WASCE 2.0 Open Source Lab

Notes from EJB3 Talk

dividebyzer0 — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 21:24:58 +0000

I’ve mind-mapped my notes from the EJB3 Talk last month. You can find an image of the mind map available at the link below:

Notes from EJB3 Talk (Mind Map)

Unless you have a ridiculously high-resolution monitor, you may want to turn off image scaling on your browser so that the text is legible.

Enjoy.

Class Diagram Draft

dividebyzer0 — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 04:46:08 +0000

Here’s a draft diagram of the classes we discussed. I modeled it up using Rational Software Modeler (I know, I know, it’s not open source).

Class Diagram (Draft 1)

Here are some generic descriptions of the classes, as well.

Member
A user of the webapp. In this case, “Member” would be a member of the ACM.

Title
This abstract class stores all the metadata for a piece of media. Includes things like author, title (of book, DVD, etc), date published, publisher, etc. There may be a case where you would have multiple instances of the same book or DVD, but there would only be one Title object to house the metadata. This class is also abstract to allow for extension. This gives us the flexibility to support many media types, such as books, DVDs, term papers, software installation discs, etc. Each of these media types would be concrete classes, extending the Title abstract class, with their own unique attributes.

Book
This is the only concrete extension to the Title class which we’ve defined so far. This class may include unique attributes such as ISBN number, number of pages, etc.

Media
The physical instance of a title. If the library has three copies of the book “Groovy in Action”, there will be three media objects which represent each copy of the Title.

TitleReview
This class stores text-based content provided by a member as they review a title. This might also be associated with a CheckInMemberAct, in which the Member is prompted to review a book when she checks it back into the library.

MediaTag
This class houses a list of web 2.0-style “tags” (or keywords) that members assign to various Titles. For instance, the book “Groovy In Action” might have “java”, “scripting”, “programming” and “groovy” tags associated with it.

MemberAct
This abstract class defines an action that a Member has performed against a Media item. Since this class is abstract, it cannot be instantiated on its own. Instead, it is instantiated by a specific type of action defined by the concrete classes which extend MemberAct

CheckoutMemberAct
This class defines instances in which a Member has checked out a particular Media item.

CheckinMemberAct
This class defines instances in which a Member has checked in a particular Media item (presumably after having checked it out). This action might be linked directly to its CheckoutMemberAct counterpart.

ReserveMemberAct
This class defines instances in which a Member has requested a particular Media item for checkout sometime in the future. This should probably contain two fields for the beginning and end date.

AddMediaMemberAct
This class defines instances in which a Member has added a new piece of Media to the library for the first time (presumably by donation).

RemoveMediaMemberAct
This class defines instances in which a Member has removed a Media item from the library (presumably if it was lost or stolen).

There was some also some discussion of user roles (such as admin), but this class diagram does not seem to reflect those feaures.

Next steps will be to finalize the class hierarchy and start identifying the attributes. I’ll start the ball rolling in the comments section very shortly.

Early “Use Cases” and Domain Classes

dividebyzer0 — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 03:37:38 +0000

We had an extremely productive session tonight (more on that later), but I wanted to post up the notes from the whiteboard right away. For those of you who were unable to attend, we decided to go with the ACM Library web app. We decided on some preliminary use case segments and domain model classes. I plan to post some UML very soon. For now, here’s a mind map of what we wrote on the board…

Whiteboard Notes

Welcome

dividebyzer0 — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 20:56:18 +0000

This is the inaugural post for the WebSphere Application Server Community Edition 2.0 Open Source Lab, a four-part live workshop based in Chicago.

The User Group

For those just starting out in Java Web Application development, the vast array of technologies and offerings can be daunting. The Chicago Northwest Suburbs WebSphere User Group aims to focus topics such as open source, agile frameworks, community standards, and Java server architecture. The goal is to relate these subject matters to the WebSphere product line and related technology families, providing knowledge and experience for all users regardless of their skill level. Most meetings are held downtown at the IBM Innovation Center, located at 71 S Wacker Dr on the Sixth Floor of the Hyatt Center. We meet regularly on the third Thursday of every month.

Last Session Recap

In case you are new to the group, or were unable to attend the September meeting, here’s a brief recap. September was the first in a series of four sessions highlighting WAS Community Edition and related IBM Open Source offerings. We were very privileged to be joined by the Association of Computing Machinery at University of Illinois at Chicago (ACM@UIC), who we hope to have join us for the duration of this series. In this first session, we talked about IBM’s general Open Source strategy. During several points of the discussion, we had a very lively dialog about what constituted open source, why it is relevant to businesses, and the value of the long tail. Following the general Open Source talk, we gave a high-level overview of the (then) upcoming release of WAS Community Edition 2.0. Based on the Apache Geronimo project, this fully JEE5-compliant web application server is available as a free download at the following address:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/ws/wasce/

We hope to be able to publish notes from these presentations on this blog very soon (keep an eye out).

The Lab

During the meeting, we also kicked off a four-part lab in which we will create a fully-functional web application using only free IBM and community open source offerings. This blog was set up to track the progress of the lab and share any all the relevant discussions and materials. In our first session, we set up the initial environment which will will be using throughout the project. In the next session, we will define and prototype the domain model using the Java Persistence API (JPA).

The Tools

One of the most fundamental components of this lab will be WAS Community Edition 2.0 and the JEE5 spec, which we will use to prototype and deploy our application. We will be using Apache Derby to spec the initial domain model (since it comes with WAS CE). We will also be using the Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers (Europa) for development and compilation, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as our our operating system.

The Application Concept

Going into the meeting, we planned our lab around a preconceived application. But based on the energy and creativity in the room, we decided to scrap all that and let the attendees decide what we develop. After some brainstorming, we ended up with great five ideas, each from member of the WSUG and each with real-world applications. Each of these ideas is represented in its own blog post (see Project Ideas section). In the comment section of each of these posts, there will be an area for you to vote for your favorite. Assuming we can build it over the course of the next three months, the idea with the most votes is the winner.

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Cedric

Project Ideas Have Been Posted

dividebyzer0 — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 20:55:58 +0000

All project ideas suggested in last month’s brainstorm session have been posted. Please feel free to discuss the ideas and make sure vote for your favorite.

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Cedric

Project Idea #1: Library Book Tracker

dividebyzer0 — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:05:33 +0000

This idea came about as a suggestion from one of the members of ACM@UIC. Within their organization, they have a library of computer books, currently shared by students on the honor code. Many members of ACM donate their books to the library for the benefit of everyone else to read. After a few checkouts, though, these books have a habit of disappearing. This isn’t necessarily intentional, but many members just forget to return the books when they’re done. This application would keep track of the books with a check-in, check out system. It could possibly send email reminders to members when their books are overdue. During brainstorming, we discussed the possibility of consuming a web service from a provider like Amazon to gather book information. We could also potentially provide a mechanism for members to review the books upon check-in.

Reply to the first comment in this post to vote for this idea.