Web Application Development

For those of you not following geek things, there is a lawsuit going on between Youtube (owned by Google), and Viacom (CBS, Daily Show, Colbert Report). Viacom is angry that some of their content was posted on Youtube. Apparently, there was 63,000 separate items on Youtube that were copyrighted by Viacom. Viacom has been supported with a “Friend of the Court” brief by NBC, BMI, and ASCAP (Basically the RIAA). Google has similar briefs by EBay, Facebook, Amazon, and Yahoo. How does this court case affect me as an application development person? Well, it could determine your web application development. There are many interesting issues here: fair use, piracy, site owner responsibility. The key issue here is for the very soul of the Internet. As you probably know, the Internet was created to share information amongst researchers around the globe. This communications device allows us to share voice, text, audio, and video. This makes it easy to share ideas, even if those ideas weren’t ours. A part of that communication is the same kind “water cooler” talk that everybody has done for years. “Did you see what that talk show guy said last night”? The only difference is now you can post it. This song expresses how I feel, and I have added some pictures to show how it has affected my life.
The media outlets want the site owners to control the content on their site. They claim that Youtube is a content provider, and thus are “stealing” their content for gain. This would be analogous to suing the U.S. mail for getting a threatening letter. We have fair use,  so any signal sent through the airwaves is free for anyone take and use. This meant that anyone who broadcasted, the content could be consumed by anyone. The content providers made money by placing advertisements in the content. Since that time, content providers have been using congress to side step these boundaries by changing the length of copyright, putting "digital" rights on formerly analog content, and pushing for laws that allow content to be controlled by the provider. The large media companies ignored the Internet because there wasn’t any correlation to their business. When companies like Google started to compete for the same advertising dollars, the large media outlets saw the Internet as a threat to their business model, and are now looking to destroy it.
No one is trying to deny content providers money. It was agreed long ago that your work was yours, but eventually it would be owned by the public. That changed when media companies are entirely built upon their own content (just look Mickey Mouse at Disney). Do people take content that doesn’t belong to them? Yes. Are people just posting items broadcasted to make their point, or to inform? Yes. We have to decide as a society whether the Internet is place to allow copyrighted material as a form of communication. NBC found it distasteful that their shows were on Youtube. That’s why they created Hulu.

What do you want the Internet to be, a free (as in liberty) communication device, or a pay-per-view broadcast medium?

This post may shock you... the Java Rocker is going to talk about legacy iSeries and AS/400! Before you panic, and call it the end of the world, let me continue. This post is about running all of the cool new Web 2.0 things on your IBM hardware. Really! Even in Cincinnati! Many people, (myself included) thought the old IBM hardware was only for RPG and COBOL (shudders). It turns out that IBM has been adding functionality to run Linux on the box. That means Wikis, Ecommerce, blogs, and web applications are now there for iSeries-AS/400 people. The catch is that your iSeries needs to be up to date, which sadly for most organizations is not. My IT consulting colleagues at STAR BASE are good with taking your tired old hardware and doing the maintenance necessary for the modernization piece. They get your hardware and software cleaned up and ready, so I can help you with all of the cool new application development projects that I have been talking about.

First, sorry for the tardiness of my posts. Between the holidays, coming back from the holidays, a cold, and a secret project (for now), I haven't had time to blog.. until now. My current focus has been a Facebook game application. Well it's still in the alpha phase, but I wanted to get the architecture up and running. There's nothing worse for an application development person than to finish your application, then find out you need to rewrite it (or worse) because of the architecture doesn't support it. Even without Zembly, setting up a Facebook application is pretty easy. Since I had most of the defaults already in, the only thing I need to do is to tell Facebook where my application resides. Since I don't have Zembly anymore, I have to put on my application development and network administrator hats on set up an application server.
My first test was to deploy the application into my local Tomcat. NetBeans does a great job of having the files available to you, but the thing you learn quickly is that there isn't a simple deployment piece. Tomcat needs a WAR file, so I tried to use the JAR command to WAR up the files in the dist folder. No dice. The war file needs a proper web.xml file to work properly. Rather than use workarounds on workarounds, I created a web application project in NetBeans, linked the jar file from my JavaFX project, and copied the JNLP and HTML files to my new project. I now have a WAR to deploy. Tomcat loves this file. I run and... “FILE NOT FOUND?” was heard all throughout Cincinnati. Your JNLP file that was created points to a servlet called internally by NetBeans. Make sure change the following lines:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<jnlp spec="1.0+" codebase="http://your server.com/app path/" href="SBWarsTest_browser.jnlp">
<information>
<title>SBWarsTest</title>
<vendor>STAR BASE </vendor>
<homepage href="http://your server.com/app path/"/>

Once I made the change to localhost, everything was fine. Now I wanted a real application server, so I downloaded and installed Glassfish V.2.1 on one of our servers, changed the JNLP file and we are in business. I tried to hit it from my machine, and no dice. After some extensive research, I found out the the Java 7 EA JRE does not play well with JavaFX. I uninstalled it (which reverted to JRE 1.6.18), and it works. In Facebook, you need to set the canvas callback URL to your host application path. The result is the pretty picture you see at the top of my post.

According to ComputerWorld, web application development remains top dog by far in the top IT skills to have in 2010.  Specifically, companies will look for developers with knowledge of .Net, Java, Web development, open source and portal technologies.  The article goes on to suggest that combining web application development skills with business analysis or project management skills is a big plus.  ComputerWorld lists the remaining skills to have for 2010 in its top six as:  Help Desk/Technical Support, Networking, Project Management, Security and Business Intelligence.

I feel ComputerWorld did not put enough emphasis on Security; this without doubt will be the biggest challenge for IT executives in the coming years.  Open-source software may be an innovative money saver, but IT professionals still have concerns that networks could be vulnerable to viruses, cyberattacks and other intrusions.

According to InfoWorld, a new survey from Forrester Research found that 58 percent of large companies have security concerns about open source. In addition, 57 percent of small and mid-sized businesses expressed concern that open-source software would be "complex and hard to adopt".

With the advent and increasing usage of open-source in the business world, expect to see demand for IT security related skills to grow.  According to the FLOSS 2020 roadmap presented at the Open World Forum in Paris, 40 percent of jobs will be related in some way to open source by 2020.  You can expect application development and security to comprise a great majority of these jobs.
 

I recently read an article about the state of the IBM “i” and the amount of complaining by IBM application development and business partner folk. I know several RPG application development folk, and it sounds familiar. That made me think about my Java Application development and career. Are there things to complain about, and uncertainty about the future? Yes, but there are 2 reasons why the Java community is in a better place; the business model and the community. Before the IBMers call for a holy war, I said COMMUNITY! I am not talking about the strengths or weaknesses of the hardware or software. The business model for IBM is that they make the hardware and software, and partner for the sales and service. I think that is a viable model until IBM competes in the sales and services with their partners. If a lead is brought in by a small partner, they are awarded by giving the business to someone bigger. This sets up a confrontational relationship between IBM, the big partners, and the little partners. IBM can also decide whether or not you are worthy to be a partner. Why does this affect the software application development team? Because most consulting firm are selling SERVICES not HARDWARE. If they are not seeing business because of political fighting, they don't have to sell it. There are viable options on other platforms, where interference does not happen. IBM never fostered a community, they created a hierarchy with themselves as the head.

Certainly Sun has done some things that made myself and others unhappy. Besides, complaining, we actively pushed to remove barriers in our path. We do have an open source Java. Is there a IBM community that can work with RPG to make it work for them? I also think its about scale and timing. It's not like IBM software developers have their own AS/400 at their home. It's easy for me to create and use nearly any kind of application at my home in Cincinnati, and pretty cheaply. It makes it fun to tell non-technical people about my application development. Nobody but accountants want to hear about accounting programs. Java, and newer languages have grown up with the Internet. I have friends from all over the globe that have similar interests. If I have a problem, I can go online to a forum, friend, or web page to find what I need. I can read and write blogs to voice my opinion (like now). These things are not ingrained in the Legacy community, and in fact, have been actively campaigned against. It is my belief that any software, hardware, or service will die when there is no vocal community to support it.

People outside of Cincinnati may be shocked to know that I work with languages OUTSIDE of Java! I don't know any application development person, especially one who does web application development who doesn't use several languages. I have recently been working on Magento. What is that you say? Magento is an Open Source PHP ECommerce application based on the Zend Framework. You don't need to download Zend, just the Magento PHP files. We actually have Magento internally setup with a LAMP package, but I already have MySQL and Apache on my local machine, so I thought I'd tackle and individual install. The verdict? Well after a couple of small hiccups (don't use the Windows install for PHP, just unzip, and localhost needs to be a virtual host), setup was a breeze!  Fortunately, STAR BASE, Inc. has enough experience to over come these issues.  Magento is easy to customize products and catalogs, and would be a good choice for organizations to create their own ECommerce site. Magento is easy enough to implement without an IT Consultant, but an experienced consultant can save you time and frustration.

I am finishing up with my client in Cincinnati. I am trying to clean up code from the vendor, when an interesting error occurred. That’s when I decided to poke around and look at some place for better coding practices. As any Java software development person knows, "Effective Java" is about the best book there is on Java. It’s a must have book. On The web, I have found this site that has some great coding practices. Technology, and specifically Java, is a fast moving animal. What was valid 5 years ago, may not apply, or even exist, now. Searching the Internet is great for information, but you have to be careful too. I try to avoid any article written before 2006, unless it directly applies to the subject matter. Take string concatenation for example, common wisdom says to not use the "+" for concatenation. Use a StringBuilder object. If you are on 1.4.2, you don’t have that object, you have StringBuffer. Well performance wise, which works best, and what kind of performance hit do you get? The only real way to tell is to write your own test class, and call JavaP. JavaP allows you to see the byte code operations. Sometimes you may have only a few operations which would be unnoticed by your users. If repeated often enough though, you could have a real performance problem.
I have noticed that many application development people, and really all people, find a fact that they have read, and use it in their daily job. Facts, like technology change, and the best way to know is to prove it yourself. I have come to write little test classes to work out code I haven’t done before. That way I can understand just what is going on before I introduce it into my application. I have been applying that same concept to accepted performance practices. Profiling applications is also a great way to "see" what your code is doing. The best thing for application development members to do is never assume anyting works as planned, and never stop learning.

1. Document more than the minimum 7,500 hours of business analysis work.  This ensures that if your hours are reduced in the review process that you will still have enough hours to qualify to sit for the exam.  This goes for total hours as well as hours in each of the knowledge areas.  I personally documented 9,000 hours on my application.
2. Put the language on your application in the wording of the BABOK®.  By putting your work tasks and deliverables in the language of the profession it is less likely that the hours will be discounted in review.
    

My client in Cincinnati is having issues with one of their Java based web applications. The application is throwing an out of memory error. One of the vendor's application development personnel traced it back to a local byte array object. He said "it can’t be the problem because it is created in a method. I don't have to null the object because it is garbage collected". In Java, you are taught that any variables created in a method call persist only for the life of that method call. When the method has completed, all objects are out of scope, so they are to be garbage collected. Java uses implicit object creation and destruction, so the application developer can focus on the problem. Like any rule though, there are exceptions. If your local variable is referencing an external object, and that reference is still live, your local object still persists in memory. Since the method has been garbage collected, the object will stay in memory and not be freed until you restart the server. The best example of this is creating a database connection object. If you don’t call the close method and null it, the object will persist until the JVM is shut down. This called a stale connection. Even though you may have created the connection in a method, the object doesn’t get collected. Look at the following code:

package test;
public class MemTest
{
    private final int dataSize = (int) (Runtime.getRuntime().maxMemory() * 0.9);

 public byte[] func()
 {
    byte[] data = new byte[dataSize];
    System.out.println("func: byte array created in func");
    System.out.println("func: Total Mem=" + Runtime.getRuntime().totalMemory()
               + " Free Mem=" + Runtime.getRuntime().freeMemory());
    return data;
 }

 public static void test()
 {
    MemTest jmp = new MemTest();
    System.out.println("Max Mem=" + Runtime.getRuntime().maxMemory()
              + " dataSize=" + jmp.dataSize);
    System.out.println("Total Mem=" + Runtime.getRuntime().totalMemory()
              + " Free Mem=" + Runtime.getRuntime().freeMemory());
     byte[] data1 = jmp.func();
     System.out.println("byte array returned in jmp.func, size=" + data1.length);
     System.out.println("Total Mem=" + Runtime.getRuntime().totalMemory()
                + " Free Mem=" + Runtime.getRuntime().freeMemory());
      jmp = null; // this does not do anything as data1 still has a reference to the byte[] returned from jump.func()
//   data1 = null; // if data1 is not set to null here to remove to the reference to the byte[], data2=jump2.func() will hit OutOfMemory exception
      MemTest jmp2 = new MemTest();
      byte[] data2 = jmp2.func();
      System.out.println("byte array returned in jmp2.func, size=" + data2.length);
      System.out.println("Total Mem=" + Runtime.getRuntime().totalMemory()
            + " Free Mem=" + Runtime.getRuntime().freeMemory());
 }

 public static void main(String[] args)
 {
    System.out.println("--test1--");
    test();
    System.out.println("--test2--");
    test();
    System.out.println("--test3--");
    test();
    System.out.println("--test4--");
    test();
 }
}

If you run this code, it will throw an out of memory exception. Uncomment the data1= null statement and run again. This application is the 1.4 JDK, and the newer JDKs are doing a better job at handling this situation. I also know that there are 2 things to remember in application development, don’t assume anything, and rules were meant to broken. I still have some testing to do, but I am sure my Cincinnati client will be happy.

This is the last of a three part series; part one is here and part two is here. Many application development guys are wondering, what is the Cloud, and what is the Sun Cloud? Think of Cloud computing as a virtualized data center. In part one I talked about VirtualBox, which allows you to virtualize network components and resources. Think of VirtualBox working on the atomic level, taking small resources to create a virtualized network. Now Cloud computing takes all of the virtualized networks and utilizes them as resources in a virtualized data center. The Sun Cloud is a set of APIs to let you manage networks and storage areas as resources. You can cluster or categorize networks in any way you wish. You can manage user access to the resources, not unlike application development teams utilize in web applications.
What does all this mean to application development and management? It means that you can create a single network and copy or clone it. For example, you can create a single network instance with servers, storage areas databases, and clone the entire network for each region you manage. That means all networks are managed in one spot, and all regions are setup exactly the same. No application compatibility issues. You can, of course, add or remove components, but they are all have the same infrastructure. You can upgrade the virtual network, and pass the changes to the other regions. The electricity saved by running virtualized datacenters would be significant. You can connect to your partners’ virtualized networks to access their data. For application development teams, that would change how we design applications if we have access to external data and applications.

This was my fifth JavaOne conference. Since it is always at the Moscone center, I know pretty much every nook and cranny of JavaOne. Although smaller this year, I thought this was the best one yet. The people there were truly happy to be there, and combined with takeover news and a bad global economy, a bigger sense of cooperation. I would highly recommend coming to one if they still have one. Nobody, not even James Gosling (I was in a group of 20 who had a 45 minute meeting with him) knows if there will be one next year. The reason you come to JavaOne is not the presentations (they are great!), but the people. Meeting and befriending people who created your favorite blog, book, or technology is the reason to come. I remember meeting Craig McClanahan (co-creator of struts) in 2004, and saying "that’s Craig freaking McClanahan!" Last year, I was honored a share a picture of beer with him, Jarda Tulach (inventor of NetBeans), and Geertjan Wielenga (JavaLobby blogger extraordinaire). Application development people get to "network" with the best and brightest architects, technical press, and business owners. This year I got hang with the JUG leaders, NetBeans Dream Teamers, and the JavaFX guys. I wrote, and helped edit a YouTube video "pushing Java", and met more of my fellow Java music software developers. I literally have friends from all over the world (yes Cincinnati too), and I am considered an honorary Brazilian because of JavaOne. Larry Ellison, if you are reading this, please don’t stop JavaOne!

Part one discussed Open Solaris. Part Two is all about what is new with JavaFx and the Java Store.

I have talked about, and been impressed with JavaFX since its debut at JavaOne 2007. It was a key part of my presentation to Cincinnati area application development members that year. For those application development people who don’t know what JavaFx is, I blogged about it here. So what’s new really with it? The JavaFx in 2007 was JavaFX script. JavaFX was limited in where you could run the script. In January, JavaFX released its first runtime, and now JavaFX 1.2 is out. You can have graphic designers create media for your application using JavaFX production and easily import them into JavaFx. The JavaFx language can now be run on the desktop, web page or mobile device. JavaFx has been integrated with the new version of web start, but more on that later. New widgets have been created, and third-party widgets are being created at JavaFx widgets. There still are issues, though. Some swing like widgets like menus and tables have not been completely done. You can create a wrapper around Swing components, but it’s not the same as a native widget. Integration with NetBeans 6.7 isn’t there because of the new designer isn’t ready, but an update is scheduled at the end of July The reason I think application development teams should use JavaFX, is that the same code can run in multiple areas. I can now create a desktop application and have it run on the web and mobile devices without having to rewrite my code.

The JavaFX designer will help in a wider adoption rate of JavaFX for the things it can do. A big part of JavaFx is making animation simple to create. With the timer piece of designer, it’s a breeze. In the demo here, (starts 10:25 in) you can take an image, give it a starting point, and pick intermediate points and the times and the designer creates all of timings for you. You can bind media and widgets to data or events. For example you can drop a video and some buttons on the scene. You then drag a link from a button to the media, and all available actions popup (play, pause, etc.). Select the action in the popup and it’s done. Application development guys can create a media player in minutes. You can open different windows with different screen sizes, and all of the children inherit their changes from the parent. You can edit each screen though, and those changes are kept for that window.

What is the Java Store, and why do I need it? The Java store is a warehouse for free, and for fee Java applications. Right now, everything is for free while the community decides the best way to charge (or not) for applications. If you need an application quickly, you can check the store without having to do extensive searching, or worse, recreating the wheel. The cool thing about the store is its use of the new Web Start technology. Users can preview the application before keeping the application. If you decide to keep the application, just drag it to your desktop. It’s just that easy.

This is my third year at trying to boil down 4 days of experiences into an abbreviated post or presentation for application development teams and management of the Cincinnati and Dayton areas.
As mentioned previously, the major topics were Cloud computing and JavaFX, but a new item that I am impressed with is Open Solaris. Version 2009.06 was released at CommunityOne. I am not a Sun representative and I have not been a Solaris user, but there are some great features that I think are cool. Before I get into the new features, let me give you some background. Solaris was Sun's proprietary OS that has a reputation as a fast, enterprise operating system, using ZFS as their file system. Sun open sourced Solaris a couple of years ago. Application development teams who use Solaris will tell you about the worthiness of DTrace, a system debugging tool. It is the one thing that Linux engineers really want to integrate.
There is not a lot of Solaris usage in Cincinnati, and I don’t have a dedicated box for Solaris, so I never used it, but that may change. Like Linux, you can get a "live" version on a disc to try out. I am currently playing with VirtualBox, a open source virtualizer. Unlike VMware, both the player and recorder are free. To tell you how cool it is, I was running an Ubuntu VM on a live Solaris session with Windows as the host OS!
The other reason for my excitement is project Crossbow. Project Crossbow is a networking virtualization project aimed for usage in the cloud. Before my application development friends tune out due to buzzword overkill, let me explain. Project Crossbow can virtualize your entire network including your NICs and switches. The really cool part is that they have a cool GUI that allows you to drag and drop your network pieces. You need a firewall? Drop it into your network. It’s already configured and ready to use. Need another server? Just drop it in and connect it to your network. Since the network is virtualized, you can create your own network from virtualized pieces from any VM. That’s where the cloud comes in. Virtual networks and hardware can be added or removed at any time, if they were not virtualized by you. You could connect to your partner’s network, and if anything changes on their end, the changes would be reflected in their VM. I would strongly urge application development people who dislike/don't understand networking to use project Crossbow, and for free virtualization, use VirtualBox.

Web application development is a must for Cincinnati and Dayton companies.  We at STAR BASE, Inc. have written much lately about open source IT solutions.  Since we have been on a roll with that, why stop now? 

Another open source IT solution we have worked with is Sugar CRM.  Sugar CRM falls in to a relatively new software category that I’m going to call Commercial Open Source or COS for short.  (Remember you saw the TLA (three letter acronym) COS here first!)  COS applications have a free version that you can download and implement and they also have a commercial version that can be licensed and supported like any other software application.

What we have found to be very effective; is to use the open source version and customize and tailor it to meet specific business needs.   No need to re-invent the wheel.  Swweeet!

 

Just when I thought the browser wars were pretty much a thing of the past, they are heating up again.  Web application development is difficult enough without having to worry about what version of what browser a client may be using.  

We just upgraded a couple of machines to IE 8 and guess what?  IE 8 is not compatable with our web based CRM!  IE 7 and FireFox 3 work fine, but in IE 8 the search fields are not input capable.  IE 8 provides for a “compatablity mode”, but hey that doesn’t work either.  I was wondering if Google Chrome would work, but in Chrome, the search fields don’t show up at all; the field labels are repeated. 

I was thinking about trying Opera, but stopped because how many web browsers do I really need on my machine any way?

In order for web applications to continue to flourish and expand, there has got to be adherence to standards by both application developers and software companies.  There are so many other applications that could be developed and expanded.  But what do we do with IT solutions?  Both vendors and developers shoot themselves in the foot by delivering applications and software that “stops working”. 

What's the business impact?
- Increased support costs.
- Increased applications development and testing time
- Less confidence by the user community of “IT not  being able to do anything right”.
- Less time and money to develop new applications.

As a reformed, application developer, maybe I should retitle this post “The Return of the Angry White Guy.”  I think instead, I’m going outside and shouting, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”.