Better, Faster, Lighter Java

Sometimes the simplest answer is the best. Many Enterprise Java developers, accustomed to dealing with Java's spiraling complexity, have fallen into the habit of choosing overly complicated solutions to problems when simpler options are available. Building server applications with 'heavyweight' Java-based architectures, such as WebLogic, JBoss, and WebSphere, can be costly and cumbersome. When you've reached the point where you spend more time writing code to support your chosen framework than to solve your actual problems, it's time to think in terms of simplicity.In Better, Faster, Lighter Java, authors Bruce Tate and Justin Gehtland argue that the old heavyweight architectures are unwieldy, complicated, and contribute to slow and buggy application code. As an alternative means for building better applications, the authors present two 'lightweight' open source architectures: Hibernate--a persistence framework that does its job with a minimal API and gets out of the way, and Spring--a container that's not invasive, heavy or complicated.Hibernate and Spring are designed to be fairly simple to learn and use, and place reasonable demands on system resources. Better, Faster, Lighter Java shows you how they can help you create enterprise applications that are easier to maintain, write, and debug, and are ultimately much faster.Written for intermediate to advanced Java developers, Better, Faster, Lighter Java, offers fresh ideas--often unorthodox--to help you rethink the way you work, and techniques and principles you'll use to build simpler applications. You'll learn to spend more time on what's important. When you're finished with this book, you'll find that your Java is better, faster, and lighter than ever before. Better, Faster, Lighter Java by Bruce A. Tate and Justin Gehtland Copyright© 2004 O'Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472. Editor: Mike Loukides Production Editor: Colleen Gorman Cover Designer: Ellie Volckhausen Interior Designer: Melanie Wang Printing History: June 2004: First Edition. ix -Preface 1 - 1. The Inevitable Bloat 1 -- Bloat Drivers 9 -- Options 11 -- Five Principles for Fighting the Bloat 15 -- Summary 17 - 2. Keep It Simple 17 -- The Value of Simplicity 21 -- Process and Simplicity 26 -- Your Safety Net 35 -- Summary 36 - 3. Do One Thing, and Do It Well 37 -- Understanding the Problem 41 -- Distilling the Problem 46 -- Layering your Architecture 51 -- Refactoring to Reduce Coupling 60 -- Summary 61 - 4. Strive for Transparency 61 -- Benefits of Transparency 62 -- Who's in Control? 64 -- Alternatives to Transparency 70 -- Reflection 77 -- Injecting Code 79 -- Generating Code 82 -- Advanced Topics 85 -- Summary 87 - 5. You Are What You Eat 88 -- Golden Hammers 98 -- Understanding the Big Picture 102 -- Considering Technical Requirements 106 -- Summary 107 - 6. Allow for Extension 107 -- The Basics of Extension 112 -- Tools for Extension 123 -- Plug-In Models 126 -- Who Is the Customer? 128 -- Summary 129 - 7. Hibernate 129 -- The Lie 130 -- What is Hibernate? 141 -- Using Your Persistent Model 145 -- Evaluating Hibernate 150 -- Summary 151 - 8. Spring 151 -- What is Spring? 154 -- Pet Store: A Counter-Example 159 -- The Domain Model 161 -- Adding Persistence 170 -- Presentation 175 -- Summary 177 - 9. Simple Spider 178 -- What Is the Spider? 179 -- Examining the Requirements 182 -- Planning for Development 182 -- The Design 183 -- The Configuration Service 187 -- The Crawler/Indexer Service 193 -- The Search Service 196 -- The Console Interface 199 -- The Web Service Interface 203 -- Extending the Spider 204 - 10. Extending jPetStore 204 -- A Brief Look at the Existing Search Feature 207 -- Replacing the Controller 211 -- The User Interface (JSP) 214 -- Setting Up the Indexer 216 -- Making Use of the Configuration Service 218 -- Adding Hibernate 224 -- Summary 226 - 11. Where Do We Go From Here? 226 -- Technology 231 -- Process 232 -- Challenges 232 -- Conclusion 234 - Bibliography 237 - Index Sometimes the simplest answer is the best. Many Enterprise Java developers, accustomed to dealing with Java's spiraling complexity, have fallen into the habit of choosing overly complicated solutions to problems when simpler options are available. Building server applications with "heavyweight" Java-based architectures, such as WebLogic, JBoss, and WebSphere, can be costly and cumbersome. When you've reached the point where you spend more time writing code to support your chosen framework than to solve your actual problems, it's time to think in terms of simplicity. In Better, Faster, Lighter Java , authors Bruce Tate and Justin Gehtland argue that the old heavyweight architectures are unwieldy, complicated, and contribute to slow and buggy application code. As an alternative means for building better applications, the authors present two "lightweight" open source Hibernate--a persistence framework that does its job with a minimal API and gets out of the way, and Spring--a container that's not invasive, heavy or complicated. Hibernate and Spring are designed to be fairly simple to learn and use, and place reasonable demands on system resources. Better, Faster, Lighter Java shows you how they can help you create enterprise applications that are easier to maintain, write, and debug, and are ultimately much faster. Written for intermediate to advanced Java developers, Better, Faster, Lighter Java , offers fresh ideas--often unorthodox--to help you rethink the way you work, and techniques and principles you'll use to build simpler applications. You'll learn to spend more time on what's important. When you're finished with this book, you'll find that your Java is better, faster, and lighter than ever before. Java developers are drowning in a sea of complexity. We are approaching a horizon event, where programmers spend more time writing code to support their chosen frameworks than to solve actual problems. But does Java have to be this difficult? No, it doesn't. Better, Faster, Lighter Java shows you the way out of this trap. Whether you're maintaining an application or designing one from the ground up, you can look beyond conventional wisdom and dramatically simplify your foundations, your process, and ultimately, your code. You can get your J2EE applications back under control. Bruce A. Tate and Justin Gehtland build from the ground up. First, they lay out five core principles. They demonstrate techniques to build simple, decoupled code, and walk you through how you should be choosing your technologies. They show how two popular open source applications embrace those concepts. Then, they put the core principles into practice, building a simple but remarkably rich application that solves complex real-world problems