After coming to the disappointing conclusion that I cannot, at this time, pursue building my NAS device from scratch, I’ve turned toward another long contemplated and frequently revisited project. For quite some time I’ve dabbled with various Java based functionality, such as db4o, Scala and RCP frameworks, and have been toying with some ideas to implement a useful application from scratch.

I know it is pretty sad that a professional software developer of 7 years is psyched about creating an application from scratch, but most of my development work involves configuring and/or extending existing applications purchased from third party vendors, identifying and fixing bugs in code others have written, addressing performance issues, and interfacing multiple enterprise applications. I have done very little UI development, and most of that has been for web applications.

Standing at the start of my desktop application exploration, I realize my first goal is to implement something simple and useful with an expandable design. The tool needs to be useful to keep my interest, otherwise the application will be yet another academic exercise. The simple but useful feature provides the bait that leads me along, but by having an extensible design, adding additional features becomes incremental growth instead of titanic rewrites and redesigns. So, I have the following thoughts:

1. The application should run on the JRE and use the Scala programming language for at least part of the functionality. I am learning to love functional programming, but haven’t applied it to any practical application yet.
2. If using a database, I would like to use db40 instead of a relational database. A lot of the stuff that slows down development with a database goes away when the Java class IS the database schema. No dual implementation (Java class and relational schema) or mappings are required. Of course, I may be better off persisting my data as flat files.
3. I should standardize on a single IDE (Eclipse or NetBeans), as this is primarily a single developer effort, and trying to develop in two different IDEs would require a lot of overhead. Unfortunately, this adds limitations to the technology I can use for development. For example, Scala only has a plug-in supporting Eclipse, I am more familiar with Eclipse’s features, I like the idea of learning more about OSGI, and I like the responsiveness of SWT vs. Swing. On the flip side, only NetBeans has Matisse (for free anyway), the profiler seems nicer, RCP appears to be easier, I’m more familiar with the Swing API, I like the idea of a single distribution for all machines (SWT requires different DLLs), and I LOVE the mercurial plug-in.
   
4. I don’t expect this code will be opened for general availability, but I should take legal considerations (GPL, LGPL, EPL, BSD, etc.) into account when choosing libraries. Otherwise, the conflicting licenses could become prohibitively difficult to work around.
5. I would like to leverage a multi-document interface (MDI), at least optionally, with tabs that can be reordered, maximized to full screen, closed with middle button click, and possibly minimized to border buttons.
6. Ideally, data could be replicated between machines with ease, as I would like to use the application on my home and work machines. This, of course, requires multi-platform functionality, as my work laptop runs Windows XP while my home machine runs Ubuntu Linux. (Gosh how I wish I could run Ubuntu at work too…)

Clearly, I have more to think about before choosing an IDE. As for the applicaiton’s features, I’ve considered the following:

1. A secure password store
2. A wiki style notebook similar to Tomboy Notes for Linux. I found that taking notes in ASCII with a markup “language” like markdown worked quite well. The file’s name contains the timestamp of when the file was created, and all context of what the note was about is contained within. When the file is stored in the file system, the operating system’s indexing tool can be leveraged for searches, and the application can manage categorization in a flexible way. I’d like to include IDE style tab completion for internal links, syntax highlighting, daily todo list feature, hyperlinks outside the application (e.g. web pages, lotus notes documents, network share locations, etc.) and more.
3. A batch image resize tool for high quality images. I’ve actually already implemented this using the ImageJ library available in the public domain, but the GUI is a bit hackish and not robust.
4. A contact management application that leverages low level relationships. For example, a family of five may all have the same contact information while the kids are young, but as each kid gets his/her own email address, mailing address (e.g. goes to college), cell phone, etc., each individual’s contact information can be updated accordingly. Or, if the entire family moves to a new location, a single change to their mailing address node would update all family members at once. This would be a perfect application for db4o.
5. An invoicing and general business tracking application for my wife to use for her photography business. This is a nontrivial piece of functionality with the potential to grow significantly. It could be used to drive marketing, schedule photo shoots, track income and expenses and so on.

I really need to have an IDE that makes the GUI layout and interaction with the business logic clear and easy to do in order to implement all that I would like. I suspect this seem daunting mostly because it is new to me. I’m still looking for some best practices on how to layout the MVC design of the GUI, though I suspect I’ll come to a solid conclusion only after I’ve tried it.