An Introduction to Aspect-Oriented Programming with the Spring Framework, Part 1

An Introduction to Aspect-Oriented Programming with the Spring Framework, Part 1 by Russell Miles — The Spring framework, which supports development of the different facets of J2EE, provides an aspect-oriented programming module that gives Spring developers the opportunity to apply aspects to their applications. This article shows you how to work with AOP in Spring.

Introduction to Aspect-Oriented Programming with the Spring Framework, Part 2

An Introduction to Aspect-Oriented Programming with the Spring Framework, Part 2 by Russell Miles — Russ Miles continues his introduction to Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) in Spring by delving into the around advice, which allows you to not just add to an existing method implementation, but to completely replace it.

Using Timers in J2EE Applications

Using Timers in J2EE Applications by Debu Panda — J2SE gained support for scheduled tasks in 1.3, and J2EE 1.4 provides an enterprise equivalent, with transactional, scheduled callbacks provided by application containers. Debu Panda introduces J2EE timers by way of an EJB that gets scheduled services.

The myth and truth of computer book publishing

The myth and truth of computer book publishing – Great writeup on Javaworld @ http://www.javaworld.com/weblogs/wireless/archives/000312.html

Spring 1.1.1 and iBATIS 2.0.7

Another RTFM moment – I was working on retrofitting an old application that used my own persistence framework to use iBATIS SQL Maps with the Spring DAO framework and running into a bizarre error. I kept getting the error: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/ibatis/db/sqlmap/XmlSqlMapBuilder and it turned out that my DAO implementations were extending SqlMapFactoryBean instead of SqlMapClientFactoryBean. The documentation clearly states that I should use SqlMapClientFactoryBean, but I wasn’t. Thanks to Nilesh for the clarification

By the way, if you haven’t looked at Spring or just it’s DAO framework, you should explore it as it simplifies the development process and minimizes the amount of code you write. I just rewrote some of my POC applications using Spring’s DAO framework that used iBATIS and Hibernate under the covers. By using the template classes provided by Spring, I wrote about 30-40% of the code I would have normally written using iBATIS or Hibernate by themselves.

[OT] Programming in C

Programming in C (3rd Edition) by Stephen Kochan
Paperback: 576 pages
Publisher: Sams; 3 edition (July 8, 2004)
ISBN: 0672326663

I know this is a little off-topic here but I had to put a plug in for the 3rd edition of the Programming in C book by Stephen Kochan. I am a huge fan of Steve’s writings and own every single copy of his books. In fact, I learned programming in C in the early 90’s using the first edition of this book. Back in the day, I used to manage a list called ‘LEARN C/C++ TODAY‘ that started off as a mailing list in 1992 and led into a website in 1994 running on my little 386 Linux box running NCSA’s httpd. I remember I had just moved from SLS to Slackware Linux just days before I launched the site. Those were the days!!

Back to the book – Steve sent me an email a few weeks ago to let me know that the 3rd edition of the book had shipped. He ended up mailing me a signed copy of the book and I was pleasantly surprised to have my name endorsing the book on the back cover. I haven’t written any C code in the last 8 years but it was still a lot of fun to read through the book and take a trip down memory lane. Just like the other editions of this book, this book does not disappoint. I love the clear, concise writing style that uses examples to teach new concepts. I still believe that this is the best tutorial for anyone that is starting out programming in C. I wish Steve would get into Java, as I would love to see a Java book of the same caliber. Great job Steve and I think everyone programming in C should own this must-read book.

Build scripts with Groovy and Ant

In nearly all developers’ toolboxes, Ant is the standard build tool for Java applications, thanks to its open, standard, and multiplatform structure. Though it represents a great improvement in automating production of complex J2EE applications, the choice of using XML syntax to express build automation has shown some limitations and drawbacks. In this article, Filippo Diotalevi shows how to put together Ant and Groovy (the new JVM scripting language) to build a more flexible and powerful automation tool

Link: Build scripts with Groovy and Ant

Get Groovy

Groovy, Java’s New Scripting Language by Ian F. Darwin — When some Java developers hear about Groovy, their first reaction is often, “Oh, no, not another scripting language for Java.” Ian Darwin had the same reaction, until he took a good look at Groovy. Ian is the author of Java Cookbook, 2nd Edition.