This week I’ve been working on a J2EE application for a client. I’m building a pipes and filter architecture for some batch processing (why you may ask as there are lots of open source implementaitons… well, the client’s have requirements that the open source (nor the commercial) implementations can handle).

I would usually always ensure that I test out my components carefully using unit tests. I did so here too (that is I tested out the filters carefully), however, the piping and process choreography required a JMS implementation, so I had to test my code in a deployed environment.

This turned out to be a nightmare. I found that my error-correction/time ratio dropped by about 100. It takes about 7 minutes to turn around from a code fix until I step through the debugger where I was before. Two things happen then. First, it steels time, second, the context I’ve built up by the time I found the previous bug has to be recreated.
Another fenonmen… because I always feel that I’m only this bug away from being complete, I kept on following this tedious process… well, two days later and still one bug away from completion, I realized that this could not go on.
Now I’m in the process of building a JMS/J2EE/JNDI simpulation/test environment.

I finished the parts I need to thest this code for the my client and the error correction rate is now back to normal…

Seems I can play Golf this weekend after all.