Time for Java developers. This week I’ve choosen a group of links about Java Server Faces.

I’ve never done anything in JSF and read nothing about it, this is the reason I want to get the links and save for futures developments.

• Introducing Java Server Faces
• To JSF or not to JSF…
• A collection of links to JSF 2.0 resources

Another link I want to save is about Dependency Injection:

• 3 questions about Dependency Injection

And the last group of links is about code quality:

• Doing it wrong: getters and setters
• Top ten errors java programmers make
• Less code == Less errors
• Rethinking the traditional DAO pattern
• How to ensure code quality

Here we come with the dZone weekly links:

• Use Hibernate Validators to find Nasty DataTruncation exceptions
• Hibernate - Dynamic Table Routing
• Hibernate - Tuning queries using paging, batch size and fetch joins
• Setup web application using Spring, Struts 2 and Maven
• Introducing Inject4Spring
• What is the big Deal with Flex?
• How To install, Compile, Run Java On iPhone

Hi!

This is the first post of a new group where I pretend to share with us a couple of links I’ve found interesting in dZone.

In this post I’ll put all the links I have as interesting in my bookmarks, but the next posts will be weekly and I don’t assure you I’ll have posts every week

So, stop talking and let’s post the links:

• Free Java Tutorial Collection
  
• Introduction to Java Concurrency / Multithreading
• Spring Dependencies
• Integrate Flex with Spring Framework
• Using Dependancy Injection to Avoid Singletons
• An A-Z Guide to Being an Architect
• A Better Way to Iterate JavaMaps
• Hibernate: Understanding Lazy Fetching

My software update gives me an impressive notice, Java for Mac OS has an update and adds support for Java 6 SE, as the document in apple says, this version doesn’t change the default version of Java which continue being the 1.5 version.

It’s a great notice for Java developers but I think Apple has been a bit late but as we say in Spain, better late than never

Sun Microsystems announced days ago they’re working to bring Java to the iPhone after the release of the new firmware 2.0, this is late June.

Sun wants to put their JVM with the Micro Editio (ME) as many of mobile phones comes with, but it’s a good idea? We must think about it as Alex Blewitt did in his entry. He exposed a lot of reasons why Sun can’t and should no bring Java to the iPhone.

Basically there are legal reasons because Sun can’t bring Java, Apple doesn’t allow the execution of third party code and any interpreter except iPhone’s.

The other reasons he exposed are based on the no need, iPhone doesn’t need Java applications, who wants it? who wants it having cocoa applications? And I add, who wants the slow Java applications, and who wants the memory eater Java applications?

I’m sure a lot of people thinks the same, meanwhile Apple haven’t say anything about that.

As I posted before I want to get the Sun Certified Programmer for Java 5, and I started buying from eBay the study guide, so today the book has arrived from Cork, Ireland in a perfect condition and seems to be new.

The contents at a glance are:

1. Declarations and Access Control
2. Object Orientation
3. Assignments
4. Operators
5. Flow Control, Exceptions, and Assertions
6. Strings, I/O, Formatting, and Parsing
7. Generics and Collections
8. Inner Classes
9. Threads
10. Development

As first sight the contents are not very complex, some Java basics but I’ll pay attention to the point 7, Generics and Collections because I have never worked with generics, in the last work we used the version 1.4.2 of Java and that versions doesn’t have generics but I know the theory and the use. The rest of the content doesn’t seem to be very hard but the tools which helps us to program our applications like IDE’s masks the basics of Java and I forget it a lot of times… So I think this exam will be a great opportunity to refresh this knowledge and learn new of course.

You will be posted with any new about that.

Sun Certified Programmer for Java 5 is an official certification of Sun Microsystems which probes that you know Java version 5.

There are different certifications as the following graphic shows:

As you see, SCJP is the fisrt of the certifications and is needed for them, so you must do it first of all the rest.

I’m going to do this exam, when I don’t know but I’ve just purchased the official book on eBay like this and I hope to get the enough time to read it, I suppose I will know a lot of things but not much as I’m thinking because programming with an IDE has the advantage of earn time but in the other hand you forget the basics of the language because the autocompletion of the code and in addition, the use of the frameworks masks the real code of java and helps us to write more complex applications avoiding the basics.

I think is important to me to obtain the certification, first to reinforce my Java knowledge and improve my coding, then I don’t have to demostrate I’m a Java Programmer in any technical interview, and this certification will open the doors of the others.

What will be the next certification? Maybe the Sun Certified Web Component Developer or the Sun Certified Developer for Java Web Services, but I will think about it after getting the SCJP.

Most of the j2ee projects uses the Hibernate framework to persists the database.

A part from the plugins I said before, there are some tips and tricks you must know to improve your development, manage the persisted objects and get the desired data.

I recommend the reading of these two articles:

• My favorite hibernate interview questions with answers
• Hibernate users FAQ

Eclipse is the most IDE used in a java development team. In my current job we use Eclipse 3.1, yes I know isn’t the last version but is the version supports all the plugins we use without any testing.

When a new developer comes to the project he must install some plugins to work with it and develop like others, these plugins are:

• Spring IDE: We use Spring, so this plugins is very useful to navigate through the beans configuration. By setting a project like a Spring Project you can access from your configuration file to your Java classes bean.
• Hibernate Tools: which can generate hbm (hibernate mapping) files through a configuration file that contains the connection information and another file that you can tell what tables and fields you want to map.
• Hibernate Synchronizer: You can generate the Java classes to access and/ or modify your data. Combined with Hibernate Tools you can easily generate your persistence layer in a few minutes.
• CheckStyle: If you want a readable application in a more or less numerous development team, you must define a simple rules to follow when a developer is programming a class. A part from the nomenclature of the application’s architecture a developer must follow some basics to let the other team members read the code easily.

The benefits to use a plugins is basically short the development time and help the newcomers to integrate in the development team.

Another improvement you can do/teach to you team is give them a list of the main and useful shortcuts available in Eclipse, there are some I use during the day:

• Ctrl + Shift + O: Organize imports. Adds or removes unused imports to Java classes.
• Ctrl + Shift + T: Open type. Shows a new windows where you can type the name of the class, exactly or an approximation of it and you’ll get the class or classes in real time that contains the workspace or jar.
• Ctrl + Shift + R: Open resource. Same as the above but doesn’t search in jars, it’s recommended for files, not for classes.
• Ctrl + W: Close the active window. Nothing to add.
• Alt + Shift + R: Rename a file and updates the references.
• F3 or Ctrl + click on the class or variable or constant. Opens the declaration.
• Ctrl + /: Comment the current line. If you select multiple lines, these lines will be commented.
• Ctrl + H: Search.

Another improvement do you use? Recommendations?

Reading dzone as habitual I’ve found a blog with lists 17 GWT tutorials.

As I said in other post, I want to learn GWT in this year 2008 and I think this web would be very interesting and a good source of knowledge.

Check it out!