Since Java 6, a mechanism was introduced for Java code to automatically discover “plugin” service implementations for JARs within the classpath.
As well as being used by Java to find XML parsing & Image IO implementations, it’s an interesting mechanism & can be used to make user applications extensible too. Continue reading
Two weeks in Gurgaon engaging with and mentoring the Indian team. An amazing & vibrant country.
Real software sees entities (Customer, File etc) involved in multiple interactions. Simple OO examples model behavior in entity classes directly, but this becomes tangled as behaviors & interactions increase; and results in broken inheritance structures.
Instead of modelling these all in the entity, a more advanced OO approach considers separating behavior from the entity. We’ll consider key principles in this multi-part series. Continue reading
HttpClient has long been popular for implementing outbound HTTP in Java. URL requests, HTTP remoting & service access are all common usecases.
For developers of HTTPS client applications, one scenario is common: wanting to test HTTPS connectivity, without needing a CA-signed certificate on each developer’s local appserver. Continue reading
Oracle 12c’s new feature is pluggable databases (PDBs). This has been introduced to improve support for cloud & multi-tenancy, and keep up with SQL Server. However, our trial found Oracle’s PDBs less than ready for production use. Continue reading
Exception handling in Java is crucial for reliability, but a common source of bloat & prone to miscoding. However, dealing with exceptions correctly can be surprisingly easy.
We cover 10 “foundation” best practices to simplify your coding & help you handle exceptions correctly. Continue reading
Oracle, with lead engineer Brian Goetz, have launched an experimental OpenJDK project to bring long-awaited features to the Java platform.
Major enhancements to generics & new ‘value types’ are planned. Highlights include:
The effort is named Project Valhalla. Here’s a preview: Continue reading
With the move to annotations for use of Spring, many projects have become based on component-scanning, auto-wiring and property-placeholder injection — an ‘implicit’ approach to configuration.
However, it can still be very useful to specify ‘explicit’ configuration. This gives us control of top-level application config & enables extensible configuration using the Strategy pattern.
Gaining control of configuration is crucial to enable per-customer/ per-application customization. Continue reading
Java 8’s ForkJoinPool & parallel streams are receiving some serious attention now. They seem a sophisticated concept to parallelize work, but some are warning of serious limitations.
Edward Harned of CoopSoft, in particular, has analyzed the Fork/Join design implemented in Java. Continue reading
Checked exceptions have always been a controversial feature of the Java language.
Advocates claim they ensure checking & recovery from failures. Detractors say “catch” blocks can almost never recover from an exception, and are a frequent source of mistakes.
Meanwhile, Java 8 and lambdas are here. Are checked exceptions becoming obsolete in the Java world? Continue reading