Tools

Why I Love IntelliJ IDEA for Java Development

If you’re a Java developer like me, you like to crank out code and get shit done. I like many things about IntelliJ IDEA, but I thought it’d be fun to write about the ones that make me most productive.

When I first started doing Java development in the late 90s, I used HomeSite as my editor. HomeSite was an HTML editor initially developed by Nick Bradbury. I liked it because it defaulted to a view of your code rather than being WYSIWYG like Dreamweaver and FrontPage. It’s funny to look back now and laugh about how inefficient I was: I used to google for import statements, then copy/pasted them into the editor.

Apple Silicon with Zulu OpenJDK and IntelliJ IDEA

Azul has been leading the OpenJDK community effort (JEP 391) initiated in August 2020 to add support for Apple Silicon, Arm-based Macs, in future versions of OpenJDK.

In addition to targeting future Java versions, such as Java 16 via JEP 391, Azul has made OpenJDK builds of currently popular Java versions, including Zulu builds of OpenJDK 8, 11, and 13, as well as 16-ea, widely available for use on Apple Silicon, Arm-based Macs.

Native Applications for Multiple Devices from a Single JavaFX Project with Gluon Mobile and GitHub Actions

The power of JavaFX combined with the Gluon tools and GitHub actions is amazing. Building and distributing a truly cross-platform application has never been easier!

Really not a single code change is needed to run on different platforms. As you can see from the build processed, the exact same code is used to create native applications for both Windows, Linux, MacOS, iOS, and Android!

IntelliJ IDEA Made Me Lazy

I haven’t always been lazy; it’s a fairly recent addition to my repertoire of skills. And do you know who I blame? I blame IntelliJ IDEA. I used to check that I’d completed a statement correctly, I used to look at javadoc, I used to check I’d closed my parentheses correctly, but now I don’t give things a second glance.

Being lazy isn’t a bad thing, it’s an efficiency gain that allows me to focus on the things that matter, which isn’t checking my parentheses are correct or remembering to put a semi-colon after my statement. No, it’s taking time for myself and those around me. Sure, it’s IntelliJ IDEA’s fault, but I am happy that we’re here!

Using Java Flight Recorder and Mission Control (Part 3)

While from JDK 14 events can be consumed on the fly, previous JDK versions (from JDK 11) offer a public API useful enough to control Flight Recorder programmatically or to read events from a JFR file.

Such API facilities are useful especially when combined with other technologies like Spring Actuators. Yet when there’s available integration or when using these integrations is too late, like recording startup, the most actionable way to get recording is from the command line.

Starting a JavaFX Project with Gluon Tools

Here on foojay.io you can already find two posts by Carl Dea to get you started with JavaFX.

In this post, I want to show you yet another approach that uses the tools provided by Gluon, who are the maintainers, and the driving force behind OpenJFX.

The Gluon start website and the plugin allow you to get started with a new JavaFX project in a few clicks.

Thanks to the amazing work done by the Gluon team this also gives you a quick-start for the creation of a mobile application which can be built for both Android and iOS.

Continuous Production Profiling and Diagnostics

I’ve gotten a lot of questions about continuous production profiling lately. Why would anyone want to profile in production, or, if production profiling seems reasonable, why the heck leave it on continuously?

I thought I’d take a few moments and share my take on the problem and the success I’ve seen the past years applying continuous production profiling in systems in the real world.

Profiling these days is no longer limited to high overhead development profilers. The capabilities of the production time profilers are steadily increasing and their value is becoming less controversial, some preferring them for complex applications even during development.

Using Java Flight Recorder and Mission Control (Part 2)

Continuing from part 1, to exploit the recording by analyzing it, we have a tool named jfr that ships with the JDK. On Linux the alternative jdk management may not be aware of jfr, which means you may need to use the full path to this executable.

The first interesting thing to do is to get an overview of the recording, the summary sub-command displays an histogram of the events.

Using Java Flight Recorder and Mission Control (Part 1)

Java Flight Recorder is the profiler you can use in production, continuously.

Flight Recorder has been available before in the JDK, e.g., it shipped as part of the JDK 8, but to use it, it required that you set specific commercial VM flags to unlock Flight Recorder, this is not anymore necessary from Java 11 onwards.

Live Templates in IntelliJ IDEA

When I first came across the notion of Live Templates, I couldn’t figure out what was ‘live’ about them. Did they need feeding or something?

It seems to be an industry-standard term, so I’m no longer devoting much energy to this quandary, but if you were wondering the same, you’re not alone.

Fixing Vulnerabilities in Maven Projects

Maven is still the most used build system in the Java ecosystem. According to the JVM report 2020, Maven is the number one build tool in the ecosystem with two-thirds of the share.

Therefore, it is important to now how Maven works. For instance, if you find vulnerabilities in your Maven project using Snyk, how can you fix them?