Most Java developers are familiar with the Eclipse IDE, even if they use alternatives.
One thing that’s bothered me for some time is that while JUnit is natively supported in Eclipse, TestNG is not. Thankfully, you can easily add this functionality.
If you support code for multiple java application servers, you might eventually encounter a file named:
/webapp/WEB-INF/jboss-web.xml
JBoss uses this file to control the path of the web application, whereas Tomcat generally uses the filename of the WAR itself.
Usually, the contents are pretty sparse, you might consider adding one to your projects should you ever wish to deploy them on JBoss:
<jboss-web>
<context-root>example</context-root>
</jboss-web>
NOTE: There are several other attributes that can find their way into this file for JBoss, notably security configuration, like JAAS.
WARNING: Unfortunately, I’ve tried to add a simple
DOCTYPE jboss-weband XML preamble to this, file to make it validate, but the server (JBoss 5.1.x) fails to recognize them.
I’ve been a huge fan of the ‘final‘ modifier in Java for function arguments and variables. While there’s some debate on their usefulness for performance, they definitely add in readability and understanding of code as developers are instantly notified by modern IDE’s and when they try to reassign such values as the compiler will indicate the error.
NOTE: Use of final for classes or functions often contradicts the paradigm of Object Oriented programming as you’ll be restricted from extending or overriding those items!