Developer Newsletter

JAVA Tutorials

All about JAXP, Part 1
The Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) lets you validate, parse, and transform XML using several different APIs. JAXP provides both ease of use and vendor neutrality. This article, the first of a two-part series introducing JAXP, shows you how to take advantage of the API's parsing and validation features. Part 2 will cover XSL transformations using JAXP.
Friday, 15th July 2005

Make Database Queries Without the Database
When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail (as the old saying goes). But what if you don't have a hammer? Well, sometimes, you can borrow a hammer. Then, hammer in hand, you can bang the virtual nails with the borrowed hammer, return it, and no one is the wiser. In this month's Java theory and practice, Brian Goetz demonstrates how data manipulation hammers such as SQL or XQuery can be applied to ad-hoc data.
Thursday, 14th July 2005

Load List Values for Improved Efficiency
Reduce the number of database hits and improve your Web application's efficiency when you load common shared list values only once. In this code-filled article, learn to load the values for drop-down lists when your Web application starts and then to share these loaded list values among all the users of your application.
Wednesday, 22nd June 2005

2 Ways To Implement Session Tracking
This article explains how to implement session tracking using two of the simplest & oldest methods available to programmers. The techniques presented in this article use some old, tried and tested ways which are extremely popular even today. After reading this article you would be able to implement session tracking using any language.
Saturday, 11th June 2005

A Simple Way to Read an XML File in Java
This is actually a piece of code used by me to access XML files through Java. I have added some explanation. In case you are interested in knowing how to access XML files using Java, quickly without reading a lot of material, this is the right article for you.
Saturday, 11th June 2005

Develop Aspect-Oriented Java Applications with Eclipse and AJDT
AspectJ is an aspect-oriented extension of the Java™ language that enables a modular implementation of crosscutting concerns. This crosscutting behavior, which can be static or dynamic, presents an extra challenge to tools that support AspectJ. The AJDT project aims to provide Eclipse platform-based tools for AspectJ, consistent with the Eclipse Java Development Tools (JDT), with additional capabilities for visualizing and understanding the crosscutting nature of aspect-oriented applications.
Monday, 16th May 2005

Java Validation With Dynamic Proxies
Version 1.3 of the Java platform saw the introduction of the dynamic proxy facility. Dynamic proxies offer many interesting solutions to Java developers, including a validation scheme that easily decouples validation logic from an application's core business logic. In this article, Java developer Eric Olson shows you how dynamic proxies can keep your core application code free of validation routines and focused solely on business logic.
Saturday, 14th May 2005

Using Aspects to Autonomic-Enable Legacy Applications
Learn how to use Aspects to generate Common Base Events in any legacy Java application, without modifying the original application source. This article shows you how and also provides an example framework that can be used with your applications today.
Friday, 13th May 2005

JSF for Nonbelievers: The JSF Application Lifecycle
In this second article in his four-part JSF for nonbelievers series, Rick Hightower introduces the major phases of the JavaServer Faces (JSF) request processing lifecycle. Using a sample application, he walks you through the six phases of a request process. Along the way, he shows you how to combine JSF with JavaScript technology for immediate event handling and completes your introduction to the JSF component model with a first look at many of the components that ship with JSF
Thursday, 5th May 2005

Assertion Extensions for JUnit
JUnit lets you test software code units by making assertions that the intended requirements are met, but these assertions are limited to primitive operations. IBM Software Engineer Tony Morris fills the gap by introducing Assertion Extensions for JUnit, which provides a set of complex assertions that execute within the JUnit framework. Follow along as the author shows you how using this new package from alphaWorks can increase the reliability and robustness of your Java™ software.
Thursday, 5th May 2005

Practically Groovy: Go Server-Side Up, with Groovy
The Groovlet and GroovyServer Pages (GSP) frameworks are built on the shoulders of the Java™ Servlet API. Unlike Struts and JSF, however, Groovy's server-side implementation isn't meant for all occasions. Rather, it's a simplified alternative for developing server-side applications quickly and easily. Follow along with Groovy advocate Andrew Glover as he introduces these frameworks and demonstrates their use.
Thursday, 5th May 2005

StrutsTestCase Simplifies the Development Process
This article introduces the StrutsTestCase (STC) framework and explains how to test a sample application using the mock approach and Cactus approach. Author Sunil Patil, a developer at the IBM Software Labs in India, introduces STC, then walks you through setting up an environment for using STC and testing various Struts features. He also demonstrates using both the Cactus and mock approaches from within STC.
Thursday, 28th April 2005

Eye on performance: Wait leaks
A fine line runs between performance tuning and debugging. Several particular categories of bugs, including memory errors and thread race conditions, frequently surface during performance tuning, and this month, our performance tuning experts Jack Shirazi and Kirk Pepperdine show how to spot a particular class of race conditions, called wait leaks.
Thursday, 28th April 2005

Java Theory and Practice: Anatomy of a Flawed Microbenchmark
Software engineers are notoriously obsessed, sometimes excessively, with performance. While sometimes performance is the most important requirement in a software project, as it might be when developing protocol routing software for a high-speed switch, most of the time performance needs to be balanced against other requirements, such as functionality, reliability, maintainability, extensibility, time to market, and other business and engineering considerations.
Wednesday, 27th April 2005

Understanding JCA Transactions
Transaction processing is a vital part of most real-world J2EE application development. In this article, IBM Solution Architect Mikhail Genkin explains how different enterprise information systems (EIS) can participate in transactions via the J2EE Connector Architecture. Using an example e-commerce application, Mikhail demonstrates the various levels of transaction support provided by different EISs and resource adapters and shows how these factors can affect application design. The article concludes with Mikhail's tips for choosing the right transaction demarcation strategy and EJB deployment descriptor settings for your enterprise development scenario.
Friday, 22nd April 2005

Simplify Your Application Delivery with One-JAR
If you've ever tried to deliver a Java application as a single Java Archive file (JAR file), you've most likely encountered the need to expand supporting JAR files before you build the final archive. As well as being a development nuisance, this can put you in violation of license agreements. In this article, Simon Tuffs introduces you to One-JAR, a tool that uses a custom classloader to dynamically load classes from JAR files inside an executable JAR file.
Friday, 22nd April 2005

Getting Started with Enumerated Types
One of the great new features in Tiger is the enumeration construct, a new type that allows you to represent specific pieces of data as constants, all in a type-safe manner. Tiger expert and frequent developerWorks contributor Brett McLaughlin explains what an enumeration is, how you can use it in your programs, and why it will allow you to dump all that old public static final code.
Friday, 22nd April 2005

Use Continuations to Develop Complex Web Applications
If you've ever developed a non-trivial Web application, you know that development complexity is increased by the fact that Web browsers allow users to follow arbitrary navigation paths through the application. No matter where the user navigates, the onus is on you, the developer, to keep track of the possible interactions and ensure that your application works correctly. While the traditional MVC approach does allow you to handle these cases, there are other options available to help resolve application complexity. Developer and frequent developerWorks contributor Abhijit Belapurkar walks you through a continuations-based alternative that could simplify your Web application development efforts.
Friday, 22nd April 2005

Eye on Performance: Profiling on the Edge
Tuning isn't always about speed, sometimes other aspects of the application need fixing. When your application needs tuning, your first course of action is normally to monitor the application with a profiler. But profiling is not always practical -- sometimes for ironic reasons. In this installment of Eye on performance, Jack and Kirk relate their recent experiences with profiling a fat client -- so fat, in fact, that it left no room for a profiler.
Thursday, 21st April 2005

Advanced Synth
Take an in-depth look at the Synth look and feel, the newest addition to Swing introduced in Java 5.0. Synth lets developers rapidly create and deploy custom looks for an application by introducing the concept of a "skin" to Java UI programming. Software Engineer Michael Abernethy takes you through Synth concepts step-by-step to build an application with a Synth look from scratch. After reading this article, you should be able to create professional-looking UIs in no time.
Saturday, 16th April 2005

Get Dynamic Web Content with HTTPRequest
The HttpRequest object initially might not seem like a big deal. Explore the possibilities of it when you issue a HTTP GET or POST on a URL for succinct page refreshes that update only a specific portion of the Web page
Monday, 11th April 2005

Java Theory and Practice: Generics Gotchas
Generic types, added in JDK 5.0, are a significant enhancement to type safety in the Java language. However, some aspects of generics may seem confusing, or even downright bizarre, to first-time users. In this month's Java theory and practice, Brian Goetz examines the common pitfalls that ensnare first-time users of generics.
Wednesday, 23rd March 2005

TestNG Makes Java Unit Testing a Breeze
In this article, Filippo Diotalevi introduces TestNG, a new framework for testing Java applications. TestNG isn't just really powerful, innovative, extensible, and flexible; it also illustrates an interesting application of Java Annotations, a great new feature in JDK 5.0.
Tuesday, 22nd March 2005

Client and server-side templating with Velocity
Velocity is a versatile, open source templating solution that can be used standalone in report generation/data transformation applications, or as a view component in MVC model frameworks. In this article, Sing Li introduces Velocity and reveals how you can integrate its template-processing capabilities into your own client-side standalone application, server-side Web application, or Web services.
Sunday, 13th June 2004

Build and Implement A Single Sign-On Solution
Chris Dunne provides a step-by-step description of his experience with building a single sign-on solution for a Web portal. He shows you how to set up an open source solution, the Central Authentication Service from Yale University, and how to extend it to authenticate to a Microsoft Active Directory infrastructure.
Wednesday, 28th January 2004

View all JAVA tutorials »