Java Tools For Extreme Programming

David Kennedy writes: "Java Tools For Exteme Programming: Mastering Open Source Tools including Ant, JUnit and Cactus by Hightower & Lesiecki is a welcome addition to my bookshelf at work. It tackles a gap in the Java book market in dealing with the thorny issues of testing, integration and deployment." The rest of his review is below. Java Tools For Exteme Programming: Mastering Open Source Tools including Ant, JUnit and Cactus author Richard Hightower & Nicholas Lesiecki pages 516 publisher Wiley Computer Publishing rating 8 reviewer David Kennedy ISBN 047120708X summary Practical introduction to Java tools for Extreme Programming, with an emphasis on immediate results rather than deep theory.

In recent years there has been a increased emphasis on Agile Software Development. The most prominent of these methodologies is probably Extreme Programming.

What sets Extreme Programming apart from most other Agile Technologies, in my opinion at least, is that it has provided practical, easy-to-use tools to support its way of working. Most of these tools (Ant, JUnit etc) are Open Source and freely available. However popular these tools have been with the Open Source and Extreme Programming communities, it has arguably been difficult to introduce them to traditional IT development environments. This has been primarily due to the problems of justifying spending time on 'playing' with something and the difficulties of retro-fitting new tools to an existing development environment (think projects of 150+ people which have been releasing for 5-10 years for some idea of the potential problems).

It's worth noting that when embarking on a new, large-scale project it's very difficult to find a book discussing the issues of controlled builds, integration and deployment in practical terms. The most valuable aspect of Java Tools for eXteme Programming is that it's alone in its market niche.

The book is mainly useful as (a) an introduction to the various building and continuous testing tools out there and (b) a tutorial to getting them setup and working on your computer. As the authors note, there's a critical period where the user must get some result after playing with the tool for a short period of time or just give it up as 'too difficult.'

From a technical standpoint the book is very readable, but it doesn't tackle any one subject in great depth. It certainly provides enough information to get you up and running, and also, perhaps more valuably, illustrates how to integrate the tools together. It's an excellent primer for those who want to use the tools but are unsure of how exactly to start.

What's covered? Here are the chapter headings:

1. Introduction and Key Concepts
   1. Introduction to Extreme Programming
   2. J2EE Deployment Concepts
   3. Example applications
2. Mastering the Tools
   1. Continuous integration with Ant
   2. Building Java Applications with Ant
   3. Building J2EE applications with Ant
   4. Unit testing with JUnit
   5. Testing Container Services with Cactus
   6. Functional Testing with HttpUnit
   7. Measuring Application Performance with JMeter
   8. Load Testing with JUnitPerf
3. API and Tag Reference
   1. Ant Tag Reference
   2. Ant API Reference
   3. JUnit API Reference
   4. Cactus API Reference
   5. HttpUnit API Reference

If you use some of these tools already will you learn anything? Probably -- I personally have been using JUnit to test EJBs for almost nine months now but didn't know about JUnitPerf or Cactus.

Should you buy it? If you're new to the tools, then Yes. If you work in a professional but traditional IT shop, I'd buy one for the group (I have). It'd be particularly useful when dealing with management and proposing changes to working processes, or when trying to bring co-workers up to speed and sell them the benefits of agile ways of working.

You can visit the book's website at Wiley. You can purchase the Jave Tools For Extreme Programming from bn.com. Want to see your own review here? Just read the book review guidelines, then use Slashdot's handy submission form.

Comments

Continuous Integration - CruiseControl

[smagoun]

Although (apparently) not mentioned in the book, CruiseControl deserves a look. It's a continuous build tool you can use in conjunction with Ant, JUnit, etc.

"Build early and often" is one of the continuous integration mantras, and CruiseControl helps out with that. By having a coninuous build cycle, you can catch errors literally within minutes of when they're committed to the source repository. CruiseControl will email you if builds don't work, and also has a nifty servlet to let you track builds on the web. It's definitely worth a look.

OK

[thenerd]

This isn't a flame, it's a standard old fashioned rebuttal.

Your point about pair programming is completely groundless.

Scenario 1 - no pair programming
Two bad programmers, bad code
One good programmer, one bad programmer, some bad code, some good code.

Scenario 2 - pair programming
Two bad programmers, bad code but any mistake either of them see will be removed, improving the quality of the code.
One good programmer, one bad programmer, code up to the standard of the good programmer, and the bad programmer learns, hopefully becoming better.

XP does not say 'don't design the overall system' - you are misrepresenting it. A look at this talks about the plan for each release. Sure, bad developers = bad unit tests, but bad developers = bad product, nothing will guard you against that. Nobody said 'Extreme Programming will mean you have no bad developers.'

thenerd.