailers in the United States, have had notable web site issues in the latter part of 2013 as well. Cloud-impacting technical dysfunction has occurred in 2013 in several notable cases including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google (including the search engine).

There seems to be plenty of blame to go around, but it seems difficult to get a good read on exactly what has caused these high profile technical failures. With healthcare.org, for example, I've seen people blame all types of different culprits including not allotting enough time to the effort, not being agile enough, being too agile, failing for despite agile approaches, failing to estimate user load correctly, getting government involved, etc. Although the real reasons are probably multiple and varied in nature and probably interest software developers more than others, the perception of our industry has gotten dinged up in 2013.

Honorable Mention

Although the developments in software development listed below did not make my top ten, they are significant enough to me to make this "Honorable Mention" category (in no particular or implied order).

JSON

One of the benefits of XML many years now has been the ubiquity of XML support across different languages, tools, frameworks, and libraries. For example, I recently wrote about how easy it is to use Groovy to search Subversion logs because Subversion makes its log output available in XML format and Groovy knows XML well.

JSON has been very popular with developers for some time now, but there have been many cases where standard libraries and tools that supported XML did not support JSON, meaning that developers had to write custom writing/reading code for JSON when using those libraries and tools. I'm beginning to see a lot more JSON support with tools and libraries now. Programming languages are also providing nice JSON parsing/writing capabilities. For example, Groovy has had JSON support for some time and Java EE 7 (JAX-RS 2.0) includes JSON support via the Java API for JSON.

JSON has been prominent enough in 2013 to warrant being included in titles of two Packt Publishing books published in 2013: JavaScript and JSON Essentials and Developing RESTful Services with JAX-RS 2.0, WebSockets, and JSON.

Java EE 7 Released

Java EE 7 was officially released in 2013. In a testament to Java EE's current widespread use and expected potential use of Java EE 7, book publishers have already published several books on Java EE 7 including Java EE 7 First Look, Java EE 7 Essentials, Beginning Java EE 7, Java EE 7 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach, Introducing Java EE 7: A Look at What's New, and Java EE 7 Developer Handbook.

Although I've never embraced JavaServer Faces (JSF), the feature of Java EE 7 that has been most interesting to me is the support for Faces Flows. I first read about this feature when reviewing Java EE 7 First Look and Neil Griffin's post Three Cheers for JSF 2.2 Faces Flows have reinforced my interest in this feature. In the post A Realistic JSF 2.2 Faces Flows Example, Reza Rahman supports my opinion that this is a key feature in Java EE 7 to watch with the quote, "Faces Flows are one of the best hidden gems in Java EE 7." Michael and Faces Flows might persuade me to give JavaServer Faces another look.

A recent blog post shows integration of AngularJS with Java EE 7.

Single Page Applications

The advantage of web applications over desktop applications has always been significant easier deployment of web applications than of desktop applications. The cost, however, has been a less fluid experience and sometimes less performing application than could be provided on the desktop. The concept of single-page applications is to make web (and by extension mobile applications that use traditional web technologies) feel and behave more like a "single-page" desktop application. Newer JavaScript libraries such as Meteor are being designed for the "thicker client" style of single-page applications.

The Wikipedia page on Single Page Application lists some technical approaches to implementing this concept. The Manning book Single Page Web Applications was also released in 2013. It's subtitle is "JavaScript end-to-end" (another piece of evidence of the general movement toward a single language).

See the description of Meteor below for another nice explanation of how web development is moving toward what is essentially this concept of single-page applications.

AngularJS

It seems like one cannot read any software development social media sites without running across mention of AngularJS. Although its Google roots are undoubtedly part of its success, AngularJS enjoys success from cleanly addressing significant needs in HTML/JavaScript development (shifting appropriate dynamic functionality from pure JavaScript to HTML with clever binding). In his post 10 Reasons Why You Should Use AngularJS, Dmitri Lau states that "Angular is the only framework that doesn’t make MVC seem like putting lipstick on a pig." Jesus Rodriguez, in his post Why Does Angular.js Rock?, writes that AngularJS "excels in the creation of single-page-applications or even for adding some 'magic' to our classic web applications." K. Scott Allen writes in his post Why Use AngularJS?, "I like Angular because I have fun writing code on top of the framework, and the framework doesn't get in the way."

Ember.js

Ember.js is another JavaScript library seeing significant online coverage in 2013. Ember 1.0 was released on 31 August 2013 and Ember 1.2.0 was released on 4 December 2013.

Like AngularJS and Knockout, Ember.js's approach is to embrace HTML and CSS rather than trying to abstract them away.

Famo.us

The famo.us web page currently requires one to "sign up for the beta" before being able to "experience famo.us." It's subtitle is "a JavaScript engine and framework that solve HTML5 performance." Another famo.us page states, "famo.us is a front end framework that solves performance for HTML5 apps" and "works for phones, tablets, computers and television."

Famo.us is discussed in two late 2013 InfoWorld posts: Did these guys just reinvent the Web? and Fast and flashy: Famo.us JavaScript framework revealed.

At this point, famo.us is still in beta, but it could be big in 2014 if it is able to deliver on what is advertised in 2013.

Meteor

Meteor is described on its main page as "an open source platform" for writing "an entire app in pure JavaScript" and using the "same APIs ... on the client and the server." In the Paul Krill interview Meteor aims to make JavaScript programming fun again, Matt DeBergalis stated that Meteor was created to address the changing web development paradigm often referred to as single-page application:

There is a shift in the Web application platform, and specifically, people are starting to write a new kind of application, what we call a thick client, where most of the code is actually running inside the Web browser itself rather than in a data center. This is an architectural change from running the software in the data center and sending HTML on the wire to a model where we have data on the wire and the actual rendering, the displaying of the user interface, is happening on the client. ... That's why it feels more interactive. It's not page-based like the old Web. It's much more engaging."

MEAN Stack

Having a witty acronym helped advertise and communicate the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache HTTP Server, MySQL/MariaDB, PHP/Perl/Python) and arguably contributed to the adoption of this combination of technologies. With this in mind, I found Valeri Karpov's post The MEAN Stack: MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS and Node.js interesting. The post's author is another who points out the productivity advantages that can be gained from using a single language throughout an application. There is already a book underway: Getting MEAN with Mongo, Express, Angular, and Node. It will be interesting to watch this newly minted terminology and see if the stack and its name come close to the success that the LAMP stack and its name have enjoyed.

Commercial Support Dropped for GlassFish 4

Although it took longer to happen than most people probably anticipated, Oracle's dropping of commercial support for GlassFish 4 was formally announced in 2013 and is what most of us expected when we heard of Oracle purchasing Sun. The future of GlassFish is certainly cloudier now and expectations for GlassFish's future range from it being essentially dead to it thriving as the reference implementation.

Java IDEs

The major Java IDEs continued to add features to their already impressive feature sets in 2013. NetBeans had two major releases in 2013 with 7.3 released in February and 7.4 released in October. These two NetBeans releases added features such as Java EE 7 support, Project Easel for HTML5 development, Groovy 2.0 integration, JSON support, support for new JavaScript libraries (including Angular.js), native Java application packaging, Cordova integration, and improved support for non-JVM languages C/C++ and PHP.

IntelliJ IDEA 13 was released earlier this month. The release announcement highlights support for Java EE 7, improved Spring Framework integration, improved Android support thanks to IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition being used as the basis for Android Studio, improved database handling, and "refined Gradle support." Eclipse is often the IDE chosen for building a more specialized IDE such as Spring IDE (Spring Tool Suite), Scala IDE, or the new Ceylon IDE, so it's a particularly big deal that Google chose IntelliJ IDEA as the basis of its Android Studio.

Speaking of Eclipse, the seemingly most used Java-based IDE (especially when you consider the IDEs derived from it or based on it) also saw new releases in 2013. Eclipse 4.3 (Kepler) was released in 2013. There were also numerous popular plugins for Eclipse released in 2013.

Visual Studio 2013

Sun Microsystems was not the only company that saw desirable advantages and benefits from a single language that could be used at all layers of an application. Microsoft has implemented various efforts (Silverlight) for years to do the same thing. In 2013, Visual Studio 2013 was released with significant enhancements. These enhancements included improved support for languages not specific to Microsoft's .NET framework. Many of these better supported languages are on my list in this post: JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and Python.

Groovy

Groovy's 2.0 release (including static compilation support) made 2012 a big year for Groovy. Although 2013 did not see as significant of enhancements in the Groovy language, the year did start out with the announcement of Groovy 2.1. Perhaps the biggest part of that 2.1 release was Groovy's full incorporation of Java SE 7's invokedynamic, a major Java SE enhancement intended for non-Java languages like Groovy.

Groovy 2.2's release was announced toward the end of 2013. This release improved Groovy's invokedynamic support by adding OSGi manifests to the Groovy's invokedynamic-based JARs.

In The Groovy Conundrum, Andrew Binstock writes that "with the performance issues behind it, Groovy is a language primed for widespread use," but warns that Groovy is a language that is "easy to learn, but hard to master."

As is mentioned more than once in this post, Groovy has had a lot of additional exposure in 2013 thanks to Gradle's rapidly rising popularity. I believe that Gradle will continue to introduce Groovy to developers not familiar with Groovy or will motivate developers who have not looked at Groovy for some time to look at it again.

Scala

It seems to me that Scala continues to gain popularity among Java developers. I continue to see Scala enthusiasts gushing about Scala on various Java and JVM blog comments and forums. One piece of evidence of Scala's continuing and increasing popularity is the number of new books published in 2013 with Scala in their title. These include Scala in Action, Scala Cookbook: Recipes for Object-Oriented and Functional Programming, Functional Programming Patterns in Scala and Clojure: Write Lean Programs for the JVM, Scala Design Patterns: Patterns for Practical Reuse and Design, Play for Scala, Scala Object-Oriented Programming, and Getting Started with SBT for Scala.

For a much better background on what made 2013 a big year for Scala, see Jan Machacek's This Year in Scala (2013).

Ceylon

November 2013 saw "the first production release of the Ceylon language specification, compiler, and IDE." This announcement, available online at Ceylon 1.0.0 is now available, also states, "Ceylon 1.0 is a modern, modular, statically typed programming language for the Java and JavaScript virtual machines." Ceylon offers an Elipse-based IDE and has a formal specification. One of the factors favoring a successful future for Ceylon is its Red Hat sponsorship.

Kotlin

Kotlin is another language that compiles to the Java Virtual Machine or to a JavaScript virtual machine. It also has a strong sponsor in the world of Java in JetBrains, the company behind IntelliJ IDEA. 2013 saw several new releases of Kotlin: Kotlin M5.1, Kotlin M6, Kotlin M6.1, and Kotlin M6.2. I found the blog post Programming Android with Kotlin interesting because it demonstrates use of Kotlin and Gradle to build an Android application.

Go

The Go programming language has had strong backing from Google and continues to receive significant online coverage. Go 1.1 and Go 1.2 (with apparently improved performance) were both released in 2013. Of special interest to me is Go's advertised source code backwards compatibility for all versions 1.x.

Camel

2013 was a big year for Apache Camel, the tool that "empowers you to define routing and mediation rules in a variety of domain-specific languages." Camel-related developments in 2013 included the release of 2.11.0, release of 2.12.0, and release of 2.12.2. These frequent releases and the addition of a new committer and PMC member are among the signs of a healthy open source project.

The release of the Camel Essential Components (DZone Refcardz #170) kicked off 2013 for Camel. Camel got increased attention on software development social media sites in 2013. Zemian Deng's Getting started with Apache Camel using Java was syndicated on Java Code Geeks (as was his Apache Camel using Groovy Introduction) and Niraj Singh's Introduction to Apache Camel was also syndicated on Java Code Geeks. AndrejV's entire blog Just Did Some Code has so far (5 posts in 2013) been devoted to coverage of Camel!

Spring Boot

It's still early to tell because Spring Boot is currently only at version 0.5, but Spring Boot has potential to be be widely adopted and used in the future. It looks like Spring Boot is inspired by and takes advantage of some of the best ideas in Ruby on Rails and Groovy and applies them to easy generation of Spring Framework-based applications.

Python

As stated earlier, Big Data is big and Python is getting a share of that Big Data action. The Continuum Analytics post Python for Big Data states, "Python is a powerful, flexible, open-source language that is easy to learn, easy to use, and has powerful libraries for data manipulation and analysis. ... Python has a unique combination of being both a capable general-purpose programming language as well as being easy to use for analytical and quantitative computing." Tal Yarkoni echoes this statement and observes that his "scientific computing toolbox been steadily homogenizing" on Python.

Python 3.3.1, Python 3.3.2, and Python 3.3.3 were all released in 2013. Cython has joined Pyrex as an alternative for easily writing C extensions with Python syntax and there is even a book on Learning Cython Programming.

The article Python 3.4.0 goes to beta with slew of new modules talks about some of the new features coming with Python 3.4.0 (beta) such as a standard enumeration construct. The article also points out that one of the biggest frustrations with Python remains: the two versions of the language (2.x and 3.x) and no easy route from 2.x to 3.x. From a Java development perspective, I find this interesting because there was a time when arguments like Bruce Eckel's ("People who don't want to deal with these changes don't upgrade, and those people tend not to upgrade anyway") seemed logical and sensible. However, it's not quite as easy as it sounds, particularly when one starts to realize the impact of this on the entire set of products, libraries, and frameworks written for a language that can be heavily impacted and perhaps not usable for some time if ever with the new language.

PHP and HHVM

2013 saw the formal release of the PHP 5.5.x versions: PHP 5.5.0, PHP 5.5.1, PHP 5.5.2, PHP 5.5.3, PHP 5.5.4, PHP 5.5.5, PHP 5.5.6, and PHP 5.5.7.

At the beginning of 2013, Gabriel Manricks outlined reasons Why 2013 is the Year of PHP. Specifically Manricks described tools such as Laravel (including Eloquent ORM), Composer (dependency manager, including Packagist), and PHPUnit (test-driven development in PHP).

The Facebook project HHVM (HipHop Virtual Machine for PHP) was initially released in 2010, but seemed to see a lot more attention in 2013. The original HPHPc compiler compiled PHP into C++ and was another manifestation of the drive to use a single language for authoring an application even if its compiled form was different. The availability of the open source HipHop Virtual Machine (HHVM) for PHP should help address performance issues with PHP; that is seemingly Facebook's primary reason for developing it.

Android Studio

Android Studio was announced at Google I/O 2013 as "a new IDE that’s built with the needs of Android developers in mind" that is "based on the powerful, extensible IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition."

Cloud Computing

Interest in cloud computing remained strong and continued to grow rapidly in 2013. Many of the other items discussed in this post (Big Data, security, technical dysfunctions, etc.) have strong relationships to cloud computing. For more on the biggest cloud stories on 2013, see The 10 Biggest Cloud Stories Of 2013.

Internet Explorer 11

I have not used Internet Explorer except when forced to for a number of years. For a long time, I used Firefox almost exclusively and in recent years I've used Google Chrome almost exclusively on PCs and Firefox on Linux. When I have been forced by a particular web site to use Internet Explorer, I have done reluctantly and am reminded of the much slower performance of the browser than I'm used to in terms of startup and even navigation. I have noticed over this Christmas break, however, when I had to install Internet Explorer 11 manually because the automatic process kept failing, that it's a lot faster than even Internet Explorer 10 was. I still won't make it my primary browser, but it's nice that it performs much better when I do need to use it (such as to play Atari Arcade games without advertisements).

Internet Explorer 11 offers advantages for developers as well as users of the browser. Advertised benefits for developers (and by extension for users of these developers' applications) are improved standards compatibility, new F12 developer tools,

It's not all positive for Internet Explorer 11. Some people seem to want to downgrade to Explorer 10 and reportedly Internet Explorer 11 is presenting some problems for users of Microsoft's own CRM application (after earlier reportedly breaking Google and Outlook access).

It surprises me a bit that the main Microsoft IE URL (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/download-ie) referenced by the Internet Explorer 11 Guide for Developers still advertises downloading of Internet Explorer 9, a version of that browser that Google has already stated they will no longer support.

Windows 8 Not As Successful

Windows 8 seems to be experiencing similar disappointment after Windows 7 that Windows Vista experienced after Windows XP. In fact, The 10 Biggest Software Stories Of 2013 states, "So it looks like Windows 7 will become the new Windows XP -- better get those downgrade rights ready."

Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi continues to catch a lot of interest (2 million had been sold as of October of this year). There were seemingly endless posts on how to do a wide variety of things with the Raspberry Pi. Some of these that stood out most to me are Premium Mathematica software free on budget Raspberry Pi, GertDuino: An Arduino for Your Raspberry Pi, How an open-source computer kit for kids based on Raspberry Pi is taking over Kickstarter, Running OpenJFX on Raspberry Pi, and Simon Ritter: Do You Like Coffee with Your dessert? Java and the Raspberry Pi.

DevOps

The 10 Biggest Software Stories Of 2013 points out that "Cisco, Google and VMware last year invested in Puppet Labs" and that "another DevOps player, Opscode, raised $32 million and changed its name to Chef, the name of its flagship product."

Twitter Bootstrap

Bootstrap (alternatively known as Twitter Bootstrap and Twitter Blueprint) has become so popular and prevalent that there is now a popular (one of DZone's top posts in 2013)

post stating Please stop using Twitter Bootstrap. In August 2013, two years after the public release of Bootstrap, Bootstrap 3 was released (with 3.0.3 released in December). Everybody Should Code

The conversation of whether everybody should or code write code and develop software continued in 2013. Jessica Gross's writes about 10 places where anyone can learn to code and Megan O'Neil's article A Start-Up Aims to Teach Anyone to Write Computer Code features one of these places (Codecademy). Kevin Lindquist writes that software development isn’t just for coders anymore. Katie Elizabeth lists the reasons why everyone should learn to code while Chase Felker wonders if maybe not everybody should learn to code.

In 2013, President Obama (United States) asked America to learn computer science and it may be one of the few things Republicans and Democrats agree on, but Philip Bump argues, No, Mr. President, Not Everyone Needs to Learn How to Code.

SQL Strikes Back

NoSQL implementations have been all the rage for years, but 2013 seemed to present some resurgence in interest in SQL. Some NoSQL implementations added SQL or SQL-like syntax. SQLstream announces Return of the King: The Structured Query Language Is Back! and Jason Levitt and Sean Gallagher write "The hot new technology in Big Data is decades old: SQL."

The truth is that SQL never really went away and is heavily entrenched in software systems, but what is really interesting 2013 is the new thought and effort put into SQL development. word of Google's F1 SQL database ("a hybrid database that combines high availability, the scalability of NoSQL systems like Bigtable, and the consistency and usability of traditional SQL databases") is an example of this. Seth Proctor asks Do All Roads Lead Back to SQL? and writes of "NewSQL." In Software Development Trends for 2014, Werner Schuster states that "Many NoSQL DBs come with SQL or SQL-like languages" and asks, "Are SQL skills back in fashion?"

Conclusion

2013 may be remembered in popular culture as the year of selfies, but the developments in the software development world were far more substantive. In particular, it is interesting to see how developers in general are beginning to (or are remembering to) appreciate the ability to write an application front-to-back in a single language and to write responsive designs so that an application need be written only once for multiple platforms. The advantages of these approaches are not new to JVM (Java/Java EE) or CLR (.NET) developers, but seem to now be better appreciated by the more general developer community.

Previous Years' Significant Software Development Developments

The following are my posts similar to this one on items that I thought were of special import to software development in those respective years. I could definitely go back and add to some of these with things I've learned about since then for each of these years.

• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007

Software Development Posts of Interest - March 2012

This post references some of the recent blog posts and articles that have interested me. Topics include Java-specific topics such as Java EE, JavaFX, Scala, and Gradle as well as more general software development topics such as software patents and open source.

Why Software Patents are Evil

Simon Phipps summarizes in Why software patents are evil why patents in software may not make sense:

Patents may work in other industries, where the cost of innovation is so high that a temporary, state-sanctioned monopoly provides just enough time to gain a return on the investment. But that investment-return ratio has a completely different value for software. It turns out that software patents have little bearing on encouraging innovation. ... Software patents are ... bad news for most innovators in the software industry.

Phipps also looks at the relationship between software patents and open source software. He writes, "The problem is that open source software is defenseless against the anticompetitive abuse of patents."

Java EE 6 Versus Spring Framework

In the post Why is Java EE 6 better than Spring? Arun Gupta discusses why he believes developers should use Java EE 6 rather than the Spring Framework. Gupta begins the post by referencing several similar blog posts including Java EE wins over Spring and Why I will use Java EE (JEE, and not J2EE) instead of Spring in new Enterprise Java Projects in 2012.

Some of the feedback comments on this post are interesting because they demonstrate the differences of opinions between Java EE evangelists and Spring Framework evangelists (with comments from employees of both Oracle and SpringSource/VMWare among them). It is interesting to see the role reversal in this situation. Evangelists of the Spring Framework (even before it was so named) helped convince the Java enterprise development community of the problems with early J2EE, but now it seems the tables have turned and similar evangelism is advertising the "legacy" nature of Spring Framework as compared to modern Java EE.

Java EE 6 vs Spring - let's get ready to rumble provides another look at this post.

Oracle's Long-Term Intentions for Java

Paul Krill's Oracle lays out long-range Java intentions summarizes the "Oracle slide presentation entitled 'To Java SE 8 and Beyond!' posted on the QCon conference website." Based on Krill's summary, this presentation sounds very similar to the Oracle OpenWorld 2011 presentation From Java SE, 2012, to Java 12: Java SE Roadmap.

Reducing Memory Usage and Garbage Collections with -XX:+UseCompressedOops

Stuart Leneghan's post Reducing Java Memory Usage and Garbage Collections with the UseCompressedOops VM Option looks at the author's observation of the -XX:+UseCompressedOops HotSpot-specific JVM option "[reducing] the memory usage of the application by 14% and the number of garbage collections by 24%."

More on Java Tuning

Speaking of Java performance and memory tuning, Rupesh Ramachandran's post Java Tuning in a Nutshell - Part 1 provides a "JVM tuning cheat sheet" and categorizes JVM options into four categories: garbage collection, heap tuning, logging, and other performance.

The IBM DeveloperWorks article From Java code to Java heap is fairly comprehensive, providing background details on JVM memory handling and a focus on the impact of different Java collections on memory. This article also references the HotSpot option -XX:+UseCompressedOops as well as the similar IBM JVM option -Xcompressedrefs.

Understanding Garbage Collection is another recently-posted resource. This post is "the first of a series of 'Become a Java GC Expert' articles" and its focus is on introducing garbage collection in Java. The same site also hosts the blog post How to Analyze Java Thread Dumps. Figure Out Why Java is Eating CPU provides an interesting tip.

Scala

There continues to be a profusion of Scala posts. Recent posts include How Scala Can Improve Your Life, Is Scala making the right steps forward?, Scala creator Martin Odersky fends off critics of Scala's roadmap, Free online books for learning Scala, and Scala: Sink or Swim? Part 1. I have also seen new references to Twitter's Effective Scala.

Unit Testing

Neil Buesing's post How to Mock Final Classes in Unit Tests examines the problem that "both Mockito and EasyMock cannot mock classes (or methods) that are final." The feedback comments are also informative and discuss other available solutions to this issue: PowerMock), Groovy-based gMock, and JMockit.

Improved Java Stack Trace Presentation

Tomasz Nurkiewicz has posted two blog posts on how to improve Java stack trace experience using the Logback Project. Filtering irrelevant stack trace lines in logs demonstrates his "proof-of-concept" for filtering out selected stack trace frames using Logback and references the StackOverflow thread Cleaning noise out of Java stack traces. An older post, Logging exceptions root cause first, discusses a feature he contributed to Logback for displaying exceptions with root cause first rather than last.

A Peek at NetBeans 7.2

Geertjan Wielenga's NetBeans Java Hints: Quick & Dirty Guide provides a peek at a capability coming in NetBeans 7.2 for creating NetBeans hints.

Gradle

Last milestone for Gradle as it prepares for first major version cites the Gradle roadmap and states that the current version of Gradle ("1.0-milestone-9, released on 13th March 2012") "will be the final one" before Gradle goes into release candidate.

GroovyFX and JavaFX

Gradle is not the only product in the Groovy ecosystem with recent version advancement news. Dean Iverson has announced the GroovyFX First Official Release. He also shows how to use Grape to "grab" GroovyFX similar to the approach shown in my post Easy Groovy Logger Injection and Log Guarding.

Other interesting recent posts related to JavaFX include Example CSS Stylying in JavaFX, New in JavaFX 2.1: ComboBox, and Packaging JavaFX Applications as Native Installers.

Groovy and DevOps

In the post Groovy, A Reasonable JVM Language for DevOps, Geoffrey Papilion writes that Groovy provides the "JVM glue" he sought for "a simple JVM language that allows me to use any native object." After demonstrating use of Groovy for a "quick script to get data from JMX into ganglia fromSsolr," he concludes

So, if you're working in a Java with a bunch of Java apps, think about giving Groovy a chance for writing some of your monitoring tests, and metric collectors. It is a simpler language than Java to put together those little applications that can tell you how your system is performing, and well within the reach of your average DevOps engineer.

DNS for Software Developers

Doug Rathbone's post DevOps DNS for Developers – Now There’s No Excuse Not To Know is intended to help software developers become more familiar with the basics of DNS. This does seem like the sort of article one would except to be associated with the DevOps movement.

The Big Three JVM Languages

The Big Three – Scala, Clojure and Groovy is a blog post with observations about Groovy, Scala, and Clojure seeming to be the most popular JVM languages among Java developers based on two polls (Which alternate JVM language do you prefer? and Which JVM Language Is On Top?). Charles Oliver Nutter has added a feedback comment regarding JRuby being a more popular JVM language when you consider Ruby developers.

Java 7 WatchService

The post What’s New in Java 7: WatchService describes java.nio.file.WatchService and calls the related functionality "one of the more interesting ... new features in Java 7." This is a fairly concise post that quickly introduces the functionality and includes sample code.

Opinions on Rails, Hibernate, Google, JSON's License Agreement, and the Spanish Theory of Management

I started this post with reference to an opinion-oriented post on open source and patents. It seems symmetrically pleasing to close this post with references to other opinion-oriented pieces. Tyler Menezes discusses technical and cultural reasons he won't use Ruby on Rails in the simply titled post I will not learn Rails. James Whittaker provides a articulate and insightful post Why I left Google.

Rob Gordon is "not impressed" with Hibernate 4.1 ease of use. The Dodgy Coder blog ("Never trust a programmer in a suit") includes a post on the "Spanish Theory" of project management.

Brian Fox points out that JSON's license agreement states "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil." Fox further points out that "compliance is impossible" and that "this isn't even open source." He asserts that "this additional clause adds an unnecessary complication" and I tend to agree. The folks in suits are not comfortable with objective statements in the license agreements.

Conclusion

I have summarized and linked to Java-specific and general software development posts of interest in this blog post. The software development industry continues to be ever-changing and full of news.