Raible Designs

7 simple reasons to use AppFuse

IBM developerWorks published my "Seven simple reasons to use AppFuse" article today. Here's a summary:

Getting started with open source tools for the Java™ platform such as Spring, Hibernate, or MySQL can be difficult. Throw in Ant or Maven, a little Ajax with DWR, and a Web framework -- say, JSF -- and you're up to your eyeballs just trying to configure your application. AppFuse removes the pain of integrating open source projects. It also makes testing a first-class citizen, allows you to generate your entire UI from database tables, and supports Web services with XFire. Furthermore, AppFuse's community is healthy and happy -- and one of the few places where users of different Web frameworks actually get along.

While you're there, you might be interested in reading the "Introduction to Spring 2 and JPA" tutorial. I don't know if we'll get JPA support into AppFuse 2.0, but it's certainly a possibility.

As far as AppFuse 2.0, here's the current structure I've started on for Maven 2:

appfuse
    - data
        - hibernate
        - ibatis
    - service
        - pom.xml
        - src
    - web
        - jsf
        - spring
        - struts
        - tapestry

After code is moved into the directory structure above (or completely re-written), I'd like to move to working on creating single module archetypes and multi-project archetypes (data, service, web) with Maven 2.

After getting the Maven 2 structure checked in, hopefully we can start looking at replacing AppGen. Scott Ryan has done a fair amount of work on this so far with his AppFuse Maven Plugin.

I plan on documenting the plan of attack and milestone features for 2.0 sometime this week.

Update: I started working on the Maven 2 conversion last night. The above structure has changed slightly. Now there's a project in data and web (notice the pom.xml and src in these directories). These projects will contain the classes/files that are common to their sub-projects. The fact that these projects even exist will likely be transparent to the end user.

Dream Machine

Well done Apple, you've created my dream machine. Too bad it's so damn expensive. My ideal configuration is as follows:

• Two 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
• 4GB (4 x 1GB)
• Hard Drive - Bay 1: 250GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
• Hard Drive - Bay 2: 500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
• 2 x NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB
• Apple Cinema HD Display (23" flat panel)
• 2 x SuperDrives
• Both Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and AirPort Extreme
• Apple Wireless Keyboard and Apple wireless Mighty Mouse
• AppleCare
• Subtotal: $6,436.00

The nice thing about owning one of these bad boys is you could run several copies of Linux and Windows (using VMWare and/or Parallels). I could literally buy one machine and have 5 in a matter of hours. Hmmm, I should probably bump up that ram to 8GB.

It's tempting, but that's a lot of cash to shell out for a machine. Then again, the more write-offs the better.

Back from the Hills

Last week at the Cabin was a great experience. It was one of the first times I've been there in a while where I didn't want to leave. The kids loved it, partly because of the 4-wheeler, but also because they were outside the whole time. Allowing kids to get as dirty as they want is kindof fun. Abbie liked it so much she said she wanted to move there. Who knows, maybe she will someday.

When we arrived at the cabin on Sunday, there was lots of tall grass everywhere.

My mom, a.k.a. "The Burn Boss" (that's her new title at work), made quick work of the fire danger and spent the next 3 days mowing down the grass and killing any knapweed she found.

When we weren't hanging out, riding "Rockit" or building the new cabin, we enjoyed Glacier Park and putting a foundation under my parent's bedroom.

On the way home, we stopped and saw my aunt in Helena, then spent the night at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge. Saturday was a long 11-hour drive through Wyoming.

All in all, it was a great road trip. I think I've had enough driving for a while though. In the first week alone, I hit 7 states in 7 days!

Going off the grid

Today marks the beginning of Raible Road Trip #10, Leg #2. My parents and I, as well as Abbie and Jack, are leaving soon to drive to Spokane, Washington. We'll stop in Spokane tonight, where we'll meet up with my sister and Julie. Kalin arrives later tonight (hopefully with a case of cider from her cidery), Julie flies in tomorrow morning. From Spokane, it's about a 4-hour drive to the cabin.

Think we're the ones having all the fun? Nope, Julie is in Vegas right now with her sister. They flew in last night for 12 hours of good ol' Vegas fun.

The cabin, which you can read more about on my about page, is "off the grid" in Montana. There's no electricity, no running water, and 120 acres of lush Montana acreage. There's a sauna for bathing (good ol' Finnish roots) and a generator if we really need power. My mom prefers no generator, my dad likes power and bright lights. I suppose I could dial-up to the 'net if I wanted, but MacBook Pros don't have modems, which is how I prefer it. Vacation shouldn't involve a computer - so I'm pretty pumped that mine will be pretty much useless all week. Besides, we're pouring the foundation for the Cabin #2, and that sounds like a lot more fun than any of this computer stuff.

I'll be back in Denver a week from today, but I don't expect to have any desire to work/blog/etc. until Monday the 7th. And with that, I'm officially on vacation.

Moving from CVS to SVN at java.net

I like java.net. Ever since I moved AppFuse to java.net from SourceForge (in February 2004), I've been very happy with their service. I can't recall having an issue with CVS, and if I did, it was during a scheduled outage. The only thing that's ever made me consider moving AppFuse to another site was java.net's lack of Subversion.

A lot has changed in the last year, and now java.net does support Subversion. However, if you want a project converted from CVS to SVN, you have three options:

• Drop and re-create your project, losing all of your mailing-list/forum history
• Create an entirely new project, which gives you similar results to the first option
• Pay to have your repository converted

Since I like being at java.net (uptime being the major factor here), I've decided to go with option #3. It's costing $750 to convert AppFuse from CVS to SVN, and Virtuas has agreed to sponsor the move. I like that we'll be using SVN soon, but it does seem odd that we actually have to pay for it. AFAIK, moving a SourceForge project from CVS to SVN doesn't cost anything.

In recent days, I've thought about moving AppFuse to Google Code, but it looks like they might be having some early growing pains.

Heading back to Denver

Today is only day 3 of Raible Road Trip #10, but it's likely to be the most stressful one. I'm at Portland's Airport (on their free wireless) getting ready to hop on a plane back to Denver. The Max worked great this morning. I caught it outside the Convention Center around 4:30 a.m. and was checked in before 6:00.

I land in Denver in a few hours, pick up the kids, and fly back - arriving back in Portland around 2:00 this afternoon. Abbie is 3 and 1/2 and Jack is almost 2. Jack will surely impress me with his deviant and defiant behavior. There's nothing like flying with a 2-year old. They won't sit still for more than 5 seconds, and they love to kick the seat in front of them. Should be interesting for sure - wish me luck!

10:30 a.m. Update: Arrived in Denver at 9:30. The CowBoy Bar on Terminal A is the best place to get power at DIA. There's 3 outlets in the corner on the left when you walk in. The kids should be here in an hour, our flight to Portland leaves at 12:30.

Update 2: We arrived in Portland virtually stress free at 2:00. The kids were great on the plane. Jack slept half the time and Abbie colored Dora pictures. The only hard part was carting two backpacks, 2 car seats and 2 kids through the Portland airport.

AppFuse Videos updated for 1.9.3

I've created new AppFuse demo videos that are up-to-date with version 1.9.3. The setup video is around 3 minutes, and the AppGen one is around 3:30.

New Project and Feature Tour


Code Generation with AppGen

If you have any suggestions on making the above movies more effective, please let me know. I used SnapZ Pro X to shoot them and QuickTime Pro to compress.

In other AppFuse news, a couple of new tutorials have been written:

• Integrating Compass with Spring MVC by Chris Barham
• Integrating Compass with JSF by Matt Stine
• Integrating AppFuse and AjaxTags autocomplete by Luciano Fiandesio

Props go out to Chris, Matt and Luciano for taking the time to write these detailed tutorials. Well done gents!

Driving to OSCON: Day 2

This morning, Jim and I slept in a bit and hit the road around 11. The time zone changed on us after an hour and all of a sudden, we were destined for Portland in good time. It was an enjoyable drive through the Columbia Gorge with some beautiful scenery.

We arrived in Portland around 4:15 p.m. and checked into our hotel across the street from the Oregon Convention Center. It didn't take us long to realize the wireless sucked (b/c it's trying to suck off the free wireless next door).

We hopped on "the Max" and headed into downtown Portland. We found the local Rock Bottom Brewery, found out they didn't have wireless, and ended up at Jax Bar. They have free wireless and cold Guinness. You couldn't ask for much more.

Driving to OSCON: Day 1

Today, Jim and I began our road trip to OSCON. We got up early and were able to get out of Denver around 5 a.m. We stopped at 5 p.m. in Boise, Idaho. We drove around town, found some swanky hotel, and settled in for the night. We've been enjoying free wireless and Deschutes Mirror Pond Ale in our hotel bar for the last couple of hours.

Wyoming was definitely lacking scenery, as was Utah and most of Idaho. We made the Wyoming border by 11 and Idaho by 2. It's been a great trip so far. It looks like we have 7 hours left until we arrive in Portland. Below is a nice picture of Boise I found on Flickr.

Glacier Park

James Duncan Davidson recently took a road trip through Montana. In particular, he journeyed through Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. It's a similar trip to the one I'm about to embark upon. Pictures from his trip are available on Flickr.

I especially like his photos of Glacier Park. It's been far too long since I've visited this incredible place. Since it's a mere 2 hours from the cabin, I hope to add it to our list of "fun things we did in Montana."