FERMAX is a Spanish company that produces Audio/Video Door Entry and Access Control Systems, using NetBeans for one critical aspect of the process. Oswaldo Rubio, who is a software developer in the FERMAX R&D department, explains to Geertjan Wielenga why the company chose the NetBeans platform for its development tasks in an interview published in NetBeans Zone.

Rubio's work is the development and maintenance of fingerprint analysis desktop software that connects to the fingerprinting hardware that FERMAX manufactures, Wielenga writes. Rubio explains that FERMAX began developing on the NetBeans IDE, which is a development environment, once the company discovered its suitability as a programing environment for small applications based on the Swing Application Framework.

Later, FERMAX developers came to appreciate the modularity of the NetBeans platform, which is a modular Swing framework, and its capability to split an application into different modules with the advantages that this implies for the maintenance and independence of the code. FERMAX creates very high-level applications by reusing modules already implemented in other applications, Rubio said.

Yet another reason for the adoption of the NetBeans platform is the update manager, which has simplified the task of maintaining version control among customers, which is accomplished by placing the modules once they have been tested on an update server.

Rubio goes on to explain how customers are able to use the modular architecture to extend the capabilities necessary to operate the four custom modules fundamental to the FERMAX solution, which are FERMAX API, IP Decoder, Serial Port, and FingerPrint Protocol, to such functions as presence control and payroll control. "Coming soon, these will be distributed and posted to all our customers, which will include new functionality that currently is still in the legacy software," he added.

Asked by Wierlanga about desirable improvements to the NetBeans platform, Rubio mentioned only the documentation associated with the project system itself, which he finds somewhat wanting. Otherwise, he said, "I think the NetBeans Platform is a development environment that, although it has a somewhat slow learning curve, enables you to implement large projects in a reasonable period of time, once you have acquired the requisite knowledge."

For his fellow developers working with the NetBeans platform, Rubio offered a tip (and the code) to avoid errors in adding missing libraries, configuration files and other external resources. In addition, he suggested using PackJacket (http://packjacket.sourceforge.net/) when building the installable, (i.e., PackJacket is a GUI frontend of the IzPack Project).

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