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JavaFx

Re Tech — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

http://www.oreillynet.com/onjava/blog/2007/05/javafx_im_still_not_impressed.html

UMB Ambiguity?

Re Tech — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

How is the "correct" way to model the following in UML? You want two different types of objects to both have the possibility of containing the same other type of object (basically Invoice and Person can both have multiple Notes). You could obviously inherit from some base object that contained nodes, but there are other reasons you might not want to use inheritance. So, If you don't... [insert picture] Several tools choke on this representation. It seems to imply that the note needs 1 Person and needs 1 Invoice. So how else is there?

PDP-11 on Mac

Re Tech — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Open Question: How many PDP-11 emulators could you concurrently run on a 8-core MacPro?

Re Tech — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

write response for http://jessewarden.com/2007/08/10-tips-for-working-with-cairngorm.html

About

admin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 01:11:37 +0000

This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many pages like this one or sub-pages as you like and manage all of your content inside of WordPress.

Brave New^H^H^HOld World

Re Tech — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 01:35:47 +0000

Don't you get the feeling that Everything that's right is wrong again...^‡

On October 8th, 2007 I took a new software design job. I haven't done software for money in 6 years, 6 months, and 7 days; InLine Software closed it's doors on Feb 1, 2001. My reasons for leaving tech were many. My reasons for staying out were many. My reasons for returning were many. My mind is abuzz with thoughts of past, present, and future, particularly relating to my work. Technology has changed much since I have gone (or almost not at all, depending on your vantage), just as it did when I was active in the industry. It's an odd perspective, jumping back into the pool. So I'll try to provide my perspective on things, however worthwhile or otherwise they may prove. Read, or don't. Respond, or don't.

Acronymophobia

Re Tech — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:38:34 +0000

Here's a list of many acronyms and other computer terms explained as plainly as possible. XML - Extensible Mark-Up Language

XML

Re Tech — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:38:51 +0000

An acronym for Extensible Markup Language. Which is to say, it's a markup language, and you can extend it. You "mark things up" with tags, and they are between less than or greater than characters. Thus The Commonwealth of Virginia might be used to denote what the formal name to be used for a state should be. XML is often stored in files, and is also often used to transmit over the internet. As such it is a data format – a file format – nothing more! It is not a programming language. Aside: HTML has been formalized into XHTML which requires some extra formality from it (it was quite sloppy and haphazard in its youth), and requests it to type data rather than mandating formatting. XHTML's goal is to be a data exchange format devoid of layout information. As such, style sheets (CSS) were developed to help abstract the formatting of XHTML out of the data itself. This goal has only been partially successful (2007) and likely never will be entirely. Sam Edwards and Paul Tremblett declared that the "widespread use of XML has established it as a lingua franca". Perhaps a bit of hyperbole to bolster the importance of the subject on which they were writing – XQuery – but not too far off the mark, as the term seems to be required in all marketing literature about all software products.

Exception of the Day:

Re Tech — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 01:34:25 +0000

This was my favorite exception that was thrown at me today:

javax.persistence.PersistenceException: org.hibernate.MappingException: Could not determine type for: java.util.List, for columns: [org.hibernate.mapping.Column(otherNames)]
at org.hibernate.ejb.Ejb3Configuration.buildEntityManagerFactory(Ejb3Configuration.java:720)

The type was very clearly stated as List otherNames. I'm sure there's either something obvious I'm missing, or it's broken. Regardless it will surely cost me hours in the morning.

Edit: It was all for the want of a @OneToMany() annotation. Luckily didn't take me long to find.

Pardon My Mess

Re Tech — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:14:35 +0000

I'm not sure if anyone's even seeing this thing, yet, but it's certainly not ready for prime time. I haven't gotten anywhere close to fixing the look of this thing. And I'm dorking around with it a bit. (learning CSS) All in my spare time. So, please pardon the look (not to mention the lack of real content), as I bootstrap this thing.

-Mgmt

Pssst, wanna job?

Re Tech — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 05:41:44 +0000

This is only marginally "tech" related, but I think you may know my pain. For about a month I was scouring the Houston Craig's List for tech jobs (which sucks, by the way). I set it up in my RSS feed, and basically used it as an opportunity to mark posts as inappropriate (training courses), miscategorized (not Houston), or overposted (daily post for SAP job - likely to fuel the belief that the training courses were needed). One was questionably miscategorized: Houston and Louisiana. Both cities or both states, I'm not sure which. But they just couldn't manage to spell the state correctly. Thus I sent (Sept 27), and ultimately received (Nov 6) the following:

Subject: RE: Systems Engineer Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 11:19:32 -0600 From: "Jeremiah Collier" To William S. Graham I need you to send me a word version of your resume please -----Original Message----- From: William S. Graham Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 2:06 PM To: job-433175069@craigslist.org Subject: Systems Engineer ** CRAIGSLIST ADVISORY --- AVOID SCAMS BY DEALING LOCALLY ** Avoid: wiring money, cross-border deals, work-at-home ** Beware: cashier checks, money orders, escrow, shipping ** More Info: http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams.html I'm assuming the job you are posting is in Houston, Texas OR Louisiana? (which is not spelled "Lousiana" or "Luissianna"). (since it was posted in houston.craigslist.org) -Your Craig's List Editor ------------------------------------------------------------------ this message was remailed to you via: job-433175069@craigslist.org ------------------------------------------------------------------

debugging through Java

Re Tech — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 01:33:47 +0000

Chased a bug down today, a simple one really. But first I had to load in the source code for the hibernate persistence (i was trekking through PersistentSet). Then I had to dig up the Java 1.5 (5.0?) source from the Apple developer site so I could chase through AbstractCollection and HashSet to find out one of my equals() methods was being a very bad boy (always returning false). Changed one line of code from that three hours of work. That's how the code flows. return true;

Adobe Writers used to Sell Swampland in Florida

Re Tech — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:17:00 +0000

From Adobe's product information page about back-end support for their front-end Flex product.

LiveCycle Data Services ES (previously called Flex Data Services) software provides a comprehensive set of data-enabling features for using data in Flex or Ajax based RIAs that revolutionize the user experience. A powerful data services architecture and programming model enable RIAs to synchronize data between client and server to produce optimal customer engagement experiences with less code, less risk, and faster time to market. LiveCycle Data Services ES also opens up powerful new services to rich applications including document and form server processing, workflow, and more. Start building applications today with free LiveCycle Data Services ES Express, a single-CPU production license.

Marketing hype has never been more eloquent. To top it off, this is an entirely 100% Java product, and it comes with three different installers (Windows, Solaris, Linux) with Mac conspicuously absent. I installed the subset of it (Blaze DataServices) from the Windows package - worked fine. Four Jar files and one XML file. Bozos.

Why isn’t Groovy enough?

Re Tech — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:37:59 +0000

The things you see asked in a technical context that would be quite humorous for an outsider looking over your shoulder.

Silent but Deadly

Re Tech — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:00:45 +0000

Scripting languages often have the weakness of silent failure, which pays for the "robustness" value. Configuration-based "languages", particularly XML (the latest magic cool-ade) ones have a similar silent-failure weakness. Flex 3.0 adds these two together plus a minimal amount of available documentation, provides loads of power, but also a huge Achilles heal of super silent failure. This makes developing a huge pain in the ass. I've currently developed a front end of Flex to hit a wsdl-defined web service. It can't seem to navigate "complex" data objects coming across the web service. By complex, I mean an object that contains an object that has basic values for properties. Is there a simple way to solve this problem? I don't know. When Flex is navigating XML data it can go arbitrarily deep (I assume, I've only gone two deep), but ween it's dealing with its native objects it barfs. And I have no idea how to resolve, or track down this problem. Edit: Finally did fix the problem. The DataGrid needs to be customized to manipulate complex data. So, the data was there, but the UI element failed the task.

in the wild: extra-syntacticular

Re Tech — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:00:06 +0000

Are annotations extra-syntacticular?

Editorial Content: Misused Patterns

Re Tech — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:00:41 +0000

Note that it looks slightly similar to Java code but is less verbose because the decorator pattern is not (mis)used as it is in Java. -Bruce Eckel, adobe dev net

I love it when people editorialize in tutorials. Particularly here where he's giving a dig to a design pattern.

MXML makes you quickly realize

Re Tech — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:00:02 +0000

If you have ever had to review someone else's MXML code and tried to trace your way through hierarchies of VBox controls containing HBox controls containing VBox controls containing TileList controls containing VBox controls, and so forth, you will quickly realize the value in creating components that have semantic meaning. -Steven Webster, Developing Flex RIAs with Cairngorm Microarchitecture – Part 3: Architecting the View

What I quickly realized was that although MXML may be a fabulous declarative file format, it makes a crappy language.

Flex Spotted in the Wild: ChicoBag

Re Tech — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 05:01:20 +0000

When I first started back into tech in October, I was ignorant of the names of most of the technologies and how they fit in the ecosystem. I hadn't heard of Flex, Flash's big brother. Since I've become familiar with it, and have been working with the Flex Builder 3 beta 3 I've been wondering if I'd see it around more. I saw a stats graph on boardgamegeek.com that I suspected may have been Flex, but I'm not that familiar with the graphing subsystem. But when I saw the store locator embed on the ChicoBag site, it was obviously implemented in Flex. Glad to see it.

mx for Flex

Re Tech — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:00:28 +0000

Why is the XML namespace for Adobe's Flex mx? A: Their XML file format is called MXML for Macromedia XML. Macromedia developed flash (and flex) until it was acquired by Adobe. Short namespaces are good, "mx" was adopted.

commentyourcode.png

Re Tech — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:48:11 +0000

Unicode in Action

Re Tech — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 03:00:00 +0000

Today on JavaRanch I saw the following: Yes, those are Hebrew comments in Java code.

Flex and Java, no Marriages are Perfect

Re Tech — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:00:14 +0000

My responses to Flex and Java – A Perfect Technological Marriage, section by section Intro: "so you've been a java developer..." then "... JavaScript". Java and JavaScript, two different things. (Acknowledged implicitly in section 1) Flex will be familiar to a Java developer. It will be familiar to a JavaScript web developer. And understanding the language and understanding the libraries are two different things. It's like knowing the Java syntax and not the collection classes, or any other of the 100s of bundled classes there are. Flex libraries will not be familiar. The Flex development process: It's a lot like the one you use for Java. Um, yeah. This is the case for all technological solutions. I've gone through object-oriented analysis and design for projects implemented in a forward-chaining expert system language and C-based X-Window interfaces. Development is development. The language we speak our solution in is just that. And you compile both, and unit test both ... that's like saying you use the keyboard to type both. It's not something unique to the relationship between Java and Flex. Flex is simple to use and helps you develop code faster. To state that all the user interface elements implement all the possible functionalities you might need is a bit presumptive. Complex data in ColumnGrids? And to overstate the user interface is anything different than other frameworks to provide is to stretch the truth. I also still haven't drunk the XML is coding and not a file format cool-ade. MXML is just more of the same, and the frequent need to embed ActionScript into MXML speaks to its limitations. I would modify the statement that FlexBuilder is easy to use (though it could be much better). Flex without the builder would be unbearable. Some differences between Flex and Java. You are using two different technologies at a well defined layer in your application architecture. This forces you to follow design and development you should have done anyway. This should not be the major difference you notice. They are two different technologies. Connecting between them requires either text or xml, which was first used only because web developers are used to that sort of thing. The newer serializations require a translation technology between the server and client side. Using two different solution technologies also requires the duplication of effort, or code generation based on other code, neither a desirable solution. I think Java and Flex is as good a pair (right now) as any. But I think some it's perhaps naive to paint it so rosily. If you are a JavaEE developer, learning Flex will definitely have a learning curve (like learning anything). The more exposure to XML or JavaScript you've had, the better. The more use interface experience, the better. Overall, I suspect Dimitrios has lived his whole coding live developing web-based applications. Now that he is being introduced to proper client-server applications, he sees the benefit. And I wholly agree with him on that!

Flex Mac Scrolling Bug

Re Tech — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:00:51 +0000

If you use Flex on a Mac you may have noticed that the trackpad scroll doesn't work. The Flex team has deferred the problem, claiming it's a Flash Player bug. I can't find the Flash Player bug database, so I can't confirm it. If you use Flex and find this as huge an issue as I do, please vote for it in their bug database.

Methods of Selecting items in a Grid via Tilt

Re Tech — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:50:36 +0000

Someone's going to patent this, so I'm writing it here in public as to be prior art. Perhaps I can preempt one ridiculous patent. (Or can be a year late, who's to say until it shows up.) Use the 3D accelerometer than is in the iPhone or any other device, you can use the tilt of the device to select items in a Sudoku puzzle, crossword puzzle, or any similar grid layout. Meanwhile there should be an input pad (9-key or keyboard, respectively - though a gesture location could replace a keyboard) elsewhere on the device (in this case touch screen) which you can use to enter the value wanted. At what angle you want the center to be set should be resettable, perhaps via shaking (and a small delay thereafter). In cases where a row/column selection would matter (crossword), the last direction of tilt should be used to discriminate horizontal from vertical. (I really need to download that iPhone SDK)