I recently came across this Java code snippet we created for Open-Tides and still find it very useful in developing flexible and dynamic applications.

So, why is there a need to retrieve values using reflection? The answer is simple – to allow your application rules to be configurable through the database.

“No Class is an Island” —Joshua Bloch. Have you encountered having duplicate values in a Set? How about adding an object to a list and then the list’s contains method say that it did not contain that object? How would you solve this? Where do you start tracing?

How can you ensure that during development, all developers works on the latest database schema to reduce code conflicts? And during production roll-out, how can you ensure that applications on different servers are compatible and consistent with their respective database schema?

After experiencing a number of production roll-outs, on both blade and rack mounted servers, I began to think about the advantages of one over the other. In general, blade servers sounded like a better approach, but it appears to be more of a marketing hype than reality.

Ever seen a Java book with graphical images and humorous text on every page? You may think of it as a style of publishing books to attract readers. You may even think that it’s not worth reading. But you’re wrong! Head First Java 2nd Edition is one of the most fun and motivating Java books you’ll ever find. Check out my lil book review…

With the growing demand in integrating content like photos, music, videos & office docs into business & web applications, we need a content management system that is rich in features, flexible & easy to learn. The Java Community Process developed a solution to this trend – the JSR-170 & JSR-283, also known as the Java Content Repository (JCR) API.

When developing an application in a web server environment, the ease of use and startup time of the application are crucial elements for best performance. Due to this, the Hot Code Replace (HCR) debugging technique was developed to “facilitate experimental development and to foster iterative trial-and-error coding,” effectively improving…

Open-Tides Version 0.4, the latest build of the Open-Tides framework, improves developer’s productivity as much as 4x by introducing a complete set of code generation tools through the use of model annotations. What does the new version contain? Source codes, latest build and other related files after the jump.