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| <h1>My First Java EE Application - Interview With Sampada Khare</h1> |
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| <p> |
| While she is a .NET expert, Sampada Khare was always curious about the Java programming |
| language. As part of her studies, she designed and developed a sophisticated Yellow Pages application |
| in Java. She felt that actually writing a Java application would be the best way to learn the language. |
| <div class="citation">“Actually writing a Java application is the best way to learn the language.”</div> |
| And, since her company has projects in both .NET and Java, it would give her the experience so that |
| she could contribute to her company's Java projects as well as .NET projects.</P> |
| <P> |
| Sampada Khare, who has just earned her master's degree in software engineering from San Jose State |
| University, is a talented software engineer eager to expand her knowledge and technical abilities. |
| After getting her BS degree in India, she came to the United States and has been working full time for the |
| past seven years on Microsoft technologies. During the past two years she studied for her master's |
| degree part time. </P> |
| <P> |
| Sampada used NetBeans IDE 5.5.1 to develop her Yellow Pages application. We recently talked to Sampada |
| about her application and her thoughts on NetBeans. |
| </P> |
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| <h2> What influenced you to come up with a Yellow Pages application? <br>What were you trying to accomplish?</h2> |
| |
| <P> |
| I had to do a project for my master's program and I thought that an enhanced Yellow Pages |
| application would have the right business perspective for my studies. I wanted to create a |
| Yellow Pages application that would have direct interaction among users and contacts. |
| I've noticed that other similar Yellow Pages-type applications force interaction to be offline. |
| So my version emphasizes social networking aspects of a software application.</p> |
| |
| <P> |
| These screen shots give you an idea of the application. The first one shows the page that |
| displays results of a search operation, and uses the table and MapViewer components.</p> |
| |
| <P><A href="../../../images_www/articles/interviews/yellow-pages-sampada-khare/searchresults.png"><IMG |
| SRC="../../../images_www/articles/interviews/yellow-pages-sampada-khare/searchresults-thumbnail.png" WIDTH=640 BORDER=0></a></p> |
| <BR CLEAR=ALL> |
| |
| <p>This next image shows the page that displays all details about a user. The page uses the MapViewer |
| and Calendar components. A different page opens in a new window and displays the Rating component.</p> |
| |
| <P><a href="../../../images_www/articles/interviews/yellow-pages-sampada-khare/viewprofile.png"><IMG |
| SRC="../../../images_www/articles/interviews/yellow-pages-sampada-khare/viewprofile-thumbnail.png" WIDTH=640 BORDER=0></a></p> |
| <BR CLEAR=ALL> |
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| <P> |
| The last image displays both paid and unpaid bills, plus it lets users create new bills and assign |
| bills to others. This page uses the visual web components tabset, tabs, and table, along with the |
| calendar controls.</P> |
| |
| <P><a href="../../../images_www/articles/interviews/yellow-pages-sampada-khare/bills-provider.png"><IMG |
| SRC="../../../images_www/articles/interviews/yellow-pages-sampada-khare/bills-provider-thumbnail.png" WIDTH=640 BORDER=0></a></p> |
| <BR CLEAR=ALL> |
| |
| <h2> Why did you choose to write the application in Java? </h2> |
| |
| <P>I decided to write this application in Java because I wanted to learn the language. I know .NET |
| quite well, but there's a whole world out there using Java and I want to broaden my skills. |
| I think that writing an application in a language is the best way to learn that language.</p> |
| |
| <h2> Why did you use NetBeans as your development IDE?</h2> |
| |
| <div class="citation">“In a just a day or two I was quite comfortable with the IDE and started to pick up the NetBeans shortcuts.”</div> |
| <P>Choosing the NetBeans IDE was easy. My husband uses it and he really encouraged me to try it out. |
| I had used Eclipse a long time ago for a small project, and, since I really didn't remember it |
| that well, I thought I'd give NetBeans a shot. I also knew I could get some help from my husband, |
| so I thought ‘Why not try it’. </p> |
| <p>After installing NetBeans, I played with it a bit and liked its |
| general look and feel. It just felt familiar to me. </p> |
| <br clear="all"> |
| |
| <h2> What was your initial impression of NetBeans?</h2> |
| |
| <P> |
| At work I do my .NET development using Visual Studio. Since I've been doing this for quite some |
| time, I've learned many of the Visual Studio shortcuts. When I started using NetBeans, I didn't |
| know the NetBeans shortcuts, which of course are different from Visual Studio.</p> |
| <p> At first I had to |
| use the NetBeans menu screens to figure out how to do the things I wanted to do. But I found the |
| menus and tools intuitive and very easy to figure out. In a just a day or two I was quite |
| comfortable with the IDE and started to pick up the NetBeans shortcuts. </p> |
| |
| <h2> Can you describe how you went about developing your Yellow Pages application?</h2> |
| |
| <P> |
| <div class="citation">“I could easily import the HTML and then I used the visual web |
| features to complete the page design.”</div> |
| I started with the database design. I use Microsoft's SQLServer, but any database can be used with |
| this application. Using the NetBeans tools, I first added a data source and JDBC connection. Then, |
| I was able to view the database tables in NetBeans, which made things easier since I could do all |
| my work through one tool without having to switch to the SQLServer tools to view the data.</p> |
| |
| <P> |
| Once I had the database in place, I used the visual web page design tools to put together the |
| user interface. I began by writing a HTML prototype for the application. Once I had the HTML |
| prototype working, I copied it into NetBeans and then started using the visual web pack for my |
| user interface. With NetBeans, I could easily import the HTML and then I used the visual web |
| features to complete the page design. The visual web drag-and-drop feature was really great, |
| and I was able to quickly add various web components to the pages. Since dropping components |
| on a page also meant that much of the Java code was generated for me, I found it easy to develop |
| the user interface.</p> |
| |
| <P> |
| I also added three of the BluePrints Ajax components to my web pages—the MapViewer, Auto Complete, |
| and Rater components. With not much effort I was able to add a whole level of functionality to my |
| web application.</p> |
| |
| <P> |
| <div class="citation">“I didn't really know the EJB technologies. Going through the dialogs greatly helped me.”</div> |
| After I completed the interface, I started on the Java EE and Enterprise Java Beans portion of the |
| application. I was afraid that this part would be more difficult, since I didn't really know |
| the EJB technologies. Once again, the NetBeans IDE made it easy for me. Going through the dialogs |
| greatly helped me and again, the IDE generated much of the Java code. </p> |
| |
| <P> |
| Later, when I put all the pieces together—that is, added the business logic that ties the web |
| pages to the enterprise beans, I again was able to rely on the NetBeans dialogs to get instances |
| of specific beans, and to generate the code for the application. The bottom line was that NetBeans |
| simplified the bean access so that I only had to be concerned about calling the different entity |
| bean methods.</p> |
| |
| <h2> You mentioned that you used the BluePrints Ajax components. <br>Did you find these components |
| easy to use?</h2> |
| |
| <P> |
| For the most part they were easy to use. I especially found the MapViewer and Auto Complete |
| components easy to use. The Rater component was a bit harder. What helped me with these components |
| was looking at the samples for the BluePrints components. These samples gave me the general idea |
| about how to use the components and that was enough to get me going. </p> |
| |
| <h2> What other aspects of NetBeans did you use when developing your application?</h2> |
| |
| <P> |
| <div class="citation">“I was impressed with the diagrams that the UML tool generates.”</div> |
| I also used the UML tools to generate some diagrams that I needed to document my application. |
| In particular, I wanted the class diagram. But I was also impressed with the other diagrams |
| that the UML tool generates.</p> |
| |
| <P> |
| And of course I used the debugger. At first I thought the debugger was a bit slower than other |
| debuggers I've used. I think this was because I didn't have an optimal setup since I was |
| repeatedly starting and stopping the application server. Then, when I realized that I should |
| just start the application server in debug mode, it really speeded up the process. </p> |
| |
| <h2> You said you didn't know Java before you started this project. <br>Did you find that |
| NetBeans helped you learn Java?</h2> |
| |
| <P> |
| NetBeans definitely helped me learn and get up to speed with Java. The IDE provided everything |
| I needed to write this web application and to do the EJB component development. The IDE is |
| easy to use and its interface is pretty intuitive. The dialogs are a great help, as is the |
| code generation. It's really an impressive IDE and I definitely recommend it to others.</p> |
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