Why is Netbeans So Successful

The Netbeans does not require any introduction at all. It is one of the best IDE. Many times I think upon this question "Why is Netbeans so successful?". I have now found out the answer to this question.
    The answer is very simple. To produce a quality product, you need to hear end user's feedback and implement them since the product is being developed for them. The product becomes useless if end users opinions and feedback are not listened and left unimplemented.
      Netbeans development team does the same. Every time when a new version of Netbeans is ready for release, a program called as NetCAT is conducted for all the developers (End users) to provide feedback , find bugs and to decide whether the product is ready for release or not.
      Recently Netbeans 7.1 was released and I participated in NetCAT 7.1 program. I am really glad that they listened my views and the bugs found by me were fixed. Here is the screen shot of the mail I received from Netbeans :

I had also participated in the previous NetCAT program and in that program too they listened my views. So I just want to say that Netbeans does listen our views to make a quality product and thats what makes it a successful IDE.

First NetCAT introductory chat

The NetCAT 7.1 has already started. There was an introductory skype chat for the new NetCAT participants. The meet was scheduled on 9/9/2011. I did attend the meet and I am glad to share my experience about it. If you have missed the introductory chat, don't worry. I will share the link of the chat transcript.

The meeting began at 11.30 pm (IST) and ended around 1:00 am. Many NetCAT participants joined the meet irrespective of their optimum timing as time zone differed around the globe. Around 25 NetCAT participants joined this meet. The meeting was headed by Jiri Kovalsky, NetBeans Community Manager. He is a member of NetBeans Quality Engineering (QE) team who is responsible for quality of NetBeans Debugger.  Marian Mirilovic, NetBeans Quality Engineering manager  was also present for throwing light on various important things about NetCAT and also for clearing doubts.

 So in this blog, I am sharing the brief information about the discussion of the meet. The whole chat transcript is present here : Introductory Chat Transcript

The agenda of the meet was :

1. Invitation, agenda, chat rules

2. NetCAT basics

3. Program schedule

4. Roles, expectations

5. Others: tribes, terms, CAT points

1. Invitation, agenda, chat rules   

     All the participants were invited and added to the skype meet. The rules were very simple. :D The chat was being moderated by jiri kovalsky to avoid the chaos and we were told to ask questions (if we had) immediately after the topic so that no question is left unanswered and to make chat productive.

 2. NetCAT basics : 

NetCAT stands for NetBeans Community Acceptance Testing - a program whose purpose is to get NetBeans community test NetBeans IDE and accept the new release. So actually the NetCAT is nothing else than a Beta testing program and it has become a very important part of stabilization phase. 

Importance of NetCAT : 

• NetCAT participants use bleeding edge development builds on the real-world projects in unique configurations and setups which cannot be simulated on any cost.

• providing early feedback often gives enough time to fix discovered defects prior to the final release. And it's not only about submitting bugs - many NetCAT participants also help with debugging and verification of fixes, review of documentation or even certification of milestone builds like Beta, RC or FCS!

Benifits of NetCAT :

•  NetCAT is mostly about communication. For this there is mailing list (netcat@netbeans.org) or web forum.With these channels we can discuss discovered problems with other NetCAT colleagues, ask for support (votes or reproduction), argue about priority, help each other, share knowledge etc. We can also use Wiki pages and as NetCAT participants do not have to pass through CAPTCHA verification!
• Another benefit is that we can file exception reports as bugs from the NetBeans IDE directly to Bugzilla! 
• Jiri kovalsky writes weekly status reports on Tuesdays summarizing important achievements. So your achievement gets recognition in whole world. :)

3. Program Schedule :

NetCAT program typically takes 3 months .

• First of all, Beta version of Netbeans 7.1 will be stabilized, which is planned for the end of September.Testing of NB 7.1 Beta,  will start from next week.

• Around Beta release NetCAT Tribes i.e. small teams covering certain functionalities will be created to participate in certification of milestone builds.
• After Beta, docs team will have all tutorials for 7.1 ready, requiring your review so this will be a chance to earn some CAT points. ;)
• Certification of 7.1 RC is scheduled to start on October 20. 

4. Roles and Expectaions :

• There are already over 100 subscribers on the netcat@netbeans.org list. Among this, majority is of NetCAT participants and the rest are NetBeans engineers: QE, developers, writers and few managers. 
• Click responsibilities of QE engineers to have a look at there responsibility. This is the team responsible for giving primary support - answer your questions, navigate you in Bugzilla etc.

 Expectations from NetCAT Participants:

• To file good bug reports which means to describe in detail what's wrong (including error messages) ideally with steps to reproduce, include screenshots if appropriate, attach possible exceptions or full thread dumps  if IDE is deadlocked. Also specify your working environment: NetBeans build number, version of JDK and operating system.
• To stay active, if asked for a feedback respond, if asked to provide more informations in BugZIlla please respond 

5. Others : tribes, terms, CAT points

The various Terms used during this program :

• ” FCS" is a First Customer Ship i.e. first publicly released build that passed final certification. 
• "RC" is a Release Candidate i.e. build that can potentially become FCS if its follow-up testing does not discover any showstopper. Typically first two RCs contain some P1 bugs and RC3 or RC4 get eventually released as FCS.
• "HR" stands for High Resistance mode i.e. phase of stabilization when P3 bugs are no longer being fixed and only P1 or P2 bug fix integrations are allowed.
•  "CF" abbreviation means Code Freeze i.e. point of time when codebase is considered frozen unless showstopper (P1) is found and must be fixed.
•   "Waiving" means deferring a P2 bug fix. This step is taken for P2 bugs that are serious but that cannot be easily fixed, their fix is impractical, dangerous or not easily verifiable and it simply needs more time. Such bug is waived (gets 7.1_WAIVER_APPROVED keyword) and is no longer considered as potential showstopper for the release.

NetCAT specific terms : 

• "tribes" are small teams (up to 5 members) of NetCAT participants with interest in particular feature. Their main goal is to help NetBeans QE during certifications by testing the feature in milestone candidate builds according to official test specifications. Then tribes give either Go or NoGo verdicts and release is either approved or postponed.
• Then tribes give either Go or NoGo verdicts and release is either approved or postponed.
• "CAT points" are something like virtual coins that all NetCAT participants unknowingly :) collect throughout the program depending on their activity. 
• • A bug report is worth 4 CAT points.
  • RFE is for 2.
  • one e-mail adds you 1 CAT point.
  • Most valuable are tutorial reviews (5 CAT points).
  • participation in certifications (5 CAT points per each Go/NoGo verdict)
  • surveys (5 or even 10 CAT points).
  • You can also earn extra points for something exceptional of course. 
   In the end, all points are totalled, all participants sorted and given number of best participants rewarded. See Activity comparison fromNetCAT 7.0

Then there was question answer round where doubts were asked by participants and solved by the experts. :) The detailed question and answers are available in the Chat Transcript.

So friends this was the discussion in the meet. I hope I have covered each and every point that was discussed in the meet. This would be helpful for all the newcomers of the netCAT who missed the meet.

Response To My Bugs

Whenever a new version of Netbeans is released, the new release contains the enhanced features and bugs resolution. So the new Netbeans 7.0 contains new features and bug resolution. In my earlier post, Experience about NetCAT 7.0 , I have told you about my contributions and bugs i filed.

           So in this post, i would like to share that the bugs filed by users are heard and worked upon. When the bugs are resolved, the reporter of the bug is notified after the final release. Here is the screen shot of the mail sent. It really feels good to have the problem resolved. :)

NetCAT 7.0 Experience

 NetCAT 7.0 Experience was the most wonderful experience I ever had. I came to know about this program through NUG nagpur. When I first heard about this program, I was very excited to be a part of this program. I always used netbeans for developing programs. Netbeans is one of the best Editors for making applications easily. I was excited to know what Netbeans team do to make such a great product. So all this excitement pulled me towards NetCAT.

                      The NetCAT program was coordinated by Jiri Kovalsky. He is a great coordinator and managed the entire program very well. He gives credit even for the small contribution made by the participants. Every week, jiri publishes the weekly report containing the activities of the week. It feels great to have our name mentioned in the weekly report describing the contributions made. Here is one of the status report by jiri : Status report 12 .

                    I was a part of the API support Tribe, headed by Tushar Joshi sir. Tushar sir managed the tribe well. Here we had to test the netbeans platform. The test cases were divided among all the tribe members. I tested TS_61_project  test specification & the report of the tests were TS_61 result.
                  Apart from testing the test specifications there were several other tasks which I did which includes review of documentation, verifying the fixed bugs, reporting other bugs which I encountered while developing other applications.

Bugs Filed : 

 I had filed 14 bugs in this program. Some of them were :

• Exception Thrown while closing the file
• Class Not Found Exception
• Wrong information Shown
• Slow performance while opening a file

 All the activities which were done by the participants contained some CAT points. The tasks included : emails sent over the mailing list, number of bugs filed, rfes, documentation review, completion of survey. These CAT points were earned by each of the participants. Based on these CAT points, all participants were ranked accordingly. I am glad that i was ranked 4th among all the 119 participants :) .The ranking of all the participants can be viewd here : NetCAT ranking.

            I was even nominated as the best team member by the Netbeans team for Extensive help with Java ME tutorials check for NB 7.0 

This was my first experience for the NetCAT and it was really the best experience so far. Well whatever I have achieved was not possible without the help of Tushar Joshi sir. I was totally new to this program and whenever I had doubt regarding anything, I contacted him, and sir happily guided me. With great experience in this program, i am looking forward for the next NetCAT .

NetBeans IDE 7.0 released

The NetBeans IDE is an award-winning integrated development environment available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris. It enables developers to rapidly create web, enterprise, desktop, and mobile applications using the Java platform, as well as PHP, JavaScript and Ajax, Groovy and Grails, and C/C++.

The New Version of the NetBeans is out with better efficiency and quality.
You can download your copy of NetBeans from official NetBeans site.

Some of the Interesting and new Highlighting features of NetBeans are : 

JDK 7 Project Coin support Editor enhancements: Code completion, hints WebLogic Server Streamlined and faster deployment to WebLogic New server runtime node displaying deployed applications and resources JSF integration with server libraries Oracle Database Simplified connection wizard Guided installation to JDBC driver Editing and deployment of stored procedures
GlassFish GlassFish 3.1 support Domain restart and log viewer for remote GlassFish Enable and disable deployed applications Java Maven 3 support JUnit 4.8.2 integration and various JUnit improvements Remote HTTP URLs supported for Javadoc in libraries and Java platforms New improved visual customizer for GridBagLayout Java EE Improved support for CDI, REST services and Java Persistence New support for Bean Validation Support for JSF component libraries, including bundled PrimeFaces library Improved editing for Expression Language in JSF, including code completion, refactoring and hints
Web Languages HTML5 editing support JSON formatter PHP Generate PhpDoc Rename refactoring, Safe Delete Refactoring PHP 5.3 - Support for aliases C/C++ Easy import of project from user's existing binary New Project type where user's source files are located on remote system NetBeans Platform Annotations for generating Action registrations in the layer Performance enhancements & tight integration with Profiler Additional NetBeans API changes General Word wrap in Editor Enhanced Profiler integration Less intrusive checking for external changes when switching between the IDE and other programs.  Download Link : NetBeans download page link

Filing Bugs in Bugzilla

Hi friends,
I Recently tested TS_65_Appisupport_Sanity Test specifications for netbeans 7.0 beta version. While performing these test cases, I encountered few bugs. So inorder to report these bugs to the netbeans developers, we need to enter these bugs to the bugzilla.

Following steps can be taken to report a bug :

• Login to netbeans site.
• Go to Enter bug page.
• Click on appropriate module. For example, since I am testing for api support, i will click on apisupport  link. 

• Select the appropriate component from the component list. Component specify a NetBeans module in which the error occurred.

• Then select the version of the netbeans in which bug occurred.
• Then select the platform and OS.
• Select the priority of the bug. If u are not sure of the priority of the bug, then select P3.
• The CC option is optional which is a space-separated list of netbeans.org login names who are notified about subsequent changes of an issue.
• In summary field, just enter the brief title which shortly describes the type of bug. The summary should be 1 line title and not more than that.
• Now Enter description of the bug. Description is a detailed description of the problem. The description should possibly include all information needed to reproduce the problem

•  If you have taken any snap shot of the bug or have log files of the bug, then click on "Add an attachment" button.

•  browse for the attachment file, enter its brief description and then provide the type of the attachment by selecting one of the 3 radio buttons. If the attachment is Image/ HTML / XML / Binary file then select on "select from list : " radio button and from the combo box, select an appropriate type of attachment.

•   Click on Commit when done.  :)

Bugs Filed By me :

• Exception on closing files
• JDK bug while chosing platform folder.
• deactivation of button even after clearing invalid text.

Useful Tips for Reporting a bug :

• Always take a snapshot of the bug which may act as a proof of the bug and attach the snap shot while reporting a bug.
• Mention the link of the test cases : The link of the test cases you followed.
• Mention the build number of the netbeans IDE.
• Add [70CAT] in the bug name . This will signify that the bug is filed for the 7.0 version of the IDE.
• Add lots of information about the bug so that anyone can reproduce that bug.

Oracle Netbeans Platform Training

Oracle conducted NetBeans Platform training on 27th and 28th nov at Infospectrum, nagpur. There were total 17  developers who attended the meet from nagpur, India.

The training was given by Geertjan Wielenga, Principal Product Manager, Oracle Inc through skype and webex. The training was being conducted simultaneously in India, Canada and TOGO. It was the awesome training we had for two days to get familiar with the netbeans platform.

I am really thankful to sir Tushar Joshi, founder and leader of NUG nagpur group for organizing this wonderful training and also sir Geertjan Wielenga, who spent his valuable time for this training in-spite of the busy schedule in weekend.

The day 1 of training was about netbeans platform introduction and architecture with some of the examples. The next day we learned the basics about other apis which can be used in netbeans platform for enhancing the application functionality and also how modular our application can be made using the netbeans.
This training for me was really awesome. Even though I attended the training late, but whatever i attended was really a great help for me to carry on and explore the platform more. And i understood the concepts told by sir.

Here you can find the experience of other members on this training.
Ameya, Atul,  Hrushikesh,


here are the pics of the training :

Group Photo

My next goal is to be a netbeans certified engineer. This can be done by creating a small plugin in the netbeans platform.


Guys if you are really passionate about the netbeans platform and want training on this platform,  join NUG Nagpur group and be active on our mailing list.
Nugnagpur is ready to welcome all the passionate users for the netbeans.

NetCAT

NetBeans Community Acceptance Testing program (NetCAT)  

Is a testing initiative by Netbeans IDE community. The goal of this program is to get active NetBeans community members involved in testing the NetBeans IDE development builds. We just have to provide feedback on product usability, quality and performance. In return, these volunteers are given an opportunity to significantly influence the quality of NetBeans IDE.

For more information, visit the Netcat site

It is a good opportunity for us to actually get through the Netbeans code and work on it to improve the quality of the Netbeans IDE.

Reading on this netcat program, I was attracted with this testing program and decided to contribute in netcat. I dint know how to and where to start from and I am really thankful to Tushar Joshi sir, who helped me and guided me for this program.

So to start with the testing program, we first need to know the test cases which are given to us for testing . The test cases for all the versions of Netbeans are given here : Test cases for all Netbeans versions. But All the testcases specific for Netbeans 7.0 are here.

Now the question arises that how to test netbeans? You can test netbeans for the given test specifications and other than those test specifications on the daily nightly build version of netbeans.

You can find and download the nightly build version of netbeans from www.netbeans.org site. Here is the link : Nightly Build Netbeans.

I’ll keep on telling you my experience on it soon as I come across a new things.

Code Templates in Netbeans

The code template feature of netbeans allows us to quickly write the frequently used code.

It is like the abbreviation that gets expanded to its long form on using that abbreviation. So in this article I will tell you some of the code templates that are already defined in the Netbeans, which are frequently used and the one which are useful and I will also tell you how to create our own code templates.

Before knowing the default code templates in Netbeans, we should first know how to use the code templates.

So suppose we want to use the code template for Boolean.  The abbreviation used is bl. So to write Boolean we just need to write bl and then press TAB. So as soon as TAB is pressed, the Netbeans will write the complete Boolean word for you.  

Netbeans is an intelligent editor which on expanding automatically identifies the variable on which the code is to be written. For example for the” for each” loop, the abbreviation used is fore. So whenever fore and TAB is pressed, it will automatically write the for each loop for you and it will automatically find the the variables for which you are writing that loop. So it is an intelligent  editor.

Here are some of the code templates :

• en = Enumeration
• ex =Exception
• ob = object
• pf = public final
•  
• pfm = this will write the method structure as :

            Public final void method()

{

}

• pm = this expand the abbreviation as

                Public void method

                {

                }

• ps=public static
• psf public static final
• st = String
• al = to create a new array list.
• bl = Boolean
• br =break
• dowhile = it will expand this abbreviation for do while loop
• for = for loop
• fore = for each loop
• trycatch = it will expand it to try catch block
• psvm= this will write main method.
• sout = this will expand to “System.out.println(“”);
• soutv=this is used when we want to print the values of variables. So this will be expanded to

                System.out.println(“variableName=”+variableName);

                So this will automatically take the variable name and will write the code as above.

So these were the templates already present in Netbeans. Now suppose we want to create our own templates. So how to do? How to create our own templates.

I will show you how to create it.

Go to Tools->options.

No go to editor tab and then select code template.

The window will look like :

         (click on image to enlarge)

This will show you the list of all the code templates present.

Now to add the new template, click on new and enter the abbreviation. And click on OK. Now in the expanded text area, write the code you want to be expand on writing that abbreviation.

 Below you can see a combo box named “Expand template on”. This combo box lets you decide when to expand the text. Here default tab is selected. This means that whenever you will press TAB, your abbreviated code will be expanded.

Click on Ok to save the newly created template.

Selecting the browser for web application in Netbeans.

By default, whenever we run the web application in netbeans, it chooses the system selected default web browser for running the web application. But there may b case where we need to test a particular web application on some other browser other than the default one.

So following will help you to choose the particular browser for testing web application.

Go to Tools -> options. You will see the following dialogue box:

Now click on the “web browser “ combo box to see the list of the browsers installed and available to chose.

 

Select the desired browser and  click on OK.

You can also specify the arguments if u want to give along with the broser. Click on “edit” button besides web browser combo box. Here is the screenshot of it :

 

now just run you web application and you will see that you web application is opened in the browser you have selected. ::)