Everyday Coder

I am the type of developer that uses existing 3rd-party solutions whenever possible. Lately, I’ve been using XStream for object persistance in a standalone Java application. So far, I must say that I’m extremely impressed with how well this API is put together and also with its simplicity. Exporting an entire object tree is as [...]

The current application that I’m coding uses an interface composed mostly of rounded rectangles. Initially it looked really cool. I later added transparency to some of the panels so that the parent panel’s background would show through. On the Mac, it looked really great. I had since ran the application on Windows and a few [...]

I stumbled across this article about my old friend the GridBagLayout today. I for one thought I was in a very small minority when it comes to actually using and liking the GridBagLayout. Well, Jeff Friesen proved that he is also on my side when he wrote Harness the Power of Java’s GridBagLayout. The [...]

Every Java developer must own a copy of Effective Java: Programming Language Guide by Joshua Bloch. If you haven’t read this book and you think you’re a good Java developer, think again. This book challenges me to be a better coder every day.
The layout of the book is extremely easy to follow and reference. The [...]

This is my inaugural post. I guess I should hit the ground running with a post concerning database access from Java applications. I’m in the minority in that I’m currently writing a stand-alone Java application, not a JEE Enterprise Application. I know that this may be a shock to some of you, but let’s just [...]