Some of the tools I've covered are:
- Hypersonic SQL
- OGNL
- XWork
- Hibernate / EJB3 Annotations
- Spring Framework
- SWT
- JGoodies
- EventBus
- MigLayout
- XFire
- JGoodies Binding
- JIDE
Most Impressed With:
- Hypersonic SQL - Its ease to setup and has certain deployment possibilities that are not possible with another database.
- EventBus - The conceptual application of this is quite broad.
- MigLayout - Simplicity - It makes SWT and Swing layout simple.
- SWT - Binding seems horrible and JFace seems annoying to use if you dont use Eclipse. Maybe I'm not using the correct data binding frameworks or using it incorrectly. The basic component layer is incredible but the binding is severely lacking.
- OGNL - This could be applied in quite a few areas.
- EventBus - Conceptual application could simplify a few areas.
- Hibernate - Its come along way from when I last used it and the documentation is good.
- Spring - It still does what I expect of it.
- Hibernate - Its event listeners are mighty useful.
- JIDE - If only it were free. If I were developing commercial rich client projects this would be good value.
- JGoodies Binding - Admittedly, binding is a complex problem, especially when considering Swing. (After being exposed to SWT I feel that the SWT component hierarchy has a level of simplicity around which binding might be made slightly easier. I dont think it will be less complex but there would be at least one or two layers of abstraction less.)
Having listed the above, I'll go into more detail in future posts however. I still need to look at a few gaming libraries for Java (Java 3D, AI, Swing & SWT Theming, etc).