9 Replies Latest reply on Aug 22, 2012 3:57 AM by wdfink

    To application developers: Are you studying source code of JBoss AS 7?

    ybxiang.china

      Dear application developers,

       

      Are you studying or going to study source code of JBoss AS 7?

       

      I had planned to study Glassfish3.x because its OSGi framework(felix) impressed me deeply. Now, JBoss has its own OSGi, so, I come back to JBoss. After all, I am familiar with it.

      I have studied bellow components:

        • Hibernate
        • Drools
        • jBPM
        • HornetQ
        • Javassist
        • JBoss Marshalling
        • Microcontainer
        • JBoss Profiler
        • JBoss Tools
        • JGroups
        • Portlet Bridge
        • RichFaces
        • Seam
        • Snowdrop
        • Weld
        • JBoss AOP
        • JBoss Cache
        • JBoss JMX
        • JBoss Messaging
        • JBoss Portal

       

      Components in jboss are geting more and more, and the framework is getting more and more advance.

      But I am getting older and older, I almost can NOT keep up with those new technologies.

       

      Do you have the same feeling?

      Should I pay more attention to the usage of the AS instead of technology details?

      What is your opinion/suggestion?

       

        • 1. Re: To application developers: Are you studying source code of JBoss AS 7?
          jbertram

          It's worth noting that these projects are no longer active (and haven't been for awhile):

          • Microcontainer (use JBoss MSC)
          • JBoss Profiler
          • JBoss AOP
          • JBoss Cache (use Infinispan)
          • JBoss JMX
          • JBoss Messaging (use HornetQ)

           

          To my knowledge, Javassist was never a JBoss project.

          • 2. Re: To application developers: Are you studying source code of JBoss AS 7?
            nickarls

            You just have to face the fact that you can't know everything, even the guys working on the AS don't know every detail of every subsystem. You can of course skim the source code to get a general feeling of the architechture and when you find a bug or something you fire up the debugger and dig into the relevant code. If you have a special area of interest, feel free to focus and contribute. From a developer/architect standpoint, I try to keep a higher level view of what is happening in the Java scene in general (trends, JSR:s, emerging technologies). No stress, technology takes some time to mature, you have plenty of time to see when something gathers momentum in the community...

            • 3. Re: To application developers: Are you studying source code of JBoss AS 7?
              ybxiang.china

              Hi Justin,

               

              You are right except one point:

                      From this link http://www.jboss.org/projects, you can find javaassist.

              Javassist Downloads User forum       | Dev. forum Issue tracking LGPL

                      If our client app does NOT include javaassist jar file and tries to fetch some entity beans from server, the client app will throw exception.

               

               

               

              JBoss Messaging is replaced with HornetQ since JBoss 6. I studied it many years ago. About JBoss Messaging, I have a sad expierence:

                            My colleague upgraded jboss messaging in jboss 5.1.0 to jbossmessaging2.0-beta because an propertiy file in it is confilict with the one in Qurtz.

                                   (I told him it's a wrong decision, but he ignored my words because I was a new member.)

                            But jbossmessaging2.0-GA is never released.

                            So, we replaced the beta version with HornetQ GA version, but HornetQ does NOT work well in cluster environment.

                            At last, we erased all JMS related configurations and returned back to jboss default configuration.

                            We wasted many days on this issue. It was a disaster!

                            Then I left this company, I thought they are wasting my life.         

              • 4. Re: To application developers: Are you studying source code of JBoss AS 7?
                nickarls

                              We wasted many days on this issue. It was a disaster!

                              Then I left this company, I thought they are wasting my life.         

                 

                You are in for some surprises in your career if you call that a disaster and a waste of life.

                • 5. Re: To application developers: Are you studying source code of JBoss AS 7?
                  ybxiang.china

                  You just have to face the fact that you can't know everything, even the guys working on the AS don't know every detail of every subsystem.

                  My Boss told me the same words about our Network Management System(NMS).

                   

                  You can of course skim the source code to get a general feeling of the architechture and when you find a bug or something you fire up the debugger and dig into the relevant code.

                  Yes!

                  Two weeks ago, I tuned the XNIO connection timeout by debugging XNIO sourcecode, at last I fixed the strange WAITING exception.

                   

                   

                  If you have a special area of interest, feel free to focus and contribute.

                  If we want to use those components better, We had better to know more details.

                  Three years ago I debugged into jboss AS 4.x and studied its jar/sar/war/rar/ear loading and deployment (I benifit from this experience for many years.).

                  From then on, I always try to understand more details, and this makes me tired and headached sometimes.

                   

                   

                  From a developer/architect standpoint, I try to keep a higher level view of what is happening in the Java scene in general (trends, JSR:s, emerging technologies). No stress, technology takes some time to mature, you have plenty of time to see when something gathers momentum in the community...

                  Then, We must keep studying every day.

                   

                  HIBERNATE, JPA, EJB, EJB3.X, WELD, JSP, STRUTS, JSF1.X, JSF2, SEAM, OSGi......

                  More and more things are occuring faster and faster.

                   

                   

                   

                   

                   

                   

                   

                  To be honest, do you feel exhausted(tired)  sometimes?

                  • 6. Re: To application developers: Are you studying source code of JBoss AS 7?
                    nickarls

                    To be honest, do you feel exhausted(tired)  sometimes?

                     

                    Not really, I feel much better after I gave up trying. Take AS7, if you expand the whole dependency tree down to the JRE you are talking about hundreds of mega-LOC(?). If I have a problem with an EJB, I'm happy to know that

                     

                    a) The AS thas a EJB subsystem

                    b) I know where the source can be found

                    c) I know where I can find people who can help me with starting points in finding the problem

                    • 7. Re: To application developers: Are you studying source code of JBoss AS 7?
                      ybxiang.china

                      Not really, I feel much better after I gave up trying.

                      I can NOT sleep well if there is a critical issue NOT fixed.

                       

                      Take AS7, if you expand the whole dependency tree down to the JRE you are talking about hundreds of mega-LOC(?).

                      Yes.

                       

                       

                      If I have a problem with an EJB, I'm happy to know that

                      a) The AS thas a EJB subsystem

                      b) I know where the source can be found

                      c) I know where I can find people who can help me with starting points in finding the problem

                      (b) Once I download the source code, I can NOT help diving into all related components. Maybe, I am wrong.

                      (c) It is NOT easy to find a gentleman to answer my questions. It seems that everyone is so busy.

                       

                       

                       

                      Thank you very much.

                      I will try to follow your a) b) and c) to make my life easier.

                      • 8. Re: To application developers: Are you studying source code of JBoss AS 7?
                        nickarls

                        I can NOT sleep well if there is a critical issue NOT fixed.

                         

                         

                        Of course you can. There is always a critical issues that is not fixed. When did you last sleep? Ease up on the coffee, take up a relaxing hobby, find some good pills, whatever works.

                        (b) Once I download the source code, I can NOT help diving into all related components.

                        (c) It is NOT easy to find a gentleman to answer my questions. It seems that everyone is so busy.

                         

                         

                         

                        b) Learn to prioritize

                        c) Ask exact questions with reproducible examples.

                        • 9. Re: To application developers: Are you studying source code of JBoss AS 7?
                          wdfink

                          I can NOT sleep well if there is a critical issue NOT fixed.

                          Than you have to learn it because from my experience you will find the next critical problem after you finish one or it finds you. For me hobby works, (see avatar)

                          b Once I download the source code, I can NOT help diving into all related components.

                          I think this is always if you join a huge project, there are different programming styles, old-style and corroded code (hopfully not in AS7 but it will be come over the time) and you have to understand the big-view of it.

                          So no worries it will take its time and for sure nobody can have a deep knowledge in every detail (or you get nuts) 

                          c It is NOT easy to find a gentleman to answer my questions. It seems that everyone is so busy.

                          You will find one in many cases and you can be the one for others with your experience if you are willing to contribute