rebelutionary
Mike Cannon-Brookes on Java, J2EE, OSX, Open Source, Australia, Atlassian, Bug Tracking, JIRA and more...

Wednesday, 14 August 2002

Rickard has made a resource bundle editor using Thinlets in a few hours - neato! 11:53:12 PM  comment []      Scott wrote a poem about why people create Open Source. Do not go gentle into that commercial world, Poor quality and bugs should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage and create something anew; Make it free; give it away. -- Poorly Done Mock Dylan Thomas I like it - a very well done adaptation of a very famous poem. What others can we come up with? 11:41:30 PM  comment []      Sun to fund open-source Java efforts. Sounds great right? Not so. Call me an Aussie cynic, but if Sun were really serious about this wouldn't they give the scholarships in cash? Under the new scholarship program, non-profit groups, universities and qualified individuals can apply for scholarships to help defray the costs of Sun's technical support services while undergoing the Java compatibility tests. So you get free Sun technical support (which - given you have to be implementing a JSR - are probably far worse than your own technical abilities) to pass the Java compatability tests? That's freakin' ridiculous.  6:10:00 PM  comment []      It's amazing how confluences happen at certain times. Yesterday I was chatting to Rickard about how there are no nice RSS viewers, and we decided an RSS viewer should be written that works via Java Web Start. Web Start is something I've always wanted to mess around with but never had an application for. Today, via Bob, I ran across Thinlet - a very lightweight GUI layer for creating applets and Java GUI clients. I had an hour free, so I combined them and would you believe it, ThinRSS appeared! Try it out - it's 30k and code is included for your browsing pleasure. 3:19:54 PM  comment []      I found Thinlets via Bob's blog. This is the first GUI technology in a while that's given me that "fuck me, how do they do that?!" feeling. See the overview on the website for how it's done - basically a very simple XML file defines the interface, and the call backs. Simple, beautiful, fast, free and tiny (26k library!). Wow. Checkout the Web Start AmazonBrowser. It's about 40k. That's truly awesome. 12:41:08 PM  comment []      Russell enjoyed my link love about SimpleWeb. Having looked through the code and run it yesterday, I agree it is wicked but still very 0.3! It needs a serious code cleanup (I appreciate the KISS strategy - but some of it is just damned ugly!), a Radio like HTML editor that understands it's tag syntax would rock and maybe ditch hsqldb for something like JISP? (Hint: Relying on the servlet temp directory to store database is very, very bad - some containers will clean the directory when redeploying the app - database go poof!) Oh and I had to patch it to get it working. getServletContext() is not a valid method in JSP, it's config.getServletContext(). Damn you crappy Tomcat users! 10:32:13 AM  comment []      Cafe Au Lait linked to the new versions of Jext 3.1 (a text editor), ProGuard 1.2 (a GPL'd class file shrinker and obfuscator) and JSwat 2.8 (a GPL'ed graphical, stand-alone Java debugger). 10:27:17 AM  comment []      A classic quote from the Davenet archives: "For Gates, the issue was Netscape, a tiny village camped out in tents painted to look like a fortress in a gorgeous grove in the middle of the jungle. In comes Gates with flamethrowers and tanks. Air cover and spies. After the battle the grove is no longer gorgeous. It's useful, but not so inspiring." [Scripting News] 10:18:26 AM  comment []      Many very amusing Google logo parodies. 10:15:32 AM  comment []      Maven. Maven 1.0 beta 5 has been released. Maven is a funky tool that simplifies the life of Java developers. [james strachan's musings] Given how much time I typically spend playing with build files, documentation, test/code reportings, etc, this was a major timesaver. [Joe's Jelly] I looked through the docs. Can Maven's unit test stuff be integrated and customised, like for the SiteMesh test suite? That would rock. Can you integrate it with CruiseControl? 9:48:16 AM  comment []      PSquad's Corner: So OSWorkflow 1.1 beta should be coming out any moment now. woo! But I really think it's a waste that two of the smartest guys I know (Patrick and Bob) are both working on competing Open Source Workflow solutions with such similar goals (OSWorkflow and Werkflow based on Blissed/Drools). I know competition breeds innovation, but I'd prefer a complete solution to two half solutions. Oh - but both are going to use Jelly which just proves how much James rocks I guess. (PS did you like my blog entry title? "Hi ho, hi ho - it's off to work we flow... " One of my proudest blogging puns ) 12:05:44 AM  comment []      What's all this about  pistols, Harry's, dunkin' the rebel and {@link javax.food.Pie#compareTo}? Did I get off the boat in Woolloomooloo last, or are other people confused? 12:01:31 AM  comment []