Why do developers in India have to work 10-14 hours? Is it really needed? And can you stay focused working 10-14 hours a day? Do you still have the ability to concentrate after 8-9 hours of work? I don't know? I should try working for a month or so in India just to see how things are now, don't you think so? Read on.....

CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, hosted by Jeffrey Fredrick and Paul Julius will take place in Amsterdam on October 3 & 4. ...

Apress has released three very interesting titles on Spring 2.5. Take a look:

The Productive Programmer is about maximizing your ability to efficiently create good, working software. It’s about leveraging your computer’s abilities, and learning how to master the tools you use regularly. If you love being a developer and creating software then you owe it to yourself to read this book and start becoming better at it today.

Spring 2.0 introduced comprehensive support to use dynamic languages. It supports three different scripting languages; JRuby, Groovy and BeanShell. The scripting language used in this article is Groovy; which I think was designed for Java developers. As Scott Davis says in his book, Groovy Recipes” Groovy is Java at the end of the day”. “Spring Recipes - A Problem -Solution Approach” written by Gary Mak has a complete chapter dedicated to Scripting in Spring. The author covers all the three dynamic languages supported by Spring; JRuby, Groovy and BeanShell.

Having used >NetBeans> for a long long time, I thought I would share my views about some of the helpful aspects this IDE offers, some not so helpful, and finally finish off this post with the most annoying feature of NetBeans I have encountered. I started using NetBeans from version 4 on my windows machine for writing J2EE applications, the IDE took almost several minutes to startup which really annoyed me like it did for many others. I constantly switched back to >Eclipse> after trying each and every milestone and new release. From the last 4 weeks, I have been using NetBeans exclusively for writing a complex Java EE and a relatively simple Groovy and Grails applications. So, here are some of the highlights about >The Good, the Bad and the Ugly> in my opinion:

Apress has released several interesting books for Java this summer 2008. Attached below are the list of books which have just been released and a few which are coming soon. Pro Spring 2.5 The Spring Framework remains the leader in the move from so-called heavyweight architectures, such as Enterprise JavaBeans, toward lightweight frameworks. Pro Spring 2.5 covers the new features of Spring 2.5, but moreover, it is focused on best practices and core standards of contemporary Spring development.

An automated build process with Ant is one of the most crucial things required in any CI process. Ant is the build tool of choice for many Enterprise Java projects. This is an XML file, usually called build.xml, which describes a project's dependencies. At the beginning of any project, this build file will be somewhere around 70-80 lines, which would include targets for compiling source and tests, running these tests, creating the libraries, and so on... But, as the project grows, this file grows as well and becomes as huge as several thousand lines; which is complicated and hard to maintain.

Hudson is an open source CI server that is by far the easiest one to configure. Second to ease of use is Hudson’s impressive plug-in framework, which makes it easy to add features. For instance, Hudson has a plug-in for tracking FindBugs issues, PMD issues, and CheckStyle issues over time as well as code coverage. It also trends test results from JUnit, as well as build results and corresponding execution times. In spite of all these cool features, we had to find ways to get around some common issues we faced at work using Hudson. This article describes a few real-life tips and tricks that we have found at work and will assist in configuring Hudson to work most effectively in your environment as well.

The book is enjoyable, extremely well organized and covers a wide range of open source tools needed for any successful software development life cycle. I would recommend Java Power Tools to anyone writing Java. However my one complaint would be the 910 pages, while the book may be more than 5 pounds, it made up for its huge size with its thorough content and good examples.

Paul Duvall, co-author of the book on continuous integration, in this interview with Javalobby discusses about CI, and his book which was the winner of the Jolt award. He discusses the road ahead for continuous integration, what he envisions in the next version of CI and also gives us some tips and tricks. Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk by Paul Duvall, Steve Matyas, and Andrew Glover, is a great book that received 5 stars in all the categories in our Javalobby review.

This part of the series guides you step-by-step through the Ant tasks for running tests written using SoapUI, generating JUnit reports, integrating with CI, and to top it all off getting code coverage using Cobertura. When you are done with this part, you will be able to reap the benefits of writing tests, continuous integration, and code coverage.

Jon Skeet has worked with C# since 2002, and has been a Microsoft C# MVP since October 2003. Jon Skeet is also the author of the latest book by Manning called "C# in Depth". In this interview, Jon tells us about different versions of C#, what he thinks about C# and Java and much more.

GlassFish is a free, open-source Java EE 5-compliant application server that is quickly gaining massive popularity and so is Java EE5. David Heffelfinger, author of Java EE 5 Development using GlassFish Application Server, tells us about the book, JavaEE5 and GlassFish in this interview.

Tapestry 5: Building Web Applications written by Alexander Kolesnikov is a practical step-by-step tutorial for those who want to build contemporary, real-life web applications with Tapestry 5, the Apache open-source framework for creating dynamic, robust, highly scalable web applications in Java. It shows the path of least resistance, so that the reader can learn all the essential skills quickly and easily. To give the reader an initial practical experience, a simple but useful web application is built throughout the chapters.

If you have been doing development on the latest Java EE 5 specification, PACKT publishing has the right book for you. This book is a Developer’s Guide, covering the ins and outs of developing Java EE 5 applications deployed to the standards-compliant, high performance GlassFish application server.

In Essential Silverlight 2 Up-to-Date (O'Reilly, US $34.99), author Christian Wenz shows you how to take advantage of this new cross-browser plug-in with tools for animation, vector graphics, and video playback, as well as new .NET support for web services, networking, and LINQ (language integrated query).

Andrew Glover, in the TestEarly Blog, shows us how to use Groovy with Hudson. Hudson has a Groovy plug-in which can execute Groovy Scripts.

This book is a full toolkit for someone who wants to implement BPM in the right way. This toolkit is particularly aimed at Business Analysts, although Project Managers, IT managers, developers, and even business people can expect to find useful tools and techniques in here. We will present the project framework, analysis techniques and templates, BPM technology and example deliverables that you need to successfully bring a BPM solution into your organization.

A brand new book on Software Development was recently released by O'Reilly, titled Head First Software Development. I had the opportunity to review the book and interview the authors as well. In this interview, Dan Pilone and Russell Miles, the authors, give us an insight into the book and also how they got the opportunity to write for Head First Labs.

From all the PMP (Project Management Professional) preparation books I have seen, this is by far the most enjoyable to read. The important points are well stressed, illustrations are all around, examples are relevant and the exercises and mock exams are very helpful.

Pro NetBeans IDE 6 Rich Client Platform Edition is the second Apress book to cover the agile, open source NetBeans IDE platform. The authors of this book are Adam Myatt with Brian Leonard and Geertjan Wielenga.

Each recipe in Groovy Recipes begins with a concise code example for a quick start, followed by in-depth explanation in plain English. These recipes will get you to-to-speed in a Groovy environment quickly.

Rails for PHP Developers kick-starts your Rails experience by guiding you through learning both Ruby and Rails from a PHP developer’s perspective. Written by developers with deep experience using PHP, Ruby, and Rails, this book leverages your existing knowledge of PHP to learn Rails application development quickly and effectively. Wicked Cool PHP offers readers a collection of 76 immediately useful PHP scripts, the brainchild of two veteran Web programmers. The scripts can be used to process credit cards, check the validity of email addresses, use HTML templates, and serve dynamic images and text. Most importantly, readers learn how to customize all of the scripts to fit their own needs, and how to troubleshoot their scripts when something goes wrong.

Query in Action offers a rich investigation of the up-and-coming jQuery library for client-side JavaScript. This book covers all major features and capabilities in a manner focused on getting the reader up and running with jQuery from the very first sections. Web developers reading this book will gain a deep understanding of how to use jQuery to simplify their pages and lives, as well as learn the philosophy behind writing jQuery-enhanced pages.