I just discovered SQLCreator, an interesting looking Java-based SQL client. Apparently, the goal of this application is to aid developers, and it includes many features that allow developers to search for tables by column name, etc. It is free for personal and commercial use, but there is a small advertising message area at the bottom - sounds fair enough to me. I’ll definitely check it out, although I’m currently happy enough with the free version of DbVisualizer....
Microsoft has launched their Resources for Java Developers website. In addition to some interoperability guides for Java and .NET, it mainly includes a long article titled The C# Programming Language for Java Developers. I have only briefly skimmed it so far, but it looks like it provides a nice introduction into C# for Java developers. Of course, one should expect this article to be somewhat biased, but it does not appear to be too bad....
Bruce Tate, the author of Bitter Java and the upcoming Better, Faster, Lighter Java, published an interesting blog entry on mountain biking and J2EE. He definitely has some very good points, as J2EE has been getting more and more complex since its inception. Lightening up by using some of the simpler, often open source solutions, sounds like a very good idea to me…
Another useful link: Java-Source.Net is a nice collection of open source Java software. It appears to be very complete.
A blurb in the Javalobby newsletter mentioned the Napkin Look and Feel. The purpose behind this is to visually indicate that an application is just a prototype and nothing more, in order to prevent managers from assuming that an application is almost complete when they see a nice-looking prototype. I have to say this is rather ingenious, and I am sure many developers have been in this situation before. Too bad I don’t usually do any client side development....