cwash into software

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately and have been meaning to plug some of my favorite reads, and one of the things that I’ve been trying to read with an eye toward is for converting those that have been stuck on “behind-the-curve” projects to the new way of thinking and doing things. As such, and just in time for the weekend, I’ve compiled a list of my favorites with an eye to the “movers and shakers” that have driven innovation in the Enterprise Java world recently. Note that even though some of these links are specific to certain frameworks/technologies, there is a common thread throughout most of these that have a bigger focus on the best way to solve problems using Java 5/EE 5 constructs and concepts.

A book that should be on any Java developer’s shelf is Effective Java (2nd Edition). Make sure you get the second edition, for all of the Java 5 changes. This talk by Joshua should whet your appetite. (His talk on good API design is also very good.) You should also take a look at Bob Lee’s talk on Guice. Guice’s philosophy and focus on typesafety has spilled over into Web Beans (and newer versions of Seam) and its annotation based approach has heavily influenced newer Spring features. I especially like his points on type safety around the 11-minute mark. The walkthrough at the end of the talk from “old way” to “new way” is great for people who haven’t really gotten away from Factories, Delegates, and Service Locators yet.

The Guice video mentions that a common thread in modern Java frameworks is a focus on testability. Testing is a very important concept that nearly all new frameworks have embraced, but you still need know-how to be successful with testing. I’ve come across some great books recently in the automated (developer) testing arena. I’ve found the most thorough book on the topic out there is Lasse Koskela’s Test Driven. The ideas and topics discussed in the book are really language independent, and work equally well with other languages. To cut your teeth on TestNG, which the Seam documentation turned me onto, I recommend the TestNG developers’ book Next Generation Java Testing: TestNG and Advanced Concepts. Cedric Beust, also the author of EJBGen, and Hani Suleiman, author of the Bile Blog, produced a book that was a suprisingly good read. It’s packed with a lot of knowledge and some interesting takes on EE concepts. Newer versions of JUnit also include many of these features and concepts, so you’ll get the underpinnings of these concepts in this book. This video gives you a basis to TestNG’s approach.

As one of the growing number of developers who have an application in the Seam In Production page, there are a few Seam resources I have to share. Even if you don’t get into Seam, it should be on your radar because a lot of the core concepts around conversations have evolved into Web Beans, and are found other frameworks like Apache Orchestra and Spring WebFlow. Pete Muir did a Webcast that’s a great introduction to Seam 2.

Author of one of my favorite Seam blogs, Jacob Orshalick, has created a DZone RefCard for Seam 2.1 Core. It’s right off the presses, being published this week, but is a great quick-capsule review of what Seam can do for you, and nice to have on your desk if you’re writing Seam. If you need more in-depth descriptions of what’s on the RefCard, Jacob also coauthored the latest edition of the great Seam reference Seam Framework: Experience the Evolution of Java EE.
Dan Allen’s Seam in Action is another excellent resource. Of course, the awesome Seam Docs and Forums always come in handy. You should also RSS in.relation.to – the Hibernate/Seam developers’ group blog.

I know I’m leaving some great things out. What resources do you think someone who is used to J2EE should take a look at to get them “up to speed” with the state of the art?