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Sunday, 8 September 2002 |
Ed Cone: "One of the participants at the upcoming Cato Institute debate, economist James Miller, wrote an article called 'Let Hollywood Hack.'" [Scripting News]
Hmmmm
8:02:59 PM 
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From Plastic: <<Latest AI Can Play Games With Or Without You. Plastic::Games::Technology: The algorithm infers and tests basic strategies, gleaned from a history of user strategies, eventually deciding upon a single action. [Plastic]>> [[ t e c h n o c u l t u r e ]]
Cool. Maybe we can now have RTS oponents that learn how to beat you, as opposed to just stacking the deck.
8:01:17 PM
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A software development manager told me that he had a way to measure who
were his best programmers and who were his worst. [read more] [Tony Bowden: Understanding Nothing]
I get the feeling that someone hasn't read Joel's rant on measurement. Erk.
7:30:04 PM
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Wireless FUD: Spammers *could* use WiFi. ZDNet ran a story earlier this week about wireless spammers who drive up to open APs and send "millions of emails." They cited an expert, Adrian Wright.
Well, Danny did some research on this (i.e., he asked Adrian), and he discovered that Adrian had said no such thing -- rather, he'd said that spammers could send spam this way.
My guess is that as long as you can send spam from home without having to put on pants, there's no reason why you'd go through this stupid business of wardriving open wireless nodes to use as a spam launchpad.
It's amazing how many people really want to believe that open wireless is/will be a scourge on the Internet, an enabler for terrorists and child pornographers and spammers -- yet these same people utter nary a peep about the idea of libraries, Internet cafes, and kiosks in airports and conference centers that offer anonymous wireless access.
Link
Discuss [Boing Boing Blog]
A study in meme propagation by fear mongering press. Ugh.
7:00:45 PM
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Software Fortress Model.
OK...I admit it. I'm kind of liking the Software Fortress Model.
So why do I like it? Mainly because I see how it would fit very well into most enterprises today. At my current job, we have internal groups fighting over whether or not they build on top of a platform we already have in place or do they get to talk to the database directly. It is all a power play. With this model, I can say "You build what you want. We'll build what we want. Then we'll negotiate how to get my data to you." This negotiation can be a special account that we give them that has very limited access. It might be a web service, it might be .NET remoting, or it might be a good ol' fashion file that we populate and they can download it every once and awhile.
What is really cool is that I can see how a lot of what is discussed in the Software Fortress Model can be easily implemented using the plethora of WS-* specifications that are coming out. The Drawbridge could be done with WS-Routing (and WS-Referral for those trusted envoys that can have direct access to a specific guard instead of going through the main gate each time). The Guard a component that checks the signature of message coming in (WS-Security and possibly WS-SecureCommunication) and then routes to the particular worker. The Envoy of course would be a component that signs the outgoing message with WS-Security. The whole Trust Rule could be defined with WS-Policy.
Besides WS-Routing and WS-Security, I have no idea what the other specs look like so maybe they can't play the roles I lay out above. Only time will tell.
Of course the coolest part is I like going into design meetings and using terms like Drawbridge, Envoy, Guard, Fortress, etc. :-)
[News from the Forest]
Who said design meetings couldn't be like d&d days?
2:26:04 PM
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DocBookDoclet: HTML/Javadoc to DocBook XML. Michael Fuchs has released
version 0.29 of DocBookDoclet, a Java application
for converting HTML files and Java source
documentation to DocBook XML. This release adds
internationalization support. [xmlhack]
A good way to prepare professional looking java doc?
2:23:22 PM
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Effbot is building another RSS newsreader. Fredrik Lundh, also known as effbot link, is building a RSS newsreader link. (Never guess what programming language he is writing it in. You guessed it: in Python.)
One really cool part of this effort is the fact that he documents the development in series of articles. First of these articles, EffNews #1: Fetching RSS Files link (note that the URL might change in the future), describes the process of fetching RSS files with tools from Python standard library. There are examples of how to do it with low level sockets, urllib module and eventually with asyncore module, which allows to make simultaneous fetches. Finally, he describes the storing of the RSS data. [Python owns us]
Asyncore is python's call back based wrapper for select/poll (depending on os). As someone pondering writing an RSS client this is a fun read.
1:54:21 PM
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Eclipse Goodies.. Jeff Duska has some good links for Eclipse plug-ins. I use Jalopy (love it) and have Solareclipse installed (I use HomeSite/Dreamweaver for JSP editing). I will be downloading and installing the others today, just because.
- Jalopy for Eclipse
This works much better than the built in formatter in Eclipse 2.0
- The Tomcat Plug-in
If you do anything with Tomcat you'll want to have this. Make sure you have the latest update
- CheckStyle
Even you don't care for the the powerful tools to enforce name conventions -- get this for the cool TODO feature
- Solareclipse
Adds code code highlighting for JSP, HTML and more...
- CompleteClipse
The new statement completion that will part of 2.1 setup as a plug-in to work with 2.0. Provide automatic parameter selection... very nice!
I've also heard of XML Buddy, but have never been able to download it. I click "I Agree" on the download back, and "doh!" I end up back at their homepage. Sounds like a website bug to me. If anyone knows of an alternative link, let me know.
The whole can of worms! In my search for some more Eclipse plug-ins, I found a list of 126 plugins. I'll be bookmarking this page. This site is very nice in that it shows user's comments about plug-ins. I even noticed someone had my same XMLBuddy comment. No workaround response though. :( [Raible Designs · v2.0]
Cool, more plugins. I have been looking for an HTML editor ...
[Later...] Well after a day of playing testing the aforementioned plugins, I can say:
- Jalopy for Eclipse
This generates formatting far closer to my taste (GNU) than I could previously generate. The preferences is still a tad disconcerting - being in Swing and all.
- The Tomcat Plug-in
Use it daily, it's great.
- CheckStyle
In it's standard mode it is hella picky. If I have some time I might try and figure out how to configure it not to pick on my code for merely stylistic issues.
- Solareclipse
Going by the original website I would have thought this was still in planning. Persevering I found there was a downloadable. So d/l'd, installed, restarted, and err. Nothing. Hmmm. Erk?
- XML Buddy
In a word, nice.
- CompleteClipse
I knew I had a plugin left to test ...
1:51:53 PM
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Roller Bug Tracking. has moved from SourceForge to JIRA . I used JIRA a couple of times today and it's a way cool interface and very easy to use. Nice job Atlassian and Mike! I've used Bugzilla a lot in the past, and briefly looked at Scarab, both of which are free. I like Bugzilla a lot, but it can be a little intimidating to setup and use for the first time. As soon as you get that first 1/2 hour over with, you're good to go. It's always nice to learn new products, but with JIRA's price tag of $800, I doubt I'll ever get to use this beyond Roller. However, if it's good - I'll recommend it to my clients and maybe I can get some kickbacks ;-) [Raible Designs · v2.0]
I see the need for JIRA authorised resellers. In hardware it is not a-typical for the resellers to get 40% off of retail to cover their pre-sales and post-sales support commitments. So, Mike, it may be an idea to start using your extended network of JIRA marketeers in a more official way?
Just a thought for what it is worth ...
12:30:17 PM
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Raphael has licensed his Zoe e-mail client under the Apple Public Source License. Excellent. He is working with Kate to coordinate future development on SourceForge. Excellent. Zoe is the future of e-mail. It enables a search engine (google-like) interface for e-mail which radically simplifies e-mail management. Here are some screen shots: 1, 2, and 3 Here is why I like Zoe (from an April post). Still lots of work to do, but this is a glimpse at the future. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
Something else I'd like to play with.
12:14:54 PM
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GNU Prolog.
"...the novelty of the GNU Prolog compilation scheme
is to translate a WAM file into a mini-assembly (MA) file...
The corresponding MA code is mapped to the assembly language
of the target machine.
In order to simplify the writing (i.e. porting) of such translators
the instruction set of
MA must be simple...
the MA language is based on 10 instructions,
mainly to handle the control of Prolog and to call a C function
...built on previous systems developed at
INRIA,
namely wamcc
for Prolog and clp(FD) for constraint solving
on finite domains...(Quoted from:
The GNU Prolog System and its Implementation,
Daniel Diaz's Papers,
Philippe Codognet's Papers)
Now works under windows without Cygwin.
For an extensive overview of Prolog see J.R. Fisher's
online Prolog tutorial
that rivals "The Art of Prolog"
[Book Review,
Code,
Exercise Answers,
Citations]
in breadth and depth.
There is also a Java GNU Prolog,
apparently unrelated. [Lambda the Ultimate]
Anyone else out there still have Prolog scars? Green cuts vs Red Cuts? Mind you, having a prolog engine designed to integrate into java could be nice.
12:05:07 PM
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OS releases.... Rick tells it all just as well as I could:
Just going through the email, and I noticed that Patrick has released OSWorkflow 2.0. I've been eyeing this for sometime, and yes, the docs have been updated.
Also released, OSCore 2.0.1 and PropertySet 1.0.
Keep up the good work guys! [Rick Salsa]
Great work Patrick. PropertySet 1.0 is a milestone for a very cool, very mature piece of code. [rebelutionary]
It would appear the only persistence mechanism that PropertySet doesn't support is Jisp. :)
11:51:26 AM
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JSP vs Velocity. Anyone have any benchmarks or indications of whether JSP or Velocity is faster?
I would imagine that Velocity is more 'standard speed' across different containers. The problem we have at the moment is that our application runs well on Resin and Orion but unacceptably slowly on Tomcat and Jetty. Short of hacking at Jasper myself, I'm not sure what else to do.
Someone out there must have benchmarked them recently. The only link I can find is from an old tomcat-dev post about Tomcat 3.2. [rebelutionary]
Have you attempted to instrument your app to find out where you are losing time? I did that sort of thing for F2. It would be even easier with AspectJ, assuming you can get it all to build. Velocity is probably faster on first page hit because there is no seperate process invocation for the page compile, but I would honestly have expected it to be slower after that. But, Velocity does cache the parsed pages, so possibly not a lot slower.
All the same, the real hint I have for debugging speed issues is measure, measure, measure. And then measure a few other ways as well.
11:47:57 AM
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I found a four leaf Clover. Today I installed Clover and ran it over our JIRA bug tracking test suite. Wow!
It takes a little setting up but the results are well worthwhile. I thought our test suite was fairly comprehensive, but (I'm not sure if I should admit this!) it only covered 20.4% of the code!
After an hour or two of tweaking the suite, and we're up to 24.9% of the total - that's 26.1% of methods, 25.5% of statements and 22.7% of conditionals.
If you think keeping the JUnit test meter green is addictive, having an updated report of exactly how much code is covered is far more addictive. A measly 1% gain in 50k lines of code means that you now have 500 extra lines of code executed during your test suite. Think about it. Power.
How could it be improved? Here are a few ideas I've had while using Clover this afternoon:
- Locate 'untested hot spots' (ie code which is used frequently but not covered by the test suite)
- Weight the package rankings based package size (ie LOC or some other measure)
- Produce a printable report that can be posted up on the wall and used as a comparison device for progress
(PS Clover is built by Aussies - fantastic) [rebelutionary]
High tech addiction ... gotta have ... my unit ... test fix ... ahhhh.
11:42:35 AM
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We're building a what?!. A Tower in Oz to Touch the Sun. It is 7 kilometers wide and 1 kilometer high, and it will be the tallest man-made structure in the world if it gets built. Australia's solar tower is one vision of energy's future. By Daithí Ó hAnluain. [Wired News]
This sounds like a very wacky (but cool if it gets built!) project. Then again I live in Australia and I've never heard of this - doesn't that strike you as odd? [rebelutionary]
We are too busy ignoring news emminating from the states - so we miss the occasional story on our own country. Erk
11:40:36 AM
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Java-daq. Russell is waxing lyrical about Sillicon Valley Java/C++ Jobs - in particular check out this chart. Now that is seriously scary, but amusing at the same time. The degree of correlation between Java job openings and the NASDAQ is very interesting. [rebelutionary]
You have to admit that Java was a buzzword compliance thing, along with oracle and sun, that every new vc funded company needed. Or thought they needed. I personally would often prefer to use python for speed of development issues, but even now here in sydney there are 30+ java jobs, 3 perl jobs and 0 python jobs.
11:34:50 AM
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Megnut's mom, who once was guest host on Meg's blog, has invented a new idea -- googlecooking. Meg says "My mother types whatever ingredients she has on hand into Google and then picks the most appealing recipe returned in the results." Smart! [Scripting News] [dws.]
A real reason to have a tablet pc in the kitchen?
11:31:39 AM
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Just started using JFaceDbc inside eclipse which works pretty well if you need to access JDBC resources from your IDE. Neat. [James Strachan's Radio Weblog]
When did JFaceDbc turn into an eclipse plugin? IIRC it was a standalone SWT/JFace app? Oh well, if it works as intended I can stop running both eclipse and Squirrell... :)
[Later...] From version 0.9 apparently. Cool.
12:41:25 AM
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java.blogs RSS feed. James was looking for an RSS feed of all the Java and J2EE Weblogs, so I made one for your aggregatin' pleasure! (I should have thought of this idea myself - doh!  ) Subscribing makes it easy to stay in touch with the latest Java blogs as they pop up.
BTW does anyone know if OPML is more suited for this? I looked but you can't 'subscribe' to an OPML feed, because it's not so much a feed as a directory? (which is not very useful for this purpose) [rebelutionary]
Oh goody! more feeds!!! Yay. *brain explodes*
12:24:47 AM
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Not Happy Jan!. Bob is not happy about JSR-94, the Java Rule Engine API. You can read his full comments online. [rebelutionary]
I would desperatly like someone to explain what this area is all about. I have the feeling that I should understand what is going on, but I don't. Help?
12:22:29 AM
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When Text Messaging Turns Ugly. When Text Messaging Turns Ugly
"We are watching you ... we are going to kill you ... we are going to kill your mum."
This message would make anyone uneasy, but British children regularly send messages like this to each other as systematic bullying enters the 21st century through SMS -- the short message service that comes with all mobile phones in Europe. [rebelutionary]
As a telco you could do interesting statistical analysis of the messaging networks. I wonder if the telco's are keeping the messages on file, lest these incidents are brought to court?
12:20:05 AM
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sydney.blog.meetup. Meet the author. Unless nobody signs up and the whole thing gets cancelled, (or they decide to hold it at the Newtown Arms) I'll be at the Sydney webloggers meetup on Wednesday the 18th. Live in Sydney? Come along. Anyone who mentions Java, XML or Dave Winer has to buy a round. [The Desktop Fishbowl]
I suppose if Charles is going I might as well go along. Signed up. Probably against my better judgement.
I have a pathelogical fear of a 'blog meetup' being a silent room full of black t-shirt wearing geeks. Do we get nametags? URL tags? [rebelutionary]
I'll try to find a decent black t-shirt to wear ... :)
12:16:51 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Brett Morgan.
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