March 2012 Summaries

Developers can code in various languages and still maintain compatibility with the Neo4j graph database, thanks to the abstraction provided by Spring Data Neo4j. `The author of a recent post, Jan Machacek, successfully integrated Neo4j into his Scala application using Spring Data Neo4j, overcoming some challenges along the way. `With Spring Data Neo4j, developers can leverage the benefits of object behaviors and implicits to achieve clean integration with their chosen language. `Jan's experience showcases the flexibility and versatility of Spring Data Neo4j in supporting diverse coding languages and frameworks.

Neo4j 1.7 Milestone 2 introduces several significant advances, including a new cache scheme that is GC resistant and 10x faster, targeted pattern matching in Cypher, and Debian install packages. The Atomic Array Cache (AAC) is a key innovation that prevents garbage collection from collecting anything in the cache without explicit management by Neo4j, resulting in no GC pauses when configured correctly. Additionally, Cypher now supports multiple relationship types within a single relationship segment, enabling more complex queries. The release also makes it easier to install and deploy Neo4j on Debian-based Linux distros with a simple `apt-get` command.

Flavorwocky is a clever app idea that uses coding to connect related flavors in everyday life, developed by Luanne Misquitta as part of the Neo4j Heroku Challenge. The idea came from her desire to help people find ingredients whose flavors complement each other, and she realized a graph was a good fit for this domain using Neo4j. She implemented the app using Grails 2.0, with REST calls to Neo4j, and added visualization capabilities using d3.js, resulting in an interactive tool that captures flavor pairings and allows users to search by ingredient and view complementary combinations. Luanne's recipe for success involved a simple yet clever idea, effective use of graph theory, and a user-friendly implementation, making her winning entry in the challenge.

The Neo4j Heroku Challenge was a global contest where developers from various languages submitted their projects that utilized the Neo4j graph database. The overall winner, Flavorwocky, won the most votes among the Neo4j community and received a new iPad. Several language winners also received prizes, including $100 to ThinkGeek and recognition on Coderwall for their contributions. Additionally, all participants will receive Coderwall badges in recognition of their skills. The contest was organized by the Neo4j Community Team and Heroku, with the goal of encouraging community contributions and fostering a collaborative environment.

The Cypher language continues to evolve with new concepts and minor adjustments, making it easier, more powerful, and clear. New features include literal collections, the IN predicate, HEAD, TAIL, LAST, FILTER, comments, the ! operator for missing properties, and arithmetic functions. Additionally, SSL support has been added for Neo4j server, allowing for encryption across standard HTTPS connections. The documentation has also been improved with high availability improvements, bug fixes, and updates to work with the latest stable releases of the Tinkerpop stack, including Blueprints 1.2 and Gremlin 1.5. Overall, these changes aim to make Neo4 graph database more user-friendly and secure.

To set up Neo4j with Eclipse and the Maven integration, first create a new Maven project using the default Maven quickstart archetype. Next, add the relevant Neo4j dependency to the pom.xml file by searching for "neo4j" in the dependency tab. After saving the updated pom.xml, all imported and mounted dependencies should be visible in the project. This process allows developers to easily integrate Neo4j into their Eclipse environment using Maven.

The Neo4j Heroku Challenge is a series of projects showcasing the potential of Neo4j, a graph database, in various applications. The challenge invites developers to vote for their favorite project using Twitter or by adding star ratings on Gensen. Three winning projects will receive an iPad3, and the developer with the most votes will be declared the winner. The projects include Neography on Sinatra in Ruby, D3 Followers Visualizer, Flattr what?, Flavorwocky, Frosty Mug, Lightbulb, NeoBlog, Scala Plays with Neo4j, Graphtag, Neoflix, Node-Neo4j Template, Python, Flask, Neo4j Demo App, Neo4j Grails Demo, Neo4j or Bust, NeoQuote, and Scalatra Neo4j. These projects demonstrate the versatility of Neo4j in different programming languages and frameworks, such as Ruby, Python, Scala, and Clojure.