UPDATE: This tutorial is for Play 1.x (an old version). Check out my Play 2 Tutorial if you want to get started with the latest stuff.
Last week Heroku announced that you can now run Java apps on Heroku. Today Heroku announced that you can also easily run Play Framework apps on Heroku! Here’s a quick guide to getting started with Play! on Heroku:
Today Heroku announced that Java is now supported on the Heroku Cloud Application Platform! This is incredibly exciting news and I’m very lucky to be a Heroku for Java Developer Evangelist!
Joining salesforce.com and jumping into the the Java Cloud space holds some nostalgia for me. When I began using Java in 1997 I was working at an ISP in Denver. We did the regular web hosting thing, but when the first Java Servlet engines (like Java Web Server 1.0) came out, I created the “wantjava.com” hosting service. Things were really nasty at first. We could only run one instance of the JWS on a server so I came up with a really bad way to do “multi-tenancy”. I setup a cron job to rsync the customers’ .class files into the server’s webapp and then restart the server. Customers had to email me to get a servlet added to the web.xml file. Uggg… I feel like I need to go to confession for this. But it worked and as the Servlet containers improved we quickly migrated to a more sustainable model.
Have you ever thought about why in Java we package up web apps into WAR files (or WAR directory structures)? It certainly is a convenient way to move an application and its dependencies from one place to another. But wouldn’t it be nice if everything could just stay in its original location and there wouldn’t be any moving of files around? Wouldn’t it also be nice if you specified your required version of Jetty or Tomcat just like you do with every other dependency? The WAR-less approach is one that is catching on as emerging Java web frameworks like Play! ditch the WAR files. With standard Java web apps we can also ditch the WAR files by simply launching an embedded Jetty or Tomcat server. Let’s give this a try and see how it goes.
I’m very excited to be presenting at Dreamforce (salesforce.com’s anual conference) this year! On Thursday, September 1, from 1:15 pm to 2:15 pm I will be presenting:
Developing Java Cloud Apps
The cloud makes it easy to deploy highly scalable apps in an instant. This session will walk you through the steps to build your first Java app for the cloud. You’ll also learn best practices for building mission-critical and horizontally scalable Java cloud apps.
UPDATE: This is only for Play 1.x with Scala. Getting Play 2 projects (Java or Scala) working in IDEA is now as easy running “play idea” and then opening the project.
Update 2: I’ve posted a new video showing how to create and run Play2 apps in IntelliJ.
Yesterday at the [Programming Summer Camp][1] a group of us were working together to learn the [Play Framework][2]. Once we were able to get the basics working we wanted to get everything working in [IntelliJ IDEA][3]. Due to a lack of good documentation on the subject things did not go smoothly until we figured out the right “magical incantations”. We did eventually get it working so I wanted to document the steps we took.
You’ve heard it said that “all things old are new again.” That statement can certainly be applied to the current Cloud hype. But each time the old becomes new it gets a bit better because of what was learned the last time around. If we look back ten years at enterprise application development in Java things were quite different than they are today. EJB was “the way” to build scalable systems from a vast abundance of components. But things didn’t work out as well as the vendors planned.
Over the past few years I’ve attended a bunch of geek/coder events in the Colorado Mountains. It always surprises me how much I can learn by getting away, being around some really smart people, and writing code with them. So I’m incredibly excited to be attending The Programming Summer Camp 2011 this summer in Crested Butte, Colorado!
At the summer camp you can choose which campsite to hangout in. Or if you want, you can create your own campsite! I’ll probably spend most of my time in the Scala campsite. But I look forward to mingling in some of the other campsites as well.
In my new job at salesforce.com I’m incredibly exited about getting into Heroku, a Platform as a Service provider / Cloud Application Platform. In a future blog post I’ll provide more details on what Heroku is and how it works. But if you are like me the first thing you want to do when learning a new technology is to take it for a test drive. I decided to take my Heroku test drive using the recently announced Node.js support. I’m new to Node.js, but at least I know JavaScript. Heroku also offers Ruby / Rails support but I don’t know Ruby - yet. So let me walk you through the steps I took (and that you can follow) to get started with Node.js on the Heroku Cloud.
UPDATE: This event has been canceled! Sorry!
Next week I’ll be presenting in Seattle at my first Force.com Developer Meetup! It starts at 6pm on Wednesday, June 22. My session will be on Flex Mobile Development. Other sessions include Force.com Platform Basics, Native iOS Development using JavaScript, and a Force.com Hands-On Lab. It’s going to be a fun evening, so if you are in the Seattle area, then I hope to see you there!
When I started doing professional software development almost 15 years ago I was focused on the server-side. I started with Perl / CGI web apps - some of which are still in production today. Then I dove into Java web development with Java Web Server 1.0, Struts, JBoss, Tomcat and many other game changing technologies.
In 2004 I started getting into Macromedia Flex. I was amazed at how easy it was to retrieve and nicely render data from a Java back-end. In 2005 I began evangelizing Flex + Java. Following the acquisition of Macromedia by Adobe, Flex has really flourished. Adobe Flex is now the dominant RIA technology and it has been so fun to be a part of that!