Business Intelligence for the Layman

I came across a very simple explanation of what a Business Intelligence solution does for the end user that other existing solutions cannot do. Read it here.

How to Evaluate / Audit someone else's source code

Its very normal in a developer's life to be handed over someone else's source code and asked to work on it. The first thing you notice is the fact that the previous developer(s) have not put enough (or any) comments in the code. Then you realize there is no documentation left by the developer(s) regarding the code. You sit there thinking "Where do I start??"

Being faced with this dilemma yet once again I realized that the best thing to do would be to convert the code to UML diagrams so I can get an eye view of the mess.. uh, I mean the code.

I cam across a nice list of UML tools on Wikipedia where I found BOUML.



Its a free UML tool that can reverse engineer C++, Java and PHP (plus some others) code to UML diagrams.

Even if you are not a coder, you could use it to Audit the code. If the diagrams that are generated do not make sense to you, chances are that they will not make any sense to another developer either.

Of course there are many other metrics for evaluation of code quality and performance. But this is where I would start if I had no documentation at all for the code in front of me.

Joomla 1.5 has XML-RPC built-in

Working on a new site using Joomla 1.5 today under the Plugin Manager I found out that it has plugins for XML-RPC built right into its core. What does this mean?? Creating third party software to integrate with Joomla CMS is now going to be a piece of cake.



There are already a lot of 3rd party programs that support XML-RPC. An example is ScribeFire (which I am using to write this blog article). You could use any of these off the shelf tools to easily add articles to Joomla or edit/delete an existing article.

Something I am going to make in the near future is an iPhone app + a J2ME app that will use XML-RPC to easily add new articles to a Joomla site.

JSF and AJAX - Still no Good

AJAX is the way of life for web developers. If you are a Java Enterprise developer, more specifically a JSF developer, you will find loads of AJAX/JSF libraries. But if you decide to use one of them, you will not be able to use components from any of the other libraries (in most cases). In other words your application will be locked into the library you choose to use.

I found a good article today on JDJ "JavaServer Faces: The Importance of Components" by Jim Cook. The following paragraph was interesting:

AJAX fits in with the JSF framework very naturally. However, the early JSF specifications (1.0, 1.1, and 1.2) don't address AJAX. One of the consequences is that each vendor of JSF components has built its own AJAX engine and the various engines aren't always compatible. Although this issue is being addressed in the upcoming 2.0 specification, for the time being, component users are basically forced to choose components from only one vendor if they want to use AJAX.

According to this, until the 2.0 JSF specification has been implemented by all the major JSF libraries, its probably better to stay away from them if you want to prevent a lock-in. Look at it this way. If you do use one these AJAX/JSF libraries today, tomorrow when they come up with the new JSF 2.0 compatible version of their library, your application will not be able to use it.

So what can Java developers who need AJAX do today?

You can use a pure Javascript based AJAX library like Dojo or YUI along with Spring and Hibernate. At least you know that tomorrow when Dojo and YUI come out with their new versions, your application can make use of them. Yes, your application will be locked into YUI or Dojo. Life is not perfect.

Which Java Techs are HOT today?

I have been working recently with some SEO experts and was amazed at how they search for information on the net using various analytics and statistics tools. It made me think, why not search the net to get some REAL facts on which Java technologies are hot today. The goal is to help outsourcing companies and developers to focus more towards technologies that are in more use in the industry.

I started with regular Google Insights and Adwords Keyword Tool searches. But when Google Insights showed me that majority of these searches have been performed in India, I realized that these results signify what developers are searching for. But my goal is to find what customers are searching for.

Then it came to me. If I search Jobs websites in the markets that are best known for outsourcing IT projects, using Java specific keywords, that should give me a good idea of which technologies are more in use in those markets. I chose to search monster.com for USA and itjobswatch.co.uk for UK. Following are my findings.

	Jobs on Monster.com	Jobs on ITJobsWatch (avg last 3 months)
Application Server Platforms
Websphere	825	463
WebLogic	664	303
JBoss	474	86
Backend GLUE Frameworks
Spring	546	434
Struts	527	173
Seam	15	4
Other Backend Frameworks
Hibernate	551	334
EJB	372	143
DWR	13	3
Client-side Frameworks
JSF	882	45
RichFaces	7	No Data
IceFaces	9	No Data
ADF	2	1

Now this is by no means a very extensive list of technologies but I searched the most common ones I knew of. Technologies like JUnit, XML, Webservices etc. do not have to be researched. Everyone knows that its a must to know them just like HTML, Javascript CSS etc.

I was hoping to find something more conclusive for the client-side frameworks. I do know JSF is the choice for Java Programmers but which ONE JSF library is most widely being used??

Make your Java run 2X faster than C/C++ - without any coding for FREE

Looking around for Java and C/C++ comparisons I came across the Java Server runtime. I guess this has been around for a while now but just missed it for some reason. When running your Java apps, if you use the -server argument, your app runs and performs almost twice as fast as C/C++ applications of the same nature.



The server argument does take up a lot more RAM then the default client argument, but the performance boost is huge. I would not mind having all my Java apps set to run in server mode by default on newer Core2 with 4 GB machines.

The original article for C++ can be found here. The C benchmark is in Word doc format and can be downloaded here.

Market Statistics for Software Outsourcing Companies and Developers

The IT Jobs Watch website gives very detailed statistics on jobs in the UK with average salaries, No. of job postings, comparisons to last year's stats, various graphs etc. Although it does not represent the whole world, it can help outsourcing companies and developers to evaluate the current requirements in the software development market and thus develop their skill sets accordingly.

Developers confused about which new tech to get into next can search
for their own specific fields and see whats in demand in the market. Viewing the details of "Senior Java Architect", I noticed that J2EE, Spring, Hibernate, AJAX, JBoss and Eclipse have been mentioned by name in the job requirements. I am already working on a new project using Spring, Hibernate, AJAX and Eclipse so it seems I am on the right path. I might just add in JBoss to it.