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Java 7 is finally here! Or to be absolutely correct, will be released July 28. In this post, I will point out 7 (wonder where I got that number from…) reasons to upgrade.

1. Coins are also money
   Project Coin contains a couple of nice language changes that will make life as a programmer much easier. See the project page for details.
2. Dynamic languages
   invokedynamic adds support for dynamically typed languages on the Java platform.
3. New File System API
   File operations have always been pain in Java, but with this new API most of the issues are solved. Manipulating symbolic links for example.
4. Concurrency
   The Fork/Join Framework provides a set of utilities you would benefit from when writing concurrent programs, giving the possibility for true parallelism on the Java platform.
   
5. Modularization
   A refactoring enabling the Java SE platform to be downloaded as required by the VM as needed. 
   
6. Enhancements
   A lot of enhancements regarding classloading, unicode, locale etc.
7. It’s new
   And new things are always more motivating to work with than old, at least in the context of programming languages.

To be honest this is not very much for a major version of a programming language, especially since it has gone nearly five years since the previous version. But it shows that Java is still alive after the whole Oracle story.

Yesterday I decided to upgrade WordPress on this site. As usual I ignored the tip about backing up first and just pressed the Upgrade Now button. As you can imagine, it failed big time so my only option was to reinstall. Luckily, I was able to export my posts using phpMyAdmin, but when I was trying to import them again after the WordPress installation, the fun began… The column count did not match, so I had to update all posts manually before importing.

I think I have got it all up as it was now, with a few new features such as link to my google+ profile and the nice little +1 button below the posts. Next time I am definitely going to follow the recommendations of backing up the data…I think…

I have touched this topic in at least two previous blog posts (Agile Architect and Agilists and Architects), but I seem to be getting into these kind of discussions on a pretty regular basis.

The main area of conflict or misunderstanding is usually around how to create a common architecture or framework (…ouch…) for the entire organization. Most managers and old school dinosaur architects seem to believe that this is best done in long meetings and by producing endless powerpoint presentations and documents containing every buzz word in the world.

I can not stress enough the importance of building an architecture from something that already has been proven to work. And to be able to do that, you as an architect have to get your hands dirty doing some actual coding. An architecture should always be communicated through code, not by slideware!

Having attended all previous Øredev conferences I think I am pretty qualified when I say that this year’s conference was by far the best. Great topics, excellent speakers and flawless organization. Even the closing panel debate, which usually is just something you have to suffer through to be able to win prices in the raffle at the end, was interesting this year.

Since it is such a diverse conference, it is difficult to point out a single item that was the main trend at the conference. But if I should pick one thing, I guess it would be that most of the talks I attended more or less circled around the Get Real! theme of the conference. Hopefully this means that the industry is getting more mature. Don’t want to be a self-fulfilling pessimist, so it is just to be optimistic

See you there next year!

Usually, when I come home from work, I am pretty tired of programming and rarely ever do any programmin during weekends. But this weekend was different. I have been coding pretty much at work lately, so it should not be because of abstinence from coding. Anyhow, I set down and contributed to a small open source project started by a former colleague of mine. It is called Architect’s Java DAO Generator, and you can find it on Sourceforge. In short it is a maven plugin that generates most of the boilerplate code you usually have to code by hand. It also abstracts the data access layer from your domain logic in a nice way. Version 1.5 is soon going to be available and is absolutely worth a look.

To cry…or laugh…that’s the question…

@Test
public void spaceFiller() {
   int l = 5;
   String result = MessageUtil.spaceFiller(5);
   if (result.length() == l) {
   } else {
      fail();
   }
}

When I came across the test code above I wondered who on Earth would write such a thing. The answer came shortly after when I had a look at the method it is testing…

/**
 * Space filler.
 * Creates a string filled with spaces of the wanted length
 *
 * @param length the length of the wanted string
 * @return the string
 */
public static String spaceFiller(int length){
   String s = "";
   for(int i=0; i < length; i++)
      s = s.concat(" ");
   return s;
}

The good thing is that they actually wrote a nice and clear JavaDoc explaining their own stupidity…

At work today I came across a project that had not written a single unit test for their new code and wondered what the hell they were doing. Nothing unusual except that apart from the usual excuses about time constraint etc., they had the guts to challenge the value of unit tests. I did not believe what I heard and for a moment wondered if I had gone through some kind of time capsule when I was visiting the pyramids in Cairo last week and come back in a time before unit testing was invented. But a quick glance at the date on my watch ensured me that it was still 2010.

The only comforting thing about this is that as long as there are projects like this, there will be plenty of work for software consultants to clean up the mess. Just a pity that the first couple of weeks will be spent writing unit tests to be able to start refactoring the code. Good thing that writing unit tests are pretty fun and addicting, or to quote one of Kent Beck’s tweet earlier today “… tests are like potato chips”.

I have agreed to contribute with a post once in a while on the corporate blog, or newsroom as they call it. I know I have not been very active on this blog lately, but hopefully this will inspire me to be more active here as well. Having just come back from a couple of weeks of total relaxation and diving in Dahab, Egypt, I should be full of energy and an urge to get started writing.

But first I want it to be absolute crystal clear that the stuff I write her on AgileJava is my view, and my view only. It is by no means affiliated with the company blog or anything thereunder. The posts on the newsroom will be reviewed by company representatives before published whereas AgileJava is only reviewed by myself.

The first time I attended JavaOne was 1999 and I have only missed it once since then. Sadly, this year will be the second time I am not present there. I have become kind of used to the week in San Francisco every year. It is the perfect way to start the summer with a visit to that beautiful city. Since it is in September this year, it would probably been the perfect way to end the summer (…we have short summers here in Scandinavia…).

I will for sure miss the massive input and inspiration this conference gives me and enables me to keep up-to-date on everything that is happening in the Java Community. This year’s conference is also special since it is the first time Oracle is hosting the show. It feels like a good idea to co-host it with Oracle Develop and I hope it will be a success to be continued. Next year, I will definitely be attending, one way or the other…!

While I was reading up a little on Scala recently, I found out that I might as well contribute a little while doing it. So I translated the Scala Tutorial to Norwegian since that was one of the translations missing. You can find it among the other translations on scala-lang.org or simply click on the image below to access it directly.