Luck !!!! December 30, 2007

I don’t remember when really guess it was just after school, I think my uncle took me to this workshop he wanted to attend. Told me the speaker was an expert, lectures are very popular.

I’ll give u a clue the add says don’t come late to the session, yup I’m talking about Aporesh Acharya. The session was simply scintillating, I was very impressed. Should have gone ahead and enrolled for the session but hey I was a school kid Duke Nukem appealed more to me. There was a key note if I can call it that, about the session the speaker said the gist of the session the learing process itself really was luck. He went on to give a definition of luck :

” Luck is the meeting point of your alertness and any opportunity passing by .. “

That I still remember.

Priorities – Org Def December 30, 2007

When I started out initially I attended this workshop PDC as it was called in Haddows club, Nungambakkam chennai.

Interesting session really, had a lot of fun the batch chilled out took it easy had a real time. It was for a duration of 3 days started on the 14th and went on till the 17th December 2004 won’t forget it 4 sure.

A couple of guys made the presentation on work prioritization and stuff like that, really useful stuff to be productive @ work.

Here’s what they came up with:

Interestingly i followed it for a few months only to realize that hey I’m the odd one out. So hey when in Rome be a Roman, so I kinda of changed my style according to the workplace.

Here I am today deleting my old files when I came across this. Well if can’t store em blog em..

Guess I’ll have to come up with a new one for this.

eXTERNAL Tools Usage with Eclipse December 19, 2007

Using the External Tools feature in Eclipse

Eclipse is one of the best things to happen to the world of Java development. An open source community development project it may be…but planned well it is….
The code is strong in this one…..

All right that’s enough of me tryin to speak like Yoda.

So let’s talk about some hidden gems in eclipse. Here’s something most of developers may not use effectively. The external tools set of power tools that eclipse.
If I were to describe it 2 words Simbhu style “Chanceless !! Super !!”

Anyway through the course of my learning I have used it following configurations:

There are times when most of us developers would have used the command prompt in tandem with eclipse.
The legendry command prompt

This is my personal favorite; I mean there’s never been a time when I could do without this one. So the Console view we have in eclipse it logs at the data. So I was wondering if it’s possible to have the command prompt running from the Eclipse itself. Turns out that it can be done and it’s easier than what I would have expected.

So here how we do it:
Open the External Tools window:

In the location just specify the windows executable that needs to be run.
Let give a suitable name for the Lauch configuration like:
Command Prompt Launch

All right once this is done the launch target can be viewed by clicking
Run  External Tools

This illustration is an indication of the same.
So when we click on 2 that’s Command Prompt Launch
Tadaaa!!!

A sweet command prompt just for me and that too within eclipse, wow how cool is that.

So that cool the command prompt shell gets embedded in the SWT window or view or whatever but what about the AWT or Swing stuff.

I tried to add the PointBase DataBase UI which is a classic Swing/AWT program.
So went ahead with the standard configuration and ran the external target.
Alright opens up the UI as a standard Java Application.

Europa – Let’s see what you got December 9, 2007

This week this has tech intensified for me. Oh yeah !! I’m digging it alright but hey it’s taking a toll on MBA prep..Ok we’ll balance it next week.

In the process of installing the Eclipse Callisto build on my computer. Downloaded the Eclipse 3.3 build for this something like >120 MB.
Started up Eclipse…Tada !!!
The Europa splash screen comes up.

After navigating the IDE, I realize that like the Callisto build Europa also needs to be installed through the Discovery service ie the Find and Install.
Luckily this comes pre-configured so no addition of extra URLs

After selecting the Europa, the choice of projects to install is yours to decide. This screen shot gives a birds eye view of some of the Top Level projects that Eclipse has to offer.
But like I said this is just the tip of the iceberg.

So gonna install this baby and checkout the happenin neo features..
Till next time…..

Netbeans 6.0 December 9, 2007

I’m doing my MS project with SOA and ESB as the primary choice of technology implementation. And after evaluating licenses and tooling support, primarily between Eclipse,JDeveloper & NetBeans I decided to go with:

Netbeans 6.0 and OpenESB
JDeveloper’s got some cool offering in BPEL, SOA but for the learning process I’m going with Netbeans 6.0.

I installed NB 6 a couple of months back & finally decided to give it a test drive to develop some JSF applications. And trust me when it comes to JSF application development no IDE can match the Netbeans 6.0. this has been integrated with the Sun Studio Creator line of IDEs.

So here’s cool splash:

That’s a neat splash, one of these days I’m going get my Photoshop skills upgraded just for the purpose of creating some cool splash screens.

Alright decided to create a Web app using JSF – Visual JSF framework

One of the good things about NB 6 is it is truly out of box. That’s right I the following cool things:

1) Application Server, WebServer
comes preinstalled.
2) Derby DB configured with the IDE and has examples schema that is used in the examples.
3) Easy to wire up app server with DB and enable it for the Web application.

So what it means for developers you are relatively new to the field is ease of use, starting the learning process becomes easier.
Hey I’m not saying this can’t be done with eclipse but hey the problem is there’s way too many eclipse configurations around that make things a little bit more interesting.
Hopefully distros like MyEclipse, EasyEclipse, Pulse are around …

So installation was like incredibly easy and the IDE simply looks beautiful. I’ve used NB at version 3.X and I didn’t find it all that easy but version 6 simply rocks.

Neat project configuration, lets you choose which Java based Web framework needs to implemented. Libraries can be configured separately.

And kapish you got a web a project created.

So some of the major views attached with NB 6 are:

Projects:

The projects view is a neat view that groups the different elements into groups.

Services:

This is the view which I’m interested in.
Alright like I said NB 6 comes wired with all the basic configurations.

So WYSIWYG.

The good thing about Services and when I compare it with eclipse is the ease of use that this view offers. It’s a single point entry to all server side configs.
In Eclipse you just got too many views to play with. HMmmm!! Something to think about.

Files:

This is the neat files View. Nothing great here just the standard for almost all IDEs.

So that’s about the project creation.
I’m using JSF these days so thought I’ll check out some JSF aspects as well.

Ok Creation of JSF Page:

Adding Elements from the Palette: Neat awesome this is as good as Visual Studio

Editing faces-config.xml

Alright there seems to be a problem with the application guess it’s a milestone build.
They’ve got a neat interface for reporting errors check it out:

And the application server Glassfish takes a long time to boot up I’d recommend you go with the bundled TomCat that’s like a lot faster.
Anyways guess I’ll need to reinstall this baby.

Warm Up Test December 9, 2007

Took the warm test in PR. Well the warm up test proved to be a major warning and an indicator that well

“Practice makes perfect”

Well I accept that.

The scores are not much to brag about. Here it is:

Princeton Review	GMAT Warmup Test	Verbal Score – 8/20	Math Score – 13/20

Preparation needs to Revamp… Losing Steam December 3, 2007

All right after the trip, I sure is hell have become real sloppy and lazy. GMAT prep seems to heading towards a dead end. Not good. Got to rethink, regroup, need to come up with new strategy to keep a steady learning process in place.

But first a list

1. Gonna grab the OG11 and get through the eval warm up to see where i am.
2. Complete the sample tests in Princeton Review
3. Thinking about joining a course like IMS’s GMAT Max Prep or 4GMAT gonna check that out. I’ll put that in the google calendar.
4. Revisit and evaluate the performance scores

First I think go grab some sleep wake up early at 6 or something and workout a test… Oh ! Yeah

Pulse From the Makers of My….. December 3, 2007

Alright the other day I was at EPIC trying to checkout some of the happening plugins when I came across this cool plugin. It’s from the makers of MyEclipse and it’s kinda like a single point tool to access all eclipse stuff and configure eclipse in a variety of ways. And the site’s kinda cool too.,

So downloaded the Installer that was like 2MB. So here’s some screenshots from the testrun, could’nt complete the install guess the package’s got a lot more to offer than what I would have guessed. Anyways gonna check it out this weekend.

When you startup the installer this cool Screen appears, now that’s what I call branding. Oh yeah it’s a beauty !!

And then there is a nice Welcome screen….

then I chose the Eclipse Europa package

The next screen had some options for downloads based on registration I opted for Anonymous, & after that the install was taking too much time so gonna check it out some time later.
For more….. Stay tuned…

Google Calendar December 2, 2007

Code Coverage in Eclipse with Emma December 2, 2007

Code Coverage with EclEmma:
Code coverage is one of my personal favorites when it comes to tracking how good my JUNITS have fared. Anyways let me give you a bird’s eye view of what code coverage is all about. Let’s day I’ve got code that encapsulates my business logic & I need to check out if the Business logic I have embedded in it is correct what do I need ?? No prices for guessing I gotta wire up some JUNITS to test out the Business logic.

Alright so I’ve got Test Cases now. But how do I know that test cases check all the possible scenarios. Well that’s where the code coverage checks the line coverage i.e to check the lines of code that have been traversed in the code. Branch coverage checks the alternate flows like if ; else ; exceptions that kinda stuff. So I’m not going to get into that.

Some links that kinda helped my learning are like listed below:

• Code Coverage wiki
• Emma
• IBM article for Cobertura
• Code Coverage Quality

Anways EMMA which is a project on the SourceForge.net site is a huge hit, an amazing set of ANT based tools that help developers check the code coverage. I’ve tried to use it in the past but hey it can get tricky.

Anyways all that is history with this amazing plugin for eclipse. I have tried the Emma plugin on IntelliJ and that was kinda neat so decided to see what eclipse has to offfer.

Anyways here goes,

The site http://www.eclemma.org
They’ve got an update site and makes the installation like a walk in a park.
So after successful installation there’s a neat coverage icon that lets you come up a Run configuration for the code coverage.

That gives you two options:

1. Coverage as –> Java Application (A class with public static void main(String args[]))
2. Coverage as –> JUnit Test

Anyways I’ve got simple project a Java Project with a couple of Simple Classes and some EJBs, logic like Hello World that kinda stuff.

Fig 1 roject Structure

P.S this a simple java project be sure to have a Dynamic Web Project to check out the EJB’s Test case and stuff like that.

Fig 2 : Coverage Icon

So after the installation’s successful there’s this icon that you get to see. Beware you just might miss it and wind searching for it. Anyways this guys turns up by default in the Java Perspective and so be sure to have that as the default.
After that to run coverage on the a given file/ module be sure to select the file open the Java editor and click on the Coverage Icon. The 2 default options are listed.

What happens next after the code is executed is a the class files are instrumented and a serializable file usually the .ec or .ser is generated but hey why would you after all you ain’t writing the build scripts on this one.

After the Junit are executed and the coverage is generated Eclipse opens up a Coverage View.

By default this view shows the list of classes, packages for the entire project.

You might want to use the filters available to view classes that are more specific for the testing purposes.

From the View the user gets to see the code coverage at both package & class levels. You can drill down to the lowest levels in the class ie Class –> Methods –> Lines in the code even.

Fig 3 : Coverage View

Figure 4 : Different Components of the View

So another neat feature is the class wise coverage.
Let’s say my code has been tested how do I check the levels of line coverage(excluding the JavaDocs)
Simple after the Coverage has been run on the project by default Eclipse has a Display renderer for this plugin which indicates on the Java Source code the lines that have been covered and the lines that have’nt been covered. Green means the code’s been test and red indicates otherwise.
This can alternatively be viewed as a HTML report which also offers the same kind of view.

Figure 5 – Line Coverage indicators

Now to view the report in standard format. Most of us are familiar with the HTML xsl report that EMMA uses. So how do I export my report from Eclipse to HTML.
That’s easy just Right click on the Coverage view and you get the options to Import / Export.
Just check out the illustrations on Figure 6, 7 and that’s about exporting the report.

Figure 6, 7 – Exporting the Report to HTML

This HTML report needs no introduction. This has been an amazing view to a great tool used across the globe by teams to check their code coverages effectively.

Figure 8 : Exported Emma Report HTML View From IE

So that sums up the amazing eclipse plugin that is EclEmma do be sure to check it out.
P.S I also like a couple of other coverage tools Cobertura, Clover, DJUNIT but that’s another article. Adios !!!