Jason Bell

In terms of unit testing and code compliance, Jtest is a real heavyweight in the arena. For those who haven't come across Jtest before, it's an application that will analyze your Java application code for you. At present Jtest has 700 built-in rules and 100 security rules and it ... (more)

In most cases I'm a patient and tolerant person. Once you get to know me, I'm easy to get along with, occasionally complex, but not very often. My patience and tolerance has pretty much gone out the window in the last week or so. It all stems from two technologies: Ruby On Rails ... (more)

In February I took on the daunting task of starting a new venture. It was based on an idea I had while reading a book on the low cost airline, Ryanair. I never knew you could lease an aircraft; I thought an airline with billowing amounts of cash just bought the machines and got o... (more)

Those of you kind enough to read my editorials for JDJ would have noticed that I started a new job. A fresh start, a new year, a colossal waste of my time it turned out. Startup companies can be odd to work for sometimes and you have to read between the lines when it comes to sta... (more)

I'm a firm believer in seasons of work for a specific job. The season of writing for me is coming to a nice close - this is my last editorial for JDJ (though I still have reviews that I have to get on with). It's been fun watching the Java world open up before me during the worki... (more)

Depending on who you talk to, the response you get when you mention the words "Web" and "services" in the same sentence can vary from a big smile to an amazingly serious frown. It's easy to develop an application or Web site that uses the Amazon API and the Google API to great ef... (more)

I may not believe in the existence of someone who can span the globe in a number of hours, along with a collection of antler-based creatures (one with a red nose, the others not). However, it doesn't stop me from making a list of stuff that I want for Christmas. Apologies in adva... (more)

Having ridden the storm of the dot-com decline, it's nice to see the worldwide press having a semi-upbeat tone about the tech economy. Java, as a language, rode the crest of the wave; it could do no wrong and Java developers were the geeks among geeks. We now sit and watch the up... (more)

Recently, Jason Bell had the opportunity to talk with Bruce Eckel, noted author of Thinking in Java and Thinking in C++. JDJ: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. I know you've recently had some seminars in Prague. Do you think European programmers differ from American pr... (more)

A few months ago I wrote an editorial on the touchy subject of proper testing (Vol. 8, issue 6). Thanks to you there was much support (and a volume of information from Parasoft and how JTest linked with unit testing; this opened my eyes!). No one disagreed with me, but somehow I ... (more)

I can contain my annoyance no longer. I've watched comments, blogs, and industrial news come and go; I've had sleepless nights and gone off my food. My argument? The name "Java 2 Standard Edition" should be changed to "Core Java," from a marketing point of view. If there is one thi... (more)

The JavaOne conference passed me by this year, as did the previous seven. I never get the time to attend these things since I'm in the UK and it's a long journey. So I sat back in my big developer's chair and watched the Java world pass by like Weblogs in the night. One of the h... (more)

J2SE is going through a bit of an overhaul at the moment, with the release of J2SDK 1.5 (project name "Tiger") due at the end of 2003. Sun Microsystems ran a feature article in May about this release that included a Q&A with Joshua Bloch, a senior staff engineer at Sun (http://... (more)

While I was preparing for my interview with Bruce Eckel, a quote appeared in his Web log in May that said "If it's not tested, it's broken." It got me thinking about how much I actually tested the code that I wrote. Now I don't write JUnit tests for everything, but perhaps I shou... (more)

Whether you like it or not, you're part of the Java community. Just by reading this publication you're declaring that you're a part of the Java way of life, maybe not by choice but you're still here. We have a network of developers all programming in the same language; there are ... (more)

Training - it can be a dirty word to some; learning by doing is all very well but what do you actually learn? On my daily commute to work, I have 90 minutes on the train to read, digest, and think about how to implement these new practices into my programming. I don't know how m... (more)

The Java Dudes cartoon on the back page of JDJ has boosted my reputation as someone who likes the API documentation for the core Java language. It's easy to navigate, it's quick, and it answers some of those common Java-related questions. There are a couple of questions that are ... (more)

Since last month's JDJ was the Linux focus issue, I didn't get a chance to inflict my goals for the year. I call them goals, as I hate the term New Year's resolutions as resolutions are always broken by the end of the first week of the new year. In fact, I think it's more of a cu... (more)

There's a saying - "Life is about choices" - that can also be applied to Linux. In the mainstream there are about 60 different vendors with a Linux distribution working on a number of hardware platforms. For the enthusiasts that's okay, as they can reinstall as often as they like... (more)

Over the past few years the integrated development environment has raged on. For years I've used a text editor and a build tool to create my Java software; I used no set processes or design methods. The integration of UML modeling and Java coding makes obvious sense to a software... (more)