I finally tried Grails.  The Groovy based knock off of Ruby on Rails.  I had earlier started reading " JRuby on Rails : Web 2.0 Projects" but just felt that Ruby was too different from Java to get excited about.  I felt like Grails fit in much more seamlessly into the Java ecosystem than JRuby and I didn't feel like I was missing out on the neater features of JRuby.  More importantly, having trusty old Spring and Hibernate right there if I needed them was certainly reassuring. 

 I started out by first by reading "Getting Started With Grails".  After I completed this book I jumped in and wrote a variation of an application I wrote earlier in Tapestry 4 which is a simple application that asks a bunch of categorized yes/no questions and calculates the yes answers in each category and saves them to a database which is retrievable later.  IMHO, I felt doing the project in Tapestry 4 did not have any advantages for a small project like this.  Here's some metrics:

Tapestry 4 Java Code Lines : 575

Grails Code Lines: 255

Grails Code Lines Excluding Auto Generated Configs and tests: 86 (Wow!) 

Things you don't need to deal with in a basic Grails app that you do with Tapestry 4 :Ant build file, Hibernate Config, Tapestry Application Descriptor, Component Specification (jwc), any additional libs except for the database jar.

 I have to level some criticisms at Grails though.  First, it tends to give some strange error messages when the environment isn't configured just right or you do something wrong.  Also, I had some trouble figuring out where to put stuff if I wanted it to be on the classpath.   Lastly the IDE integration is weaker than pure Java so autocomplete was mostly a manual process not assisted by the IDE.  Being able to quickly re-load and see changes compensates for this.

One more note.  As a Java developer I am a little prejudiced against loosely typed languages but Grails alleviates my fears by allowing me to easily interface with regular Java components  via Spring.

 All in All, I think Grails is the next big thing in Java development.  I have completed major projects professionally in Tapestry, Struts, and JSF and I feel like Grails just blows them all out of the water right now, especially for smaller projects.  I am going to try to use Grails on a much larger project to see how it works in that context.  The backend of my larger project is all in Java/Spring and uses some pretty tricky Hibernate stuff but I think that Grails will be great as a quick and agile web tier framework.

Technorati Tags: grails java tapestry web mvc frameworks

Selenium is a very nice browser control/automated testing system.  I wanted to integrate it into my Appfuse project so I could use it to do functional testing in lieu of Canoo, which i feel is less capable.  Selenium RC (remote Control) is particularly useful because it lets one automate web testing from inside of Java and hence inside of Junit.  Here's how I did it.

Step 1 - Download Selenium

Go to http://www.openqa.org/selenium-rc/download.action

and download the selenium 0.9.2 release

Unpacked the file in

lib/

underneath your Appfuse root directory. 

Now the files are in

lib/selenium-remote-control-0.9.2

Step 2 - Setup Library and Paths

edit /lib/lib.properties and add the follwoing:

#
# Selenium RC - http://www.openqa.org/
# selenium.version=0.9.2
selenium.dir=${lib.dir}/selenium-remote-control-${selenium.version}/
selenium-client.jar=${selenium.dir}/selenium-java-client-driver-${selenium.version}/selenium-java-client-driver.jar
selenium-server.jar=${selenium.dir}/selenium-server-${selenium.version}/selenium-server.jar

 In properties.xml setup the selenium build and test environment

     <!-- Selenium Compile Classpath -->
    <path id="selenium.compile.classpath">
        <path refid="web.compile.classpath"/>
        <pathelement location="${selenium-client.jar}"/>        
        <pathelement location="${selenium-server.jar}"/>
    </path>
    <path id="selenium.test.classpath">
        <path refid="web.test.classpath"/>
        <pathelement location="${selenium-client.jar}"/>        
        <pathelement location="${selenium-server.jar}"/>  

 </path>

 
Step 3 - Setup Source Directories and add a Test

Make two source directories

 test/selenium

and

 src/selenium

Put your tests in test/selenium

An example Selenium test:

package appfuse.selenium;

import org.openqa.selenium.server.SeleniumServer;

import junit.framework.TestCase;

import com.thoughtworks.selenium.DefaultSelenium;
import com.thoughtworks.selenium.Selenium;

public class SeleniumTest extends TestCase {
        private Selenium selenium;

        public void setUp() throws Exception {
            
            String url = "http://localhost:8080/appfuse";
            selenium = new DefaultSelenium("localhost", SeleniumServer.getDefaultPort(), "*firefox", url);
            selenium.start();
        }

        protected void tearDown() throws Exception {
            selenium.stop();
        }

        public void testLocal() throws Throwable {
            selenium.open("http://localhost:8080/appfuse";
            selenium.waitForPageToLoad("30000";
            assertTrue(selenium.getTitle().equals("Login | AppFuse");
        }

}

 
Step 5 - Setup proper build targets

In build.xml add the following tasks to support running selenium tests: 

<!-- Start Selenium Test Server -->

     <target name="start-selenium-server" depends="init">
        <java fork="true" spawn="true" classname="org.openqa.selenium.server.SeleniumServer">
            <classpath refid="web.compile.classpath"/>
        </java>
    </target>

<!-- Compile Selenium Modules --> 

    <target name="compile-selenium" depends="package-service,stage-web" description="Compile web module">
        <compile module="selenium"/>
    </target>
 

<!-- Use cargo to startup app server and run selenium tests against them --> 

    <target name="test-selenium" if="tomcat.home" depends="war,check-debug,start-selenium-server,compile-selenium"
        description="Runs Canoo WebTests using Cargo">
        
        <taskdef resource="cargo.tasks">
            <classpath>
                <fileset dir="${cargo.dir}" includes="*.jar"/>
            </classpath>
        </taskdef>

        <echo>running canoo tests at:
              http://${tomcat.server}:${http.port}/${webapp.name}</echo>

        <if>
            <isset property="tomcat5"/>
            <then><property name="cargoId" value="tomcat5x"/></then>
            <else><property name="cargoId" value="tomcat4x"/></else>
        </if>
       
        <echo message="Starting ${cargoId}..."/>
        <cargo containerId="${cargoId}" id="${cargoId}" home="${tomcat.home}" action="start"
            output="${test.dir}/cargo.log" wait="false">
            <configuration home="${test.dir}/${cargoId}">
                <property name="cargo.logging" value="high"/>
                <property name="cargo.servlet.port" value="${http.port}"/>
                <!--<property name="cargo.jvmargs" value="${run.brainReboot.test.debugargline}"/>-->
                <deployable type="war" file="${webapp.dist}/${webapp.war}"/>
            </configuration>  
        </cargo>

        <test-module module="selenium"/>

        <cargo refid="${cargoId}" action="stop"/>
    </target>

Step 6 - Run Tests

Now run

ant test-selenium ;

and you will see tomcat startup and the selenium Firefox instance pop open and try and complete any tests you've setup.

Technorati Tags: java appfuse selenium automated testing

I've never been a big desktop app developer.  I had heard from a number of people at JavaOne that Swing had become much easier to work with lately.  I had a friend who wanted me to port a simple C# desktop app to Java so I immediately jumped in to get a feel for desktop app programming again.

I had heard from a number of people that the Netbeans Matisse swing builder was a really good tool. I was not disappointed at all. I was able to whip up a quick copy of the application UI I was porting in Matisse and get it functioning and doing things rather quickly.

NetBeans as an IDE could use a bit of work though. Some things I found that weren't so great:

• Quick fix support is much more primitive than in Eclipse.
• The recompilation and error hilighting is not as fast as Eclipse.
• Sometimes auto-complete would fail mysteriously.
• The debugger doesn't let you change your code while your program is running.

• Matisse is a great tool for making Swing apps.
• I didn't have to download any plug-ins to get started.
• The XML editor is pretty decent.
• The build system is built in and a no brainer. You don't have to hack your own.
• Performance and stability were better in NetBeans.
• No need for perspective switching.

Blojsom is a great java based blogging webapp that I got up and running today. 

Here's my guide as to how to set it up:

Setting up Blojsom 3.2 on Postgres/Jetty

• Download Blojsom Quickstar Bundle

  http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=72754&package_id=125988

• Download Jetty 6

  http://dist.codehaus.org/jetty/jetty-6.1.3.zip

• If Postgresql has not been installed you can get it from:

  http://www.postgresql.org/

  if you are on Debian or Ubuntu simply run

  apt-get install postgresql

Now on to the install

• from your home directory - assuming your site is called xclu.com:

  mkdir xclu.com 
  
  unzip jetty-6.1.3.zip
  
  declare -x JETTY_HOME=~/xclu.com/jetty-6.1.3/
  
  cd $JETTY_HOME
  
  

  Get the appropriate Postgresql driver from

  http://jdbc.postgresql.org/download.html

  to get your version

  psql --version

  copy it to $JETTY_HOME/lib/ext/

  cd webapps
  
  mkdir blojsom
  
  cd blojsom
  
  jar -xvf ~/xclu.com/blojsom.war
  

  edit $JETTY_HOME/webapps/blojsom/WEB-INF/classes/blojsom-helper-beans-include.xml

  Replace the datasource with an appropriate postgresql configuration. You probably want to use a better password than 'blojsom'.:

  
  
      <bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close">
          <property name="driverClassName" value="org.postgresql.Driver"/>
          <property name="url" value="jdbc:postgresql://localhost/blojsom"/>
          <property name="username" value="blojsom"/>
          <property name="password" value="blojsom"/>
      </bean>
  
  

  Modify the dialect

  <prop key="hibernate.dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect</prop>

  Edit $JETTY_HOME/webapps/blojsom/WEB-INF/classes/blojsom.xml

  Modify the dbloader

  
  <bean id="dbloader" class="org.blojsom.util.database.DatabaseLoader" init-method="init">
      <property name="sessionFactory">
          <ref bean="hibernateSessionFactory"/>
      </property>
      <property name="dbScript" value="/WEB-INF/classes/blojsom-full-initial-data-postgresql.sql"/>
      <property name="upgrading" value="false"/>
      <property name="servletConfig">
          <ref bean="servletConfigFactoryBean"/>
      </property>
      <property name="detectBlojsomSQL">
          <value>select relname from pg_stat_user_tables where relname = 'blog';</value>
      </property>
  </bean>
  

  Create the blojsom database (may need to be done as postgres user account if you haven't created a postgres superuser account for yourself)

  createuser blojsom

  Answer no to whether the user should be allowed to create databases or other users

  createdb -O blojsom blojsom
  
  psql blojsom
  blojsom=# alter user blojsom with password 'blojsom';
  blojsom=# \q
  
  

  To allow local acess to your database edit pg_hba.conf and add the following line right underneath the IPv4 comment.

  # All IPv4 connections from localhost
  host    blojsom     blojsom     127.0.0.1         255.255.255.255   md5
  

  Restart postgresql

  Test the configuration

  psql -h 127.0.0.1 -U blojsom -W blojsom

  login with password "blojsom"

  You should get the follow prompt

  blojsom=>

  exit the psql client

  blojsom=> \q

  Set the hostname and port in $JETTY_HOME/etc/jetty.xml properly

      <Call name="addConnector">
        <Arg>
            <New class="org.mortbay.jetty.nio.SelectChannelConnector">
              <Set name="port"><SystemProperty name="jetty.port" default="8080"/></Set>
              <Set name="maxIdleTime">30000</Set>
              <Set name="host">www.xclu.com</Set>
              <Set name="Acceptors">1</Set>
              <Set name="statsOn">false</Set>
              <Set name="confidentialPort">8443</Set>
              <Set name="lowResourcesConnections">1000</Set>
              <Set name="lowResourcesMaxIdleTime">500</Set>
            </New>
        </Arg>
      </Call>
  

  Replace localhost:8080 with whatever your actual hostname is. In this case my hostname is 'www.xclu.com'

  Change the jetty sql scripts so they initialize the database with the right hostname

  perl -pi -e 's/localhost:8080/www.xclu.com/g' $JETTY_HOME/webapps/blojsom/WEB-INF/classes/*.sql
  

  Run Jetty!

  cd $JETTY_HOME
  ./bin/jetty.sh start
  

  Now go to

  • You may now access your blog at http://your-blojsom-install-site/blojsom/blog/default/
  • You may access the administration console at http://your-blojsom-install-site/blojsom/blog/default/?flavor=admin
  • The default user and password is default/default. Be sure to change the password immediately after logging in. You can change this under Weblog Settings | Users.

Technorati Tags: blojsom jetty postgresql linux