How to compare a Java Web Framework

Far from being achieved, but at least a major update of How To compare Java Web Framework and the Java Web Framework matrix.

My first JavaFX tutorial completed under Linux

I was eager to start using JavaFX, because Linux isn't yet fully supported as a development platform. So I used this tips on how to install Netbeans with JavaFX on Linux. And I have been able to follow this tutorial.
Nothing fancy, but I have a good feeling about JavaFX : the code is clean, powerful and very readable. Not cluttered with legacy stuff.
I hope I will be able to do more with it.

Java on Linux, So Many Free Choices

Or should we say too many choices ?
This post is essentially to cleanup some bookmarks I tagged "To Read".
There is an article in Fedora Weekly Issue 133 about Java.
I like to have a clean Linux install and having Sun's Java, GCJ, IcedTea and others gives me a bad feeling.
Hopefully the road map toward OpenJDK is clear.

The trouble with triggers

It is nice when I get a confirmation for a feeling I had for a long time.
Triggers should be use with extreme care. It is a bit like AOP, very powerful but you don't let anyone play with a chainsaw.
So it is worth reading an article The Trouble with Triggers By Tom Kyte in Oracle magazine.
Note that there is a free paper version if you don't have a netbook for the toilets.

Installing KUbuntu alongside Fedora

What decided me to try Kubuntu is the updated Miro version, the one that allow to download Youtube chanels. Ubuntu has it, but Fedora is lagging a bit behind. (Notice that Mandriva and Suse had it too).
Besides, the Fedora 10 Feature list didn't excite me.

In order to install Kubuntu alongside Fedora on a free LVM volume, I decided to use UNetBootIn. There are no RPM, you have to download it from sourceforge. Since it is only one single exec, there are no problems.

So, you just launch unetbootin, choose which distribution to install, I choosed Ubuntu 8.10 Net install. It download a little file and ask for reboot.

I rebooted and choose "Unetbootin" in the Grub menu. It launches Ubuntu's install.
Partitionning is the scary part: Ubuntu doesn't help you much to choose the right LVM volume ! Basically, don't use your existing /boot, choose to config LVM and only mount the LVM volume that will contain Ubuntu. It still says that it will change the partition table, but luckily, it didn't break too much things.
I did a bare lightweight install (no X server).

Ubuntu's install changed the partition's UUID. Normally, it wouldn't have been a concern. But I used to configure Fedora's fstab to mount it under /mnt/ubuntu. So when I booted back to Fedora it falls short on a "Repair System" shell. Just because it couldn't find the UUID anymore !! Anyway after some Googling, I remounted the filesystem in read/write mode : "mount -w -o remount /" as seen in Linux Forum and just commented the bad line.

After rebooting, I used system-config-lvm (don't know why it doesn't appear in the menu) to mount the kubuntu partition back on /mnt/ubuntu. Then I wanted to copy the /mnt/ubuntu/boot/ to /boot/ and add Ubuntu to the Grub menu. But I only had to updated Grub to add the Ubuntu menu. The file were already in /boot/ : I wonder if UNetbootin copied them there in order to boot the install ?

Anyway, I just rebooted and choose "Ubuntu" in the Grub menu. It reached quickly a standard shell where I did a sudo apt-get kubuntu-desktop, triggering the download of not less than 1,5Go of deb files. But I know that I can switch from one to the other systems.

After rebooting, I still have to configure the NVIDIA drivers, since it gives me a blank screen yet ...

Xebia Web Framework Contest (French)

Xebia is a well known company with a strong focus on Java and Agile.
I already heard of them through Gero Vermaas's blog.
I saw this context in a post from Matt Raible.
See: RIA Contest : Flex / Silverlight / GWT / Echo3 / JavaFX.

The comment are worth reading too : it shows that it is an interesting experiment, but very limited in time and focus. So it won't be true in 3 month or on another kind of project.

Java browser plugin on 64 bit Fedora and more

It's been a long time. So just to say that :
- Fedora 10 should be there soon

- There is some hope for a good java plugin on 64-bits browsers. For now just install java-1.6.0-openjdk-plugin. Or better, just yum install java-1.6.0-openjdk-*

- being on a project with a lot of JMS, Tibco RendezVous, Complex Event Processing, Event Driven Architecture and the likes, It is the kind of paradigm change that bring some fun to the job ! So no more HTTP request nor function calls : just send events and hopefully someone else will write the code to react to them. We are so used to HTTP and the firewall censorship that we don't even consider JMS ! But there are plenty of cases where it makes perfect sense to use events and messages : a lot of them !