I am developing my first Java web application (Spring/Hibernate/Freemarker) and my only concern is development speed.
I used to develop in PHP, where it was sufficient just to reload the browser to see the result. With Java, I need to always click on "update resources" in my IDE just to see changes done to templates. It seems to me that this way of developing is really inefficient as the redeployment takes up to seconds.
Also, I am not the one who will be preparing the templates - it will be just a graphic guy and he will want to test them as well. Does he need to have its own application server and keep redeploying the application or is there some more "PHP" way where you just "reload" the page?
Yes, development speed is a major concern and drawback compared to dynamic languages and platforms like PHP or Rails. Obviously Java wins in different areas, but here are few tips:
Prefer unit-testing to redeployment - if you feel comfortable with unit testing, you greatly reduce the amount of redeployments. I found myself deploying complete feature only once, when it's done. All the logic is already tested so I don't have to deploy over and over, wasting seconds or minutes.
Also when I start to work on GUI, I don't have to back to the back-end, since I now it works. Once I see repetitive redeployments I try to test it using JUnit instead.
Use better frameworks. Spring MVC is very conservative, albeit being very good and pure. I've heard Play! framework can reduce turnaround time by recompiling classes on the fly.
On the other hand modern JVM frameworks like Grails can speed-up your development because they create domain, CRUD and GUI for you.
Some frameworks promote loose-coupling of templates. If you are using Freemarker or plain JSPs, it is hard to work separately on GUI. But frameworks like Wicket decouple to a great degree Java code from templates written in plain HTML. Also I am currently working on an application that is only serving static HTML and the dynamic content is updated via AJAX/REST services and JavaScript.
Consider purchasing JRebel and have a look at built-in hot-swapping features in the JVM. Sometimes changing the code does not mean redeployment.
IntelliJ IDEA can update modified resources (HTML, JavaScript) on the fly when the window goes background. This means that your resources are updated the moment you switch window from IDE to the browser. Probably other IDEs can do this as well.
You can customize your IDE to update your deployment automatically. Changes to web pages does not really require to redeploy an application, because Java servers updates them on-the-fly. Regarding your second question - you can create some common installation visible on number of computers, and customize IDE (or write scripts) that copy new pages to the deployment.
You might want to take a look at the Play framework which does just that - it lets you update your code (HTML, CSS, Java) and see the results immediately after pressing the refresh button in your browser, without the need to redeploy you application.
Related
One of the strongest selling points of play framework is it's development cycle, just fix the code, go back to your browse, hit reload, and go one, all without the write, compile, deploy, hassle typical of j2ee web development.
Nevertheless, for web developers coming from php, ruby or python this is hardly surprissing, moreover it's considered the natural way to develop web apps.
Moreover, many of the advantages of play, (efficient template system, resolve errors quickly, stateless, fun & productive) are taken for granted in those frameworks...
So I'd like to know what do you think are the main advatages that play framework brings to web developer coming from dynamic languages.
From my point of view these are the main advantages
it's java, so if you don't feel confortable with java, and you are not willing to learn it, that might not be an advantage. On the other hand, if you HAVE to use java, coming from php or rails you will feel right at home with play
it's static (except for templates and routes, that's about to change on the next version), so you have compiler checks and safe refactoring.
tool support: IDE support (eclipse, intellij, netbeans)
endless collection of libraries to do everything you want, well, it's just java
runs on the jvm, which has years of experience and optimizations
it's compiled, so you may expect better performance
it's really fullstack: it comes with everything you need to develop a web app, compiler, web server, in memory db server, offline documentation, integrated database manager, local and distributed cache management, fixtures, evolutions, dependency management, lots of utility libraries, unit tests, selenium tests, ide support. You need no apache or mysql setup to get up and running
it has advanced features, like asynchronous requests, web sockets, asynchronous jobs
zero development environment setup: just unzip play.zip, play new my app, play run myapp
excellent documentation
great and fast growing community
scala is firmly in it's horizon, if you come from a dynamic language you might feel more comfortable with a language like scala, even though it's static
can be deployed to any servlet container, like tomcat, but also comes with it's own lightweight server
it's got an ever growing collection of community contributed modules
it's cloud friendly, works on gae, heroku, playapps, cloudbee, dotcloud, etc... (see this question)
source code: this is one of it's main advantages, even though it's often neglected. The source code is pretty readable, understandable and not over engineered. Even without much java knowledge, it's possible to have a look at the code, understand it, and begin contributing to the project
In my particular case, coming from a php & classic asp background, play allowed me get a web application up and running while learning java at the same time. it really let me enjoy my transition from dynamic languages to java...
Play has some advantages compared to other dynamic web frameworks, but I think that if you are proficient in codeignter, rails, django, etc, and if you are not willing to benefit from java's (or scala) ecosystem, you should stick to what you know...
A similar debate has been running on Google Groups recently, but more specifically comparing Play and Ruby (on Rails). I have tried to collate some of the feedback the community has provided on this topic, rather than just give me personal view. Hopefully this will make for a more rounded answer!
statically types business logic layer (and using the new templating engine, even your views will be statically typed). This has therefore the advantage of better IDE support as well.
Can use Java as well as Scala, so you are not restricted to a single technology stack.
Play just works out of the box, but is also highly configurable, so does not force you to work in a particular method.
In memory DB. Great for new developers, who just want to get started. No need to go through setting up WAMP/LAMP server etc, just to get started. Just download play, and you are ready to go!
Its Java (or Scala)! I got hooked on Play because I used PHP begrudgingly because it was the easiest way to host a personal website, but hated that I was building software in a way that I did not feel was well structured. Play allowed me to use Java without the bulk of a J2EE application.
Play framework. Play is heavily inspired by Ruby on Rails and Django. A developer familiar with any of these frameworks will feel at home.
1) Play leverages the power of Java to build web applications,By lifting away the Java EE constraints, Play provides developers with an easy-to-develop and elegant stack aimed at productivity.
2) It focuses on developer productivity and targets RESTful architectures. Play is a perfect companion to agile software development.
3) Folder structure of the play mostly match with the Rails.
4) Play loads the code dynamically. Just fix the bug in Java file and hit reload, the change will get reflected instantly on webpage. No need to go through those sluggish rebuild / deployment / server restart.
5) No configuration: No configuration required just download, unpack and start development.
6) Error discovery is very easy, When an error occurs, play shows the error message, the file path, line number, and relevant code snippet right in the browser.
I have a MBP i7 processor.
I like to make small changes in my code and view it in the browser, but I find building my spring mvc app (using intelliJ) and pushing it to Tomcat takes a long time.
Is there something that I can
Use JRebel. It provides hot code swapping and integrates with a lot of the major frameworks to provide configuration reloading, too. It's very simple to set up and use. They offer a 1-month trial, and you can get an additional 3 months via a special summer program.
We currently have a 2-tier Java Swing application sitting on top of MS SQL Server 2005. All the business logic is in the database. The client is quite old (and not very friendly), and for reasons of performance and scalability, we've already started porting some services to a middle tier in Java.
However, we still have a number of short and long term goals:
Pick a technology stack for a new front-end
This isn't easy - I can see everything from a web app at one end of the continuum to a traditional desktop app at the other being viable choices. The current front-end isn't really complex (mostly form-based), so I can see web/AJAX fitting, but it's an area where we don't know what we don't know.
Stacks on my list are:
Eclipse RCP, Netbeans RCP
Flex/Flash, Silverlight, JavaFX
Pure Javascript frontends (Sprout Core, Javascript MVC, ...)
Java-based Web frameworks (Wicket, JSF, ...)
Find a way of making the current application perform acceptably in a remote situation
We have some clients who resale our app to smaller clients and need to be able to remotely deploy it. Due to the 2-tier nature of the current architecture this leads to terrible performance (for example, calling a stored procedure that returns 18 result sets). We've used a Citrix solution in the past, but no-one likes that approach. Tunneling JDBC through port 80 also sounds like a bad idea. I was starting to wonder if there's anything that could use a X-Windows like approach to remote just the GUI part.
To simplify development and leverage your experience in Swing consider using Vaadin for your frontend. It is a Java framework for building modern web applications that look great, and perform well. All the code is written in Java and looks very similar to Swing.
As far as overall application architecture I would advise multi-tier, service oriented architecture. The best way to do it is by using Spring framework with Hibernate for database access.
If you want to easily redeploy your application, for an update, security reasons, etc. and if you want your application to be it to be accessed remotely, you should really consider a web based front end.
Plus, this way, only one app, your web app, will handle connection to the database, so no JDBC tunneling or whatever.
Concerning the best framework, it depends on your team knowledge, the way your application will be used (more or less javascript), etc.
We've just gone through a very similar evaluation process as we're migrating a legacy application.
For us the biggest deciding factor in what front-end framework to use was the prior knowledge of the development team. We wanted something that everybody would be comfortable with immediately. We had a couple of the senior developers that have worked with X or Y, but the framework that everybody knew was Swing.
In the end we decided on the NetBeans platform using RESTful webservice to communicate with an EE server.
As a bonus you can get your NetBeans platform application to deploy as a Java WebStart application, which means you get the benefit of not having to worry about individual installations.
If the frontend is mostly form-based, I would stay away from Flex. Flex is great for some applications (I'm using it for a canvas based application), but the form components of Flex has some usability issues. They just don't work like you expect from todays web. (like missing support for mousewheel, typing in dropdownlist only take first character into account etc.)
Assuming that you are going to force all your clients to install a new middle tier, I can't think of an argument against making it a Java web app. As already mentioned you have the benefit of controlling all access into your platform over HTTP, which allows easy resale, just with firewall configuration. There's no reason you can't make use of Javascript within a web front end, you may be interested in DWR, which allows you to interact directly with Java objects via Javascript. I've used this before to add some simple Ajax interaction to a Spring MVC webapp.
The reasons I like this approach, you're already migrating code into Java middle tier, so
Already imposing Java server hardware cost on clients, hosting app server / web server is comparable
Already have Java expertise, can be leveraged with DWR
Can use as much/little Javascript as appropriate (I've used DWR with IE6, Firefox 3, Chrome)
I think you're right to be wary of pushing too much functionality to the client, I'd go for as thin a client as possible. The only reason I'd look at the first two stack choices would be if you have some developer expertise in a particular area, and not Java webapp/Javascript.
I'd suggest to create a short list of candidate frameworks and create a small test application with all of them. This way you will get a sense of good and bad aspects from all of them and also get a picture what the community activity and documentation is like for each project (there is a lot of variance on those).If you end up doing this I hope you'll include Vaadin in your short list, I think it would fit you very well. If you have any questions just come over to our forums and we'll help you to get started.
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I would like to create a desktop application in Java & web technologies. The main reason for selecting Java is that it is free, open source, and hence our investment would be minimal and we would save lots of investment with respect to licensing costs, etc. Also, the main reason for selecting web technologies is because our current programmers are well versed with web technologies like HTMl, css, Ajax, and we have good experience in creating amazing UI in web technologies.
I will give you some idea about the software that we would like to create. It would be a desktop based software, namely something like an ERP software.
The key requirements are that there should be a great UI and it should be fast and not very resource intensive.
I have heard that implementing a great GUI is possible, but difficult in Java. It can be done but is complex, whereas it is pretty simple to do the same in Visual Studio, Microsoft products.
I have also checked Adobe Air, Nokia QT, etc but they all are pretty expensive for us and we are looking for front-end browser UI and backend embedded server/database using java technologies.
Is it possible to create a desktop software in which the UI is created using the web technologies and there is an embedded server (like jetty or tomcat) and database and the backend programming would be in Java. How does JavaFX fit into this?
So basically, the desktop application would have an embedded browser (mozilla or some java browser which can packaged with the software), but the end user should never realize this.
I look forward to getting feedback about the same. Can you please provide some examples of software created in a similar combination of java + web technologies.
I did study some softwares like PulpTunes & Zimbra which were along similar lines, but they seem to be connecting to internet to display data. Our software would be totally an offline desktop application.
First of all, it is possible. If you are looking for example, check http://wiki.eclipse.org/Hudson-ci/Meet_Hudson.
You can get basic architecture if you dig into their code. It does not use any embedded db.
You are saying your application will always be offline, in that case I suggest you to go for pure desktop application using technologies like Eclipse plugin development.
If you already made up your mind, here are some points that can help you based on my experience with similar application,
Although your application is offline(I assume, your application need not connect to any server for any use case but the user machine can access internet ), you need to deliver changes(for example, change in html or jsp page )/bug fixes transparently to end user. JNLP/Java web start is a good fit for this.
If you are going for JNLP way of installing, you launcher should take care of embedded db installation and ports at the end user machine(this is big problem than it appears).
Also if you are launching server(in my case, Jetty) through JNLP, you will come across Class loading errors due to permission issues. Be prepared to dig through server code. I have done it long time ago and I do not have code now to point exact issues.
Show progress bars during installation process and during your application startup. Your war deployment takes some time and user needs some of knowing that application is startup is in progress. You will end up writing some swing UI.
Launch URL of the application automatically in default browser of the user system, after application startup. You do not need embedded browser.Check http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2SE/Desktop/javase6/desktop_api/.
I used MySql as embedded data base. Check Embedding mysql in java desktop application. It worked for me, I did not come across any problems.
Yes, it is possible. See https://github.com/jreznot/electron-java-app demo. There you will find an easy way to build Electron based application on Java, without compilation to JS, just Java application inside of embedded Jetty instance with Vaadin UI.
You are truly right, java is great if you are developing a project by self.
Server side coding can be done using Spring (For MVC, Database etc...Very rich and ligthweight framework, easy to learn and understand) with hibernate(ORM framework for Database handling, provides dialects for any Database server).
For UI, you can use Spring MVC OR JSF OR GWT OR javaFX. JavaFX provides JNLP download, which runs on java and without browser. check the link for more JavaFX samples. http://javafx.com/samples/
So its on you, what you want to use for UI side. If you prefer web UI (Not javaFX i mean) then you can have many options.
For Ajax, you will have libraries which support easy ajax. like DWR (Easy Ajax, JS to JAVA) and many other JS libraries like yahoo, jQuery etc.. can be used.
hope this helps.
IMHO the whole idea of running a web-server just to create a desktop app with js and ajax and stuff is horrible... I heard about Apple-creator Titanium which is allows to create crossplatform apps using web techniques. There are couple other similar programs as well.
I think you'll end up better buying a good wyswing Swing design tool for java ui which will cost you couple hundred bucks but will save you lots and lots development trouble. It is very hard to believe that laying out a nice desktop app is more complicated than laying out a web page.
I didn't get the embedded jetty/tomcat part. You want the desktop app to run an embedded server that talks to the database? So each desktop app would open a DB connection?
Why not have a Java desktop app that sends HTTP requests to a JavaEE server that connects to the DB and processes the requests? So basically, a Java client (which could be as rich as your developers can make it) replacing a browser. This gives you a lot more scalability, etc.
We have a similar (albeit much more complex) product developed using
- Swing + Apache Commons HttpClient on the desktop. This makes an HTTP POST request with serialized binary data to the server.
- A dispatcher servlet running in a web container that recreates the Java object on the server and executes the request.
I will probably get stoned for this, but I suggest JavaFX for this. We have successfully implemented a JavaFX-application for internal use in a larger company. The advantages are that the software is "controlled" on the server side (thus, nobody will have an "old" version). Installation effort is minimal (Java Web Start fixes this for you, it will even trigger a minimal JRE-installation if none exist) and last but not least, JavaFX can be run in the browser and as a pure desktop application alike without having to change the code.
Adobe FLEX is another contender, but it lacks the "Web Start" bit and is not quite as flexible when it comes to easy migration between browser and desktop.
Anyway, JavaFX is not quite feature complete as FLEX but version 1.3 can be considered battle-ready and you can create neat stuff with the free JavaFX plugins for Adobe Creative Suite (if your app will contain any graphics, that is).
I am used to develop web applications in Java (Struts, Spring, JSP...). But now I want to develop a desktop one. I never liked to design windows in Java (AWT, Swing, SWT): too much work for an ugly interface. So I think it could be a good idea if could take advantage of my web-app skills. One option is to modify the SWT Browser and make calls to a Java function instead of HTTP requests. A very good add-on would be use of JSP. Finally, I thought that probably there is some framework or tool for this.
Do you think that what I propose is a good idea?
There is available some framework for this?
I need this for light applications. So I think that embedding an Tomcat server and using it with HTTP requests is not a good idea.
Edit: One example application could be a folder comparer: you specify two folders and the app shows you which folders and files are different. In this case, I think opening an external browser is ugly. Bloated application (with its server, MVC, etc) wouldn't be the best choice.
If you have used the JavaScript library - ExtJs - then you can use it with Adobe AIR to build good looking desktop based web app.
Building app's in Adobe AIR is also simple and elegant with the flex builder ide.
If your option goes to embed a light server, check winstone is not fully J2EE compliant but should be enough for what you need.
About the browser, I am not a big fan of swt myself, it complicates a lot cross-platform deployment, so probably worth to keep an eye on jwebpane, not quite ready yet, but probably the solution you'll need.
I wouldn't discount embedding a web server. I've done this before with a web start application embedding Jetty.
The download was pretty fast, the server starts up and you can use BrowserLauncher to immediately drive your browser to the embedded server, and hence your application. Jetty is designed to be modular and have a small footprint, so you can probably cut it down to the bare necessities.
There are several options: You can use the plugin API of Firefox and develop your app in there. You can use HTML, JavaScript, the built-in database, all the browser features and access the OS level.
Or you could try PyQt (Python and Qt) which allows to write simple applications very quickly.
[EDIT] The main problem you're facing is security: For security reasons, JavaScript apps (running in a HTML page) can't access local OS resources. So unless your browser allows you to write plugins in JavaScript (which is only true for FF AFAIK), there is no way to write an application which uses HTML as the "view" without the help of something else.
Moreover, HTML is very limited when it comes to features for applications. HTML is designed to be a "static document view" not an "application". You can do things like GMail but if you compare GMail to any real mail app (Outlook, Thunderbird, Notes), you'll see quickly that real desktop apps offer a lot more features.