Yakov Fain

If you are developing a distributed application, you can’t get by with any single technology. You’re using at least one programming language and one or more frameworks.  I work in the world that requires Adobe Flex and Java EE knowledge. To develop a front end I use, at a minimum, HTML, MXML, ActionScript, and Flex framework (add Eclipse with WTP and Flash Builder).   The server side’s consists of a Java Servlet Container with installed BlazeDS Web application (throw in some XML configuration files) that talks to the business tier of your application, which ideally, has just Plain Old Java Objects (yeah, right!) that embed SQL queries talking to a DBMS using some JDBC driver. Almost forgotten about the ANT build tool. Have I mentioned that this dozen of different pieces of software is a bare minimum?  The client-server technology of early 90th with its 3-piece set ... (more)

Sherlock Holmes and Adobe's Error #2032

During yesterday’s Flex training the students had to install an Adobe's sample application "Tour De Flex". Everyone did. Everyone but one student was able to run this application. He was getting a weird error “An Internet connection is required” even though he was online. No proxies.  This student went through the badge install of this AIR application from his Firefox browser. After a quick interrogation, the student has revealed that he ignored several error messages #2032, which is the infamous streaming error that has no generic cure. Basically, that application was installed,... (more)

Secrets Of The Masters: Core Java Job Interview Questions

JDJ's Enterprise Editor, Yakov Fain (pictured) writes: If you are planning to hit the job market,  you may need to refresh some of the Java basic terms and techniques to prepare yourself for a technical interview. Let me offer you some of the core Java questions that you might expect during the interviews.  For  most questions  I’ve provided only  short  answers to encourage further research.  I have included only  questions for mid (*) and senior level (**) Java developers. These sample questions could also become handy for people who need to interview Java developers (see also ... (more)

An Open Source Paradox

Once again I'm facing a weird dilemma. Our company (Farata Systems) has created yet another piece of great software that allows fast and smooth work with large sets of data in Flash Player. For example, a datagrid with 200K records works like charm with our lazy loaded collection. But this solution is not so trivial to explain. If we give it away to the open source "as is", people will start having issues with it and will start bad mouthing us publicly. On the other hand, we don't have time and resources to properly document this solution. It's a lot easier to offer this solution... (more)

Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 is coming to town

Adobe is about to release Flex 4.5 and Flash Builder 4.5 – both are sharpened for the mobile development.  On May 3rd you’ll get the version supporting Android, and the June’s release will support iOS.  In other words, developers will be able to create standalone AIR applications for Android, BlackBerry Tablet OS, and iOS. From the technical perspective, Flash Builder 4.5 becomes the best and the most productive development environment that currently exists for mobile development.  It’s also the only development environment offering enterprise-grade cross-platform development e... (more)