Isn't it annoying you have to specify all the jar files needed to run a javaprogram?
SET CLASSPATH=jar1.jar;jar2.jar;jar3.jar... javac.exe -Djava.ext.dirs=usualextdir;anotherdir... java.exe -Djava.ext.dirs=usualextdir;anotherdir...Suppose you have developed your Java application and distributed it to your users. If all goes well, the application just works on every computer. But if there's a problem, you have to begin troubleshooting. Users will call for all sorts of installation problems, expecting you to fix them. Moreover, the same problems will often come back: the wrong version of Java, a deleted file, too-restrictive file permissions, etc. Most of these problems can be solved by creating a checklist. However, instead of wasting time asking new users the same questions on the checklist over and over, you can create a diagnostic test that goes through the checklist, providing users with the information they need to solve the problem. If users can't solve the problem themselves, they can show you a clear checklist, so you can take a look at what's going wrong without asking a bunch of questions first.
JAVA_HOME environment variable) or changes in the directory structure can indeed break things. In this article, we will develop an Ant script to run diagnostic tests for a Java application. We will look at a list of possible problems and how to deal with them. For our approach to work, Ant has to be installed on the user's machine. This may mean that your installer will have to provide Ant.
The Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention System lets you design and program real robots that do what you want them to. By using artificial neural networks, you can build intelligent robots that can learn and show emergent behavior. This article describes the backpropagation algorithm, a basic neural network, and its implementation on a Lego Roverbot with Java.
Design guidelines represent mere intent; for success however, implementing these guidelines is essential. The traditional way of implementing them is via code reviews. Hammurapi, a design-compliance tool, provides an automated and consistent way of implementing design guidelines, thereby making design reviews effective and painless. In this tutorial, author Sidharth Sankar introduces Hammurapi, compares it with similar tools, and gives a quick peek under the hood to illustrate how it works.
The use of mock objects is a widely employed unit testing strategy. It shields external and unnecessary factors from testing and helps developers focus on a specific function to be tested.