Adventures of a Web Programmer in Applicationland (or, Practical Java Help Needed)

Question

Alright, so I am a compsci college student who, being in college, has not branched out towards a certain specialization yet. I have been programming since I was a young teenager, certainly know my stuff - well versed in about eight different languages as well as compsci theory, etc. In addition, I have about four years of web programming (PHP mainly) behind me, having started freelance work in that area since web 2.0 became hot.

My summer job now as an intern of sorts is to write an application for an industrial, not software-related startup. This application will be used to manage production lines and logistics flow. I have chosen Java for my language because I don't want to shoot myself in the foot.

I am well-versed in the syntax of Java, in its data structures, language theory, and such, but I have absolutely no idea where to start. I can picture the program perfectly in my mind, I understand the problem clearly and got the solution's theory nailed. Namely, I have no idea what libraries to use, and am scared that they won't be well documented.

Here are some general outlines of what I'm going to make:

• Two applications, one server and one client (of which there will be many copies).
• The server and clients obviously will communicate via (I don't know).
• Both the server and the client software will have GUIs.
• The server software will have to query a MySQL database.
• The client software must be 'live' in the sense that the GUI updates when a change is made to the database. This is one of the reasons why it can't be a web application.

I'm not even sure if a framework is right for me or not. I've used MVC tons of times in my web freelance work, but I dont know how that will translate for desktop applications.

In short, I'm looking for the right libraries for the job, as well as advice on whether or not I should use a framework (and if so, which). Thanks.

Answer 1

This is a summer intern job? To be honest, this sounds more like a major project if you ask me. You say the start-up is not software related? Who came up with this idea? Do they have any idea of the (huge) scope that something like this might actually entail?

The business of software development is something quite different to language syntax and libraries. It's about requirements gathering, defining a spec, writing code, ensuring quality of that code, having it tested and so on. These are not things an intern should reasonably be expected to pick up. For something like this you should be under more experienced supervision, someone you can learn from, someone who has done this before.

That being said, unless there's a really good reason, I would probably do such a thing as a Website rather than a desktop app. Desktop apps are a lot more complicated in many ways. You need to code both a client and a server. Communication is a bit trickier. You have to worry about the issue of maintaining state in multiple applications, how to handle updates being pushed around and so on.

In short, it's a big job. Even a Web site is a big job but a lot of these issues go away. You could do this with Java. I've certainly coded my fair share of Java Websites but PHP might be a far simpler bet.

Also, desktop development on Java is, well, torture. Swing is (imho) tried and true but also incredibly painful to develop in. Other desktop libraries (eg Netbeans RCP, Eclipse SWT) are more modern but have other idiosyncrasies.

Desktop remoting libraries include things like Spring remoting, even Web services and other things like Burlap. For the server side, I'd be using either Tomcat or an application server (Glassfish is my preferred choice), servlets and Spring. Persistence can be done via Hibernate or Ibatis (or lots of other options).

But honestly, the desktop option is so much more complex than a Web-based one. You'd probably get a lot more done faster using PHP + jQuery + MySQL.

If you are doing this keep it as absolutely simple as possible. Try to define the absolute minimum you need to initially deliver and do that. Once someone has that they'll then have a better idea of what works for them and what doesn't. Basically it's easier to refine something that already exists vs define something that doesn't.