BBVA API Market
We recently discussed the best tools for Python developers, one of the latest programming languages on the market, but this time we will be more traditional and look into the applications for projects programmed in Java: a general-purpose, object-oriented language widely used within the community.
Java’s creator was James Gosling, a software engineer with a long career at Sun Microsystems (1984-2010), the company he developed this programming language for, Google (2010-2011) and nowadays at Liquid Robotics.
Integrated Development Environment (IDE): NetBeans, Eclipse and IntelliJ
NetBeans: An Integrated Development Environment for creating desktop, mobile or web Java applications. It also enables applications to be developed in HTML5 (HTML, JavaScript and CSS) and has tools for PHP, C and C++ programmers. NetBeans is an open source IDE developed in Java. Any application developer can download it free of charge.
– NetBeans is more than a text editor: It enables simple code refactoring, provides templates and code generators, and offers programming tips. In addition to Java, it supports C, C++, XML, HTML, PHP, Groovy, Javadoc, JavaScript and JSP.
– Organized project management: NetBeans enables you to organize all your applications in a folder service. This makes collaborative work with other developers much easier, since without this structure they would be lost within the different projects. Version control is essential in that management, and this is why NetBeans includes tools such as Mercurial, Subversion and Git.
– Fast user interface development: NetBeans has its own graphical user interface (GUI) for Java, HTML5, PHP or C/C++. This interface has easy-to-use drag and drop tools for designing applications, making it highly intuitive.
– Error debugger: Not only does it include a debugger that alerts to possible programming errors, it also has tools for optimizing the applications in terms of speed and memory usage. This enables the development of applications that fulfill an essential condition in today’s use of data and consumption of information: scalability.
Eclipse: The best known integrated development environment for Java. It also enables projects to be developed in other languages such as C, C++ and PHP. Like any other IDE, it enables the development of desktop software and applications, and also for mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. It has a graphical user interface and tools for carrying out many functions.
IntelliJ IDEA: An IDE developed in Java by Jet Brains under two types of licenses: open source and commercial. It is one of the most widely used development environments within the Java community and some consider it the best IDE on the market if you develop projects using this programming language. The tools it offers include:
– Advanced code refactoring system.
– A system for completing code while programming.
– Code error analysis in real time.
– Version control system.
– UML (Unified Modeling Language) designer.
– It enables development with Java frameworks such as Spring MVC, GWT, Vaadin, Play, Grails, Web Services, JavaServer Faces, Apache Struts and Flex.
– It includes assistance for programming in code in HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Node.js, ActionScript and several other languages.
Rapid application development: gvNIX
gvNIX is an open source tool for rapid application development (RAD). With this tool, any developer can create web applications in Java quickly and without much trouble. The tool offers integration with frameworks such as jQuery, Bootstrap 3, Leaflet and Datatables.
Some features of the tool:
1.- Multiplatform tool: gvNIX works under several operating systems (Windows, Mac OSX and Linux). It can also be integrated with any IDE, such as Eclipse and STS. All that is needed to install it is the Java SDK (version 6 or later) and Apache Maven 3.
2.- Command interpreter: gvNIX is designed as an interactive command interpreter. It offers command autocomplete and context-sensitive help.
3.- JEE standard projects: The projects created with this tool are compliant with the JEE standard, the platform for developing and running application software in the Java programming language.
4.- Without dependencies on the execution environment: The applications developed with gvNIX only depend on the frameworks used by the developer, without this causing a dependency on the execution environment.
Another rapid application development (RAD) tool is Spring Roo.
Framework: Apache Maven
Apache Maven is a tool for managing and designing projects in Java. This framework was created in 2002 by Jason Van Zyl, from Sonatype. Maven uses a Project Object Model (POM), an XML file that is the basic work unit in Maven. This file contains information on the project and details of the configuration used by the framework: from the list and configuration of the plugins used, to the dependencies.
Web server in Java: Apache Tomcat
Apache Tomcat is a web container that supports servlets and JSPs, initiated by James Duncan Davidson, a software engineer at Sun Microsystems. Today it is used as a standalone server in projects that require high performance in terms of both speed and data volume. Because it was developed in Java, it works with any operating system with a Java virtual machine.
The key features of the latest version are:
– Basic access authentication.
– Credential negotiation.
– HTTPS.
– Shared hosting.
– Common Gateway Interface (CGI).
– Java servlets.
– SSI (Server Side Includes).
Follow us on @BBVAAPIMarket
In a connected world, APIs are the glue that keeps all the parts that form our day-to-day lives in place. The same way the power of glue depends on the material it is used on and the knowledge of its properties, APIs are only as useful as their documentation allows for.
There are different solutions to monitor the performance of an API, in terms of traffic, quality and speed of the answers it provides. Detecting faults in the code or quantifying the generated revenues are also some of the options offered by these useful tools.
App users must be aware that a button... is in fact a clickable button. Therefore, app buttons must be designed in such a way that users should feel invited to interact with the interface and actually click on it.
