Java Archive

KVO? KVC? Say what? Key-Value Observing and Key-Value Coding, that's what. As an introduction to Apple's new Cocoa/Objective-C API called Core Data, Marcus Zarra shows you why KVO/KVC is an incredibly useful feature in its own right and deserves the attention of any developer new to the Cocoa/Objective-C arena.

In the simplest terms, DWR is an engine that exposes methods of server-side Java objects to JavaScript code. Effectively, with DWR, you can eliminate all of the machinery of the Ajax request-response cycle from your application code. This article shows you how to use Direct Web Remoting (DWR) to expose JavaBeans methods directly to your JavaScript code and automate the heavy-lifting of Ajax.

Sun is offering its high-end Java IDEs, Sun Java Studio Creator and Java Studio Enterprise, at no cost. Java Studio Enterprise 8 is the commercial IDE, which is based on open-source Netbeans 4.1. Java Studio Enterprise is capable to generate UML diagrams from your source code and vice versa. It has also a built-in collaboration tool that allows better team-work. Java Studio Creator is the Sun's Visual Basic Studio. It allows you to develop J2EE-App using Java Server Faces as front end.

Coming from his background in Java development, the concept of using delegates and categories, as opposed to subclassing, was a bit foreign to Marcus Zarra. In Java subclassing, nearly everything was quite common. So common in fact, that Sun provided generic subclasses in quite a few cases. Objective-C and Cocoa, however, have a different approach. Marcus walks you through the different approaches used in Objective-C programming. Also: the Java platform includes a number of packages that are concerned with the movement of data into and out of programs. These packages differ in the kinds of abstractions they provide for dealing with I/O (input/output). This chapter covers primarily the stream-based model of the java.io package.

"Because of the limits of embedded devices (for example, memory and screen size), there are some differences between the SWT widgets and eSWT widgets that greatly influence how you use them. This article shows you how the embedded Standard Widget Toolkit differs from the usual SWT Toolkit and provides best tips and practices for using it as you develop your own eSWT application based on the Model-View-Controller framework."

Rony Flatscher introduces the open source and free Bean Scripting Framework (BSF), which allows any Java application to deploy scripts in other languages. Any Java application developer can use BSF to supply scriptability in a user-friendly scripting language such as Rexx.

Coming into Apple's Cocoa programming from the Java world has been a huge eye-opener for Marcus Zarra. Whenever he speaks with other developers who have worked with Cocoa, he hears praises about Apple's development tools. See if you agree with his conclusions about Apple's Interface Builder from a Java developer's point of view.

The generics support in the Java programming language is the most significant syntax change in its history. This article highlights how Eclipse has responded and the changes wrought by generics to the Java language. It shows how to take full advantage of generics within Eclipse, including support in Quick Assist, Quick Fix, refactoring, and project preferences. It also shows some subtle and important aspects of a fully generic language.

"SWT is a growing Java GUI toolkit that is making inroads into commercial and corporate development because of its cross-platform interface to the operating system's native GUI toolkits. However, deploying SWT applications across an enterprise environment can be tricky and tedious if not done correctly. Using Java WebStart can bring these great looking applications to the desktop while eliminating manual deployment and updates for the IT department and end users."

Frank Schoep recently wrote this article on the rendering improvements of Swing applications in the upcoming Mustang version of Java.

If you're doing Java Web development using Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, then delivering data from the server to the client is probably your top concern. This article focuses on what matters most for many Java Web developers, producing data for the client, and walks you through five approaches to Java object serialization. It will give you all the information you need to choose the data format and technology best suited to your application.

The Servlet-Based Content Creation Framework is an easy-used and easily-understood compact, content creation framework utilizing hamlets; a servlet extension that reads XHTML and uses the simple API for XML. Read this article on introducing Hamlets and learn how they can be used to separate Java and HTML in the same source file.

Cloudscape is a freely available repackaging of the Apache Derby relational database manager. Its implemented in Java, and integrates cleanly and will run unaltered anywhere a J2EE Server will run. Most J2EE applications require that a JDBC-compliant database be integrated with the Server to store information. This article shows how to best fit Cloudscape or Derby into a J2EE environment.

Quartz is an open source job-scheduling framework written entirely in Java and designed for use in both J2SE and J2EE applications. It offers great flexibility without sacrificing simplicity. You can create simple or complex schedules for executing any job. It includes features such as database support, clustering, plugins, prebuilt jobs for EJB, JavaMail and others, support for cron-like expressions, and many more.