http://www.thomasknierim.com Software development with Java, Scala, and PHP Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:44:23 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en No, it has nothing to do with armed conflict. Making WAR files is the Java way of packaging, distributing, and deploying web applications. While JAR stands for “Java archive”, WAR stands for “Web application archive”, or simply “Web archive”. In fact, the JAR and WAR formats are both gzipped directories ... http://www.thomasknierim.com/81/web-development/make-war-with-eclipse/ Pocket PCs suck! Well, they do at least suck sometimes, namely when they don't function. To be fair, I have to say that Pocket PCs are great as long as they work. Since a Pocket PC is like a miniature computer, it offers a functional range and programmability that surpasses ... http://www.thomasknierim.com/80/tech-trends/pocket-pcs-suck/ Until earlier this month I was a short-time subscriber to emusic.com. Extremely short-time. Nine days to be precise. For those of you who don't know emusic.com - it's an online music store where you can (legally!) buy music in MP3 format on a monthly subscription basis. Emusic.com specialises in independent ... http://www.thomasknierim.com/79/internet/emusic-blues/ Scala is a purely object-oriented language in the sense that all language constructs are objects. This includes all primitive type values, such as Char, Int, Long, Float etc. For example, it is perfectly legal in Scala to append a method call to a literal primitive value, as in 3.1415.round or ... http://www.thomasknierim.com/77/scala/scala-tutorial-2/ Because HTML is at the very core of the World Wide Web, you would expect it to be a mature and refined technology. You would also expect it to provide a flexible platform for Web application development and deployment. As most web developers know, the reality is a bit different. ... http://www.thomasknierim.com/76/web-development/html-5-preview/ One sign of the success of the Java platform is the profusion of new languages for the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), which appeared during the past few years. Some examples are Jython, Groovy, and JRuby. These languages serve niches in domain specific development where they typically offer better productivity and ... http://www.thomasknierim.com/75/scala/scala-tutorial-1/ Book Review: Effective Java 2nd Edition, June 2008 by Joshua Bloch Addison Wesley, 346 pages ISBN: 978-0-321-35668-0 This book seems to be one of the most critically acclaimed Java titles. What could I possibly add to what has been said? The acclaim is fully deserved. I had the feeling that I already learned something new ... http://www.thomasknierim.com/71/java/effective-java/ First I should explain what I mean with cup typing. When you buy a cup of coffee, you have the choice of short, tall, or grande sized cup. Sometimes you can also choose  decaf or regular. When you declare an integer variable in Java, you have the choice of  byte, ... http://www.thomasknierim.com/70/software-engineering/cup-typing/ You know you had too much Java... ...when you type a company memo and begin with the heading “public static final”. ...when you drop your used paper cups on the floor stating that the garbage collector will take care of it. ...when most of your email attachments are jar files. ...when you feel lost ... http://www.thomasknierim.com/69/java/too-much-java/ During the last few years, we have seen a trend change in CPU design. Until about 2003, CPUs  became more powerful through frequency scaling. The number of operations per second increased exponentially over a period of 20 years. Clock speeds went from 4.77 MHz in the first IBM PC (1981) ... http://www.thomasknierim.com/68/software-engineering/parallel-programming/