If you have the choice to use an alternative to java.util.Date you shoud look at Joda Time. Joda Time is date handling done right and is going to be used in Java 7 if I am not mistaken. We use it with good success in our project now.

We also serialize our objects using XStream which is a nice Object to XML framework which just does the trick, and for a long time we thought it was working out of the box. Last wednesday we run into a snag that after serializing Joda Time DateTime objects in one JVM and attempted to deserialize them in another it fails. After looking into it, it appears that XStream does a heroic attemt at serializing and deserializing DateTime objects, and it works fine if you are in the same JVM. Though when you do this across several JVM it fails.

To solve it I had to introduce custom serialization for DateTime and LocalDate, which serialize them into a nice formatted string insted of the internal structure of Joda Time.

I decided to bump the version number of the accounting software up to version 1.2. I've added a lot of functionality that wasn't really planned as the dance club that uses the program had needs. Always listen to your customer

When building I noticed the download count of the software was actually higher than 0. I guess that bots are downloading it. Maybe I should add a call home feature so I could find out if anyone beyond www.bardarswingclub.no is using it

PS: Link is http://code.google.com/p/accountclient/ and there should be binaries for 1.2 download of the server and the client.