Vert.x links

ECMAScript 6/7 on the JVM with TypeScript and Vert.x

Following the latest releases of Vert.x 3.2 and vertx-lang-typescript 1.1.0 I figured it would be a good idea to give you a couple of examples how teaming Vert.x and TypeScript helps you use ECMAScript 6 and 7 features on the JVM today.

The vertx-lang-typescript library adds TypeScript support to Vert.x 3. TypeScript is a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript. It supports the ECMAScript 6 (ECMAScript 2015, ES6) standard and also a few parts of ECMAScript 7 (ES7) already.

The library automatically compiles Vert.x verticles written in TypeScript to JavaScript and executes them on the JVM. vertx-lang-typescript also provides type definitions for the Vert.x JavaScript API. Use them in your favourite TypeScript editor/IDE to get auto-completion, API documentation and meaningful error messages.

Interview with Tim Fox About Vert.x 3, the Original Reactive, Microservice Toolkit for the JVM

Vert.x is a reactive, microservices toolkit for the JVM, that provides an asynchronous, scalable, concurrent services development model. It supports polyglot language development with first class support for JavaScript, Ruby, Groovy, Scala, and of course Java.
InfoQ got a chance to catch up with Tim Fox, the creators of Vert.x and the Vert.x lead architect to get his thoughts on Vert.x in general and the upcoming Vert.x 3 release.
Tim explains how Vert.x compares to Java EE, Spring, Akka, and explains how Vert.x is a good fit for microservices, reactive development.

InfoQ: What is Vert.x and why would someone pick it instead of a traditional Java stacks like Servlets or Java EE or Spring?Tim: Vert.x is a toolkit for writing polyglot reactive applications on the JVM. Unlike the traditional stacks its been designed from day one with microservices in mind, and it's also been designed with scalability in mind so it's almost completely non blocking (OS threads).
This is critical for many modern applications that need to handle a lot of concurrency - e.g. process a lot of messages or events, or handle a lot of connections.
Also, unlike the traditional Java stacks, Vert.x supports other languages than Java - e.g. JS, Ruby and Groovy so we don't force you to always use Java and can use the best language for the job at hand or for the skill-set of your team.
Another important point is that Vert.x is toolkit, not a container or "framework". That means you can use it within your existing application to give it the Vert.x super powers. For example you can use it within your Spring application, and many users do.

Angula 1 / Angular 2 (+ Typescript)

Introducing AngularJS to Java Developers

Ext JS, YUI, and Dojo represent feature-complete frameworks. AngularJS, Backbone.js, and Ember are examples of lightweight frameworks. After years of experimenting with different frameworks and libraries we decided to stick with hugely popular AngularJS by Google.

I work in a Java shop, and one of my responsibilities is to create an conduct trainings (both internal and external). Several years ago I started to work with our engineers on the curriculum introducing AngularJS to an enterprise Java developer.

The learning curve of AngularJS is not too steep for Java developers, who understand the concept of containers, dependency injections, callbacks. They must become proficient with JavaScript with its functions, closures and other good stuff.

But equally important is to be familiar with todays tooling of a productive Web developer. Here’s a short list of tools that JavaScript developers use today:

• npm – node package manager used for installing and managing development tools
• yeoman – a scaffolding tool used to generate the initial structure of an application
• bower – package manager for application dependencies
• grunt – a build automation tool
• A JavaScript testing framework

The next decision to make is how to communicate with the Java backend. Forget about JSP, servlets, and JSFs. Preparing HTML in your Java code is out of fashion. A Java server exchanges the JSON-formatted data with a single-page HTML/JavaScript front end, which use either AJAX techniques (old) or WebSocket protocol (new).

On the Java side we like to use such tried and true technologies as RESTful Web service and Java Messaging API.

When we hire a AngularJS/Java developer, we expect him to be familiar with at least 90% of all the above buzzwords. Finding such skilled software engineers may be difficult, so we’ve created a training program to prepare such a person.

By now, we’ve taught and fine-tuned this training class multiple times. The latest online version of this class consists of seven weekly training sessions (3.5 hours each) and seven consultations (from 30 to 60 min each). Programmers learn and gradually apply all of the above tools and techniques while working on the Online Auction application that has the following architecture:

We have a great feedback from people who have completed this training. But everyone says it’s challenging. And it should be. Back in the nineties a person who knew one of the programming languages plus SQL could relatively easy get a well paid job. Not anymore.

Angular 2 versus React: There Will Be Blood