Adding project nature to your Maven pom.xml

Let us assume that you have a maven based project. This would mean you have a pom.xml if you are using maven 2.

Now if you execute mvn eclipse:eclipse the maven eclipse plugin generated the required .classpath and .project files so that your project can become a first class eclipse project.

However, by default the project nature added is that for a java project and hence the .project file is generated like this, with the java builder and the java nature.

 

<projectDescription>

<name>my-project</name>

<buildSpec>

<buildCommand>

<name>org.eclipse.jdt.core.javabuilder</name>

</buildCommand>

</buildSpec>

<natures>

<nature>org.eclipse.jdt.core.javanature</nature>

</natures>

</projectDescription>

 

 

Are you ready for the Maintenance Project?

Some time back we were approached by a huge organization to maintain one of their projects. This project was not developed by us but we were being requested to maintain it.

Without getting into the reasons of why the client did not trust the original development company with the maintenance, let me instead focus on the list of questions that we asked the client for the intake. The idea is to let you know a list of questions that you should ask the client to begin the intake.

We distributed the questions into 4 categories

1. Technology
2. Process
3. People
4. Others

Following is a list of questions that we put in each of these categories.

Static Code Analysis is just tip of the Iceberg!

This post is also present on the blog site of my current employer and has also been discussed on InfoQ.

 

Most of the times we are content that our code is of the right quality, if somehow, we manage to get the Static Code Analysis (SCA) tools like Checkstyle, PMD etc. report less number of severe violations. As an example if we see that the class is big in size then we conveniently split it into two or more classes to get rid of the violation. The tool is happy and so are we and most of the times that is the end of the story.

 

However more frequently than not getting an SCA violation is the start of the story. If you start associating the question “Why’ with every SCA violation found then the real reasons start unfolding.

 

This is similar to the way we resolve impediments on an Scrum project. The impediments rarely represent the isolated incidences of inefficiency. Rather, most of the times they are a part of a larger problem. The way to work out an impediment is fix it so that the team can work effectively and then to look at the root cause which caused the impediment so that the main cause can be fixed. This is called “Bottom-up process re-engineering.”

 

Similarly the way to work out an SCA violation is to remove it so that the code looks clean and good and then to hunt for the real cause.

Remote Debugging | Fitnesse with Eclipse

We use Fitnesse as the acceptance testing tool for our projects. Many a times it becomes a necessity to remotely debug how the fitnesse fixture is running through your code.

This blog would try to explain how you can easily set up a remote debugging session between Fitnesse and Eclipse so that you can debug through the code as your fixture is being executed.

In your Eclipse IDE

1. Goto Run->Open Debug Dialog

2. Right click on Remote Java Application option in the left hand menu tree and say new

3. Create a remote java application debug configuration like this

QuickTip : Spring 2.0 testing: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.springframework.util.ObjectUtils.nullSafeToString

Today while writing a test for one of the project modules I got the following stacktrace

java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.springframework.util.ObjectUtils.nullSafeToString(Ljava/lang/Object;)Ljava/lang/String;
at org.springframework.test.AbstractSpringContextTests.contextKeyString(AbstractSpringContextTests.java :133)
at org.springframework.test.AbstractSpringContextTests.getContext(AbstractSpringContextTests.java:100)
at org.springframework.test.AbstractSingleSpringConte xtTests.setUp(AbstractSingleSpringContextTests.jav a:75)
at junit.framework.TestCase.runBare(TestCase.java:125 )

…