Productive Java From Start to Finish

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Productive Java From Start to Finish

• Rob Harwood
• Technology Evangelist

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About Us

• Rob Harwood
• Professional developer for 7 years
• Technology evangelist
• JetBrains
• Makers of IntelliJ IDEA, and more
• Develop with pleasure!
• IntelliJ IDEA 6.0
• The Most Intelligent Java IDE
• Award winning

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Overview

• Productivity is becoming more and more important
  for Java programmers
• This lends importance to tools that enhance
  productivity, specifically the IDE
• but not all IDEs are the same

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Trends in Java Development

• Java 5, 6, 7,
• Methodology - Less rigid, more fluid
• Agility
• Internet / Web 2.0
• Competition - Time to Market
• Dynamic languages
• Push for higher productivity
• No sign of slowing!

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How can I be productive in Java?

• Many possibilities for improvement
• Organization
• Project
• Team
• Programmer
• Tools
• Programmer is key person
• IDE is key tool

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What is Productivity?

• Project size variables
• Increase Scope
• Increase Quality
• Lower Time
• Same Cost
• Productivity is ability to create greater value
  for less cost

Cost Time Scope Quality
Value
Cost
Value
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Four variables

• Quality is usually non-negotiable
• Time is usually fixed or continuous
• Cost is under tight restrictions
• Scope is best variable to negotiate

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Quality

• Software quality is not like manufacturing
  quality
• Increasing quality actually increases
  productivity
• Many people depend on code, amplifying cost of
  bugs
• Fewer bugs means lower cost and time
• High quality code can handle greater scope than
  low quality
• Speeds up all programmers, plus other people
• Increase quality as much as possible until you
  hit the sweet spot

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Importance of productivity

• Organization
• Lower cost
• Better quality
• Competitive agility
• Move up-market
• Handle more projects
• Satisfied customers
• Fewer staff needed

• Programmer
• Productive flow is enjoyable
• Think at higher level
• Less stress
• Professional development
• Develop with pleasure!

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Fixed variables

• Quality is maxed
• Time fixed or continuous
• Primary factor in cost is scope
• How to improve productivity to reduce cost?

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Factors affecting productivity

• People
• Tools
• Programming languages
• Legacy architecture
• Methodology
• Organizational (project, team, etc.)
• 1 factor is people
• Skills
• Teamwork
• Management

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Importance of Programmers

• Needed to finish project
• Central to ability to produce value in code
• Programmer cost strongly affects project cost
• Programmer time equals organization money
• Programmer heavily affects quality, a major
  variable
• High effect of productivity enhancement
• Effects of flow
• Tools
• Skill enhancement
• In terms of overall project value, programmer
  productivity has major effect on mapping to cost
  of project

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Benefits of improving programmer productivity

• Influences other peoples productivity
• QA
• Marketing
• Documentation
• Management
• Allows new styles of development
• Test-driven development
• Continuous integration
• Lowers risk of trying new things
• Libraries
• Frameworks

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Flow

• Highly productive state of mind
• Complex problems solved in much less time
• Totally focused
• See big picture
• Make intuitive leaps
• Think at a high level, in terms of concepts
  rather than procedures
• Development flows along gracefully
• Also occurs in sports, writing, conversation,
  problem solving
• Everybody experiences flow
• Games Tetris, Minesweeper

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How flow works

• Rely on well-trained intuition for speed of
  thought
• Eliminate self-doubt and worry over trivialities
• As you work, you gain inspiration about what to
  do next, allowing you to flow from one task to
  the next

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UI Flow Diagram

• Programmer, desire curve, mountain path

Context switch
Desire
Actual path
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Context Switching

• Flow is susceptible to interruptions and context
  switching
• Breaks flow
• Takes time to get back into flow
• Cost of context switching is high, especially
  if repeated frequently

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Tools and flow

• Eliminate extra steps
• Soften or elliminate context-switches
• Intelligent features allow higher-level thinking
• Help get into flow and maintain flow with fewer
  context switches

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Flow and IDEs
Desire
Actual path
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Flow and IDEs

• Tedious steps are something similar to context
  switch. They force you to think in low-level
  terms.
• Good example of stripping out tedium is Smart
  Completion.
• Keyboard shortcuts are a way to remove context
  switching. Also, there is a certain logic to the
  shortcuts, like a language.
• Good example is shortcuts for extract and inline.

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IDE Productivity

• Programmers productivity interface into the
  project
• Central to programmer productivity
• Increasing programmer productivity can have a
  major impact on overall cost
• IDE can have major effect on productivity, saving
  time and money while increasing quantity and
  quality of output
• Most time-consuming task Java coding
• Connects other tools together
• Better integration means better overall
  productivity

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IDE effect on project dimensions

• Increase cost by price
• Reduce time
• User interface features
• Increase Quality
• Refactoring
• Code Analysis
• Integration with testing tools
• Reduce complexity (Scope)
• Code Analysis
• Navigation features
• These factors end up reducing cost overall

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Price of tools, TCO

• Price increases cost, so whats the
  justification?
• Zero price (free) does not equal zero cost
• Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
• Hidden costs
• Learning how to use the tool
• Limitations on the tool itself
• Interactions with other tools
• Support and maintenance
• Finding components for whole-product
• Technical and community support
• Quality of the tool
• Effect on productivity

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TCO

• Must compare tools by TCO, not price alone
• TCO calculations should be equivalent
• Similar features included in price
• Increased productivity makes up for TCO, saving
  overall cost

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Proof?

• Is TCO really important?
• Measuring productivity and TCO is difficult
• Business success is undeniable
• Proof is IntelliJ IDEA itself
• Success of JetBrains
• Loyal customers, who pay when all other
  alternatives are free

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IntelliJ IDEA

• 2 free, open-source competitors with hundreds of
  programmers
• 3 years since Eclipse became mainstream
• JBuilder collapsed, trying to rebuild on Eclipse
• All other major Java IDEs are free
• JetBrains, small company
• Less than 50 developers
• Only 10-15 core IntelliJ IDEA developers
• Others have time to work on other projects,
  including researching new ideas
• Loyal, satisfied customers
• IntelliJ IDEA still going strong
• Seems to be only Java IDE worth paying for -)

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Question

• Arent you worried about free competitors?
• No, because productivity is a valuable thing.

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IDE Philosophy

• UI choices
• Architecture
• Trade-offs
• Usability or raw performance
• Integrated or modular
• Productivity or whatever works

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IDE philosophy trends

• Most IDEs go for more stuff, with enough
  productivity
• We go for more productivity, with enough stuff
• Compare value of stuff versus value of
  productivity

Stuff
Productivity
Prod
Stuff
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Productivity IDE Philosophy

• Based on what real people do, rather than whats
  easy for IDE-programmer to implement
• This is how it should work, so lets make it
  work that way, as opposed to, These are the
  tools available, heres one way of making them
  work together.
• Tailored to kinds of people who program
• Adapt to many styles of programming
• Integrated modularity rather than modular
  integration

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Modularity

• Stuff is changing all the time
• New libraries and frameworks
• New versions
• New methodologies (e.g. AOP)
• Some stuff is only needed for small number of
  people, only special circumstances, etc.
• Solution Extreme modularity?
• Modularity sacrifices opportunities for
  productivity
• Integration with IDE is more difficult when
  modular IDE.
• Modular bytecode Cant refactor uncompilable
  code breaks flow lower productivity
• Integrated PSI Not only can refactor nearly any
  code, but can also integrate static code analysis
  on-the-fly, even if code is broken
• Modular IDEs will always be playing catch-up

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Other limitations of modularity

• Diff tool Editor features
• GUI Builder Analysis
• Many more

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Examples of IDEs affecting productivity

• Code completion
• Test Driven Development
• Refactoring
• Code analysis
• Web development
• Team productivity

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Code completion

• Concern yourself with higher-level concepts,
  rather than syntax and spelling
• Explore interfaces via object references
• Eliminate unnecessary steps
• Keep flow moving well

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Test Driven Development

• Waterfall
• Analysis, Design, Programming, Testing,
  Integration, Release
• Agile just iterates faster
• IDE can automte each step, making the manual
  parts smaller and smaller
• Faster cycles, more feedback and visibility
• Able to adapt faster, be more agile
• Tighter cycles result in capability for a new
  style of programming
• Demo

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Refactoring

• Increases quality, so that adding features is
  easier rather than harder
• Reduces complexity (scope)
• Some amount of refactoring is always required

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Code Analysis

• Helps individual, but also helps team, above and
  beyond individual
• To be able to sense what youve produced
• To see the code
• Improve quality
• Reduce complexity for individual

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Web development

• More than just Java
• Higher level of integration between different
  languages
• Languages Multiple languages, dynamic languages,
  data languages, scripting langauges

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Languages

• Not just about Java anymore
• Java becoming more productive, but more and more
  reliance on other languages, especially in the
  Web 2.0 world
• Language API, IntelliLang, Ruby
• IDEA is the most language-aware IDE, period.

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Team productivity

• 5 oclock check in

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TeamCity

• Broken build problem (general problem, many
  facets)
• Collaboration problem (code pointers, stack
  traces)
• Offloading work to server (analysis, testing,
  building, etc.)
• Tracking/managing the build, which after all is
  the most important product you are concerned
  with.
• TeamCity

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Conclusion

• IntelliJ IDEA 6.0
• http//www.jetbrains.com/idea
• Submit your Name and Email address to Ahmed
  Hashim for a chance to win a free license!
• 5 conference participants will win a free license
  (value 500 USD)