An easier to use Java REST client

I recently was duped (by myself) at a discussion with a colleague: in our continuous effort to disentangle release schedules of two tightly entangled applications, I exposed some core features as a JSON REST service and told him to "just use the Spring invoker" for JSON. It turns out, there is one for JaxRS, Burlap, … Continue reading An easier to use Java REST client →

Integration testing Spring controllers

Time-constrained projects sometimes mandate crude realism as to the type and extent of test coverage in a software project. You'll find arguments for and against testing in the entire spectrum of opinions from "tests are luxury we can't afford" to "regressions are luxury we can't afford". Constrained or not, there is rarely a good excuse … Continue reading Integration testing Spring controllers →

On JPA identifiers and business keys (or why business keys are a bad idea)

JPA, and for that matter Hibernate, depends on identifying entity instances (I'll refer to them as entities for short) by some key. That key can either be a single property (like a numeric ID column in the corresponding table) or a business key (also referred to as natural key). Business keys are entity properties which … Continue reading On JPA identifiers and business keys (or why business keys are a bad idea) →

Spring @Value and resolving property names with dots

I'm moving a legacy application (I seem to be doing that a lot recently) to Spring and injecting properties with @Value into Spring managed beans all over the place. And it doesn't work: public class SomeService{ @Value("#{the.org.namespace.someProperty}") private String someProperty; } Dots have apparently a special meaning, so this fails with a message that 'the' … Continue reading Spring @Value and resolving property names with dots →

Note to self: how to post on facebook as a page

How to obtain a long-term access token for a page and programmaticaly post to it: From here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8231877/facebook-access-token-for-pages Go to the Graph API Explorer Choose your app from the dropdown menu Click "Get Access Token" Choose the manage_pages permission (you may need the user_events permission too, not sure) Now access the me/accounts connection and copy … Continue reading Note to self: how to post on facebook as a page →