Remembering Memory Management with CORBA

Java is a wonderful language, especially when compared to a container native language like LotusScript. There are many more options, frameworks, design patterns you can play with. The tools for writing Java agents make the days of writing LotusScript agents seem like forever ago. Have I discovered the silver bullet in the Domino world? Is this my valhalla?

No.

Not by a long shot. Remember memory management? Yeah, it’s back. I tried writing a simple agent that processed a Domino view containing a little more than 20,000 records. The agent uses the POI framework to convert the view into an excel workbook. This is done on a nightly basis. Here’s the thing. Domino’s default heap size is 64mb. My agent was running out of memory. A simple increase in heap size got me around the issue but raised the concern that memory management is something I now need to keep my eye on when writing these Java agents. I know, I know, any (every) developer should always be thinking about memory management but Domino’s LotusScript lulled me away from the concern.

That being said, I still believe this is the way I’ll continue to write my Domino agents from this day forward. My main reason? I can write junit tests for them. A topic for another day…

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Originally published at http://jamiemcilroy.wordpress.com on January 12, 2006.