Articles

Ruling Out: Rule Engines and Declarative Programming Come to Java
Rule engines and declarative programming offer a markedly different style of programming, one that's particularly well-suited to certain kinds of applications. N. Alex Rupp kicks off his "Ruling Out" column with an introduction to the rule engine JSR and how this technology can be used. Aug. 19, 2004

The WARS Architectural Style
In December, N. Alex Rupp tore down the idea of MVC as a design pattern for servlet architectures. Now, as an alternative, he offers Workflow, Action, Representation and State, or WARS. Jan. 27, 2004

Beyond MVC: A New Look at the Servlet Infrastructure
Model-View-Controller (MVC) is a foundation of GUI design, but is it the right design for servlets? N. Alex Rupp argues that it has become an antipattern that needs to be laid to rest. Dec. 11, 2003

Multithreaded Tests with JUnit
JUnit is the glue that holds many open source projects together. But JUnit has problems performing multithreaded unit tests. This article introduces a JUnit extension library designed to enable multithreaded unit testing in JUnit. Aug. 6, 2003

Weblogs

Final Entry: Revisiting My First Assumption: This will be my last blog entry in this space. Reexamining assumptions made in first entry, jotting down some closing thoughts, and laying some clues as to what follows.
Posted by n_alex on November 06, 2005 at 22:56 PST | Permalink | Discuss (0)  

Looking for a home for my SnipSnap: It's nearly impossible to find the "perfect fit" for Java web hosting. All kinds of hosting companies provide "Java support", but they charge too much for WAY too little, and the important features are all wrong. So, I put the question before the public: if a guy were looking to host a SnipSnap on Tomcat and have his own JVM, where's the best place to do this?
Posted by n_alex on August 26, 2005 at 13:13 PST | Permalink | Discuss (11)  

New tool for writing Domain Specific Languages in Drools: When I started working on Drools in January of 2004, my goal was to eventually be able to embed Drools in a web-framework-turned-action-sequencer I was working on, called Shocks. Two weeks ago, to my complete astonishment, I realized I'd implemented the complete inverse of my original idea--and much more.
Posted by n_alex on July 11, 2005 at 12:18 PST | Permalink | Discuss (4)  

Software Language Makes First Step Towards AI? Hardly.: I caught an odd story on news.softpedia.com this evening about how ISO 18629 is going to grant computer programs the ability to reason. Don't buy the hype--it's bad reporting, and I'll tell you why.
Posted by n_alex on June 20, 2005 at 00:02 PST | Permalink | Discuss (4)  

JPOX 1.1.0-beta-3 in Maven: I've been interested in JDO technology for a good year now, and I've begun reapproaching JPOX, which my friend Dion showed me last year. As far as Open Source JDO implementations go, it's supposed to be great. I did run into a few problems while trying to get it running in maven, though. Here are some notes.
Posted by n_alex on June 02, 2005 at 09:09 PST | Permalink | Discuss (7)  

Twin Cities IASA chapter presents "Interop City" event: The Minnesota chapter of the International Association of Software Architects is co-hosting an "Interop City" event on May 31st at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. The event will feature a day of presentations, demonstrations, and dialog on .NET and J2EE interoperability. Interop City is a unique event based on a grass roots initiative. Following is the relevant portion of the event description from MN-IASA's president, Mr. Krzysztof Karski
Posted by n_alex on May 24, 2005 at 17:37 PST | Permalink | Discuss (0)  

Notes towards an Open Source Java privacy/security/repair suite: After scouring the internet for traces of an Open Source Java toolkit capable of scouring virus and spyware habitat on a Windows machine, I've concluded that more development needs to be done in basic infrastructure utilities before a full-fledged Java privacy/security/repair suite can be written. My research notes begin with index.dat.
Posted by n_alex on March 28, 2005 at 08:09 PST | Permalink | Discuss (9)  

Beating Back The Spyrus Blooms: One aspect of the web that Java doesn't really seem to intersect with is virus and spyware combat. I think it's one of our lesser-toted privileges. Nevertheless, it's what I do with the majority of my waking life this winter. Combatting spyrus blooms, IRC botnets, scraping barnacles off of the hulls of old XP machines, and training an army of electromechanical crime fighters who can peel spyruses out of a machine faster than any antivirus software can.
Posted by n_alex on January 14, 2005 at 08:10 PST | Permalink | Discuss (4)  

Mark Proctor added Drools DRL schema to CVS today!: Mark Proctor, the Drools project's most energetic developer, has uploaded the long-awaited XSD files for the many flavors of DRL syntax. This will allow new developers to validate their DRL files and further reduce the overall headache of learning DRL. A hundred thousand thanks to Mark Proctor!
Posted by n_alex on September 14, 2004 at 14:22 PST | Permalink | Discuss (1)  

Drools is 100% JSR-94 compliant and an order of magnitude faster!: Great news! Drools, the Open Source dynamic rule engine at the Codehaus, is 100% JSR94 compliant.
Posted by n_alex on July 28, 2004 at 04:52 PST | Permalink | Discuss (7)  

TC IASA presents "The Secrets of ROI for Software Architects" by Cris Ross: Interested in Software Architecture? Twin Cities resident? On Monday, August 16th 2004 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM, Cris Ross, CIO of United Behavioral Health will be delivering a presentation on "The Secrets of ROI for Architects" for the Twin Cities Chapter of the International Association of Software Architects (TC-IASA). The meeting'll be hosted by Intertech Training in Eagan, MN.
Posted by n_alex on July 23, 2004 at 06:44 PST | Permalink | Discuss (0)  

My high school buddy got b0rked out of his GI Bill: Yes, there is a world outside of Java. And in that world, my best friend from High School got B0RKED out of his GI Bill after serving four years in the Marine Corps. He's trying to go to school to study UI design, and was one of the smartest computer guys I knew when I was a kid. A news station from Minneapolis picked up the story (see the link), so I thought I'd blog it for good measure.
Posted by n_alex on July 08, 2004 at 07:02 PST | Permalink | Discuss (4)  

Approaching Architecture: It's begun to dawn on me how little is actually understood about software architecture. What is it? Where did it come from? Where's it going? As a software developer, why should you be concerned with software architecture? I can't answer all these questions but at least I can offer a starting point for Java developers interested in learning more about software architecture.
Posted by n_alex on July 07, 2004 at 07:36 PST | Permalink | Discuss (4)  

I landed my dream job: Open Technology Systems: I just landed my dream job as a developer and consultant working with a small Open Source consulting business called Open Technology Systems. I get to work with Open Source technology in a company dedicated to our movement and help them build solutions for small and midsized companies in the local community. I can't think of a more perfect job.
Posted by n_alex on June 21, 2004 at 12:07 PST | Permalink | Discuss (4)  

Unit Testing EJBs: Everyone knows you can't easily write unit tests for EJB components. Or can you? I just wrote an article on testing EJBs in-container, and if you work with EJB technology you might want to take a look at it. A lot of the complaints about EJBs have focused on how difficult they are to unit test, and frameworks have begun to spring up that simulate the EJB container and server environments for testing purposes. I've recently stumbled upon a technology that has given me a very compelling reason to reconsider my EJB unit testing strategy.
Posted by n_alex on June 11, 2004 at 15:29 PST | Permalink | Discuss (0)  

TechEd 2004, Day 04: So far I've discussed some cultural conflicts, differences in vision and how the Java and Microsoft communities differ in their relation to small clients, small vendors and the Open Source community. Today I'm going to divert a bit from this track and discuss a family of architectural principles I learned at TechEd, and how I think they might help J2EE architects and software developers continue to improve their productivity.
Posted by n_alex on May 27, 2004 at 22:33 PST | Permalink | Discuss (1)  

TechEd 2004, Day 03: Today I look into how the .NET and Java communities differ on their approach to and support of Open Standards and how Open Source fits in the big picture.
Posted by n_alex on May 27, 2004 at 21:15 PST | Permalink | Discuss (1)  

TechEd 2004, Day 02: Day two of TechEd 2004 began with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's keynote address, and marked my reentrance into the world of Microsoft web development technologies. I'm still slightly reeling from culture shock, but day two of the conference reaffirmed my belief in the Java platform and the need for enterprise-scale systems. Today I began to encounter more of the division between the .NET and Java developer cultures. Also, I ran into deep misunderstandings about the nature of Open Source and how it differs from Free Software. I'll stub out my thoughts on these areas, and then probably return to them in the days and weeks to come.
Posted by n_alex on May 24, 2004 at 21:24 PST | Permalink | Discuss (9)  

TechEd 2004, Day 01: After a fairly grueling morning of plane-hopping, I arrived in sunny San Diego for the Microsoft TechEd 2004 conference. Here are some of the observations from my first day of immersion in the .NET user community.
Posted by n_alex on May 23, 2004 at 23:11 PST | Permalink | Discuss (3)  

What about a Shockwave Community Process?: What if there were a Shockwave Community Process, so that Macromedia could extend the same invitation to the industry at large to participate in the future of Shockwave that Sun has extended with regards to Java?
Posted by n_alex on May 21, 2004 at 12:31 PST | Permalink | Discuss (0)  

Conference Season: It's conference season. All winter we tinker in our little labs, bent over our laptops like overgrown, caffeine-saturated gnomes, coke-bottle classes beaded up with perspiration as we hack away at our latest and greatest JSR implementation or pet project. And then, before we know it, the cherry trees are in bloom on the boulevards, and we find ourselves scurrying around in anticipation of the almighty Conference. Printing up cheap business cards at Kinko's and pecking away at travel sites in search of hotel discounts, do we ever stop to consider how much we resemble cicadas? These thoughts and more have crossed my mind this week, as I prepare for the biggest conference I'll attend all year. But it's not JavaOne. This year I'm not going to JavaOne. I'm going to Microsoft's TechEd.
Posted by n_alex on May 21, 2004 at 12:02 PST | Permalink | Discuss (4)  

Open Source Flex alternatives require broad industry support: "The possibility of creating an XML-driven, Flash-based, online product configurator would be virtually impossible without Flex.”--Macromedia spokesperson
Posted by n_alex on May 18, 2004 at 12:36 PST | Permalink | Discuss (9)  

Apache Geronimo milestone release: According to its developers, a milestone release of the Apache Geronimo server is tagged in CVS and awaiting binary release by the ASF. But don't get too excited about it just yet--the release is for earlybirds and hackers.
Posted by n_alex on April 28, 2004 at 11:31 PST | Permalink | Discuss (4)  

Please pass the StringBeans -- IoC-3 Components and String Dependencies: When working with Picocontainer and Inversion of Control type 3 (IoC-3) component techniques inside of Shocks, I ran across an odd problem with Java Strings.
Posted by n_alex on April 28, 2004 at 11:21 PST | Permalink | Discuss (12)  

Dear Alex, tell me the future: Recently, a fellow Minneapolitan wrote me and asked about the future of the American programmer. I'm a far cry from the Delphic Oracle, but I gave it a shot anyhow.
Posted by n_alex on January 31, 2004 at 14:07 PST | Permalink | Discuss (5)  

Writing software is like driving a bus.: First thing's first. If you want to do it, you have to keep your ass in the seat.
Posted by n_alex on January 27, 2004 at 15:25 PST | Permalink | Discuss (2)  

I finally get IoC-3: Or "dependency injection", if you want to call it that. I've been working with some testing code for the last several days and I had to do a bunch of funky constructor calls, then it struck me what the whole IoC-3 thing was all about.
Posted by n_alex on January 27, 2004 at 14:37 PST | Permalink | Discuss (2)  

Open Source UI framework comparable to Lazlo: Lazlo is a 100% Java rich client development framework that uses Macromedia Flash on the front-end. For a long time I've considered ways the Open Source development community could build development suite for Java that could take advantage of the incredible flexibility and power of Flash on the front end. Here are some of my thoughts on why and how this could be accomplished.
Posted by n_alex on December 10, 2003 at 09:56 PST | Permalink | Discuss (6)  

Why I won't move my projects to Apache: There's an ongoing discussion at the Geronimo developer list about how to successfully grow the committer base. I host a handful of projects on the periphery of Geronimo--software intended for contribution to the Geronimo project, but developed and managed independently at SourceForge. Here is a copy of my email to one of the members of the project PMC defining my motivations.
Posted by n_alex on November 22, 2003 at 11:05 PST | Permalink | Discuss (2)  

Government (as it would be expressed in Java): If I were to write a high level object to represent government in Java, what would it look like?
Posted by n_alex on November 06, 2003 at 15:54 PST | Permalink | Discuss (2)  

Author Praises the Die-Hard Spirit of Silicon Valley Culture in Radio Broadcast: In an online radio broadcast this afternoon, the well known author and journalist William Greider gives a glowing appraisal of the software engineering culture of Silicon Valley, highlighting the strength and spirit of our community and how it might contain the keys to turn around our flagging society.
Posted by n_alex on October 25, 2003 at 13:49 PST | Permalink | Discuss (2)  

The Death of a Titan: I worked once for a gargantuan international IT corporation, and I remember the day it all came crashing to the ground and took my dreams with it. Here are some thoughts about what happened and how I've managed to put the pieces back together.
Posted by n_alex on October 25, 2003 at 12:17 PST | Permalink | Discuss (3)  

On Branding and Copyright--Open Source For Entrepreneurs: If you look into the Open Source business realm you'll see patterns emerging between and within certain companies relating to their brands and their licenses. Here are some licensing and branding tips for Open Source Entrepeneurs entering the market.
Posted by n_alex on October 21, 2003 at 18:46 PST | Permalink | Discuss (2)  

Apache Geronimo is releasing a "State of the Project" announcement tomorrow.: The Apache Geronimo Project is planning to send out a "State of the Project" announcement tomorrow morning (US time). These are just some of my thoughts on the project's first month.
Posted by n_alex on September 04, 2003 at 20:12 PST | Permalink | Discuss (6)  

File under "Stupid Idea": A Non-Military Open Source License: What a stupid idea! We don't need more restrictive licenses to prevent people from misusing our software. We just need better access to timely information so we can better make decisions for ourselves and help our leaders do the same.
Posted by n_alex on August 21, 2003 at 11:59 PST | Permalink | Discuss (2)  

Total Government Awareness, Software and Ethics: The MIT Media Lab's "Computing Culture Group" is a "research unit aimed at providing technologies that derive from values and motivations different than those usually held by technologists." The Open Source Initiative claims that ethics have no place in software or in technology. It appears not everyone agrees with them. Does ethics play a role in software development or computer science? I assert that it does.
Posted by n_alex on August 20, 2003 at 11:02 PST | Permalink | Discuss (10)  

Computer Science is Philosophy: Computer Science has about as much to do with Computers as Astronomy has to do with Telescopes.
Posted by n_alex on August 09, 2003 at 09:51 PST | Permalink | Discuss (2)