Always Get Better

Archive for the ‘Java’ Category

Using DateTime in the Play! Framework

Sunday, May 20th, 2012

Which data type should you use for time information on your Java models? The Date class is mostly deprecated, pushing us into the direction of the heavyweight Calendar class. Storing the milliseconds since Epoch in a Long is both database-friendly and easy to perform math on and convert at runtime. But if you really want a good experience, you are using Joda Time.

Joda Time is built into the Play! Framework, and there really is no excuse to use anything else. But when it comes to saving dates in your JPA Models, there is a big “gotcha” in that there is no default type converter to move a DateTime object into and out of the database. Oops.

But that can be fixed with an annotation in your model, like this:

@Type(type="org.joda.time.contrib.hibernate.PersistentDateTime")
public DateTime created;

Unfortunately, Play does not ship with Hibernate support for the DateTime object. So to make this work you need to include the Joda-Time-Hibernate library in your dependencies.yml file:


require:
- play
- joda-time -> joda-time-hibernate 1.3

After updating the dependencies file, run the play deps –sync command to pull in the libraries from maven. Your models will now save their date and time into MySQL, and your programming experience will be smooth as silk – at least as far as time-based functionality is concerned.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Java, Play Framework | 3 Comments »

How Play Framework Saves the World

Monday, April 11th, 2011

Play framework must be the best-kept secret in the Java world. If you haven’t had a chance to see their totally awesome demonstration video where they build a full app before your eyes in a matter of minutes, go – go now. Then come back.

Why do I like this framework so much? Put simply, it is an elegant solution for nearly every problem I’ve ever run into in developing websites, both single-server and multi-server applications. Don’t take my word for it, see for yourself.

The Goodness of Java
To my mind, Java has the edge over more common scripting languages (like PHP) because it is compiled (fast) and statically typed (reliable). In the past, using compiled languages on the web was only possible if you were using ASP.NET or willing to put up with the hassles of existing Java frameworks and servers.

Play’s first innovation comes from wrapping the Java runtime inside a Python web server; using a Play application is as easy as running a command line script and connecting with your web browser. Play’s second innovation is its just-in-time compilation and display of error messages; if you make a mistake you will know in the amount of time it takes to hit refresh on your web browser.

Since it IS java, programmers can use libraries they have built for other applications or sourced from other vendors and plug directly into their code. This is one of the advantages Microsoft has had going for it and it is good to see it implemented so nicely in the open source world.

The Ease of Rails
Love it or hate it, Ruby on Rails has had an affect on the entire web world and its reach is definitely felt in the Play framework. Everything from the routing to JPA integration has that minimal-configuration design that is so prevalent in the Ruby world. Play has the edge though, due to Java annotations and the extra control you get as a developer.

Baked-in Unit Testing
Admittedly this is the first thing that drew me to the Play framework. Unit testing has to be one of the most important aspects of good programming; in fact, if your code is not covered by unit tests, I argue it is incomplete. Play has terrific support for unit testing, functional testing and selenium-based web testing. In version 1.1, Play added a headless web testing mode, paving the way to run framework applications in the context of an automated build environment – smart move!

Although awkward at first, using YAML files for database fixtures makes a lot of sense. Managing database access in unit tests has always been a challenge but thanks to the in-memory database server and fixture files Play offers us database integration testing – giving us the fresh-start benefits of mock frameworks along with the soundness of mind that comes from knowing you are testing the real database.

Share Nothing Architecture
Call it laziness, call it human error. At some point in the development cycle, the session always seems to end up carrying user data around. Even with data-sharing applications like memcached, that style of development does not scale well. With Play, sessions are stored in user cookies and consist of an encrypted key. The idea is the application takes care of loading any additional information it needs from this seed information, so the web cluster can be expanded to hundreds of nodes or reduced to a single server with no performance penalties on the other servers. Each Play instance operates as if it is the only one in existence, making it far easier to support complex site architectures.

Tags: , ,
Posted in internet, Java, Play Framework | 4 Comments »

Breaking Java’s Rules: Instantiating an Interface

Friday, February 8th, 2008

Here’s a geeky party trick:

Abstract classes in Java cannot be instantiated. Here we’re going to consider ways in which a button can be programmed within a JPanel. ActionListener is used to react to the button event, but ActionLister is an interface (pure abstract class) so in order to use it you have to derive a class from it and implement actionPerformed.

For example, you can’t do this:

[source:java]
ActionListener buttonListener = new ActionListener();
[/source]

You have to do this:

[source:java]
public class ButtonListener
{
public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent event )
{
}
}

ButtonListener buttonListener = new ButtonListener();
ourJButton.addActionListener( buttonListener );
[/source]

However, this code is valid:

[source:java]
ourJButon.addActionListener( new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent event )
{
}
} );
[/source]

What’s going on? It would appear that we are instantiating a new ActionListener and giving it an actionPerformed() method. We’ve succeeded in giving our button a listener without first creating a class to handle the event.

Anonymous Inner Classes

Of course we aren’t really instantiating ActionListener – it was a trick. What this does is create an anonymous inner class only in this part of our code. Check it out – when you compile your code, javac will create extra class files for our ActionListener.

For one-off buttons, using anonymous inner classes is an excellent way of reducing code bloat and improving the readability of your programs. There are drawbacks of course, which I’ll go into detail in another article, another day.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Java | No Comments »