Konstantin I. Boudnik's Blog: May 2006 Archive

Posted by cos on May 20, 2006 at 12:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hello there!

Last week happened to be quite busy for many Java developers, activists, and supporters. JavaOne 2006 conference had a lot of interesting pods, booths, talks and other kinds of presentations. A leading development companies were bringing their innovations to share the knowledge and expertise in the field.

I won't reiterate the same things you perhaps heard already: you can find them here or custom one from our SPB team (in Russian)

Among other great things there was one which firstly hit a crowd of attendees of Netbeans conference (there were a few very interesting talks, especially on my lately favorite topic - Java ME development and tools; I'll talk about this more next time) and then it'd been brought to the wider audience of JavaOne Day One's keynotes. Right, I'm talking about bringing Java to open source. I think, that has been expected for a long time and I guess that this will bring some new blood into Java platform around the world.

Ok, it's all hunky dory and rosy then. But also it brings some concerns. Java platform is big and complicated application. It has core things, like VM, libraries, a platform depending code, backward compatibility promises, etc. Besides, Java community has to make sure, that the quality of the platform won't suffer from this move.

I'm a strong believer of the following approach: if a standardized technology is getting available for a community, then the testing methodology has to accompany it as well. The only requirement ought to be attached: test suites should pass. This will help to keep proper level of compatibility, avoid unnecessary branching, and let participants to keep better grip over the development process. Doesn't sound too open to you? Great, share your thoughts with us.

However, any testing methodology assumes some frameworks to execute the tests. E.g. Junit is required for unit tests; JCK suite has to be passed under JavaTest for a JDK's certification, etc. So, the same is true in our case: we need to supply the testing frameworks.

It sounds like Sun has to bring some chunks of the quality infrastructure along. Does anyone get surprised, that I'm talking about Java quality again :-)? Back then I'd mentioned some choices of the testing tools. David Herron'd added more details on that topic. As the major contributor to the DTF for the last few years, I want to see the project moving ahead and not getting accidently abandoned. This scheduling framework can save a lot of valuable engineering time (thus money) for any java development/testing team.

Another great tool, which will be nicely going along with DTF is our internal test harness called Tonga. DTF and Tonga are getting together very well. In fact, they were designed and implemented with quite an awareness of each other. This couple makes a great yet very flexible and efficient testing infrastructure.

Obviously, we have a lot of other interesting in-house solutions, which, I'm sure, would be a real value-add for the community. For instance, our Java coverage framework, creatively called jcov, test results processing and reporting tools, et cetera.

I'm not a lawyer or any of the high-flying Java execs, so don't take my word to a court :-) However, I'd be pushing for this tools open sourcing approach enthusiastically and will keep you posted on the progress.

Take care,
Cos

Lost in translation

Posted by cos on May 12, 2006 at 03:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Недавно разглядывал газетку "Известия" - была такая уважаемая в советские времена газета. Почему была? Да потому что уважаемой я ее назвать больше не могу. Причин тому было несколько, последняя переполнила чашу моего терпения...

В переводе статьи о прогнозах Уоррена Баффетта (http://www.izvestia.ru/economic/article3092694/) автор перевел вот такую фразу "...an industry leader in the metal cutting tools business..." вот таким вот образом "...компания по производству лезвий из тяжелых металлов для кухонной промышленности..."

Это будет покруче "pure virgin wool" как "шерсти непорочной девственицы"

Круто, японцы просто отдыхают

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