Watching Tech Trends

Tue, 26 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

A few interesting ways I keep an eye on longer term technology trends.

Google Trends: php, coldfusion, java, .net, ruby (This one has some problems, as “java” comes up for the country too…)

Freshmeat Tags, sourceforge

Indeed (job listing aggregator)

Drill down to Java ORM frameworks (and JDBC itself)

What makes a good component/service?

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A few collected thoughts & notes from around the web regarding what makes a good component/service.

Interface - all implementations share this. Should have few methods, use data objects as return values, take primitives as inputs, throw only custom exceptions, and be very, very well documented.
Implementations - implement the logic behind the service. May provide extra features such as caching, or such things as optional collaborations.
Data - data objects this service deals with. Should be immutable, comparable, cloneable as much as is possible. Should be serializable/XML/Persistance annotated in most languages.
Storage - Data (or data.io) package should define storage API, and an in-memory data store. Allow other services/projects/subprojects to define database backed or other kinds of data stores.
Cache - Data.Cache packages should define cache API? (or can this be standard per runtime?) Who should be in charge of caching? The service itself, or the user of the service?
Use dependency injection for all services/data stores it requires. Use constructor-injection as much as possible.
Throw errors early - in constructor if possible.
Exceptions - custom exceptions for high level categories of erroneous behavior (try not to do one for every possible condition - classify, and wrap). * Don’t re-throw exceptions from other frameworks - wrap in custom exception.
Make behavior configurable via dep injection as much as possible. Use filters or strategies.
Inject 1 configuration object instead of many options. Standardize on configuration API/Framework for each runtime/language.
Standardize on logging framework/API for each runtime/language, and make sure it’s used (instead of System.out or similar)
Provide events/messages and/or hooks for important happenings so others can do things pre/post.

Strategy on jason grey

Watching Tech Trends

What makes a good component/service?