Marcelo Mayworm's Blog

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Using Maven to remove Chinese Wall during offshore development

I came across several interesting communication glitches in an offshore development software. This project comprises analysis, design, architecture and QA teams who work onshore, while developer teams are working offshore. We faced problems such as communication bottlenecks and lack of awareness of what developers were physically producing. A big part of these problems we got solved through the implementation of a communication plan between the teams. This plan focused on face-to-face interactions and the use of tools like Wiki, IM, Skype, forum and desktop sharing systems.

Motivated by the fact that developers were not present in the same place as the analysis, design, architecture and QA teams, but these teams needed to interact with whatever the developer teams generated(source codes, unit tests, etc.), or in some situations they needed to be aware of situations which involved other group members, we decided to use Maven to provide awareness for these groups that were geographically scattered.

Using Maven site generation was a simple way to make available information on source code projects, where scattered teams could analyze developers’ work and become aware of who they were working with – thus using up-to-date information. Therefore teams of analysis and design, architecture and QA can evaluate source codes and developers tasks (e.g. Unit tests, code analysis, Test coverage) by utilizing the process designed for the project, in addition to aiding the developer teams to verify if they are following code-style, and adopted metrics and executing unit tests(for domain layers and persistence layers, for instance), defect tracking, requirements queue for implementation, Javadocs, and others.

Maven site generation easily provides a site with several project information. The secret consists in adding interesting plug-ins which will generate reports. Some of the plug-ins that I like and consider important to team communication are Javadocs, Unit test, Test coverage, FindBug, PMD/CPD, CheckStyle, Changelog, TaskList, JXR, Developer Activity, FAQ, StatCvs, Dependencies Graph, Metrics(JDepend and Javancss) and specific plug-ins that you can write.

Distance developer software is very challenging, mainly if the subject is awareness between groups. Whenever possible, you need to make source code information available as it is produced, and Maven is a simple way to do this and much more.

The fast way to win a JavaOne pass - Brazilian developers only

NetBeans, SouJava and GlobalCode launched the "Desafio" NetBeans in the last International Marathon 4 Java. Brazilian developers have a chance to win A JavaOne2006 pass, entitling the winner to a free roundtrip airfare to San Francisco with hotel accommodations included. You can participate as an individual or a team. If you choose to participate as a team and you win the first place you will be awarded 3 JavaOne2006 passes, namely 3 free roundtrip airfare to San Francisco with hotel accommodations included.

To qualify, you must devise a novel and original plugin for NetBeans 5.0, good enough to be the chosen one. But it is not all that simple. Some rules apply. So go ahead and check them out at https://desafionetbeans.dev.java.net.

Here are some ideas to inspire you. But watch out cause these plugins may already exist:

• plugin to support LOG4J
• plugin to support Hibernate
• plugin to support Spring
• plugin to support UML
• plugin to support Maven
• plugin to support JXTA
• etc....

You must submit your plugin idea ASAP(deadline is 12/20), because this challenge promises to be great!

If you are a Brazilian developer please don't miss the boat. Face this challenge head on at https://desafionetbeans.dev.java.net.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.