You know about pair programming, right? Well this month we decided to triple on creating Java Annotated Monthly. So this month we have a different approach to the newsletter, where the "annotations" are provided by three different people: me (Trisha), Dalia and Helen. So, bear in mind that "I" is going to refer to more than one person! However, the quality remains the same as u

It's IntelliJ IDEA's 20th birthday this year! To celebrate, we put together a list of 20 things developers love about IntelliJ IDEA. Creating this list was hard! It was impossible to select only 20 features that people liked about IntelliJ IDEA, so you'll see we cheated and came up with 20 categories that may, or may not, include more than one feature. It's clear from our developer interview serie

We've now covered all the key features for creating and running tests with Spock. In Part 5, we finish up the Spock tutorial by looking at additional features that can help you to write short, descriptive, correct tests. Tutorial: Spock Part 1 - Getting Started Part 2 - Writing Tests Part 3 - Data Driven Testing Part 4 - Mocking and Stubbing Part 5 - Other Useful Tips These blog posts cover the

This month, we have quite a bit of news on Java 16, since the first release candidate build is out. We also cover the sunsetting of Bintray and JCenter, as well as including the usual mix of Java-and-related-technologies news, articles and tips. (more…)

In Part 3 of our Spock tutorial, we look at mocking and stubbing. The Spock framework has mocking and stubbing built in. Creating, using and verifying mocks and stubs is nicely aligned with the way the tests are written, and can lead to very readable tests. Tutorial: Spock Part 1 - Getting Started Part 2 - Writing Tests Part 3 - Data Driven Testing Part 4 - Mocking and Stubbing Part 5 - Other U

In Part 3 of our Spock tutorial, we'll look at Data Driven Testing. This is one of my favourite things about Spock, although it is also supported in other frameworks like JUnit 5. Tutorial: Spock Part 1 - Getting Started Part 2 - Writing Tests Part 3 - Data Driven Testing Part 4 - Mocking and Stubbing Part 5 - Other Useful Tips These blog posts cover the same material as the video. This provide

In Part 2 of our Spock tutorial, we'll look at writing Spock tests in more detail, including some tips on how to get the most from Groovy. Tutorial: Spock Part 1 - Getting Started Part 2 - Writing Tests Part 3 - Data Driven Testing Part 4 - Mocking and Stubbing Part 5 - Other Useful Tips These blog posts cover the same material as the video. This provides an easy way for people to skim the cont

Spock is a really interesting framework for writing automated tests on the JVM. Spock tests are written in Groovy, but they can be used to test Java classes as well. Check out our 30 minute video tutorial on how to write tests using Spock, or follow along with this series of blog posts, which contains code samples and links to further information. Or do both! In this post, Part 1 in the series, w

This week we're doing a Live Stream on JavaFX, and I wanted to use that opportunity to refresh my JavaFX knowledge. I've been using JavaFX in a number of my demo applications over the last six years, and the one thing I've learnt is that it's a bit of a moving target, in particular since JavaFX was taken out of the JDK in Java 11. What I wanted to find out is what's the current best way to create

Well 2020 is over, phew! And holy cow, I know I'm late with this month's Annotated (because I'm a real human being and like to take vacation) but even so there's a lot of stuff in this month's edition! There's more Java and Tech articles than usual and a bunch of Java news. Hang on in there for 2021, remember to continue being kind to each other, and to yourself. (more…)

December is here, and if you celebrate the mid-winter holidays (or midsummer if you're on that side of the equator) you're probably thinking ahead to that. 2020 has not been... optimal... for many. Christmas (or equivalent) will likely not look the way we expected, or are used to. We have an "opportunity" (haven't you always hated boss-speak, it's not an "opportunity", it actua

In good news, banning myself from reading the newspapers and scrolling through Twitter on my phone at night means my levels of anxiety are significantly lower this month. In bad news, it means less content for November's Java Annotated Monthly. The silver lining is that you can have a more relaxed November, with less stuff-you-have-to-read. (more…)