Continuous Quality Using Sonar

The first time I looked at Sonar was almost an year ago. At that time, Sonar worked with just Maven and most clients I was working were using Ant. The other reason I didn't dig deeper into Sonar was because we already had written a Plug-in to generate a dashboard using FuseMetrics. You can read more about FuseMetrics and what it does and an article I wrote for Javalobby here.

• FuseMetrics
• Article on Javalobby

Last week, one of my colleagues asked about Sonar, and that's when I decided to have another look. Sonar now has a Hudson plugin, and in just a few minutes I was able to download Sonar, install the Hudson plugin, make some changes within my project in Hudson, run a build. Within minutes, I was able to browse my project and look at the dashboard from within Sonar. Awesome.

Yes, it took just a few minutes. Of course, you should have Maven installed on your machine.

Sonar and Hudson are a perfect match if you are conscious about the quality of your code.

Stay tuned for a detailed post about Hudson and Sonar in a few days.

Meera Subbarao - Recent Nomination Into The Global Directory of Who's Who

I guess this a new type of scam from these spammers. The email was of course in the quarantine summary I received. But, I decided to post it just in case people who have no clue might click on the link they provide and get scammed.

Attached below are the contents of the email.

Dear Meera Subbarao,

It is my pleasure to inform you that on July 23rd, 2009 your information was reviewed and accepted for inclusion in the 2009/2010 edition of our registry.


The Global Directory of Who's Who each year, recognizes and selects key executives, professionals and organizations in all disciplines and industries for outstanding business and professional achievements.
This recognition is shared by those who have reached a distinguished level of success in their chosen profession.
Please take a moment to complete the invitation by clicking on the link below. We ask that you complete it carefully, as it will be reviewed by our editorial department.


The link provided here has been removed.

** Please complete the online link by August 15th.


The Global Directory of Who's Who is pleased to inform you that there are no fees or dues to be included in the publication. On behalf of the publishing department and our esteemed staff, we wish you continued success.

Sincerely,
John Franklin


In case you received any such emails just delete them. Don't even bother to read the same.

How Did I Lose focus?

I was a master multitasker. Working a full time job, writing blogs, writing articles, reading a lot of books, and writing detailed reviews for all the books I read. To top this all, take care of my family, drive my teenage daughter everywhere, cooking which of course is my hobby. I did all these with great interest and a perfect timing.

However, from the past 7-8 months, not sure what happened everything changed. Not one blog entry for months. Didn't write one article for Javalobby. Wasn't able to finish the two books which came my way. I keep grumbling while cooking. Can barely walk for a few yards because of the foot problem.

Is it because of the hectic travel schedule within the job? Is it because of my persistent foot problem which has become chronic? Is it because I am getting old? Or is it just a temporary phase which everyone goes through? Haven't excercised in almost a year now.

I have no idea. I don't like this phase at all. I really want to get back on track. But, have no idea where to start.

Why am I not able to work effectively as I did earlier?Has this happened to you? How did you get back on track?

I hope I will get back my focus and mutltitasking abilities soon, and be more active within the community.

Wish me luck.

STP Conference - Won Olympus Stylus 1050 SW

I talked yesterday at the STP Conference held at San Mateo, CA. My session was from 2.15 - 3.15 p.m. The hall was packed. The audience was very communicative and enthusiastic about knowing how to test web services. Oh yes, I spoke about testing web services using SoapUI.

Here are the details about my talk as posted on the conference web site:


805 Web Services/SOA Testing Made Easy
By Meera Subbarao
Learn how SoapUI can be used to write functional tests by creating and executing test cases against your Web services. Includes a demonstration using Groovy scripts for assertions, properties setup and tear down for each test case. Also covers use of the tests in a continuous integration environment, with the Hudson Java servlet as an example of integration and execution of the tests, breaking the build when tests fail and generating reports.
NOTE: A laptop is strongly recommended for this class.

BTW, I didn't write this blog entry to mention about my talk. I actually won an Olympus Stylus 1050 SW Digital Camera. The camera is worth $300. Just awesome. It is the first time I have ever won anything. And that too a digital camera when the one we had just broke last week. Amazing.

Hudson and Doxygen

I wrote an article last year for Javalobby and couple more blogs on Doxygen called "Javadoc or Doxygen". Doxygen is a documentation tool for many languages such as Java, C, C++ and so on. In that article, I show how to use Doxygen for generating technical documentation based on your source code, keep this up-to date by adding additional tasks to Ant build files, and run them from your CI Server(Hudson in my case) on commit and nightly builds, and also publish the results.

It sure was easy and needed just 3 steps. However, while preparing for my presentation for SD West next week, I saw that Hudson has a neat plug-in for Doxygen. So, here is another way of generating your documentation on a daily basis in 3 simple steps.

1. Download the Doxygen plug-in for Hudson. This is quite easy if you already have Hudson up and running. Just click on the '"Manage Plugins" link, and in the available list check Doxygen and install. Restart hudson for this plugin to become available.

2. Next, configure the plug-in within your Hudson job. As shown below:

3. Finally, if you have configured the Doxygen config file earlier, just force a build and see your updated docs on the dashboard of your project. No XML file, no Ant targets. Isn't it cool?



Just 3 simple steps, how much easy can generating documentation be? Now you know why I am so crazy about Hudson. Don't you agree?

As always, keep me posted if you need any help. You sure won't. But, in case....

Book Review : Stripes:...And Java Web Development Is Fun Again

It has been a hectic 2009. I was working in San Francisco for the past 7 weeks. Back after a long time. I read several books while traveling to and from San Francisco, so you will see many more book reviews in the coming weeks.

Just yesterday, the review for "Stripes:...And Java Web Development Is Fun Again" was posted on Javalobby. Stripes is an amazing framework, and this book with quite funny quotes and excellent working examples makes web development really fun.

You can read the chapter-wise review in detail here.

Are you using Stripes? Have you read this book? Mind sharing your thoughts about Stripes or the book?

Stay tuned for many more reviews for some very interesting books coming soon..

Book Review : JBoss in Action

The detailed chapter-wise book review for JBoss in Action has been published on Javalobby yesterday. I am really really surprised by the comments that review has received; 123 comments in less than a day. Of course, DZone has partnered with Manning to give away a free book. Most comments are for the free book giveaway.

I have been getting free books for almost 5 years now. It is not actually free, I do spend a lot of time reading and writing detailed reviews. And, of course I pick and choose which books I want to read.

However, I was surprised to see so many using JBoss AS. So, fellow developers, if you are using JBoss and want a free copy of the book, leave a comment. You might be the lucky one to get the book also.