Java Programming

Moving to Wordpress

2011-05-06T15:30:00.001-07:00

I'm consolidating most of my blogs and moving them to Wordpress. You can catch my new blog posts here:

www.redefinedhorizonsblog.com.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Setting Up SWT Development on 64-Bit Windows

2011-01-25T16:18:00.000-08:00

I've been tinkering with Eclipse RCP programming. I'd like to build a program for managing SurveyLISP modules using Eclipse RCP or maybe Netbeans RCP. The first thing I started work on after getting simple RCP skeleton together, was how to set-up a tree browser for modules using SWT and JFace. It took me a while to get Eclipse set-up to properly run SWT code on 64-Bit Windows.

Here are some suggestions that might help others attempting to do the same thing:

- To use a tree viewer you need both SWT and JFace. You can download SWT as a stand-alone library, but you need to steal the JAR files for JFace from an Eclipse installation. Check out the JFace page at Eclipsepedia for the list of JAR files you need to import into your Eclipse project to run JFace code.

- I couldn't find an easy option to download a 64-Bit package for SWT that would work on Windows. There was only a link for the 32-bit SWT library for Windows on the SWT downloads page. However, I did a little url hacking and found the 64-bit package was available on this web page. Download this file and add it to your Eclipse project's build path.

I hope that can help some other poor programmer trying to get started with SWT and JFace on a Windows 64 Bit computer.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Good Article on Source Code Comments

2011-01-07T09:19:00.000-08:00

Visual Studio Magazine has a good article on if programmers should use source code comments. I believe the article presents a concise summary of the source code commenting debate. The article is written for Visual Basic programmers, but I thought it was applicable to any number of other programming languages.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Magazines from The Pragmatic Bookshelf

2011-01-06T13:45:00.000-08:00

I found a monthly programming magazine from the Pragmatic Bookshelf recently. I just got done skimming the magazine for January. It appears to have some good conent, and an appealing graphical design. I commend the publisher for putting together a high-quality free magazine for programmers.

I wanted to share the link to the magazine with my blog readers. I hope you will enjoy the magazines.

The Sunburned Surveyor

The Specification Design Pattern

2010-12-10T08:24:00.000-08:00

The Code Project has a series of articles that discuss, and show how to implement, the specification design pattern.

I thought the articles were an excellent resource on a design pattern I had never heard about or conciously used in my own code. The articles are written for Visual Basic .Net programmers, but I know the specification design pattern can also be applied in Java programming. I hope to use it in my own Java code when appropriate.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Russia Looses 3 GLONASS Satellites in Pacific

2010-12-08T11:06:00.000-08:00

GPS World has reported that Russsia lost 3 GLONASS satellites in the Pacfic ocean when a launch when bad on Sunday Deceber 5, 2010.

Apparently the glitch as caused by bad data loaded into the software that controlled the rockets used to power the satellites into orbit.

That was an expensive programming mistake. Software testing anyone?

The Sunburned Surveyor

Setting Up a Fallback Font In Java

2010-12-03T16:38:00.000-08:00

One of the OpenJUMP programmer's posted a link on the Jump Pilot Project Development mailing list today. The link is to an article that talks about setting a fallback font in Java. The article looked like it could be helpful to other Java programmers that work with internationalization, so I wanted to post the link here.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Consequence of the Oracle Takeover of Sun: LibreOffice?

2010-11-12T15:07:00.000-08:00

I just stumbled upon LibreOffice. It's basically a fork of OpenOffice that is being run by a non-profit foundation. It looks like Oracle has had some trouble making lots of new friends.

I'll have to download LibreOffice and give it a spin. Maybe it will replace OpenOffice as my desktop office suite.

The H Online has an article that talks about the LibreOffice project for those of you that are interested.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Apple Not Killing Java on the Mac

2010-11-12T15:02:00.001-08:00

It looks like Apple changed its mind about killing Java on the Mac, at least according to a press release from Apple that came out today.

According to the press release Oracle and Apple will be working together on a Java Standard Edition 7 implementation of the OpenJDK for the Mac.

The Sunburned Surveyor

IBM Borrowing From Apache Harmony Project for Its Own JVM

2010-11-12T14:58:00.000-08:00

JavaWorld reported in June of 2009 that IBM has been borrowing components from the Apache Harmony Project for its own JVM. I wonder how this dynamic will change, and what will happen to that code, know that IBM has decided to join Oracle on the OpenJDK project.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Apple Killing Java on the Mac

2010-11-12T14:54:00.000-08:00

In an effort to exert even more control over their products, Application Development Trends reports that Apple is killing the future of Java on the Mac. This move makes me wonder if the only code that you'll be able to use on an Apple computer for a desktop application is Objective-C.

I had toyed with the idea of buying a Mac, but not anymore. It's sad that Mac users won't have access to a lot of the open source applications that are written in Java, like OpenJUMP.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Scary Times In Java Land? Sounds like it...

2010-11-12T14:47:00.000-08:00

Application Development Trends has a recent post on some of the changes that may the future of Java as a good programming language for open source programmers look more than a little shaky. This includes a decision by Apple to basically kill Java on the Mac. This is a major bummer, especially since I know some OpenJUMP users run on a Mac. (OpenJUMP is an open source desktop GIS program that I contribute to written in Java.)

The Sunburned Surveyor

Apache Set to Battle Oracle

2010-11-12T14:17:00.000-08:00

Application Development Trends reports the Apache Foundations plans to battle Oracle after Oracle announced that it would basically abandon the Apache Harmony Project and work with IBM on the OpenJDK Project. The Apache Software Foundation has raised some serious questions about how Oracle will handle the Java Community Process and is set to battle Oracle. They're really ticked that Oracle is putting license restrictions on the test-suite needed to verify that Apache Harmony is a legitimate Java Virtual Machine.

It will be interesting to see how the Oracle takeover of Sun will impact Java as these things play out. In the meantime, I'm going to take a peek and see if there is a good way to contribute to the Apache Harmony Project.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Free and Premium JDKs?

2010-11-12T14:08:00.001-08:00

A recent post on Application Development Trends indicates that Oracle is going to be maintaining two JDKs in the near future. One will be free, and the second "premium" version will cost money.

You can definitely see Oracle's intent to make some money on Java in this move. My concerns as a Java programmer are what limitations will be placed on the "free" JVM. Will these limitations mean the exclusion of high-end fancy programming tools, or something more critical (like the speed at which a Java program will execute)?

In the end, if Oracle handles this poorly, I can see the "lower class" Java programming citizens like myself that can't afford a premium JVM migrating to another open source programming language like Python that doesn't have the class distinctions. At the end of the day, if programmers like me are not spending any money, Oracle probably won't care. But it will be a sad thing for the Java programming community to loose skilled Java programmers without a massive software development budget.

The Sunburned Surveyor

IBM Moving From Apache Harmony to OpenJDK?

2010-10-26T08:53:00.000-07:00

It sounds like IBM may be joining forces with Oracle on the OpenJDK project, instead of continuing work on the Apache Harmony Project. There is an article about this IBM migration to the OpenJDK Project on the SD Times web site.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Effective Java Exceptions

2010-10-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

Martin Davis recently responded to a question about the use of exceptions in the Java Topology Suite. This led me to an article on how to effectively use exceptions and something known as a "fault barrier". I wanted to share a link to this article, entitled "Effective Java Exceptions".

The Sunburned Surveyor

An Article Introducing Behavior Driven Development

2010-08-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

I recently read an article introducing Behavior Driven Development, which is a form or extension of test driven development.

I'm not a full test driven development programmer, but I do a lot of testing in my code and I think it is very important. I'm not fully sold on behavior driven development after reading the article, but I think it has some interesting concepts. I thought the article was worth sharing.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Bratz Versus Barbies: Inventions Versis Ideas

2010-07-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

Techdirt has an article about a recent court decision in a dispute between the maker of Bratz Dolls and Barbie Dolls. The case is interesting for software developers because it (1) talks about the differences between ideas and inventions, and (2) clarifies what type of things can be copyrighted.

The article includes a link to the actual court case.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Open Source Medicines?

2010-07-20T16:50:00.000-07:00

Could medicines be developed using a model adopted from open source software? The June 19th to 25th, 2010 issue of the Economist Magazine had an article entitled “Marathon Man” about drugs that might be developed, at least in part, based on our knowledge of the human genome. Under the subheading “Fair Shares” the article discusses a model for collaboration among drug companies that shares similarities with the open source software development model. Here is the content from the article that caught my eye:

Dr. Golub has a suggestion to break the impasse. Independent laboratories like the Broad could act as honest brokers for general research paid for by a cabal of drug companies. Having paid equally, all would benefit equally. This being basic research, openly published, such collaboration would probably be permitted under antitrust laws. Something similar was tried at the beginning of the SNP studies (though admittedly those have not yet led to much medicine). At the moment the drug firms do not seem interested. Perhaps that will change as their pipelines empty.

It seems like an open source approach to developing drugs would be an oxymoron, considering the way drug companies rely on patents. Still, it seems this approach could eliminate duplicated research and testing, while reducing drug development costs.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Basic Procedure for Designing Modular Desktop Applications in an Object Oriented Programming Language

2010-06-29T14:28:00.000-07:00

Basic Procedure for Object Oriented Application Design

I had a few minutes with a notepad yesterday, so I decided to scribble some notes on the basic procedure a programmer could follow to implement a modular desktop application in an object-oriented programming language like Java. I wanted to preserve the basic procedure that I scribbled down. Before I provide the procedure, let me describe how I organize a typical desktop application.

Each modular desktop application has three (3) main parts. The data model, the core functions that operate on the data model (provided by plug-ins), and the application framework. The application framework provides the display of the main GUI (parent window and menu bar), plug-in management, and manages the application lifecycle. The application framework may also provide services to plug-ins like user help facilities, security, configuration facilities, and input/output services, and shared memory. In a stripped down application framework these services may be implemented by plug-ins instead.

Here is my procedure for the development of a modular desktop application in an object-oriented programming language like Java:

(1) Design the data model. Start with the simplest objects in your data model first. These are objects that contain only primitive data types (like int or boolean) or built-in objects (like String or BigDecimal). They do not typically contain references to other objects. These simple objects often represent “value objects” without a lot of complex behavior or state.

(2) Design the core functions of your program. You aren’t designing the actual plug-in objects in this phase, but the underlying code they will execute. Organize methods used by more than on core function into a common library that the application will depend on.

(3) Design the application framework. Once you’ve completed this task for one desktop application you should have a framework you can reuse for other applications. This will greatly reduce application development time.

(4) Design the plug-ins that wrap the core functions designed in the second step and make them available from within the completed application.

Here is my related procedure for creating the objects that will make up the application:

(1) Define the method signatures (but not the method bodies).

(2) Look for interfaces in the defined method signatures and extract them.

(3) Define the member variables needed to store the state of the object.

(4) Implement the method bodies. Start with the methods that represent the core functionality of the object first. Finish with the “standard” methods like constructors, copy constructors, methods for comparison, and toString method implementations.

(5) Add any documentation comments not added during the previous steps.

(6) Begin unit testing.

(7) Begin system testing your object to verify its operation with related objects in your application.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Open Source Software At Nasa

2010-05-07T14:55:00.000-07:00

Government Computer Network has an interesting article about open source software at NASA. It is worth a quick read if you like to follow the use of open source software in government.
The Sunburned Surveyor

The Relationship Between Heap Size and Garbage Collection Pauses

2010-04-28T12:16:00.000-07:00

InfoQ has an interesting article that talks about the relationship between the size of the heap (memory) in a Java program and how long it takes the garbage collector in Java to run. The article also mentions some developments to make the garbage collector run more consistently (at regular intervals and for the same periods of time). I imagine that long and seeminly random garbage collector pauses could make performance testing a nightmare.

Interestingly, the article describes a company (Azul Systems) that has designed a solution to this problem that relies on hardware design (not software).

I think some of this would be applicable to geospatial applications like OpenJUMP, which often load large amounts of spatial data into memory.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Java Libraries and the LGPL

2010-04-12T16:53:00.000-07:00

I recently ran across this article that talks about the use of the LGPL with Java libraries. It is an interesting discussion for Java programmers interested in open source software, so I thought I would post a link to it here:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-java.html

The Sunburned Surveyor

Swing GUIs: Validation of User Input

2010-01-11T11:25:00.000-08:00

I've been researching the open source libraries or frameworks available for validation of user input collected with a Swing GUI. There is a framwork from JGoodies, but the documentation looked a little sparse. I also bumped into this article, which works with the Swing InputVerifier. I wanted to share it:

http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/t20551.html

Here is a related article on working with the component focus API in Swing:

http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/misc/focus.html

The Sunburned Surveyor

Testing Swing Code With The Humbe Dialog Box Pattern

2009-11-17T10:46:00.000-08:00

I recently bought a copy of Manning's book "Test Driven" by Lasse Koskela. I've been reading it at night before I go to bed. This book is quickly rising to the top of my favorite Java programming books. I'm certainly test infected, and this book tackles some critical testing topics for the advanced or intermediate Java programmer.

One of my favorite sections of the book deals with testing Swing GUIs in Java programs. I wanted to send some of the information in the book to one of the Geotools programmers working on Swing code for that library, but I thought I would post it here for everyone instead.

The section of the book on Swing talks about the "Hubmle Dialog Box Pattern". I think this is a very powerful design pattern for testing Swing. Here are some links I found about the pattern and related topics online:

http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/articles/129546.aspx
http://www.martinfowler.com/eaaDev/SupervisingPresenter.html
http://www.martinfowler.com/eaaDev/PassiveScreen.html
http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/articles/TheHumbleDialogBox.pdf

I hope you find this information as useful as I did in your Swing programming.

The Sunburned Surveyor

P.S. - But the "Test Driven" book. It is worth the price!

Department of Defense Clarifying Policy on FOSS

2009-10-29T16:57:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting memo from the United States Department of Defense that clarifies their policy on FOSS.

This link originally came across the OSGeo Discussion mailing list.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Java Library For Camera RAW Files

2009-10-12T13:06:00.000-07:00

I ran across this web site for an open source library written in Java that can be used to edit RAW files:

http://jrawio.tidalwave.it/

RAW files are usually proprietary file formats from camera manafacturers that are processed by proprietary software and then converted to more standard image file formats. Working directly with the raw files has some advantags, as files in this format usually carry more data than the standard image files.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Understanding Patent Applications

2009-09-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

I recently found an article online that explains how to read patent applications. The article isn't for any specific country, or specifically for software, but it might be useful for reviewing patents related to software or geospatial applications. There is a link to the PDF copy of the article below:

How To Read A Patent Specification (By Vivien Irish)

Let me know if you have other good resources on this topic.

The Sunburned Surveyor

UK Government Backs Open Source

2009-08-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

Bob Bruce just posted a link to this article on the OSGeo discussions list. It talks about the United Kigndom's decision to use open source software when its a good fit.

It will be interesting to see how this policy is implemented, and if it has any influence on the polocies of other nations.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Using the GPL for Open Source Libraries

2009-08-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

There is an article up on gnu.org that makes the case for promoting the use of the GPL for open source programming libraries. The GPL is my favorite open source license, since I don't have to worry about working with a bunch of commericial software.

Here is a link to the article.

10 Tips For Publishing Open Source Libraries

2009-08-18T12:12:00.000-07:00

JavaLobby has an article I enjoyed that lists 10 tips for publishing open source libraries in Java. It doesn’t take long to read and has some good information.

The only point I don’t tip I don’t agree with is number 3, which recommends avoiding the GPL when you license your library. I’m partial to the GPL myself.

You can read the article here.

The Sunburned Surveyor

Introduction To "Just Enuf Java"

2009-08-04T14:12:00.000-07:00

I work as a volunteer programmer on OpenJUMP, an open source desktop GIS (or computer mapping) program written in Java. I used to write posts about general Java programming topics to my OpenJUMP blog. I decided to separate those posts from this point forward and to post them on this blog instead. I hope this will make the reading more interesting for hobby programmers working with Java that may not necessarily be interested in OpenJUMP. It will also allow my OpenJUMP blog to be more focused.

The Sunburned Surveyor