Well I started a new Job today, and my role will be Java Developer/Consultant for a local firm here in the Atlanta area. For many reasons I am excited about this opportunity, not the least of which because of the people I am going to get to work with. I won’t go into that now.. however I thought I would give you a taste of what the project is going to involve.
First of all it’s an Agile project. I am truly excited to work on a project that doesn’t involve the old tired Waterfall method. That methodology is old and broken and we all know it. See my earlier posts on software construction not being like building a car.
Secondly it’s using the Google Web Toolkit. (aka GWT) Before last week I had only heard about this technology, but after going through a few tutorials today I am beginning to think this is a pretty slick framework. At it’s most basic, it’s a way to write Java code, and have that converted into Javascript to run within the client browser. It gives Java Developers like me the ability to continue to think in terms of Objects and Patterns while writing in a strongly typed language without having to touch much Javascript code.
BTW when I am not working on this project I will be developing an application in DOJO + J2EE which involves a lot of Javascripting.
Spring – this is pretty much the industry standard for J2EE frameworks in use today. There are others that are pretty good like Oracle’s ADF but most projects today implement Spring.
Hibernate – our old friend hibernate. For me, this was the easiest of the data persistence libraries to learn without giving up on robustness.
Congrats!!!!!
Today we had our first – well since I have been on the project – user story session. We have a bunch of really smart people on both the Technical and Business side of the house and this project is going to be both challenging, and fun.
I also spent some time learning about the GWT – which is really slick.
We also had a good Architecture session too. It feels awfully weird in terms of architecture taking direction rather than giving it out but I played my role well.
Also the pace is much faster than our traditional Waterfall approach, but because you are involved day to day you tend to be more motivated to get things done.