Raible Designs

My Drunk on Software Interview

Back in February, I met up with James Ward and Jon Rose for a Drunk on Software interview. We enjoyed some good beer and had a great conversation about SOFEA, open source and RIA. See larger video here.

Modularizing GWT Applications with GWT-Maven

Last week, I spent some time modularizing the GWT application I'm working on. By modularizing, I mean splitting the code from one GWT module into a "core" and "webapp" module. The reason for doing this was so the "core" module could be used by another GWT application. Creating GWT Modules is fairly straightforward, but it wasn't as intuitive as expected when using the gwt-maven-plugin.

The hardest part of moving the code was figuring out how to run tests in the new "core" module. After getting it all working, it seems easy enough. Hopefully this post will make it easy for others. Here's the steps I'd recommend:

1. Convert your GWT project into a multi-module project where you have a top-level pom.xml and two sub-modules (e.g. gwt-core and gwt-webapp).
2. Do the normal single-to-multi-project Maven stuff like declaring the <parent> element in the modules and moving plugins/dependencies to the top-level pom.xml.
3. Refactor your gwt-webapp project to push down all shared classes (and their tests) to gwt-core.
4. In the gwt-core project, include *.xml and *.java in your JAR so GWT can extract/compile the source code when building gwt-webapp.

   <resources>
       <resource>
           <directory>src/main/java</directory>
           <includes>
               <include>**/*.java</include>
               <include>**/*.xml</include>
           </includes>
       </resource>
   </resources>
   

5. In gwt-core/src/main/java, create a Core.gwt.xml that references the modules you'd like to use in all your applications. For example:

   <module>
       <inherits name="com.google.gwt.user.User"/>
       <inherits name="com.google.gwt.i18n.I18N"/>
       <inherits name="com.extjs.gxt.ui.GXT"/>
       <inherits name="pl.rmalinowski.gwt2swf.GWT2SWF"/>
   </module>
   

6. Now the tricky part begins, mostly because of how the gwt-maven plugin currently works. In src/test/java, create a NoOpEntryPoint.gwt.xml that inherits your Core module and defines an EntryPoint.

   <module>
       <inherits name="com.company.app.Core"/>
       <entry-point class="com.company.app.NoOpEntryPoint"/>
   </module>
   

7. Create a NoOpEntryPoint.java class in the same directory as NoOpEntryPoint.gwt.xml.

   public class NoOpEntryPoint implements EntryPoint {
       
       public void onModuleLoad() {
           // do nothing
       }
   }
   

8. In any class that extends GWTTestCase (I usually create a parent class for all tests), reference the NoOpEntryPoint in the getModuleName() method.

       @Override
       public String getModuleName() {
           return "com.company.app.NoOpEntryPoint";
       }
   

9. Lastly, in the gwt-maven plugin's configuration (in gwt-core/pom.xml), reference the NoOpEntryPoint in <compileTargets>, a non-existent file in <runTarget> and only the "test" goal in the executions.

   <plugin>
       <groupId>com.totsp.gwt</groupId>
       <artifactId>maven-googlewebtoolkit2-plugin</artifactId>
       <version>2.0-beta26</version>
       <configuration>
           <compileTargets>
               <value>com.company.app.NoOpEntryPoint</value>
           </compileTargets>
           <runTarget>com.company.app.NoOpEntryPoint/doesntexist.html</runTarget>
           <logLevel>INFO</logLevel>
           <style>OBF</style>
           <noServer>false</noServer>
           <extraJvmArgs>-Xmx512m</extraJvmArgs>
           <gwtVersion>${gwtVersion}</gwtVersion>
           <testFilter>*GwtTestSuite.java</testFilter>
           <testSkip>${skipTests}</testSkip>
       </configuration>
       <executions>
           <execution>
               <goals>
                   <goal>test</goal>
               </goals>
           </execution>
       </executions>
   </plugin>
   

The results of modularizing your application are beneficial (shared code) and detrimental (you have to mvn install gwt-core whenever you make changes in shared classes). If you know of a way to configure the gwt-maven plugin to read sources from both gwt-core and gwt-webapp in hosted mode, I'd love to hear about it.

GXT's MVC Framework

For the past couple of months, I've been developing a GWT application using a mix of plain ol' GWT and GXT widgets. When I first started developing it, I didn't know how to best organize my code and separate the logic. The solution I came up with was to adopt some sort of MVC framework. Since I was already using GXT, I opted for GXT's lightweight MVC implementation.

As mentioned in Testing GWT Applications, GXT's MVC doesn't have much documentation. The best reference documentation seems to be Christian's Getting started with Ext-GWT: The Mail reference application.

Page Transitioning with Dispatcher
After working with GXT MVC for a couple months, I'm still not sure I fully understand how navigation and event dispatching works. The biggest point of confusion for me is how to best use GXT's Dispatcher class.

The problem with Dispatcher is it has a two methods that seem to do the same thing.

• forwardEvent (4 variations)
• dispatch (3 variations)

In addition to these methods in Dispatcher, there's two fireEvent methods in GXT's View class. According to my calculations, that means there's 9 different options for transitioning from one view to the next. Which one is best to use?

From what I've learned, I think it's best to use fireEvent in Views and forwardEvent in Controllers and other widgets. IMO, dispatcher should never be used except in your HistoryListener's implementation onHistoryChanged method. The important thing to realize about this method is it should only work if the View's Controller is registered for the event.

  protected void fireEvent(AppEvent event) {
    Controller c = controller;
    while (c != null) {
      if (c.canHandle(event)) {
        c.handleEvent(event);
      }
      c = c.parent;
    }
  }

However, fireEvent seems to work even when the View's Controller isn't registered for that event. This is because onHistoryChanged gets called in the EntryPoint. For experienced GXT MVC users, does this navigation handling mesh with your findings?

The most important thing for navigation to work successfully is enabling History support. The next section talks about how to do this effectively.

Enabling History Support
To help explain things better, I created a simple GWT MVC Example application and used Maven to create an archetype with it. You can create a project from the archetype using the following command:

mvn archetype:create -DarchetypeGroupId=org.appfuse.archetypes \
-DarchetypeArtifactId=gwt-mvc -DarchetypeVersion=1.0-SNAPSHOT \
-DgroupId=com.mycompany.app -DartifactId=myproject \
-DremoteRepositories=http://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/appfuse-snapshots

To enable history support in this application, I implemented HistoryListener in my EntryPoint (Application.java) and added the following logic to initialize:

// If the application starts with no history token, redirect to 'home' state
String initToken = History.getToken();
if (initToken.length() == 0) {
    History.newItem(HistoryTokens.HOME);
}

// Add history listener
History.addHistoryListener(this);

// Now that we've setup our listener, fire the initial history state.
History.fireCurrentHistoryState();

In this example, HistoryTokens is a class that contains all the URLs of the "views" in the application.

public class HistoryTokens {
    public static final String HOME = "home";
    public static final String CALENDAR = "calendar";
    public static final String NOTES = "notes";
    public static final String SEARCH = "search";
}

In order to make URLs like http://localhost:8080/#calendar go to the calendar view, the following logic exists in the onHistoryChanged method.

        Dispatcher dispatcher = Dispatcher.get();

        if (historyToken != null) {
            if (historyToken.equals(HistoryTokens.HOME)) {
                dispatcher.dispatch(AppEvents.GoHome);
            } else if (historyToken.equals(HistoryTokens.CALENDAR)) {
                dispatcher.dispatch(AppEvents.Calendar);
            } else if (historyToken.equals(HistoryTokens.NOTES)) {
                dispatcher.dispatch(AppEvents.Notes);
            } else if (historyToken.equals(HistoryTokens.SEARCH)) {
                dispatcher.dispatch(AppEvents.Search);
            } else {
                GWT.log("HistoryToken '" + historyToken + "' not found!", null);
            }
        }

Controllers are registered in the EntryPoint as follows:

        final Dispatcher dispatcher = Dispatcher.get();
        dispatcher.addController(new CalendarController());
        dispatcher.addController(new HomeController());
        dispatcher.addController(new NotesController());
        dispatcher.addController(new SearchController());

Controllers respond to events they're registered for. This is done in their constructor:

    public CalendarController() {
        registerEventTypes(AppEvents.Calendar);
    }

In order for navigation to work, you have to create links with history tokens¹. For example, here's a link from the HomeView class:

	Hyperlink notesLink = new Hyperlink("Notes", HistoryTokens.NOTES);
	notesLink.addClickListener(new ClickListener() {
	    public void onClick(Widget widget) {
	        Dispatcher.get().fireEvent(AppEvents.Notes);
	    }
	});

You'll notice in this example, I'm using Dispatcher's fireEvent method. If I wanted to pass some data with your event, you'll need to use forwardEvent. Here's an example from CalendarView:

    Button submit = new Button("Submit");

    submit.addSelectionListener(new SelectionListener<ButtonEvent>() {
        public void componentSelected(ButtonEvent ce) {
            AppEvent<Date> event = 
                new AppEvent<Date>(AppEvents.GoHome, date.getValue(), HistoryTokens.HOME);
            Dispatcher.forwardEvent(event);
        }
    });

In this example, you could also use Dispatcher.dispatcher(), but I believe this will cause the transition to happen twice because the onHistoryChanged method gets called too. This doesn't matter for the most part, except when you start to use DispatcherListeners.

Hopefully this article has helped you understand how GXT's MVC framework works. I'm interested in learning how other GWT MVC frameworks work. If you've used one, I'd love to hear about your experience.

Friday Fun Test
Here's a test for those interested in digging into the GXT MVC example. There's a bug in this application that prevents something from happening. I'll buy a drink for the person that finds the bug and I'll buy two drinks for the person that comes up with a solution.

1. If you use the default constructor on Hyperlink and use setText(), make sure to call setTargetHistoryToken() too. If you don't, a blank history token will be used and # causes the browser to scroll to the top before a page transition happens.

Nexus is a kick-ass Repository Manager

I started my current gig at the end of last year. I've been enjoying the work and especially the project infrastructure we've been using. We're using the usual suspects: JIRA, Confluence, Hudson and Subversion. We're also using a couple new ones, namely sventon and Nexus. For building, we're using Maven and Ivy (as a Grails plugin).

I'm writing this post to talk about Nexus and how much I've enjoyed using it. I like Nexus for two reasons: it's aesthetically pleasing and it's well-documented. Another reason I really dig it is because I haven't had to touch it since I first configured it. Software that just keeps on humming is always fun to work with.

Initially, I remember having some issues setting up repositories. I also remember solving them after learning how groups work.

In addition to on-the-job, I've started to use Nexus more and more in my open source life. With the help of Jason van Zyl, I recently moved AppFuse's repository to Sonatype's oss.sonatype.org. I also noticed there's a Nexus instance for Apache projects. If that's not enough, you can get Nexus Pro free if you're an open source project.

Personally, the open source version of Nexus seems good enough for me. While the Staging Suite looks nice, I think it's possible to do a lot of similar things with good communication. After all, it's not going to free you from having to wrestle with the maven-release-plugin.

Next week, I'm helping to polish and document our entire release process (from dev → qa → production). If you have any advice on how to best perform releases with Maven, Grails and/or Nexus, I'd love to hear about it. My goal is extreme efficiency so releases can be done very quickly and with minimal effort.

GWT and AppFuse

Someone recently sent me the following e-mail asking about GWT integration in AppFuse.

I see from your blog that you're spending some time with GWT at the moment. What's your plan, are you going to integrate GWT as another UI Option for AppFuse?

The reason I'm asking is that I actually checked out all of the AppFuse code from the svn repository yesterday, with the intention of starting off adding some GWT stuff in there. My intention was to start by getting a basic Maven archetype together for GWT as an AppFuse UI.

However, if you're planning on doing this yourself in the near future, then there's no point in me starting doing it, I'd have to learn how to write archetype's for a start (not that it looks too difficult) but you'd obviously do it much quicker.

Being a good open-source developer, I moved the discussion to the developer mailing list and replied there:

I know I've been slacking on AppFuse development, but it is ski season and running to work seems to drain my late-night coding ambitions. With that being said, I'm committed to getting AppFuse 2.1 released by JavaOne (hopefully sooner). I figure it's a good week's worth of work and I'll probably have to do it late at night to find the time. That's OK though, I usually really start to enjoy it once I get into it.

GWTTestSuite makes builds faster, but requires JUnit 4.1

Earlier this week, I spent some time implementing GWTTestSuite to speed up my project's build process. In Hudson, the project was taking around 15 minutes to build, locally it was only taking 5 minutes for mvn test. In IDEA, I could run all the tests in under a minute. While 15 minutes isn't a long time for a build to execute, a co-worker expressed some concern:

Does Maven have to run GWT test and individual Java processes? (See target/gwtTest/*.sh) This arrangement and the overhead of JVM launches is another reason why builds take so long. As we add more GWT tests we are going to test that LinkedIn record for the slowest build ever.

After this comment, I started looking into GWTTestSuite using Olivier Modica's blog entry as a guide. It was very easy to get things working in IDEA. However, when I'd run mvn test, I'd get the following error:

Error: java.lang.ClassCastException

No line numbers. No class information. Zilch. After comparing my project's pom.xml with the one from the default gwt-maven archetype, I noticed the default used JUnit 4.1, while I had the latest-and-supposedly-greatest JUnit 4.4. Reverting to JUnit 4.1 fixed the problem. Now Hudson takes 3:15 to execute the build instead of 15 minutes.

The reason for this blog post is this doesn't seem to be documented anywhere. Hopefully other developers will find this entry when googling for this issue.

Related to making GWT faster, I also added the following line to my Application.gwt.xml file:

<set-property name="user.agent" value="safari" />

This dropped the gwt:compile time from 1 minute to 25 seconds. As explained in the documentation, you can use the "user.agent" setting to only generate one JS file for your app instead of 4. The strange thing about adding this setting was I pretty much forgot about it since everything seemed to work fine on both Safari and Firefox. When I started testing things in IE6, I started seeing a lot of JavaScript errors. After debugging for an hour or so, I realized this setting was there, removed it, and everything started working great in all browsers.

Now if I could just figure out how to use safari-only for development, but remove the line when building the WAR. Suggestions welcome.

Comparing Web Frameworks Book

A publisher recently sent me an e-mail asking some advice. They received a proposal for a book that compares CakePHP, Symfony, Zend, TurboGears, Django, Struts, RoR. Here's a quote from the proposal:

We would like to compare a couple of frameworks and present their advantages and disadvantages in various applications.

Obviously, that kind of manual would be very useful for readers who are starting their 'adventures' with web applications, as it would facilitate their choosing the best framework for their particular application. The manuscript would offer a comparison of the most popular solutions (CakePHP, Symfony, Zend Framework, TurboGears, Django, Struts, Ruby on Rails) and demonstrate the main differences between each.

Therefore, the target audience would mainly be project managers, responsible for deciding on the technologies to be used for in-house projects, as well as less experienced, web application beginners.

Another purpose of the book would be to present 'good practices' in various frameworks, such as code re-factoring, design patterns and application security. From this point of view, it could become a valuable asset for experienced and learner programmers alike.

Since I got a lot of feedback from my tweet on this subject, I figured I'd ask it here.

What do you think of such a book?

Here's my response:

How do PHP books do these days? Of the list of frameworks (CakePHP, Symfony, Zend Framework, TurboGears, Django, Struts, Ruby on Rails), I think there's interest in Django and Rails, but not so much the others. And Struts sucks, so having that as a comparison is obviously going to make it look bad. I wouldn't buy it, but I'm a Java guy that's mostly interested in web frameworks that make developing SOFEA-based applications easier. In my mind, these are Flex and GWT.

The book I'd like to see would cover developing RESTful backends and SOFEA front-ends. RoR, Grails or Django could be used to develop the backend and Flex, GWT and X could be for the front-end. In reality, this is probably a tough book to write b/c things move so fast. If you decide to do it, I'd keep it short and sweet so you can get it to market and update it quickly.

What's the Best Retirement Plan for Independent Consultants?

Before writing How To Setup Your Own Software Development Company, I sent my Financial Planner the following e-mail.

I'm writing up a blog post on how to setup a Software Development Company for consultants and wanted to see what retirement plan I have. I'd like to recommend it (or others, if there's better deals). Do you have the name and a 2-3 sentence description?

Below is his response:

You have a SEP IRA but depending on how much they make and their savings objective they may also want an Individual 401K and/or Defined Benefit Plan.

A SEP IRA allows you to set aside up to 20% of your income after business expenses, up to $49,000 for those with income of $245,000 or more in 2009. An Individual 401K allows you to save a higher percentage of your income depending on your age and income. If you are under age 50 you are able to save $16,500 so long as your income is at least $16,500 (plus FICA, etc) and $22,000 for those over age 55. You are also able to set aside profit sharing and matching contributions in a 401K Plan. Those under age 50 have a maximum of $49,000 while those over age 50 have an increased limit of $54,000. Finally, for those who wish to save more, you could establish a Defined Benefit Plan and make contributions based on your age and income that total potentially more than $200,000 per year. If you establish a Defined Benefit Plan you are still able to have an Individual 401K Plan but the limits are the employee contribution amount ($16,500 or $22,000) plus 6% of your income up to $245,000 (another $14,700) for a combined total that could be well over $200,000 depending on your age and income.

There is always the Roth and Traditional IRA but those are very basic planning tools - they should still be used and considered but everyone should be familiar with them. 2009 allows $5,000 deposit for under age 50 and $6,000 for over age 50. Roth contributions are limited starting at $105,000 if filing single and $166,000 if married filing joint.

Of course, a perk of working for a company with benefits is they sometimes do 401K matching. However, I'd expect many company to be cutting back on that in this economy. If you're an independent consultant, do you have a retirement plan? Do you think you're doing as well as you could if you were a full-time employee?

Writing Off Home Office Space

Before writing yesterday's post on How To Setup Your Own Software Development Company, I sent my Accountant the following e-mail.

I'm writing up a blog post on how to setup a Software Development Company for consultants. I remember talking to you a few years ago about writing off my home office space. At that time, you recommended I didn't because it'd end up on my personal taxes (or something like that). Do you remember that conversation and reasoning? I'd like to post a 2-3 sentence explanation of why this is not a good idea to readers of my blog.

Below is her response:

It's not that it is a bad idea, it just doesn't always result in a big tax savings. There are a lot of factors to consider, but I would not post something that says it's a bad idea. There are types of entities and situations where it is beneficial. Everyone's circumstances are different, so I would not suggest that you make a blanket statement stating that it is not a good idea.

In your particular case, you are an S Corp, which is a pass thru entity...meaning the S Corp does not pay taxes. So, if you want to take a home office deduction you would have your business pay rent to you. In return you would have to claim rental income on that money. So, you could take the deduction on the business side but have to claim it on the personal side...making it a wash. However, where you would get the tax savings, is that you can write off a portion of your utilities against the rental income of the office. It is usually small, like around 10% or so, but it is something.

The only issue is that when you sell your house, you are supposed to treat the sale as two different things...a personal sale and a business sale (for the office). You can often exclude the gain on the personal sale, but can not exclude the gain on the office. So, if the house goes up significantly in value, you could find yourself paying tax on a large gain.

Do you have your own company and write-off your home office space? If so, what kind of company do you have and does it save you a lot of money?

How To Setup Your Own Software Development Company

This post was originally titled "FTE vs. Contract in this Economy", but it didn't seem to capture the essence of this entry. I wanted to write about why I think contracting is better in this down economy, but I also wanted to write about how you you might go about setting up your own company. Starting a company is relatively easy from a legal standpoint, and hopefully I can provide some resources that'll make it even easier.

First of all, I believe that contracting is better in this economy for a very simple reason:

When you're a contractor, you're prepared to be let go.

There's really nothing like being laid off. It sucks. It often shocks you and makes you depressed. The good part is you usually get a good afternoon's worth of drinking out of it, but that's about it. Severance is cool, but let's face it - you'd much rather be employed.

As a contractor, you're always looking for your next gig. You're prepared for the worst. You're more motivated to learn marketable skills. You're constantly thinking about how you can market yourself better. Writing (blogging, articles, books) is an excellent way to do this and I believe it's rare that FTE are as motivated to do these kinds of things.

Being a contractor forces you to better yourself so you're more marketable.

People's biggest fear of contracting is that they'll have a hard time finding their next gig. In my career, I've rarely had an issue with this. There's always contracts available, it's just a matter of how much you're going to get paid. Yes, I've had to suck-it-up and make $55/hour instead of $125/hour, but that was back in 2003 and $55/hour is still more than I would have made as a FTE.

The other thing that makes me believe contracting is better in this economy is I believe companies are hiring more short-term contractors than employees. I don't know if this is because they consider employees liabilities and contractors expenses, but something about it seems to make the books look better.

So you've decided to take my advice and try your hand at contracting. Should you setup your own Corporation or LLC?

Starting a Company
Yes, you should absolutely start your own company. As a Software Developer, chances are you're going to make enough to put you in the highest tax bracket. If you're a Sole Proprietor (no company), you will pay something like 35% of your income to taxes and you can be sued for everything you own by your clients.

Should you create an LLC or Corporation? I started Raible Designs in May 1998. I started out as an LLC and later converted to an S Corp. For the first few years, I made $30-$55/hour and this seemed to work pretty well. I believe this was similar to having a Sole Proprietorship (because I was the only employee), except that I was protected from lawsuits.

In 2001, I got my first high-paying gig at $90/hour and my Accountant suggested I change to an S Corp to save 10K+ on self-employment tax. I'm certainly not an expert on the different types of business entities, but this path seemed to work well for me. It was $50 to convert from an LLC to an S Corp. I'm not sure if you can go from an S Corp to an LLC. The beauty of an S Corp is the corporation typically gets taxed at 15%, so you can run a lot of things through your business and pay less taxes. Date nights can be business meetings, vacations can be Shareholders Meetings, seasons tickets can be client entertainment and you can write off your car and fuel costs.

There's lots of good resources on the web that describe the different business entity options. My favorite is A List Apart's This Web Business IV: Business Entity Options. Another good resource is How to form an LLC.

The hardest part of starting a new business is coming up with a good name. My advice is to make sure the domain name is available and pick something you like. I chose Raible Designs because I designed web sites at the time. Raible is a pretty unique name, so that's worked well having it as part of my business name. Googlability is important - don't choose a generic name that will make you difficult to find. Potential clients should be able to google your business name and find you easily.

Once you've picked a name, the business establishment part is pretty easy. In Colorado, you can File a Document with the Secretary of State. Their site also allows you to reserve a name if you're not quite ready to make the leap.

You'll also need to get a Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN) from the IRS. The IRS has a good Starting a Business article and also allows you to Apply for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) Online.

Once you've got all the documents setup, you'll want to create a bank account for your business. I'm currently using Wells Fargo and really like how software-friendly they are. Their online banking is clean and easy to use. They also support QuickBooks for the Mac. They have Payroll Services to allow you to pay your quarterly taxes online as well as setup direct deposit, but I'm not using them.

For payroll, I use PayCycle and have nothing but good things to say about them (see update below). I have the Small Business Package at $42.99 per month. This package allows me to pay myself and employees + up to 5 sub-contractors with direct deposit. It also allows me to pay both Federal and State quarterly taxes online. Of course, if you can also get an Accountant to do this for you.

Having a good Accountant and Financial Advisor (for your retirement plan) will likely be an essential part of your business.. LinkedIn's Service Providers is a good way to find recommended professionals in your area. For example, click here to search for Accountants and then click the change location link in the top right corner to specify your zip code.

Finally, you'll need insurance. The Hartford has a good Small Business package that costs around $500/year. It's liability limits have worked for all of my clients and I'm covered if my laptop ever gets stolen. For Health Insurance, I recommend using eHealthInsurance.com to find a good provider for you. I don't get sick or hurt much, so I typically get a disaster prevention plan with a $5K deductible. For dental insurance, brush your teeth. Vision insurance typically sucks, so I wouldn't buy it. Yes, our health care system in the US needs work and I believe if everyone had a small business, it might get more affordable a lot quicker.

Over the next few days, I'll post some additional advice I've received on retirement plans, deducting a home office, drawing up contracts and how to come up with a good rate. If you're an Independent Software Developer and have any additional advice, I'd love to hear it.

Update: I take back what I said about PayCycle. After having a couple of insufficient funds when re-activating my account in January (they were pulling from the wrong account), they've changed my direct deposit lead-time to 5 days for the next 6 months. This means I forget to create checks on time since their reminder gets sent 2 days before. Time to try Wells Fargo.

Update October 2009: I never left PayCycle and I continue to use them to this day. I'm a satisfied customer, but do believe it still takes too long to make changes to your electronic services setup.