06 Aug 2004
Raible’s Wiki: AppFuse
History
I’ve been developing a little fitness application off-and-on for the past 6 or 7 months. Primarily it has been swing front-end, postgresql on the back, an
d hibernate in the middle.
The application is a combination of providing me with the opportunity to build something useful (to myself at least) and play with a variety of technologie
s I don’t often touch in my J2EE professional life.
Enter AppFuse
I’ve read about and played with Spring a bit and developed plans to integrate it. I also wanted to get back into developing webapp’s since it had been abo
ut a year since I last touched Struts.
AppFuse provides the opportunity to integrate Struts, Spring, Hibernate and just about any other technology Matt Raible
has an interest in.
For the past couple weeks I’ve been migrating and re-structing my code-base to integrate the AppFuse-based front-end and my thick swing front-end into a si
mple build and deploy process. I knew enough about spring, hibernate and struts to have some immediate success which I like. I learn by getting knee-deep
in the code and AppFuse easily facilitates that.
Pro’s
- Lot’s of technology – if you want experience with a variety of fairly cutting-edge systems, AppFuse provides that.
- Decent Documentation – Matt has a series of tutorials to get you into his framework. I’ll admit that I skipped most of them and just went straight to
the code.
- Lot’s of autogenerated xml files
- Professional – It’s nice to see a framework that immediately gives you something that has the appearance of being a professional application, even if i
ts just a skeleton.
- Support for unit-testing out of the box.
- … there are more pro’s but I’ll stick with these for this post
Cons
- A learning curve for those not familiar with xdoclet and the various xml files that are required of a struts, spring and hibernate application
- In the past I’ve perferred to use Strut’s dynaforms to hold my form data. I’m happy editing my struts-config.xml file by hand or with an editor and d
on’t necessary need it auto-generated from my data model. There is likely a way to avoid the autogenerated actionforms and struts-config.xml but I haven’t
bothered to look much into it.
All in all, I’m having success and fun working with AppFuse and suggest that anyone else who wants to dip their foot into Struts, Spring and Hibernate to c
heck it out. Once I have the web-interface further built out, I’ll likely integrate spring into the thick client because it just makes handling hibernate
sessions so simple.
Kudo’s to Matt. I’ve already got plans to pick Spring Live up once it’s released and I have so
me spare cycles.
05 Aug 2004
NewsIsFree: News Maps – in collaboration
with The Hive Group
A java applet that presents a clean, clear and efficient way to visualize a large number of articles. Provides decent filtering abilities. If the web alre
ady provides your news fix, NewsIsFree News Maps might be for you.
I think it would be cool if it were possible to use such an interface to generate aggregated RSS feeds.
28 Jun 2004
E M E R G I C
. o r g: June 29, 2004 Archives
As someone who works for a young biotech firm, I enjoy reading about the do’s and don’ts of entrepeneurism and the inevitable search for extra cash infusi
on.
– What is unique about your product/service?
I think this is important. If you cannot consisely state (on demand, that is) your service and it’s differentiating attributes you’re probably in for trou
ble.
– Who actually writes you the check?
I think this an important thing to realize. Often the person writing the cheque is not the true end-user of your service. Keep in mind that the end-user
will always want additional features, but the person with the cheque-book isn’t as willing to pay.
– Are you selling vitamins, aspirin or antibiotics? (I.e. a luxury, a nice-to-have, or a need-to-have)
Important as well. Are you selling commodity software targeting a fairly large market, SPAM control for example ? or are you targeting a specific niche m
arket where your end-users have a recognized need for _something like_ your service. Is your software flexible enough to satisfy a customers requirements
without requiring substantial post-sales integration ? Do you really know what these requirements are ?
**
12) WHO IS YOUR COMPETITION?
– Who is your existing & likely competition?
– Who is adjacent to you (in the market) that could enter your market (and compete) or could be a co-opted partner?
– What are their strengths/weaknesses?
– Why are you different?
**
All important points. You always have competition, if you don’t than your market is likely non-existant or not yet mature enough. Microsoft is a constant
threat in most application spaces so it’s important to clearly differentiate yourself and position your services in such a way that makes it difficult for
competitors to duplicate. Open source is also an emerging threat. I’m a proponent of the open source community and see the potential for integration. O
SS is definately not something to fear and over time will being to play an even greater role in commercial software.
**
15) OTHER
– What assumptions are key to the success of the business?
– What “gotchas” could change the business overnight? New technologies, new market entrants, change in standards or regulations?
– What are your companys weak links?
**
Perhaps the most important points of all. During the course of operating a business, you’re always going to have to operate under some form of an assumpti
on. Business success is related to one’s ability to anticipate change and be in the right place at the right time. Mark Cuban made billions of dollars of
f of a fairly simple idea and an incredible enthusiasm for technology and learning.
I think you always have to be aware of what impacts potential market changes could have on your business. Evaluate the different scenarios and plan accord
ingly.
Every company has weak links. As one of my university professors often said, Not only do you have to make sure you have the right people on the bus, b
ut you have to ensure they’re in the right seat. So true, people need motivation and if they aren’t in the right position or feel like they’re not g
etting the support they need, motivation isn’t going to be high.
That’s my rant. Until I start my own company, I’ll leave VC and investment management to someone else. I’ll concentrate on software development for the
time being.