2009 is coming to a close, and it's been an eventful year here at developerWorks. We converted our entire content library (more than 11,000 files) to a new, more dynamic article template and launched My developerWorks, our very own professional networking site. We also celebrated our 10th birthday, which was quite a milestone for those of us who've been here in the trenches for the duration.

With such heavy promotion of those milestones, the staple of dW — the great content we publish week in, week out — may have seemed lost in the shuffle. I thought I'd take this opportunity to direct your attention to several great articles and a few articles series published this year in the Java™ zone that you might have missed amid the commotion:

• Groovier Spring by Scott Leberknight: Spring and Groovy make a powerful combination. Spring provides architecture and infrastructure, while Groovy adds dynamic capabilities. But this flexibility comes with a price. Let Scott guide you around the pitfalls as you take your applications into unchartered territory.
  
  
• Easier testing with EasyMock by Elliotte Rusty Harold: Testing with real classes is ideal, but if you can't reliably and automatically test with the real class for any reason, then testing with a mock is infinitely superior to not testing at all, and EasyMock is an excellent — and open source — framework for the task.
  
  
• Google App Engine for Java by Rick Hightower: In this three-part article series, Java technology author and trainer Rick Hightower gets you started with this robust and fun platform for Java-based development. But App Engine for Java is not without its faults, and Rick pulls no punches in pointing them out. If you're considering using this platform, you need to read this series.
  
  
• Introducing Apache Mahout by Grant Ingersoll: Mahout co-founder Grant Ingersoll introduces the basic concepts of machine learning and then demonstrates how to use Mahout to cluster documents, make recommendations, and organize content.
  
  
• Thanks for the memory by Andrew Hall: Learn what native memory is, how the Java runtime uses it, what running out of it looks like, and how to debug a native OutOfMemoryError on Windows® and Linux®.
  
  
• JSF 2 fu by David Geary: Interested in what's changed in JSF 2.0? This series is an excellent introduction to this substantially updated API, and being on the JSF Expert Group, David Geary knows what's what.
  
  
• Dynamic, typesafe queries in JPA 2.0 by Pinaki Poddar: JPA 2.0 introduces the Criteria API, which brings the power of typesafe queries to Java applications for the first time and provides a mechanism for constructing queries dynamically at run time. This article describes how to write dynamic, typesafe queries using the Criteria API and the closely associated Metamodel API.

Of course, I like to think that everything in the Java library — old and new, cutting edge and evergreen — is worth at least a cursory look, so I encourage you to check out something new, or revisit an older piece you may have missed. Better yet, subscribe to the My dW Java Lovers group or the weekly developerWorks newsletter to stay current. And if you're not yet a My dW member, go build a profile now and stay in touch with your technology peers!

I wish you a relaxing end-of-year transition and look forward to next year ... when the Oracle acquisition of Sun is likely to be complete. Stay tuned!

Resources

• Browse the technology bookstore for books on these and other technical topics.
  
  
• developerWorks Java technology zone: Find hundreds of articles about every aspect of Java programming.
  
  
• Get involved in the My developerWorks community.
  
  

About the author

Jenni Aloi has managed the developerWorks Java zone since November, 2000. Though she often complains (about nearly everything), she is truly happy to have spent the past nine years doing what she does best: herding cats.

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