Calling private Java methods publicly?

We Java developers, known 4 access modifiers in Java: private, protected, public, and package. Well, except for the private, the last three, can be called from outside of the class by inheritance, same package or from the instance.

Now, the common question, can private be called publicly (from outside class)? well the answer is NO and YES. No when you use ‘usual’ way to access it, and YES when you ‘hack’ into it using the Reflection API provided by Java itself.

Using Servlet 3.0 Async Features in Grails 2.0

I was talking to someone last week about the new support for Servlet 3.0 async features in Grails 2 and realized I didn’t know that much about what was available. So I thought I’d try it out and share some examples. The documentation is a little light on the subject, so first some background information.

The Twitter API Management Model

The objective of this blog post is to explore in detail the patterns and practices Twitter has used in it's API management.

Twitter comes with a comprehensive set of REST APIs to let client apps talk to Twitter.

Let's take few examples...

JAXB Custom Binding - Java.util.Date / Spring 3 Serialization

JaxB can handle Java.util.Date serialization, but it expects the following format: “yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss“. What if you need to format the date object in another format?

I had the same issue when I was working with Spring MVc 3 and Jackson JSON Processor, and recently, I faced the same issue working with Spring MVC 3 and JAXB for XML serialization.

Let’s digg into the issue:

Solr: Creating a spellchecker

In a previous post I talked about how the Solr Spellchecker works and then I showed you some test results of its performance. Now we are going to see another aproach to spellchecking.

This method, as many others, use a two step procedure. A rather fast “candidate word” selection, and then a scoring of those words. We are going to select different methods from the ones that Solr uses and test its performance. Our main objective will be effectiveness in the correction, and in a second term, velocity in the results. We can tolerate a slightly slower performance considering that we are gaining in correctness of the results.

Registering entity types with OpenJPA programmatically

I’ve just started work on an OpenJPA objectstore for Isis. In the normal scheme of things, one would register the entity types within the persistence.xml file. However, Isis is a framework that builds its own metamodel, and can figure out for itself which classes constitute entities. I therefore didn’t want to have to force the developer to repeat themselves, so the puzzle became how to register the entity types programmatically within the Isis code.

NetBeans 7.2 Introduces TestNG

One of the advantages of code generation is the ability to see how a specific language feature or framework is used. As I discussed in the post NetBeans 7.2 beta: Faster and More Helpful, NetBeans 7.2 beta provides TestNG integration. I did not elaborate further in that post other than a single reference to that feature because I wanted to devote this post to the subject. I use this post to demonstrate how NetBeans 7.2 can be used to help a developer new to TestNG start using this alternative (to JUnit) test framework.

Make your Spring Security @Secured annotations more DRY

Recently a user on the Grails User mailing list wanted to know how to reduce repetition when defining @Secured annotations. The rules for specifying attributes in Java annotations are pretty restrictive, so I couldn’t see a direct way to do what he was asking.

Using Groovy doesn’t really help here since for the most part annotations in a Groovy class are pretty much the same as in Java (except for the syntax for array values). Of course Groovy now supports closures in annotations, but this would require a code change in the plugin. But then I thought about some work Jeff Brown did recently in the cache plugin.

Frustrations and aspirations of a software craftsman

For a while I've been thinking about what makes me like or dislike a project. Having spent a very big part of my career working for consultancy companies, I was exposed to many different environments, industries, team sizes, processes and technologies. There were projects that I absolutely loved, some projects were OK and some were a real pain.

There were even a couple of times in my career where I questioned myself if the choice of being a software craftsman and keep walking the long road would be the best thing for my sanity.

Dealing with Weblogic Stuck Threads

Definition or What is a Stuck Thread?
 

WebLogic Server diagnoses a thread as stuck if it is continually working (not idle) for a set period of time. 

You can tune a server's thread detection behavior by changing the length of time before a thread is diagnosed as stuck ( Stuck Thread Max Time), and by changing the frequency with which the server checks for stuck threads. Check here to see how to change the Stuck Thread Max Time.

Type Inference from Java 7

Every good programmer likes to write a concise but effective and optimized code. Type Inference is a way introduced in JDK 7 which will surely give you benefits of less typing. Its been a long time that you have using the java code in following manner.

But have you ever thought of code duplication while initializing the specific implementation of Collections? Why there is a need to write the parameters two times during an intialization?

ScaTDD: Casting an eye over three major Test frameworks in Scala

Testing has traditionally been the gateway process for Scala development at a number of Java shops looking to evolve their tech stack with minimal disruption or committment. This posts hopes to cover three of the main testing frameworks in the Scala landscape, ( Specs2, Scalatest and Scalacheck) with an example of the classic FizzBuzz test, for how they can be used for fun and profit. So, the brief outline of the FizzBuzz requirement are that given a sequence of numbers:

• Any number divisible by 3 should return the String “Fizz”
• Any number divisible by 5 should return the String “Buzz”
• Any number divisible by both 3 and 5 should return the String “FizzBuzz”
• Otherwise the number should be returned as a String

Pragmatic Thinking: Novice vs Expert

Recently I started reading Andy Hunt's fine book " Pragmatic Thinking And Learning." Hunt is notorious for writing books which offer practical, insightful advice in which developers can apply to their work on a daily basis. His most famous book is "The Pragmatic Programmer", widely considered one of the top agile programmer books of all time. Even after reading the book 7 years ago, I still refer to it a few times a month. My colleagues and I bring up the "broken window" theory, or often throw out the phrase "Don't Assume, Prove it," sometimes to the chagrin of the unfamiliar. :)

Writing Eclipse Plugins Tutorial - Part 1

Eclipse is one of three most popular java development IDEs. One reason for its success is its extensibility. Writing eclipse plugins can be very fast and easy for anyone who knows what to do and already done it.

Unfortunately, doing something in Eclipse for the first time can be very time consuming and frustrating. Eclipse framework is huge, powerful and sometimes complicated. It may be difficult to figure out which features are available and how to use them.

Top 10 Most Popular New Eclipse Plugins

Eclipse Marketplace continues to be the place to discover interesting and relevant Eclipse plugins. There are over 100,000 successful installs/month of Eclipse-based products via the Eclipse Marketplace client. We have a list of the most popular plugins over the last 30 days and all time. I thought it would be interesting to look at what are the most popular new plugins in the last 12 months.