#javaserver

As a career for Java developers/programmers, anyone can consider following job roles. Web developer. Application developer. EJB programmer. Software developer. Tester. Graphic designer. A professional teacher in Java. 

I've been working on my web server.  I have a method that looks like a simple conditional, filled with many else if statements that needs to be refactored.  Its pretty big, and I've been avoiding it since Saturday. 

https://gist.github.com/LNA/adb13dd541ea352ee7f8

I looked at Martin Fowlers refactoring, and asked a couple of craftsmen for their input.  An apprentice today made a suggestion on how to refactor the code, but none of my research or any given suggestions would work.  The code was a 13 line block on inconvenience, preventing me from making the class it lived in cleaner.

Why was it so hard to refactor the code? Even though it had been refactored to look like it was doing one thing, it wasn't.  Its doing too much.  

It looked as if it were saying something like:

"If you get a route, return the corresponding body".

But it was really saying:

I have two classes: ClassA and ClassB.

ClassA needs and instance of ClassB injected into it. ClassB is hard to test.  It might look something like this:

ClassA(ClassB classB)

I want to create a mock to help me test the behavior of ClassB.  

Java only wants ClassA to take in an instance of ClassB, because Java is stubborn, which is a good thing.

I can't inject ClassA with an instance of MockClassB.  Java knows that ClassB and MockClassB are two different types.

To make ClassB and MockClassB more alike, I can create an interface that they will both be forced to implement. 

Lets call it iMagicalInterface.

Now, you can inject any class into ClassA that implements that interface. This allows us to do this:

ClassA(iMagicalInterface classB)

ClassA(iMagicalInterface mockClassB) 

Mastering JavaServer Faces 2.2

Author Anghel Leonard really delivers it with this book. I'm new to JavaServer Faces and I found this book to be the comprehensive guide from front to back, covering everything required to get setup and running rather quickly. From states to custom events I found myself unable to put this book down, in fact I'd recommend picking up the "companion" to this book which I plan on ordering as well: JSF 2.0 Cookbook, Packt Publishing. Once you get this book down having a cookbook is really the next step to really drive home the learning experience.

My favorite part about this book was how it tied in AJAX and how it used events, something I love to do when thinking about how to handle data in an application is how will I work with it, keep track of it, and using events is how I typically deal with it. I was quite pleased with the coverage of AJAX in this book. Something very unique which I also enjoyed was the use of a queue to kinda throttle the requests hitting the server, often times I feel like too many requests are going to fire off at once. My test server is rather old now and get's a bit cranky when I throw lots of data at it. I've also been including factories in PHP setups for quick deployment so I was pleased to see JSF offers a similar type setup allowing me to utilize the portions I need and not worry about other underlying components.

I would have liked to seen more visual elements used in the book, while there are a few diagrams I like to see UML flow charts in use, and some visual elements to help reinforce the overall learning experience. I suppose the HeadFirst series spoiled my brain but I do like how they break up large chunks of text with visual elements. Near the end of the book I enjoyed building the Nadal site, however I would have liked to seen a more robust project using some of the techniques discussed in the earlier chapters. Despite my preferences I feel the book still deserves a 5/5 because it delivers on what it set out to achieve, and that's teach me the basics and medium to advanced JSF utilization's.

As of this writing there are some coupons that make this book cheaper at the publishers website below.

You can find the original post here: http://www.jmarshall.com/easy/http/#resources

1. What is HTTP?

Network protocol used to deliver resources on the web.  Resources include data, images, query results, files, etc. HTTP usually takes place through sockets.

2. Describe the client/server relationship.

The client opens the connection on some port.  The client sends a request to the server.  The server (like a server in a restaurant) delivers some response message (like tacos), which includes the requested resource.  The server closes the connection (tab) after delivering a response. This makes HTTP a stateless protocol, as no connection information is maintained between transactions.  

3. What are resources?

The R in URL.  The most common resource is a file.

4. What is the structure of an HTTP transaction?

It consists of 4 parts:

an initial line which is different for a request or a response zero or more header lines a blank line optional body message

5. What are the different parts of an initial REQUEST line?

A method name (GET, POST, etc) The local path of the requested resource The version of HTTP being used.

Here is the example the author uses: 

GET /path/to/file/index.html HTTP/1.0

6. What are the different parts of an initial RESPONSE line (AKA status line)?

The version of HTTP being used. A response status code (200) A word describing the status code

Here is an example that the author uses:

HTTP/1.0 200 OK

or