Java

Common mistakes in real-time Java programming

When you hit a key on your keyboard, the delay before the letter appear on your screen is mildly annoying. When you’re in a warship under enemy attack, having a delay before new radar information shows up would be deadly. In a nutshell, that’s the difference between general-purpose and real-time programming.

The difference, however, can be less obvious in business settings.

Not knowing when real-time applications are needed is a common mistake companies and software developers make, Eric Bruno and Greg Bollella, authors of Real-time Java Programming with Java RTS, told me recently.

“Some companies have real-time requirements but don’t interpret them as such,” said Greg Bollella, a Sun Microsystems distinguished engineer who leads R&D for real-time Java. An example would be financial companies involved in stock trading. “Often, they try to force a general-purpose system to behave as if it is a real-time system.”

For the most part, those efforts fail. “Response times are too slow, and code can become very fragile,” said Bruno, who has broad experience working on software design and architecture on financial trading and data and real-time news delivery.

In this video excerpt of our interview, Bollella and Bruno discuss this common mistake and others made in real-time Java programming:

Why JavaFX fits the bill for RIAs

I recently met and talked with authors Jim Clarke and Eric Bruno about JavaFX.. They co-wrote, with Jim Connors, the recently-released book on that subject, JavaFX: Developing Rich Internet Applications. Clarke and Bruno explain how JavaFX simplifies and improves the RIA development process in ther book and also in this video excerpt from our interview,. Their book offers an introduction to JavaFX, and then it heads off into nuts-and-bolts descriptions of how to use its its ready-built components and frameworks to build RIAs.

Atlassian Nerd Herder Moore spots app/dev trends

In an interview this week, Atlassian engineer/Nerd Herder, Pete Moore, told me that he got good news and bad news from software developers and engineers at JavaOne 2009 this year. The good news was that developers had moved beyond Code Review 101, but the down side was a lack of adoption of cloud and some backwards thinking about tool purchasing.

A good number of software engineers at JavaOne 2009 told Moore, that they still have to fight with management for approval to buy lightweight development tools. Wait, there’s a punchline: The big surprise is that the managers aren’t approving these requests due to lack of money, but rather because the managers “still believe in top-down purchasing of suites and one-size-fits-all,” Moore said. He couldn’t believe that the people holding development purse-strings had such an antiquated approach to buying software. Well, actually, he called them “ignorant managers.”

Fortunately, Moore said, Atlassian’s products are priced low enough that “most teams can sidestep the management silliness, because it fits in their discretionary budgets.”

I met Moore at JavaOne, where he showed me an animated 3D tee shirt logo. We talked about Atlassian’s comprehensive Java-based plugin architecture, a subject that drew a lot of interest from attendees in the booth. Here’s an excerpt from our conversation in this video.

Moore spent a lot of time at JavaOne talking about the nuts and bolts of integrating plugins into real life environments. “I think this underlines that engineers still want pragmatic point solutions,” he said when we talked this week. “Best of breed [software] was the catch cry a few years ago, and it’s still what the front lines want, they now just want them to work together!”

This was Moore’s fifth JavaOne, and “it was sensational that I didn’t have anyone who didn’t know what code coverage or peer code review was,” he said. That hasn’t been the case in the past, when he’s had to explain what per-test coverage was, “or worse, the merits of unit testing.”

Two years ago when Atlassian introduced its Crucible code review tool “the majority of
young developers had never done formal code review, and everyone was talking about pair programming,” he said. “This year, whilst there were still heaps of people who weren’t doing reviews, it seemed that every second person specifically wanted a demo of Crucible.”

Developers haven’t stepped up in another area, though. “I was disappointed not to see more development in the cloud in real life,” Moore said. Engineers like Atlassian’s Bamboo tool, with which one could start agents and do builds in the cloud. “But almost to a person they
said, ‘There’s no way we’d be allowed to use that.’ Here’s hoping that next year the story will be different.”

Coolest demo at JavaOne: Atlassian’s tee in 3D

Get ready to see the absolute best demo of this year’s JavaOne. No, it’s not a demo of a product that’s for sale. It’s just for fun.

Roaming the exhibit hall at JavaOne here in San Francisco, I met Pete Moore, Nerd Herder at Atlassian. Yes, Nerd Herder is his title. First off, we spent some time talking about Atlassian’s Java powered products. Next, we talked about living in Sydney — a dream of mine. Then, Pete gave me a tee shirt and showed me that tee shirt in action.

What you’ll see is my video of the large screen on which the demo takes place. Remember the camera isn’t pointed at Pete. Believe me, in person, it’s even better.

After this, I’ll look at tee shirt designs in a completely different way.