Break it Down Blog

Update #1: All these annotations are still valid in Eclipse 3.4 and 3.5, there have been no new SuppressWarning arguments added in those versions of the JDT compiler.
If you are a Java developer and use the new @SuppressWarnings annotation in your code from time-to-time to suppress compiler warnings you, like me, have wondered probably about [...]

Our full review of what the “Consumer JRE” is was covered here in more detail, but to recap, the Consumer JRE is a collection of large changes to how the JRE and Java in general is distributed, installed, structured and run on client computers to create a much nicer end-user experience. Things like faster startup, [...]

I saw this post by Daniel Spiewak that is a great summary of what is going on with Nimbus LNF as well as the fact that the LNF is based on the new “painter” functionality introduced by the SwingX project.
For those not in-the-know about Nimbus, it’s the new Look and Feel that will be part [...]

A while back we covered the new Consumer JRE coming from Sun to improve Java on the desktop in a myriad of ways (hit the link for summary and screenshots). The original goal was to have beta portions of this ready during the end of this year, but it looks like one of the core [...]

I know the Consumer JRE has been talked to death , but I’ve been sitting and listening to the interview by ITConversations with Chet Haase and Ben (Galbraith, I didn’t see his last name given but I’m assuming who that was) and thought it was an excellent interview.
Besides all the features coming [...]

Wow, I was over on Chet Haase’s blog reading about the Consumer JRE… something that up until now I thought just some marketing idea for a JSR that would be filed and possibly make it into Java in 7.0 or later… it seems not only is that not the case, but it will be rolled [...]

Peter Thomas has put together an excellent blog post comparing the development of a simple “forum application” using both Wicket (now in Apache Incubator) and JavaServer Faces (JSF). I’ve wanted to do a comparison like this for a long time and while I’ve developed using both technologies I’ve never done a side by side comparison [...]

I saw this a few days ago and it’s the type of thing you think “Ok cool, I’ll try and remember that” but you forget about later when you need it, so I wanted to blog it.
The JIDE team (those professional Swing/Component development guys) open sourced what they are calling the “JIDE Common Layer“. For [...]

Writing good Javadoc is hard enough as it is; getting the descriptions just right, explaining enough of the API to make it clear without imposing implementation guidelines on implementors, etc.
One thing I’ve been doing for the last few years to make my Javadoc actually look better is trying to be better about using <code></code> tags [...]

Dean Iverson just put together an excellent introduction to JSR 296 (Swing Application Framework) over on his blog.
For those that don’t know, JSR 296 is an attempt to create a simple application framework to build your Swing applications on top of. Word on the street is that it will be part of the Java 7 [...]

There has been some buzz recently surround a new LNF (look and feel) being worked on at Sun called Nimbus. Over all I think it looks fantastic and doing a great-looking LNF is something I’ve always wanted to do, but never set down to actually work on. Here are some quick shots of what [...]

Well this sucks, apparently Jobs doesn’t think much of Java:
Java’s not worth building in [to the phone]. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain.
That’s unfortunate to hear, especially with Java becoming such a ubiquitous language for a lot of software, some really good on the Mac. If he doesn’t think much [...]