Raible Designs

Thursday January 24, 2008

All Java web frameworks should support hot deploy of a single class In Anyone else using Groovy?, Tim Fennell (inventor of Stripes) raves at how much he likes Groovy now that it supports Java 5 features. He writes that Groovy might offer a solution to make development with Stripes faster:

The other thing I've been wondering about is that if there were enough demand for it we could try adding "improved" groovy support. E.g. throw your groovy actions under WEB-INF and we'll use groovy's built in stuff to do auto-reloading etc.

Gregg Bolinger responds with an excellent idea:

It would be really cool if Stripes could automatically discover and load changes to action beans (including new ones) without the entire app restarting, regardless of what the action bean is written in. But I realize that is a pretty tall order. :)

I agree that it might be a tall order, but I don't think it's impossible. In fact, I think all Java-based web frameworks should support hot deploy of a single class. We shouldn't have to buy JavaRebel to do this. It should be mandatory.

When an application reaches a certain size, the startup time can get pretty lengthy. This is lost development time. Furthermore, if any part of the development cycle takes longer than 15 seconds, there's a good chance developers will do something else (check their e-mail, move onto another task, etc.). Multi-tasking may be a good skill to have, but it's a horrible way to be productive.

Of the frameworks I'm familiar with, only Tapestry 5 and Seam support reloading single classes without restarting the whole application. Why can't the other frameworks "borrow" Tapestry 5's code? Maybe someone should just buy ZeroTurnaround and give away JavaRebel for free.

If I had one wish for 2008, it would be for all Java web frameworks to support this feature. Pretty Please? Posted in Java at Jan 24 2008, 03:11:18 PM MST 18 Comments

Denver Tech Meetup, Consulting Panel and My Jobs Timeline If you live in Denver and are involved in open source (or simply technology in general), you should make it a point to attend tonight's Denver Tech Meetup. I'm planning on going for about an hour. From there, I'm heading over to the DeRailed User Group for a Consulting Panel at 8. If you're interested in moving from a full-time position to contracting, you should come. This is open to the public, so anyone can attend.

While I was thinking about things to talk about on the panel tonight, I started reflecting on the jobs I've had in my almost-11-year career in technology. Here's my timeline since college:

1. 1997: Full-time at MCI Systemhouse
2. 1998: Contractor for IBM Global Services (6 figures w/in 6 months of graduating!)
3. April 1999 - April 2001: Full-time for eDeploy.com (Friday lunches rocked)
4. May 2001 - October 2001: Contractor for Douglas County (introduced to Ant, Struts, etc.)
5. January 2002 - November 2002: Contractor for OnPoint Digital (100% remote)
6. December 2002 - August 2003: Contractor for Comcast Media Center
7. August 2003 - October 2003: Contractor for ResortQuest
8. November 2003 - June 2004: Contractor for Adams County
9. June 2004 - August 2004: Contractor for Open Logic
10. October 2004 - December 2004: Contractor for Oak Grove Systems
11. January 2005 - May 2005: Contractor for Xcel Energy
12. June 2005 - January 2007: Contractor for Virtuas
13. February 2007 - June 2007: Contractor for Checkerboard
14. July 2007 - Present: Contractor for LinkedIn

Phew - that's 14 jobs in 11-ish years! Notice that I've only ever had 2 full-time positions. So far, I have no regrets and really enjoy being a consultant. If you're interested in learning more about how I started Raible Designs or how I get contracts, you might want to read the following posts.

• How I started Raible Designs (Nov 2002)
• How do you become an independent consultant and get contracts? (Jan 2005)

If you live in Denver and want to learn more - show up at the The Hive at 8:00 tonight.

Update June 2008: My 3rd full-time gig started in May. Now I'm the Lead UI Architect at LinkedIn. Posted in Open Source at Jan 24 2008, 01:39:38 PM MST Add a Comment

How long does it take to build a modern web framework? Dear Java Web Framework Authors,

I hope you're doing well and continue to enjoy working on the web framework you created years ago. I'm curious to know something:

    How long would it take you to build your web framework from scratch?

If all the code from your framework magically disappeared tomorrow and you had to write it from the ground up - how long would it take? What if you had a group of 3-5 developers (of your choosing) to help you do it?

Furthermore, would you write the whole thing line-by-line, or could you borrow code from other open source projects to streamline the process?

Thanks in advance for your response,

Matt Posted in Java at Jan 24 2008, 12:39:55 PM MST 4 Comments

The National Western Stock Show Last night, a friend and I went to the Rodeo at the National Western Stock Show. We had really nice seats (thanks to Cletus from Nebraska) and had a great time watching the Bareback Ridin', Bull Fightin', Bull Ridin', Mutton Bustin' and Barrel Racin'. The highlights were the bull fighting (the bulls almost always won) and the Mutton Bustin'. This is where they plop little kids on the back of a sheep and they hang on for deer life. I shot a video for your entertainment.

Click here for more pictures from the event. Sorry about the picture blurriness, the high action and bad results from my camera made me realize I might need to upgrade. Posted in General at Jan 24 2008, 12:24:23 PM MST Add a Comment