Following a speech two days ago, I'm struck by how very little we use the Unified Modeling Language (UML) on our software projects. Occasionally I'll create some activity diagrams to model how users get their tasks done, but that's about it. Typically when we create a software requirements specification this is what we deliver:

Here's a link to a Code Kata site. It discusses the importance of practice in the software industry. It seems like the basic theory is "If musicians and athletes believe that practice is extremely important, why don't developers (and organizations that develop software)?"

At the moment I'm not aware of any software organization that takes time out for skills practice, unless training on new products or languages counts ... and I don't think it does. Kudos.

Java array FAQ: Can you share some examples of how to create arrays in Java (Java object arrays)?

While I generally work with lists and maps in Java, I occasionally need to create object arrays in Java. Since I don't use arrays that often, I thought I'd share some examples here so I can have a handy Java array syntax reference.

A simple Java String array

I work with the String class a lot, and here's how to create a String array in Java:

grep multiple patterns FAQ: How can I use the Linux grep command to grep multiple patterns (or grep multiple strings) with one command?

A little while ago I needed to search for all files in a CVS repository that contain multiple character patterns. That is, I wanted to be able to grep multiple patterns in multiple files. In my case the patterns I was looking for were the strings "prevayl" and "jtable".

I don't write much in the way of business application code any more, but if I did, I would generate Java code like crazy.

Think about it, whenever you write database-driven applications, one common denominator is that every database driven project has the database design completed before you start coding. And then, once you start coding, I'll bet 80% of the code is related to what I call CRUD ("create, read, update, delete") functionality.

And you know what -- you can generate this Java database code, either statically, or more powerfully, dynamically.