The Codename One JavaScript Port Is Now Free and Open Source
Codename One's JavaScript port is now open source, available on every plan, and buildable locally without an account. ParparVM is the …
Shai Almog
133 articles
Own Your Pixels: Native Fidelity on Your Schedule
Codename One statically links its lightweight UI into your native app, so an OS update cannot silently redesign it. New native-reference …
How We Beat HotSpot Performance (By Cheating, But Not Like That)
ParparVM went from 4.21x slower than warmed Java 25 to geomean parity, with six of ten benchmarks at or below HotSpot and peak memory below …
More Surfaces, Same Deal: Cars, Sensors, Commerce, Video And Builds
This week's release adds car dashboards, motion sensors, desktop-class input, foldables, Commerce, Secrets, versioned builds, and real video …
Funding Open Source Without The Bait And Switch: Analytics, Native Maps, TV And More
This week adds a privacy-first analytics API, a pure-vector map engine with pluggable native providers, Apple TV and Android TV support with …
Native Linux, Apple Watch, A Game Builder And Crash Protection
This week adds a native Linux desktop port, an Apple Watch and Wear OS port, a visual Game Builder with a high-level gaming API, and …
We Will Not Sabotage Your Code
A maintainer recently hid a destructive prompt-injection payload aimed at AI agents inside his own framework. That is a betrayal of the …
Native Java Win32, 3D Gaming, Printing and Wallet
This week brings native Windows executables with no JVM, a portable 3D graphics API, a gaming API with Box2D physics, cross-platform …
OpenAPI, ORM, SVG and Lottie
An OpenAPI 3.x client generator that turns a spec into typed Codename One code, a JPA-shaped SQLite ORM, JAXB-shaped JSON / XML mappers, …
Mac Native Builds, Live Protocols, And Open Issues Under 350
The open issue count dropped below 350 after a push through the oldest reports, and the same week brought native Mac builds, WebSockets in …
AI, OAuth, And Other Platform APIs In The Core
Deeper AI integration in the framework core, modern authentication via OAuth / OIDC and WebAuthn passkeys driven from the system browser, …
On-Device Debugging And JUnit 5
A walk-through of the new JDWP-based on-device debugging pipeline for ParparVM iOS apps and Android apps, with a step-by-step IntelliJ …
Metal Default, A New Build Cloud, And A New Format
The iOS Metal renderer is now the default, the new Build Cloud console is wired into every Dashboard link on the site, and the weekly …
NFC, Crypto, Biometrics, And A New Build Cloud
Device APIs move into the framework core, revolutionary Bluetooth debugging, and the Build Cloud's new UI is live in preview.
Skills, Java 17, And Theme Accents with Codename One
Java 17 is the new Initializr default, generated projects ship an AGENTS.md authoring skill that any AI agent can pick up (including a…
Metal and Skins
A new Metal rendering backend for iOS, a browser-hosted Skin Designer that retires the skin downloader, an iOS Reminders-style…
Liquid Glass, Material 3, And A Lot Of Plumbing
New iOS Modern (liquid glass) and Android Material 3 native themes, how they work in the Playground, in the simulator, and on devices, plus …
Extending Java APIs - Add Missing Features Without the Hassle
Do you ever pull your hair out in frustration, why isn't this a part of Java? Thanks to Manifold you can solve that problem for everyone.
Front End Debugging Part 3: Networking
Practical tips for debugging front-end network issues using browser tools, with insights on request replay, throttling & storage management.
Front End Debugging Part 2: Console.log() to the Max
Learn advanced front-end debugging: use console log levels, CSS styles, assertions, & more to simplify and enhance your development workflow
strace Revisited: Simple is Beautiful
Explore strace for Linux debugging: origins, usage, JVM insights, and advanced tips in an in-depth, easy-to-follow guide.
Front End Debugging Part 1: Not just Console Log
Learn advanced techniques for debugging across the full stack, from frontend tools to system-level troubleshooting, streamline development.
The Art of Full Stack Debugging
Tired of frustrating bugs? Learn practical, real-world strategies for full stack debugging to track down issues from frontend to backend!
Unleashing the Power of Git Bisect
Explore how to use git bisect for efficient debugging, including tips on automating the process and handling skipped commits in your …
Debugging Kubernetes - Troubleshooting Guide
Discover effective solutions to common Kubernetes errors. Learn troubleshooting tips for configuration issues, image pull errors and more...
Failure is Required: Understanding Fail-Safe & Fail-Fast Strategies
Learn how embracing failure can improve your app's quality, leading to early error detection, robust error handling & better overall …
Mastering Serverless Debugging
Discover effective strategies for debugging serverless and AWS Lambda. Serverless can be painful, but not a bottomless pit of despair.
Wireshark & tcpdump: A Debugging Power Couple
Explore the power of Wireshark and tcpdump for network analysis in our comprehensive guide, unveiling tips for effective troubleshooting.
Why is Kubernetes Debugging so Problematic?
Discover effective k8s debugging strategies, from kubectl debug and ephemeral containers to debuggers. Troubleshoot production/dev issues.
Debugging Kubernetes Part 1: An Introduction
In this first part of our k8s debugging series we take an in-depth view of the underlying technologies from containers to orchestration.
Software Testing as a Debugging Tool
Software testing functions as a critical debugging tool, significantly enhancing code reliability and streamlining the development process.
Debugging Using JMX Revisited
Learn how to leverage JMX and Spring Boot for advanced debugging and management, enabling efficient monitoring and control of Java …
Debugging Streams with Peek
Learn how to debug Java streams effectively using the peek() method with practical examples and tips for optimizing your code.
DTrace Revisited: Advanced Debugging Techniques
Explore the power of DTrace for system debugging and optimization: a comprehensive guide on its capabilities, performance, and applications.
Building gdocweb with Java 21, Spring Boot 3.x and Beyond
Explore the journey of building gdocweb: a developer's insight into choosing Java 21, Spring Boot 3.x, and navigating tech stack challenges.
When Should we Move to Microservices?
Avoid the small monolith antipattern. When do Microservices make sense? Avoid a solution worse than the problem, understand the tradeoffs.
The Theory of Debugging
What do you do when you have a bug? Using a well defined process instead of looking everywhere, can change the issue resolution process.
Everything Bad in Java is Good for You
Nulls & checked exceptions are often promoted as bad things in Java, this isn't the case. Both carry significant advantage over …
Not a Single Trace
Observability is an orchestra, not a single instrument. By combining multiple data points we form an accurate production narrative.
Debugging Tips and Tricks: A Comprehensive Guide
Master the art of debugging with strategies like Rubber Ducking, leveraging tools, and systematic checklists. Turn challenges into puzzles!
The Systemic Process of Debugging
Explore the academic theory of the debugging process, focuse on issue tracking, team communication & the balance of unit to integration …
Eliminating Bugs Using the Tong Motion Approach
Delve into a two-pronged strategy that streamlines debugging, enabling developers to swiftly pinpoint and resolve elusive software glitches.
The Evolution of Bugs
Unlock the secrets of debugging in software development. Dive deep into state bugs, thread issues, race conditions, and performance …
It's 2AM Do you Know What Your Code is Doing?
There's a newer approach to developer observability that helps with deeper understanding. Learn how code works in production, not in theory.
Debugging as a Process of Isolating Assumptions
When looking at a vast project, how do we know the direction to narrow assumptions during debugging? When should we backtrack and rethink?
Is OpenJDK Just a Drop-In Replacement?
What are the pitfalls in replacing OracleJDK with OpenJDK? Simon Ritter has some interesting observations in his free new book.
Can't Reproduce a Bug?
"It works on my machine" is not an excuse. Sometimes we have bugs that we can't reproduce or understand. How do we investigate these bugs?
Building for Failure: Best Practices for Easy Production Debugging
Applications fail, that's inevitable. Testing, QA, CI and defensive programming can make this a rare occurrence, but can't eliminate …
GraphQL, JavaScript, Preprocessor, SQL and more in Manifold
In the final installment of the Manifold series we discuss the final integrations, review the benefits, and discuss using it in a project.
How to Share Your Work With a Video or Podcast
Learn about the experiences of creating podcasts and how you can share your work in a video with a small (or bigger) budget.
Understanding Security Vulnerabilities: Preventing Attacks
What are the common vulnerabilities we need to be aware of? How do they look & how can we better protect ourselves from these common …
Manifold vs. Lombok: Enhancing Java with Property Support
Two decades ago we worked on properties in Java. Lombok filled in that gap. Manifold aims to solve this same problem. Is it ready?
Operator Overloading in Java
Write expressions like (bigDecimalMap[ObjKey] * 5 > 20) in Java. Manifold makes that happen. Expressions like "var distance = 5 mph * 3 hr"!
Java String Templates Today
String manipulation is improving (JEP 430), but Manifold can help us now. Even on JDK 8, it goes further with a sophisticated template …
Revolutionize JSON Parsing in Java with Manifold
Parsing JSON in Java (and other formats) can be as easy as in JS. It can do much more while keeping the type-safety and deep IDE …
Logging Best Practices Revisited
Join me for a livestream discussion on logging and how observability shouldn't just be the forte of DevOps. Logs are more than debug prints.
Spring Boot Debugging with Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP)
Does your app fail CI tests "sometimes"? Does it display flaky behavior? Did you add many logs trying to solve it? There's a better way: …
Relearning Java Thread Primitives
"Synchronized" was revolutionary and still has great uses. But it's time to move to newer thread primitives and rethink our core logic.
Boldness in Refactoring!
"Don't touch it, it works" is problematic. It leads us down a bad path. How do you handle a project that held that policy for years?
DevOps For Developers: Continuous Integration, GitHub Actions
When it is done badly, the CI process can turn this amazing tool into a nightmare. CI should make our lives easier, not the other way …
Watch Area and Renderers
Stop digging through variables in the watch to find nuggets of gold, or rerunning the expression evaluation. Use entity renderers instead.
DevOps for Developers - Introduction and Version Control
Improving our DevOps skills can help us become better developers, team mates, and managers. Learn DevOps principles and advanced git!
Java Serialization Filtering: Prevent 0-day Security Vulnerabilities
Simple configuration that requires no code change can save you from hacks such as Log4Shell, & from vulnerabilities we don't know about yet!
Is it Time to go Back to the Monolith?
Modern modular monoliths (and Moduliths) are redefining the monolithic architecture. Pick the best of both worlds with the hybrid approach.
Foojay Podcast #14: Debugging Tools and Skills for Fun and Profit
Let's talk about debugging and observability. We work with debugging all the time, but how well do we know this common practice?
What are you Missing by Debugging in VS Code?
16 missing features in the VS code debugger that are available in IntelliJ. Are they worth switching your main IDE? Detailed lists and …
Remote Debugging Dangers and Pitfalls
Debugging over the network using JDWP isn't hard. However, there are risks that aren't immediately intuitive and some subtle solutions!
Memory Debugging - a Deep Level of Insight
It isn't just about memory leaks. Understanding how RAM is used and its content provides insight into the app you can't get in any other …
Debugging Threads and Asynchronous Code
Track thread race conditions, figure out deadlocks, and understand the flow of asynchronous applications (even in custom code).
Debugging Streams and Collections
Java 8 streams improved readability and provide great debugging opportunities. There are amazing tools for inspecting collections and …
The Massive Hidden Power of Breakpoints
Learn about tracepoints (AKA logpoints) how exception breakpoints don't suck, watchpoints, filters & why method breakpoints are problematic.
Debugging Program Control Flow
Control flow is more than step over. You can "jump" to arbitrary code offsets while debugging to reproduce elaborate states and behaviors!
Debug Like a Senior Developer
New online course is launching with the first video ready to view. More are coming in the coming months, also the book is ready for …
SpringOne TLV World Tour Trip Report
Got a chance to meet & talk to many interesting members of the Spring team and hear about updates to Spring 6 & Spring Boot 3 in my home …
Why I Don't do TDD
Test Driven Development puts emphasis on unit over integration tests. The result can be lower quality featuring bugs baked into the product.
You’re Doing It Wrong — Recruiting a DevRel
Hiring a developer relations/advocate is difficult. It's even harder to be the first DevRel in the company.
Internal Security: Hardening Internal Systems
Security is at odds with productivity and team cohesion. It doesn't have to be. There's a balance that mitigates external and internal risk
API Mocking: Essential and Redundant
Is API mocking in unit tests important or does it do nothing? The answer is nuanced but we do need such tests to reduce daily churn.
Observability is Cultural
To leverage observability, we need a significant shift in our corporate culture that encapsulates the entire company and goes beyond tools.
When Breakpoints Don't Break
Tracepoints, also known as Logpoints, are gaining name recognition. But some still don't know about the non-breaking breakpoints family.
The Reason Java is Still Popular
Java has maintained its popularity for such a long period of time: its conservative, slow, and steady approach is key to its success
Great Time at JavaZone 2022
JavaZone is my favorite Java conference. I like it even more than JavaOne at Moscone! Great to be back to enjoy great content, food & …
Open Source Bait and Switch
When OSS advocacy goes too far and corporate greed takes over. FOSS is used as a tool to destroy competition and hurt the dev community.
Serverless is the New Timeshare
Remember mainframes? Serverless is that: we own the machine and you rent out time on our big iron. We went full circle on progress...
Migrating Monoliths to Microservices in Practice
Not another "break down the monolith" article, this article is about making the applicable decisions, measuring, and verifying the results!
External Debugging Tools 3: JMXTerm
Monitor your application in production and locally. Understand what's going on under the hood while debugging & changing settings on the …
Bridge the DevOps/Dev Gap without Sacrificing Reliability
DevOps revolutionized our industry. CI & CD made six sigma common. Still bugs make it to production past our tests. Fixing them is harder …
When Disaster Strikes: Production Troubleshooting
Production is failing and everything is lost? That used to be the case. Fail whale, hysteria and panic. Developer observability fixes this!
External Debugging Tools 1: dtrace and strace
With these tools, track bugs within an application and its external dependencies without the source or deep knowledge of the environment!
Understand the Root Cause of Regressions with Git Bisect
Your git fairy godmother will test and locate bugs for you with a swish of her magic wand. All you need are the magic words: "git bisect".
The Cost of Production Blindness
Cloud rose to fame on the banner of cutting costs but with its tremendous growth, spend is rocketing. Learn how you can cut down overspend!
Debugging Java Collections Framework Issues in Production
Outside of the language itself, collections are the most basic building block for Java applications. How do we expose them for debugging?
Debugging Gson, Moshi and Jackson JSON Frameworks in Production
Parsing is a major source of production failures. Some are easy to track but some are insidious. Here's how you can debug them on the fly!
Understand Source Code – Deep into the Codebase, Locally & Production
Learn a new codebase by diving into it with debuggers to understand the full extent of internal semantics and interactions in the project.
Spring Boot Performance Workshop with Vlad Mihalcea
Learn how to improve the performance of a Spring application and diagnose production problems. Lessons from our live workshop covering JPA!
Debugging jsoup Java Code in Production Using Lightrun
Scraping is a fragile discipline. As a workaround, we often use a server. Debugging these issues is remarkably difficult. Or at least it …
Remote Debugging and Developer Observability
Connect to remote processes to solve bugs using remote debugging and observability. Learn how to securely scale debugging to match growth!
Debugging the Java Message Service (JMS) API using Lightrun
Due to their asynchronous nature and production complexities debugging messaging systems is remarkably hard... WAS remarkably hard...
Memory Debugging and Watch Annotations
RAM profiling has its strengths and weaknesses. The Debugger is a complementary tool to translate obtuse statistics to actionable changes!
Debugging Deadlocks and Race Conditions
Threading issues are a piece of cake with these simple debugger techniques. Yes, you CAN debug threads with breakpoints!
How To Modernize Legacy Code in Production
Rewriting applications is easy. Doing it while preserving compatibility... that's a bit hard. Doing it live in prod. That's the big …
Spring Transaction Debugging in Production with Lightrun
We use annotations to denote transactional behavior in modern Spring, so we have no code, no failure, no debugging... But is this true?
Debugging Collections, Streams, and Watch Renderers
Inspecting the data in the watch quickly is key to a fast and effective debugging session. Here's how you can see the data that's important!
Exception Breakpoint that Doesn't Suck and Other Use Cases
Dial your debugging skills to 11 by leveraging some of the lesser known capabilities for debugging highly complex systems such as filters!
Logging Best Practices: MDC, Ingestion, and Scale
Where should you add logs in a method? Should you log in this method? If so what should you include in the log? How to phrase the message?
Debugging JAXB Production Issues
Failures in XML parsing can happen in production when the source data changes. These are notoriously hard to debug... At least until now...
Spring Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
A new issue impacting Spring Core on Java 9 and newer could be the next Log4J. Here's what I know so far (mitigation and investigation).
Debugging Java Equals & Hashcode Performance in Production
Hashcode and equals are at the crux of many hard to nail down Java performance issues. Here's how to track these in production!
Debugging Race Conditions in Production
Debugging race conditions is hard, unfortunately production environments are especially problematic for these kinds of problems!
The Basics of Breakpoints you Might not Know
We work with debuggers practically every day & yet so much remains unknown. We’re operating this complex tool while using 4 basic features
Developer Observability, KoolKits and Reliability
Interview with Lightruns Tom Granot about developer observability, how it's different? K8S, KoolKits and kubectl debug.
Detect, Track, Verify Security Issues & 0-Days
Learn about major milestones in app security: finding the issue, evaluating a breach, proving it, and validating the fix!
Java Return Value, IntelliJ Jump to Line
Posted two new videos in the "140 Second Duckling" series. They cover some basic and some little-known features of debuggers. Such as …
OSS Debugging Toolkits for Kubernetes
New OSS approach for debugging live applications - right from inside your IDE or terminal window, and without stopping the live application.
Enter the Cloud Native Dojo: Blackbelt-Level Debugging
In this article, I want to go over three challenges we face when debugging modern applications: polyglot, unreproducible, data pollution.
What is Debugging in 140 Seconds
I’m launching a new Twitter video series that will focus on teaching the concepts of debugging (and other concepts) in small video bites
Detect and Fix Memory Leaks in Managed Languages
Java and JavaScript are garbage collected languages. But memory leaks can still plague them. How to avoid, detect, and fix heap problems?
Polyglot Cloud Native Debugging: Beyond Logs/APM
Continuous observability can facilitate a new generation of applications that will change the customer experience and yours.
Debugging RAM: Java Garbage Collection - Java Heap Deep Dive (Part 1)
Memory usage is one of the most important aspects for devs in general and Java SE devs in particular. GC tips, tricks, internals, and more!
Hashcode and Equals: Debugging and Performance
Standard Java methods hashcode & equals are crucial to performance but this is very hard to detect as they're often too small for profilers.
Fail-Fast Reliable Software Strategy. Debug Failures Effectively
A broken kitchen appliance leads me down the path of intelligent failure, downside risk, exponential growth and Cloud computing!
Debugging the Technical Interview: Methods and Cheating
Can you cheat in a technical interview? This approach for hiring tuned over decades is how you moneyball hiring and work with great people!
Developer Productivity Masterclass: Interview With Leonid Blouvshtein
Are the problems startups run into different from the ones experienced by Netflix, Hashicorp and Meta? Learn about increased productivity!
Book Review: “Effortless Cloud-Native App Development Using Skaffold”
Skaffold is a cloud native open source framework from Google that lets SpringBoot devs build Kubernetes apps easily and deploy effortlessly!
Customer Miscommunication Leads to Ongoing Nightmare
We can see production disasters from miles away. Bad communication, missing skills, immature technological choices create ongoing disasters.
Book Review: Why Programs Fail by Andreas Zeller
The book provides the theoretical infrastructure needed for the quality process. Viewed as a tutorial it’s pretty good for students!
Production Horrors - Handling Disasters: Public Debrief. Handling failures
Just in time for Halloween failures in production are scarier than most movie monsters. Here's a personal scary story of a production …
Debugging Tutorial 1 – Introduction: Conditional Breakpoints & Set Value
Debug conditional breakpoints, setValue, and more, for VSCode, IntelliJ/IDEA, PyCharm, WebStorm, Java, JavaScript (NodeJS), Kotlin & Python.
PSA: The Risks of Remote JDWP Debugging: It's Like a Wide Open Door
Java Debug Wire Protocol (a.k.a. JDWP) was designed for testing internally. Opening it to production is a HUGE security and stability …
Understand Stack Traces and how you can Debug Better With them
When we get an exception stack, it can often contain the solution for our problem. But in more than one case, it's the edge of a thread...
Debug Real World Applications using a Systemic Proven Process
Debugging isn't a part of curriculum, it's a crucial skill we're expected to "just pick up". Here we fill in the blanks on this black art!
Debugger Checklist: Bug Solving Process
A methodology of working with debuggers to solve almost any bug. This focuses on IntelliJ & Java but applies to almost all languages/IDEs.
8 Debugging Tips for IntelliJ IDEA Users You Never Knew Existed
8 proven debugger tips for developers. Improve debugging in IntelliJ IDEA. Learn advanced data collection, from breakpoints to new features!