Learning -
General -
Threading -
Patterns and Method -
Testing -
ORM/Database -
Server (general) -
Web Tier -
Web Services -
Messaging -
Web2/AJAX -
XML -
Java Development Tools -
Application Deployment
Ian Darwin: Java Technology Resources
This is a list of some links that I have found useful. The master
version of this file lives at
http://www.darwinsys.com/java/javaResources.html.
This is version $Id: javaResources.html,v 1.51 2007/05/19 14:38:56 ian
Exp $.
Top Links
Products&API's - http://java.sun.com/products/ - All Products!
The Definitive History of Java (sadly requiring RealMedia player :-))
Java Developer's Connection - http://java.sun.com/jdc/
Free signup required; get Early Access stuff.
Java Developer Essentials - paid subscription service
from $50/year on up, depending on version.
Please, please join The Java Lobby. It's free, and it's
the main public body advocating "open process" Java.
More interesting to advanced developers and architects, but
just as important as the Java Lobby. JCP is the place where new
official standards for Java get initiated, argued about, and
ratified. If you care about Java's future, be there.
-
BlueJ
is "a Java IDE specifically designed to learn and teach
object-oriented programming and Java".
-
Small, simple and Safe.
See
writeup on O'Reilly.net
-
Gild - from U of Victoria
Gild is more aimed at classroom use than self-teaching.
This is a plug-in that requires you have
Eclipse,
the leading full-strength IDE.
-
Greenfoot
Bills itself as "a combination between a framework for creating
two-dimensional grid assignments in Java and an integrated development
environment (class browser, editor, compiler, execution, etc.)
suitable for novice programmers. While greenfoot supports the full
Java language, it is especially useful for programming exercises
that has a visual element. In greenfoot object visualisation and
object interaction are the key elements."
-
Sun's Java Tutorial -
several complete textbooks online for free; can also buy on paper.
Most O'Reilly Books (http://java.oreilly.com/)
are excellent. O'Reilly has a rep as the best Java,
UNIX, Perl, Mac OS X and MS-Windows technical publisher.
They published my
Java Cookbook,
revised 2004, and the book
- Head-First Java, by Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates.
A work whose creativeness helps people remember the material.
- Java in a Nutshell, O'Reilly.
A more concise introduction to the language and API, though less concise
than it used to be.
-
Shameless Obligatory self-promotion:
My recommended "second book on Java" is my own
Java Cookbook, O'Reilly, 2004.
- Joshua Bloch's
Effective Java is among the best books on how to use the
constructs of the Java programming language.
- Josh and Neal Gafter have also given us
Java Puzzlers, a look into "Traps, Pitfals and Corner Cases"
of our favorite language.
Think you know all about Java? Check yourself with this book!
- Or, if you really want to know "all" about the Java
language, read the official Java
Language Specification (free download or buy on paper),
the definitive statement of how Java actually works.
- The Elements of Java Style
by Scott Ambler and a host of others, carries a lot of sound advice
on Java Programming.
Patterned after the Strunk and Kernighan books with similar titles
and just as concise,
this book is generally excellent and, at 120 pages,
one of the easier to read.
- Magazines
- Java Report, www.javareport.com. Monthly, hardcopy. Four mugs.
- Java Developer's Journal, Sys-Con publications. Monthly, hardcopy.
Three mugs.
- JavaWorld, www.javaworld.com. Monthly, online only. Four mugs.
-
Object Oriented Technology: A Manager's Guide,
by David Taylor. At about 150 pages, the best overview
(the second edition is still in print, at 224 pages).
And definitely not just for managers.
- Design Patterns, by Gamma et al (the Gang of Four or GoF), Addison-Wesley.
The definitive Patterns book. Also in a CD-ROM version which includes
online implementations of the patterns.
-
Head First Design Patterns.
Highly regarded and, like other HF books, fun to read.
- The Original MVC Papers (from as far back as 1979!)
-
Core J2EE Patterns, by Deepak Alur et al, from Sun's consultancy;
lessons learned in designing effective apps within the constraints of the J2EE.
- Authors' site for
Core J2EE Patterns; more graphics but less details on the patterns.
- How the J2EE
Patterns group helped Sun re-write eBay.com
-
Sun Core J2EE Patterns Online - the complete text of the central portion of the book!
- Patterns in Java, by Mark Grand, John Wiley&Sons.
Volume 1 is good; the remaining volumes are said to be over-hyped.
- Extreme Programming Explained, Kent Beck.
The definitive overview of Extreme Programming, the new "minimalist"
software development methodology.
- Agile Software Development Ecosystems,
by Jim Highsmith.
A good overview of the people and technologies behind XP and related "agile" methods.
-
Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code,
by Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, et. al.
Just as the GOF book gives a vocabulary to the patterns,
this book gives a vocabulary to "refactorings" or rewritings.
-
Martin's site about refactoring, with lots of important
articles and news about refactoring theory and practice!
-
Refactoring To Patterns, by Joshua Kerievsky.
Shows longer examples of refactoring in action,
with the goal of refactoring code towards use of proven solutions (Patterns).
-
UML Distilled, by Martin Fowler. A good overview of
UML as a diagramming language and how it relates to the Rational Unified Process.
Also covers some techniques that are not part of RUP but still useful
(and even used in Agile), such as Class-Responsibility-Collaboration Cards (CRC).
- The Unified Software Process, by Jacobson, Booch and Rumbaugh,
the "three amigos" of the (less agile) Unified or Rational Process.
- The Practice of Programming, Kernighan & Pike, Addison-Wesley,
1999. An excellent general book on writing readable, maintainable, working code
in any language, with most of the examples in C, C++, Java. Four mugs.
Kernighan is well-known as the author of the C book that three
generations of C programmers learned on.
- Patterns Community
- Hillside.net - Home of the Patterns Library
- The Elementary Patterns Home Page
- Huston Design Patterns;
Dozens of 1-page examples in C++ and Java.
-
On Using Interface-types to Break Dependencies
This looks like a very interesting paper but, alas, only the abstract and references are online.
Still worth a read!
Project Management
- Checking Java Programs,
my eBook on java testing tools.
-
The
Way of Testivus, the Zen of Testing.
- Kent Beck and Erich Gamma,
Test Infected: Programmers Love Writing Tests. From the guys who invented JUnit.
- J. B. Rainsberger,
JUnit Recipes, Manning Press, 2004
ISBN 1-932394-23-0
A terrific look at how JUnit really applies to a wide variety
of programming tasks using different technologies.
"J.B." is heavily involved in the JUnit community and knows about
the many JUnit add-ons; in this book he shows how to employ them to good effect.
Four Mugs for this one!
- Frank Cohen,
Java Testing And Design,
free download from TheServerSide.com
- Brian Marick,
When Should a Test Be Automated?
- Martin Fowler,
Continuous Integration, one of the definitive papers on the subject.
- Steve McConnell,
Daily Build and Smoke Test
- Ward Cunningham,
Sorted Collections
- Michael Feathers,
The Self-Shunt Unit Test Pattern
- Tim Mackinnon et. al.,
Endo-Testing: Unit Testing with Mock Objects
- Michael Feathers,
The Humble Dialog (avoiding the "Evil Dialog" anti-pattern)
- ObjectMentor Inc.,
collected papers on design patterns, many testing-centric.
-
TestDriven.com,
a TDD forum site.
-
Open Source Java Testing Tools
JUnit - general add-ons
JUnit - Domain-specific
Memory Management
Remote Methods Invocation (RMI)
By which I mean browser-based web sites developed in Java.
By which I mean SOAP-based web services, what some people equate with the vastly
more generic term "SOA".
This is about Message Oriented Middleware (MOM), not about "instant
messaging" (but see Jabber.org for that).
- Overview of Messaging at
WikiPedia.
- JMS is
Sun's Java Messaging Protocol. Like JDBC, JMS is a "hollow API"
requiring transport-specific protocol support underneath.
Most Java EE App Servers come with an implementation, but they
don't necessarily inter-operate.
-
Advanced Message Queue protocol, a project to design
and build a universal, interoperable protocol usable by JMS as well
as by other APIs and directly. Designed by bankers/traders,
for speed. Described by one of the archittects at
ACM Queue.
-
Fast Messaging, an academic project to build a
fast protocol (only implemented
for Microsoft Windows NT, however).
Web Server Security (SSL)
- Web Security and Commerce, by Simon Garfinkel, O'Reilly
Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB)
Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)
| Name | URL | Notes |
|---|
| Borland JBuilder | jbuilder.borland.com/ | Full free version available |
| NetBeans (Open Source) | http://www.netbeans.com |
NetBeans and Sun Studio share code |
| SunOne Studio | http://www.sun.com |
| IBM Websphere Studio | http://www.ibm.com/ |
Eclipse and Websphere share code |
| Eclipse (Open Source) | http://www.eclipse.org/ |
| IntelliJ IDea | http://www.jetbrains.com/idea |
| Sybase PowerJ | http://www.sybase.com/ |
| WebGain | http://www.WebGain.com/ | Visual Cafe - the oldest Java IDE |
Of these, I use
Eclipse most of the time.
We even have it running on
OpenBSD thanks to the work of Kurt Miller
and the Java BSD gang (thanks, guys!).
Other
- IBM AlphaWorks - http://alphaworks.ibm.com/
Source of "Jikes", free fast compiler.
- Janino, an embeddable Java compiler.
- Native Code Compilers for Java:
- The Free Software Foundation's GNU C Compiler (gcc) has another
sibling - gjc, the GNU Java Compiler, which can compile some
Java apps into native code.
-
TowerJ had a Java-to-native code that
only supported command-line programs (non-GUI), aimed
at the server-side market, but they appear to have gone bust.
- FindBugs, a static checker
- PMD, a static checker
- PathFinder, a dynamic checker
- JMP, the Java Memory Profiler
- Contributing to Eclipse,
by Gamma & Beck.
A bit dated, this book covers building a JUnit plugin for Eclipse 2.1
but also details and expounds upon the principles and design patterns
that have made Eclipse so successful.
I hope they update it soon (hint, hint).
UML Tools
There are several good installation programs for deploying Applications.
- Sun's
Java WebStart
(bundled with the JRE)
- izpack
- Install Anywhere by ZeroG.com
- JInstall
- InstallShield Java Edition
- NullSoft Installer (nsi) isn't written in Java but is used e.g., by
Tomcat to install under MS-Windows.
Training
Learning Tree (take more courses! :-)
http://www.LearningTree.com/,
especially
Intro Java,
Java Web Apps,
Java Web Services,
Distributed Java,
and
Enterprise Design Patterns.
Finding Java Source Code
Java stuff: http://www.darwinsys.com/java/
Free, reliable, secure open-source UNIX system:
http://www.OpenBSD.org,
OpenBSD is a leading freeware operating system.
More secure than Linux, runs on more platforms than FreeBSD.
Good for secure firewalls and servers.
Four mugs of beer for these guys!
Java (both Kaffe and JDK, at least on i386 platforms) available.
Servlets and JSP available on same platforms via Tomcat.
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