Akbar Exzoost Is Opensource Now August 9th, 2007
I started to make this software 3 years ago (November 2004). You can check about Exzoost in its project website. I always want to try Berlios opensource hosting. So I decided Exzoost is a good candidate. This is the first commercial software I developed. You know, everything first is always special.
From technical perspective, Exzoost is a java swing gui software. I developed it with Netbeans. Back in November 2004, the stable version of Netbeans was 3.6. But Netbeans version 3.6 was so ugly. So I used Netbeans 4.0 beta (I forgot the beta version). Every time Netbeans is released with new version, I upgraded Exzoost project to use new version of Netbeans.
I used PostgreSQL database. I regretted a little for this decision. I admit it. PostgreSQL is superior database but it is a server type database. I should use embedded database, something like McKoy, Apache Derby, sqlite or HSQLDB. The installation of PostgreSQL is painful for ordinary user. Off course, I could install it for her but she is in far far away location. So it is remote support. It is really painful to explain how to install PostgreSQL for ordinary user.
Another mistake is I connected directly to PostgreSQL through JDBC. I did not use SQL abstraction. I should use something like iBabtis or Hibernate.
Another mistake is I did not use Unit Testing. I have learned it that time but I thought the concept is too complicated. Writing tests is so boring task.
But I am really proud with Exzoost. I have learned many things. One of important lesson is refactoring. Refactoring technique is valuable.
Exzoost is not complete yet for opensource project. I still must write English documentation (the available documentation is Exzoost manual in Bahasa Indonesia and basic Readme in English) and convert the schema using Indonesia names to English names.