Zero Turnaround in Java Development

November 17th, 2008 (this is a Monday)

Developers using dynamic languages, such as Ruby, are used to a quick code-test-debug cycle: making changes to a piece of code and pressing the browser's reload button is often all that's needed to see the latest effects of a code edit. Java developers, by contrast, have to either restart an entire Java VM, or cause an application server to reload a Web application, for code changes to be visible during development.

ZeroTurnaround's JavaRebel tool aims to bring the convenience of instant reload to the Java universe as well. JavaRebel is a JVM plugin (-javaagent) that enables to reload changes made to Java class files on-the-fly, saving developers the time that it takes to redeploy an application or perform a container restart. It is a generic solution that works for Java EE and Java standalone applications.

Turnaround is the time it takes for the changes in code to propagate to the running application. Currently the average time spent waiting for building and deployment is about one minute. In fact turnaround takes even more time away, due to the interruption penalties and quality degradation.

In this talk Jevgeni Kabanov will review how to get the time from hitting Ctrl+S to refreshing the browser to less than one second. Using modern IDEs like Eclipse, NetBeans and IDEA and a toolset of tricks it is possible to almost eliminate the build from the turnaround. Using frameworks like OSGi or Tapestry 5 and code reloading solutions like JVM HotSwap and JavaRebel is is possible to also lose deployment out of the picture. After this talk you should be able to significantly reduce turnaround, whether you starting a project from scratch or maintaining an existing one.

Speaker: Jevgeni Kabanov

Jevgeni has been the R&D lead of the largest custom software development company in the Baltics (Webmedia, Ltd) for the last five years. During that time he has spearheaded the movement to decrease the development turnaround time. As a result two products (JavaRebel and JspWeaver) were developed under the trademark ZeroTurnaround, of which Jevgeni is the technical lead. Both projects contributed directly to the immense reduction in turnaround time. Jevgeni is also a co-founder of the open source projects Aranea and Squill and has spoken on many international conferences including JavaZone, JavaPolis, JAOO and TheServerSide Symposium. Jevgeni's personal blog can be found at dow.ngra.de.

Please RSVP

RSVP by going to http://hjug11172008.eventbrite.com/ We will need an accurate head count in order to know how much pizza to order.

Meeting Location: 1111 Fannin - Concourse Level

1111 Fannin
Houston, TX 77002

Suggested Parking:

1112 Clay
Should be $5, payable upon exit.

Meeting Sponsor: YouData

Sponsor Website: http://www.youdata.com

Door Prizes and Giveaways!

• JetBrains has donated one IntelliJ licenses to be raffled off at this HJUG meeting
• Books from O'Reilly