Hello all!
Even before the NetBeans Day (to be held on 29th February), the
NetBeans Community Docs has been pretty well represented there by me
and well received, too :-), thanks to the long list of recent
successful ventures!
I met Rouman Strobl, had a talk with him at the NetBeans Booth and
kept lingering around there and answered a few curious souls too!
I also met Kunal, Anil and Santaram who were NetBeans Contributors in the Code For Freedom!
Then I did a very very short presentation on NetBeans Community Docs
as part of the session called "Open Source: Open Exchange". The
presentation is available here . I also met David Lindt there.We had a great talk there and will continue talking via emails.
Also, there was a couple of general queries about the NetBeans
Community Docs, like:
1. Who judges the quality of the docs?
2. Any particular focus we have.
It was pretty cool to introduce myself as the NetBeans Community Docs
Coordinator and subsequently, receive the adulation!
A Great experience!
February 29, 2008
NetBeans Community Docs is rocking at Sun Tech Days, Hyderabad, India
February 22, 2008
Beginning JNI with NetBeans C/C++ Pack 6.0, Part II, Linux
The tutorial will take you through the creation of a sample application which uses JNI to execute some native code written in the C programming language. For the Java part of the application you will use NetBeans IDE 6; for the C part - NetBeans C/C++ Pack 6.
You will start off by creating a simple Java project, adding a native method to it and then implementing this method in C using NetBeans C/C++ Pack 6.0. This is the second part of the tutorial that covers the creation of a sample JNI application in the Ubuntu Linux 7.04 operating system.
Read more..http://cnd.netbeans.org/docs/jni/nb6-linux/beginning-jni-linux.html
February 20, 2008
SOAP Client Doc linked from the Web Services Tutorial Index
My doc titled "A SOAP Client for Open Calais" has been linked from the NetBeans Web Services Documentation Index.
Yay!
February 18, 2008
Tapestry 5, Building Web Applications- Review
This review was published on request of Packt Publishing who provided me with a review copy. I am not affiliated to them in any way.
Tapestry 5 Building Web Applications is an introduction to Java Web Application development using the Apache Tapestry Framework.
The book assumes development experience using Java, with no or little prior exposure to Java Web development. For readers who are well versed with other Java Web Frameworks, this book will serve as a nice, gentle introduction to Tapestry.
The entire text of the book is covered in 8 different chapters with a natural flow between the chapters, and will be best benefited by reading from the beginning. This gives a "text-book", rather than a reference flavor to the book.
The author takes a hands-on approach to present the concepts. New concepts are well explained by code examples. Readers are advised to hand code the examples in the book, rather than download the code examples.
Besides Tapestry, software tools you will come across in this book are "db4o", "Maven", "NetBeans IDE" and "Eclipse IDE".
In the next sections, chapter wise summary of the book follows.
Chapter 1: Introduction to Tapestry
This chapter begins with an introduction to the need for web frameworks, following it up with a gentle introduction to the Tapestry web framework. It briefly touches on the features of Tapestry 5, most of which are dealth with in later chapters.
For developers who have used earlier versions of Tapestry, the journey from Tapestry 3 to 5 is also discussed.
Chapter 2: Creating Your Working Environment
As the chapter title suggests, here the author shows how you can set up your working environment to begin Tapestry development on Linux, MS Windows or Max OSX. Though explicit instructions for Linux are not given, the Mac OSX instructions can be easily followed there.
The approach followed in this book is to first create a default Tapestry application using Maven, and then either use NetBeans IDE or Eclipse IDE to carry on the compilation, build and deployment of the application.
A technical discrepancy was discovered in this chapter. According to the author, any changes in the template file ('start.tml') would not be reflected if the accompanying class file ('start.java') is not changed. This is not found to be true when the steps were reproduced on NetBeans IDE 6.0 or Eclipse 3.0 ('Europa').
The major steps are correctly mentioned in a clinical manner. However, the reader who is not experienced with Maven might feel that some necessary details have been given the miss. Some desirable additions to this chapter would be brief descriptions of:
- How Maven creates the whole Tapestry project structure?
- What are files that it downloads and why?
- References to more information about Maven
Chapter 3: The Foundations of Tapestry
As a natural follow-up to the previous chapter, the basics of Tapestry Development is introduced here. Concepts such as Plain Old Java Object(POJO), Components, Event Handling, Pooling of Tapestry pages, Application State Object (ASO) are introduced to the reader in an easy fashion.
After reading this chapter, the reader can start building simple multi-purpose Tapestry Web Applications.
Chapter 4: Simple Components
This chapter introduces simple Tapestry components such as TextField, Password Field, PageLink, Loop and Select. Instead of giving a demo working of each component, the author adopts a practical approach by showing how each component fits in with the others in a near real-life Web Application- 'Celebrity Collector Project'. This project is enhanced in each chapter by integrating the new concepts introduced there.
This chapter also introduces an important concept- that of "Message Catalogs".
Chapter 5: Advanced Components
More useful components such as 'Grid', 'BeanEditForm', 'DateField', 'FCKEditorComponent' are introduced here. This chapter also demonstrates the usage of JavaScript components such as 'DateField' without writing a single line of JavaScript.
Chapter 6: User Input Validation
The reader is introduced to input validation concepts in this chapter. Providing custom error messages is another concept discussed here.
Chapter 7: Internationalization and Localization
The topic of Internationalization and Localization is touched in this chapter.
At the end of this chapter, the reader will have a pretty "Celebrity Collector" Web Application with Internationalization support.
Chapter 8: Creating Custom Components
After having introduced simple and advanced Tapestry components, the author demonstrates to the reader the creation of custom components. Custom Components are useful in cases, such as when the developer needs to duplicate a single functionality on all or multiple pages of a Web Application.
Appendices
The book is accompanied by two appendices- one "The Basics of Java for the Web"- describes the general concepts of Java Web Application. Readers new to Java Web Application development are advised to consult this appendix to learn some basic Java Web Application concepts.
The second appendix, "Creating a Real Data Source with db4o", introduces the object databased named "db4o" which will give a nice insight into enhancing the mock Web Application by doing away with the Java class way of storing and retrieving data.
End-Notes
I took my first step in the Apache Tapestry using this book, and I must admit that I now know much about it after reading the book. This is an important observation, since this means that the book has successfully introduced Java to its target audience.
No work can of course be perfect. Here are some suggestions to improve the book:
- The chapter wise source code downloaded from the book's website was often found inconsistent with that written in the text and some amount of tweaking was required to get the correct functioning.
- The source code would be best distributed as NetBeans and Eclipse projects, to enable auto-inclusion of the libraries and enable to reader to directly start working on the projects.
- An appendix each for working with Maven, Eclipse and NetBeans will make the novice readers more comfortable working with these tools.
February 17, 2008
The Java Posse: Interview with Dalibor Topic
Reproduced from http://javaposse.com/index.php?post_id=303679
Fully formatted shownotes can always be found at http://javaposse.com
Join us for the Java Posse Roundup 2008 in Crested Butte from March 4th to 7th
http://www.mindviewinc.com
We interview Dalibor Topic, also known as Robilad, about Open JDK, the JCP, Kaffe, Iced Tea and more
- Dalibor's blog
- OpenJDK project and charter
- Iced Tea project
- The Java Community Process
- Kaffe
- Gnu Classpath
- Apache Harmony
C++ in Embedded Systems (Video)
OnPodcastWeekly has a video interview with Bjarne Stroustrup titled "C++ in Embedded Systems"
- Download the video from here
February 16, 2008
Project Indiana The OpenSolaris Holy Grail: Part I & II
OnPodcastWeekly videos on "Project Indiana: The OpenSolaris Holy Grail "
NB Community Docs: Phase II
Post broadcast-ed from http://blogs.sun.com/branajam/entry/nb_community_docs_phase_ii
Hi all,
I have great new for the NB Community Docs program. We've reached all of our initial goals, and now it's time to enter phase II. Here is what is going on:
- Docs are being moved to a new location: http://netbeans.org/community/commdocs.html. This will help with visibility. The Community Docs wiki will still play an important role. All incoming docs must be posted there first.
- We've started archiving docs by month. We've received so many contributions that one wiki will no longer suffice. In the coming days, you'll see some of the older docs be relocated to other wikis.
- There is NB Community Docs Blog at http://nb-community-docs.blogspot.com . Amit and I will be blogging from there on all things concerning Community Docs.
- We've created new groups on facebook.com and myspace.com. Make sure you get signed up.
- We would like for all contributors to update their contributions so that they work in NetBeans 6.0. Volunteers can also update existing docs if their author don't have the time.
- We need more docs featuring MySQL and PostGreSQL. Any volunteers?
See you tomorrow!
Related:
Come on Over, the NetBeans Community Docs has a Blog
The NetBeans Community Docs has a blog of its own now. Its here at http://nb-community-docs.blogspot.com/
The latest Buzz from the NetBeans Community Docs can be found here:
- New Contributions
- Contributor Spotlight
- News and Events
- ..
- ..
This blog will be maintained by James Branam, the NetBeans Community Docs Manager and myself, the co-ordinator.
Basic Understanding Of The NetBeans NodesAPI
This NB Community Docs Contribution "Basic Understanding Of The NetBeans NodesAPI" is a nice document if you are keen on understanding how the Nodes API work in NetBeans.
This is the 107th contribution to the NetBeans Community Docs!
How about contributing the 108th?
See you!
NB Community Docs: Refactoring Simplified
Refactoring Simplified is a nice handy guide which tells you a thing or two about how NetBeans simplifies refactoring.
I really enjoyed reading this short guide :-)
Mozilla application Addons Development in NetBeans
This NetBeans Commnity Docs Contribution titled "Mozilla application Addons Development in NetBeans" show you how you can easily setup NetBeans to create not only Firefox Addons but also addons for the following:
- Mozilla Firefox
- Mozilla Thunderbird
- Mozilla Suite 1.x
- Netscape
- SeaMonkey
- Flock
- Sunbird
- Nvu
Go ahead and check it out, try some hands-on and provide your suggestions!
NB Community Docs: A SOAP client for Open Calais
I have put up a document titled "A SOAP client for Open Calais" which shows you how to write a SOAP client in Java for the recently launched Open Calais Web Service.
Go ahead and check it out!
February 15, 2008
NetBeans Zone
Check out this blog post by Geertjan on the new NetBeans Zone
http://blogs.sun.com/geertjan/entry/netbeans_zone
I have joined, (http://netbeans.dzone.com/users/amitksaha). Have you?
Open JDK and Ubuntu: Bringing Java to Linux - Part 1 (video)
This podcast (Video) here at http://www.informit.com/content/podcasts/11/30_OPEN_Sands_01.mp4 focusses on the Open JDK project- some comments on the decision to "free" Java and why they felt a "free" Java was the need of the hour
Stay tuned for the next part!
CodeForFreedom and NetBeans Community Docs
The NetBeans Community Docs has witnessed a huge growth over the past couple of months or so. And, I shall not be wrong in saying that a bulk of these contributions have been coming from Indian students who were participants in the Code For Freedom contest.
Special thanks to Varun, Rajath, Kunal, Ashwin..
Thank you all for making the Community Docs stronger. Looking forward to see your contributions in future!
See you!
CodeForFreedom: The End, from a participant's perspective
The Code For Freedom (CFF) contest is now over
February 14 was the last date for the submissions. The next big thing is the announcement of the prizes.
Looking back at the past 6 months, during which the contest was in full throttle, the only thing that comes to mind is that, it was fun.
Fun to develop an acquaintance with so many other fellow students from India.
Fun to get into a verbal "fight" about a desktop and a laptop :-)
Fun to read and answer emails from the other participants
Fun to do my bit to help the other participants to make sure they do not miss out on a great opportunity to get their feet wet in Open-Source
Fun to become more involved with Open-Source@Sun in general and specifically- NetBeans, and OpenJDK
Fun to read e-mails from people, who didn't even know what they were mailing and posting to the group
Fun to get some days of fame and adulation- I got featured on SDN South Asia Website. I also gave my first real interview here at http://developers.sun.com/asiasouth/news/amitsaha.html
In-case you have missed out on all the fun, you may visit the mailing list archives here at http://groups.google.com/group/CodeForFreedom. Not all the fun is guranteed!
You may also like to visit my CFF related entries here at http://amitksaha.blogspot.com/search/label/CodeForFreedom
Thank you Sun India, Rohan and all my fellow participants!
It was Fun
Would you like to share your thoughts? Feel free to post your comments.
NetBeans Community Docs on Facebook, MySpace
The NetBeans Community Docs is now going to make its presence felt in the Social Networks- Facebook and MySpace.
Facebook profile is here at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8267666529. You will need a Facebook account to join us.
MySpace profile is here at http://groups.myspace.com/nbcommunitydocs
Make sure you join us here!
See you!
February 14, 2008
February 12, 2008
Podcasts (videos) on Linux Kernel Development
OnPodcastWeekly.com in their OnOpenSource channel has got 2 videos on Linux Kernel Development:
February 8, 2008
NetBeans Podcast Episode #40
Reproduced from http://blogs.sun.com/roumen/entry/netbeans_podcast_episode_40
NetBeans podcast this time with a celebrity appearance of Judith Lilienfeld, director of tools evangelism at Sun:
NetBeans Podcast Episode #40 (28 min 25 sec, size: 27.2 MB)
- 0:00 NetBeans Innovators Grant Program!
- 5:54 Check out the NetBeans Community Documentation program, coordinated by James Branham and Amit Kumar Saha. Recent milestone: over 100 contributions. Also, check out an interesting idea from Amit and Varun Nischal.
- 8:52 NetBeans 6.1 Milestone 1 now available. Schedule for 6.1 milestones/betas is here.
- 11:52 A new Webinar that demonstrates the JasperSoft iReport plugin.
- 14:30 Recap of NetBeans event in Second Life. Transcript here.
- 16:45 Investigating: Better JavaScript support.
- 19:24 Guest appearance: Judith Lilienfeld, Director of Java Tools Evangelism at Sun Microsystems. In addition to the NetBeans Innovators Grant program, there will be a blogging contest. Stay tuned - details will be announced soon.
- 20:19 NetBeans RCP application of the podcast: CitraFX.
- 21:00 Plugin of the podcast: Assembly Language support.
- .
- .
February 7, 2008
Displaying Directory Trees in Linux
Here are two programs which can be used to display the directory structure in an attractive manner:
February 6, 2008
Writing book reviews: A new beginning..
Kshipra Singh of Packt Publishing had contacted me sometime back regarding writing a review of their newly released book "Tapestry 5: Building Web Applications"
Today, I received the book. I am going to start the review work tomorrow and should be able to put it up within 10 days or so. Stay tuned!
Related:
CodeForFreedom: Contributions Set #3
Submitted the following documents and plug-ins to Code For Freedom:
Documents:
- http://wiki.netbeans.org/IntroAndroidDevNetBeans
- http://wiki.netbeans.org/wiki/view/IntroNetBeansPluginDev
- http://wiki.netbeans.org/wiki/view/NetBeans6Beta2Build
- http://wiki.netbeans.org/wiki/view/EclipseJavaConsoleToNetBeans
February 5, 2008
NetBeans Plug-in Module: URL Bookmarking Manager
I contributed my first plug-in module to NetBeans. It is titled- URL Bookmarking Manager and is available for download here at:
http://plugins.netbeans.org/PluginPortal/faces/PluginDetailPage.jsp?pluginid=5741
This is basically a working version of the plug-in. It will be prettier and feature rich very soon!
Here are some screenshots of the working:
Add a new bookmark
I am also going to put up the source code on the project page at http://code.google.com/p/netbeans-url-todo-plugin/
Stay tuned!
Please try the plugin module, and suggest improvements.
Thanks Varun and Rajath for trying out the plug-in and providing screenshots!
Century for the NetBeans Community Docs
100 contributions and counting..!
Congratulations to all the community members who made the program a great success!
We hope to receive your contributions for a long time to come!
Introducing Android Development with NetBeans
This NetBeans Community Docs contribution titled- "Introducing Android Development with NetBeans" shows you how you can get started with Android development on NetBeans using the Android plugins for NetBeans, provided by the Undroid project.
Feel free to chip in with your comments and suggestions!
Loading Resources in Java
Here are a couple of links which are useful incase you are looking for some resource loading resources in Java:
the Da Vinci Project: Running more languages on the JVM
Originally, Java started as the only language that could be used to generate code to run on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). However, we have had Java implementations of Python and Ruby- Jython and jRuby respectively which run on the JVM.
Now, with the Da Vinci Machine project, things are going to take a further step ahead and we shall possibly see more languages implemented to be run on the JVM.
One of earliest coverages of the project is:
- Sun's Da Vinci Machine broadens JVM coverage, InfoWorld 1/31/2008
This paper New Languages on the JVM: Pain Points and Remedies gives a nice background information about the project.We are extending the JVM with first-class architectural support for languages other than Java, especially dynamic languages. This project will prototype a number of extensions to the JVM, so that it can run non-Java languages efficiently, with a performance level comparable to that of Java itself.
Our emphasis is on completing the existing bytecode and execution architecture with general purpose extensions, as opposed to a new feature for just one language, or adjoining an unrelated new execution model.
We want the new languages to co-exist gracefully with Java in the JVM, and to benefit (like Java) from its powerful and mature technologies.
We are looking to remove “pain points” already observed by implementors of successful or influential languages, as opposed to attempting more speculative work on unproven features or niche languages.
Blogs:
- John Rose, the project lead
February 4, 2008
Article: Search Finally Goes Open with Wikia
Wikia Search is online and it’s alpha testing time. This article Search Finally Goes Open with Wikia, written by me, published in Linux For You, February, 2008 talks about the project’s goals, and how we can help, get help and have some fun!
Article: Getting started with ARM Linux
Want to get started with development on ARM systems, but don’t have the required processor for the purpose?
Published in Linux For You, February, 2008 this article titled "Getting started with ARM Linux" by me teaches you how to get started with emulating the ARM architecture under an i686 system.
NB Community Docs: Salient Features of Netbeans 6.0 Beta
The latest contribution to the NetBeans Community Docs- "Salient Features of Netbeans 6.0 Beta" is a collection of cool facts about working with NetBeans 6.0.
Make sure you go ahead and read it here
How about sharing some of your NetBeans experiences with us?
See you!
Google reacts to the Yahoo! bid by Microsoft
Google reacts to the bid by Microsoft to buy the Internet giant Yahoo in this blog post http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/yahoo-and-future-of-internet.html
