Felipe Ortiz's Blog

Top Java Releases of 2007

It is that time of year when folks look back at the events that made the year soo memorable. I was reading a nice article regarding the top Java stories of 2007 and I thought I quickly jot down the top Java related development and software releases. Of course, my list might be different than yours so please feel free comment the software you where thankful this past year!

JRuby 1.0
Groovy 1.5
JavaFX Script
NetBeans 6
Eclipse Europa
Spring 2.5
GlassFish V2
AppFuse 2.0.1
GWT 1.4
Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

Top Java Books on Google Books

Here is an good list of top Java books available for preview on Google Books. Google Books provides scans of thousands of textbooks. The scans are not the best, most books have visible scan defects in them.

Even though the scans are not the best, there are some features that just work well. Just like Google Maps, where you can send a link to a map (with a set size, address, etc), with Google Books you can send a link to a specific page in a certain book with specific words highlighted.

Here are some great Java books available from Google Books.

The Java Language Specification
Effective Java Programming language
Java: The complete Reference
Java In A Nutshell
Head First Java

You can also browse for books in other programming languages, too.

The Last JavaOne 2007 Wrap-up

Even though it has been more than a month since JavaOne, I hope you enjoy this blog post here where I list the best of the best at this year's JavaOne. Feel free to contribute your best experience or top moment from JavaOne 2007!

JavaOne Wrap-ups
JavaOne wrap-up, from Gosling
JavaOne 2007 Wrapup, from Javalooby
JavaOne 2007 Wrap-up, Final Thoughts, and Open Questions, from Wolf Paulus
JavaOne 2007 Wrap-up, from Netzooid
JavaOne 2007 Conference Notes, from Juixe

Tips for JavaOne organizers
Allow the speaker to change the which machine (demo or slide) is used for the projector.
Everybody is here for the 'wow' factor, not dry details they could have read when they are at home.
Those that get hit in the head with giveaways should get to keep them.
Make available the PDF slides as soon as the session is over, or that same day.
Make available the PDF slides under a creative commons license.
Make available photographs and video of the conference, under a creative commons license.

Tips for JavaOne participants
Introduce yourself to those near you, you never know who you will meet!
Have plenty of business cards and be generous about passing them out.
There is a secret session, lunch. Talk to those around you.
Join the JCP or start your own project on java.net.
Bring your camera and take pictures of slides.
Do your research, ask questions, enjoy.

Tips for JavaOne speakers
Have giveaway shirts, everybody loves shirts!
Make available your presentation and sample code in your blog.
Recommend sessions that augment your material.

Kewl Projects, Demos, and Links
Xerto Imagery
Spar Framework
Swing-Clarity Framework
NASA World Wind
Project DarkStar
JavaFX Script
Project Wonderland
SwingLabs
Iris - Browse Flickr Photos

Best Swag
Apollo for Adobe Flex Developers Pocket Guide from Adobe
USB drive from GlassFish
T-Shirt from Eclipse
T-Shirt from JBoss

Top Selling Books
Java concurrency in Practice
Core JavaServer Faces
Java Puzzlers
Effective Java Programming Language Guide
Rich client Programming
Here is the official best sellers from the JavaOne Conference Bookstore.

Personal Favorite Session
Extreme GUI Makeover 2007
Being Productive in Swing
JavaFX Script
Why Spaghetti Is Not Tasty
Web 3.0 - This is the Semantic Web

Favorite Quotes
The back button is something that is breaking society.
-- David Wroton, Putting a Swing Front End on a Web Application

Final is the new private.
-- Joshua Bloch, Effective Java Reloaded

Collections API where designed for what is type-safe, not what is sensible.
-- William Pugh, Java Puzzlers

The definition of Hell is working with dates in Java, JDBC, and Oracle. Every single one of them screw it up.
-- Dick Wall, Lunch with the Java Posse

Top Java SE 6 Features

Now that I have had some time to work with Java SE 6, I thought I would share a list what I think are the top features and biggest letdowns.

Scripting
I was sold into scripting the JVM since back in the day when the only scripting option was Jython and BeanShell. Personally I would have preferred if Groovy was the default scripting language that came with Java SE 6. The good thing is that there are plenty of scripting languages that support the new Scripting Framework.

No More Class.forName for JDBC Driver
Java SE 6 does not require you to load the JDBC driver prior to creating a JDBC connection. This only works if the driver is packaged with a certain descriptor in the jar file. This only saves me one line of code, but I would never for the life of remember the name of driver I wanted. So in reality this saves one line of code and one Google search.

System Tray
The system tray goes a long way in developing Java applications that look and behave more like native applications. The system tray was originally part of the JDesktop Integration Components (JDIC). They system tray allows you to add a menu on the user desktop's user tray.

Java Compiler API
In the past I have had to compile Java source at runtime by invoking the the Main class for the javac command. The Java Compiler API provides a solid solution for compiling Java source files or just in-memory Java code.

XML Binding
I cannot stress how useful and powerful XML binding is. XML binding is object serialization using XML. With JAXB as part of the Java SE 6 you don't have to download additional jars and libraries.

JDBC 4.0 Annotations
Early Java 6 builds introduced a BaseQuery interface. You where able to sub-interface the interface and then define get methods and associated annotation with the appropriate select prepared SQL statement. JDBC annotations are a new way of building Data Access Objects (DAO) which looked appealing. I thought this feature was innovative, yet it didn't make the final cut. I was not able to find word if this will be available as a standalone library.

SE 6 on OS X
Another thing that I am not happy with in regards to Java 6 is that I can only use Java 6 on my Windows machine. There seems to be no word from Apple as to when Java SE 6 will be able for OS X. As OS X languishes with Java SE 6 support, Ubuntu has promised to provide a complete Java development stack with Java SE 6, GlassFish, and NetBeans.

I am sure you have your own list of top Java 6 features, and/or disappointments. Please feel free to share them here.