Interesting article up on Freshmeat. It looks at some of problems with the auto* tools most *nix apps utilize.
I've come into just enough contact with the tools that I (somewhat) know what I'm doing but I would definitely be one of the first in line for something new.
The A-A-P project looks like something I should pay attention to.
Java GUI Builder is another XML-based Swing construction system.
I really wish someone would create a Glade-like app for Java. Life would be so much easier...
I always think it is cool to find a new blog and just read past posts. i did that today with Bill Brown's. I found it via Steve @ Redmonk.
Some interesting posts were about why he blogs, frustrations about learning Java and some thoughts about Apple's developer support.
A while ago, Dave Czarnecki asked for Jericho to provide a way to include TrackBack URLs to ping when posting. Well, Dave, I've just committed my changes to do that.
Currently, it is only for Movable Type blogs but Blo*om support is next on my list.
Zulfikar puts together a post about the various open and commercial job schedulers in Java. I've been thinking about looking into Quartz for some work-related stuff. Hopefully it will prove to be stable enough to use.
This is a Jericho test post which hopefully will ping a couple of TrackBack URL's.
Ok, I really didn't think I'd post more on the Echo project but one post today just shouts for a response.
This is some blatant FUD put out by John Robb, President of UserLand. In his post, he claims that IBM is behind all of this and is making Sam do all this work. This is really an uncalled for attack on the honesty of Sam. In all my dealings with Sam, I have never seen a secret agenda being involved. John's post is only going to make the schism between Echo and UserLand/Dave Winer that much larger.
Beyond that, I don't really have an opinion. Parts of the Echo project seem like sour grapes to get rid of Dave's influence on various blogging stuff. I guess I just don't really see the need for the project yet.
Ok, enough of that, back to hacking in TrackBack support into Jericho...
Today, I needed to walk a directory structure, looking for all Java files. It would be that hard to write this kind of code in Python but I was hoping that it was already part of the core language.
I thought glob was what I was looking for but unfortunately, it will not recurse through a whole tree so using it would defeat the purpose.
Luckily, I found the answer via Google. Basically, I just created a helper class to handle all of the logic just like the post suggests and it worked great.
Edd wrote a FOAF IRC bot which looks kind of cool.
Friend of a Friend is seemingly interesting and a way to increase of knowledge of social networks without too much manual intervention.
Michael McCracken reviews it. It definitely sounds like something I want but I'd have a tough time justifying the $100 price tag. Man, that really is a lot of money for a book...
While there are some subtle differences between myself and this post, there are plenty of things which parallel. I think I should write more about working from home as I'm coming up on 3 years now. That really is crazy.
Edd has broken down and started a blog. He gives a good summary and look at GNOME. I expect great things from this one.
It seems that I've gotten approval from the java.net moderators to have Jericho be a project there. Unfortunately, they put me in the Communications category which doesn't fit at all. That's just weird.
Perhaps I'll start the moving process this weekend but I need to send a note to the jericho-devel list. We'll see if anyone has a problem with the move.
Interesting post from Hans Muller dealing with possible reasons Sun hasn't open sourced Java. He ends the post with this:
I think that one of the primary reasons that Java is not an open source project is that given the size of the developer community, forks are unacceptable. In other words the millions of developers who build software on top of Java value its stability more than they value the right to get under the hood and fix it.
It's something to think about but it does feel a bit like it's the easy answer. I don't think most developers would want to fork Java if the code was open. I think most would use the code as an education tool as well as be able to send in patches for fixes. If you have good stewards for a project, like the Linux kernel or GNOME or Apache or whatever, most don't see the need to fork but instead will send in thoughts and fixes.
I'm trying to set categories for posts in MT-blogs in Jericho. I wasn't seeing the category set and now I think I see the reason, thanks to this Jeremy Zawodny post
Now, I'll be calling the publishPost method after setting the category and hopefully all will be well. We'll see....
Kasia writes about how starting a new project is always the toughest part of it. I couldn't agree more. Generally, I'll just putz around until I finally guilt myself into getting going. Sometimes that works, other times it doesn't.
Buzz responds to Matt Gemmell's post on the need for more publically available icons for OS X apps by releasing one of the PodWorks icons.
As a wanna-be Cocoa developer who has no graphic abililty, I think the idea of having icons out there is awesome!
My feelings about the Echo project are much like Brent's.
The interesting though is that the project might be stepping on someone else's toes since Joe mentions the existing Java web application framework, Echo. It's too bad since now that project will be overshadowed by the (currently vapor) uptopian idea.
Interesting post from Ken Arnold about some failings of Ant.
I especially like: Unix got it right. Ant needs pipes.
Australia's national Linux conference announced their Call for Papers a little bit ago. I think heading to Australia would be awesome.
OCUnit is a testing framework for Objective-C. It's in the same family as JUnit.
Here's an intro article from a bit ago but I assume it still holds true.
Last night, I worked a bit on Jericho and I wanted to add support for categories in Movable Type. I first tried to use JComboBox but unfortunately, you can only choose one of those options instead of multiple.
That led me to JList which I'm using. I had to have it display in an additional window which I don't think should be too much of a problem. Hopefully, I'll get this into CVS at some point today/tonight.
Eric Neel gives hope to Cubs and Red Sox fans:
It's a different kind of thing being a Cubs or Red Sox fan. You see an open parking space, but you don't pull in, because you know if you do, pigeons will come calling for your paint job. You meet a pretty girl, but you don't ask for her number, because you know sooner or later she's gonna serve up your heart with fava beans and a nice chianti.Mr. or Mrs. Cub fan, please believe ...
... Mark Prior's arm is a lithe and powerful gift from the gods.
... there's no way Sammy gets caught with cork in his bat twice.
... the Astros are longtime losers, too (and the Braves ain't exactly known for realizing their potential, either).
And you, Captain Red Sox, believe this, my friend ...
... the only thing livelier than Pedro's tongue is his arm.
... Mookie Wilson's playing days are over.
... the secret powers of a man named Trot are deep and wide.
Buzz gives some hints about the underlying pieces under Panther. I think this upgrade is going to be quite awesome.
Charles posts about quickly creating a browser using the new SDK of the Safari rendering engine. I know this is what Brent has been waiting for in terms of upgrading NetNewsWire.
Boing Boing points to the P2P Summit happening here in LA in August. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there is anything for developers and there is no way I can spend $500 for a day of listening to various pitches from folks.
Krzysztok has posted the best response the Eric's essay that I've read so far. In it, he breaks down the various future's and comes out much more positive than Eric about what could happen down the road.
As for me, my future will so bright that I'll need sunglasses. I'm delighted to live in an era when all it takes to sell software I might (or might not) write is to spend few bucks on a web site and register with one of many e-commerce providers. I'm delighted that the availability of the Internet opened so many new opportunities that we only began to scratch the surface of what's possible. I'm delighted that open-source provided me with a set of free tools to write software and lots of code to learn from (and in some cases to take and use in my own software). I'm delighted that I live in times when new ideas/software/services/companies are created daily, things like web, IM, eBay, p2p, file sharing, BitTorrent, blogs, MT and blogger, google, Yahoo, Amazon.com, Watson, Napster, iTunes, Chandler, Palm,Pocket PC,Hiptop,perl,Python... the list goes on and on. I'm delighted that I have a shot on Cold Stone.The only thing standing between me and the mythical innovative software and gobs of money is my ability to have great ideas and to work hard to bring them to life.
Now, excuse me, I have some software to write...
I think I'm going to keep that last sentence posted somewhere in my office or perhaps I'll make it one of my .sigs.
Brian Jepson blogged the WWDC keynote today. Looks like Pather is going to be very, very cool and the new G5's are yummy!
Alan points to the ReportLab Toolkit which is an open source PDF generation library in Python. Looks cool to me.
I've been toying of producing PDFs for some of our build/install/test results since I really don't want to send out HTML email and having a central web server won't work in this instance. Most of my scripts are in Python so I think I could drop something like this into the mix fairly easy, at least I think so, based on Alan's post.
I finished the new Harry Potter tonight. I am a fast reader but I find myself reading even faster when it's one of the HP books. I think J.K. does a good job of engrossing you into the story and making you want to keep turning the page. I think I'll write a review about it in a week or two so as to not disturb those who are still in the process of reading it.
If you do have any questions about it, feel free to let me know.
Eric Kidd has written an interesting essay on the future of the software industry. He looks at the Microsoft future and the Open Source future but says that the future of the small software developer(s).
Scoble responds with the example of Cold Stone Creamery and Baskin-Robbins, where a small upstart took on and beat the entrenched older company. He then moves on to the need for developers to create the killer apps for the next version of Windows.
While I'd rather there be killer apps for OS X or Linux, I agree the sentiment and I think there are some developers who are changing the world. You look at Brent and what's he done with NetNewsWire and move on to the folks at SixApart and the creation of Movable Type and add Pyra and the creation of Blogger and you can see the pattern.
These are developers who aren't buying either the Microsoft future or the Open Source future yet they are still writing code and finding customers. I'm not going to write the merits of each future because I don't think that really solves anything. I'm currently moving towards the Open Source future, mainly because that's where I've been but who knows, perhaps Scoble will work his magic on me and try to move me towards the Microsoft future. I wouldn't hold my breath about it though.
So, I decided not to hit a bookstore last night at midnight in order get the new Harry Potter book. I'm glad I didn't since they were only allowing people who had pre-ordered the book to get it. This was at my local Borders. They had the same policy this afternoon when I went there so I just breezed over to Target and picked it up without having to deal with the lines.
I've started reading it and I'm already on page 130. As always, the pages turn quickly. I was contemplating not reading it until I'm on vacation in a couple of weeks but then I figured I'd rather not have to deal with a 900-page book while flying.
Dave Hyatt links to a review of The Hulk which articulates some of the feelings I was having last night.
When we saw Spider-Man, Daredevil, Wolverine on that screen, no matter how much of the comic the filmmaker took for his movie, what we got was still traditional movie. In that regard, it was a superficial adaptation. And that?s not a critique. But Ang Lee is able to use comic books to give us a movie unlike any other we?ve ever watched in form and content. UNBREAKABLE was close, but while that movie was also heavily influenced by comic book visuals and layouts, it lacked the energy, the vibe that draws us to the comic book in the first place. But it?s here, in HULK.
Jon Madison has put together a cool Ant task which can send out instant messages.
I can see this being very useful for people who want to get status messages about things and don't really want to deal with email.
I went to see The Hulk tonight. I'm still trying to process my feelings about the film. On one hand, the action was great and I think ILM did a great job with Angry Man but it seemed the story dragged a bit.
I think the goal was to create a more intellectual superhero movie (of course, those two words together are kind of funny) and I think they pulled it off. It reminded me a bit of Spiderman in the sense that the action was not the main emphasis of the film.
Perhaps I'll feel different about it once I sleep on it.
So, I'm sitting in a Starbucks using their T-Mobile HotSpot wireless access. Talk about easy.
My parents wanted to take Cathy out for her birthday tonight so we came out early. I still had work to do so I signed up for the day pass as a trial for the access. I'm at in the middle of the Village in Claremont where I grew up, hacking away while listening to my iPod. I wouldn't have guessed I'd ever be doing this here.
Hans Muller describes his trip to the Guadec conference. Tucked in the post is a telling comment about how attendees of JavaOne have consistently asked for more technical content. Guadec is definitely something they would want since it's all about the code.
The combination of Java and GNOME would be great and hopefully it isn't that far off.
A couple of posts on weblogs.java.net mention the seemingly lack of response to the launch of java.net. One thanks Dan Gillmor for mentioning the site and the other wonders why more attention has been given from the A-list bloggers and Slashdot.
Who cares about the A-list, whatever that is. There has been plenty of feedback via the various Java blogs so why worry about whether Slashdot gives you a link and discussion. In the comments of one of the posts, the key to feedback is given... link, link, link. The more you link to other sites, the more likely you are to get links back and discussion to happen. Speaking for myself, I love to watch my referer logs to see if anything I have said has been linked to.
This seems to be a symptom of a larger problem of ignoring the current Java community found in places like JavaBlogs and various other outlets. Instead, a new community is trying to be built and then whines when it isn't being noticed.
I created a project for Jericho last week on the site and I'm still waiting for approval. Sure, it isn't the killer app of the Java desktop but it works and I am enjoying hacking on it again and I'd love to use software that I helped build instead of what's on SourceForge but that's a discussion for another day.
My boss, Brian is speaking at this conference tomorrow. Sounds like some cool papers are being discussed and presented. Hopefully he'll bring back some of them.
Great article on the recently opened Home Depot Center here in SoCal.
I'm hoping to get to a Galaxy match soon and also to go to one of the Women's World Cup matches once the final schedule is released. I think Julia would enjoy going to a game. I remember playing with her on the floor of our Cambridge apartment when the US women's team won in '99.
While reading some diaries on Advogato, I came across a link to StatCvs which is an analysis tool for Cvs, written in Java.
This is really some great software. There are a few gotcha's like only working on the default branch of a repository and that you can't refine the dates being looked at but overall I can't see a reason to complain. The developers have also included an Ant task so this could easily be part of a nightly build process. Very, very cool.
Here's some example output on the StatCvs tree.
Jimbob wants to create an XML format which would describe IRC servers and the channels within them. Interesting idea.
I'm not quite sure what BenderBot is but I think it's cool so far. The early prototype seems to be something like the Chump Bot which grabs urls and can then post them.
Here's the LinkLog archive from the bot.
In other moving news, Linus Torvalds is taking a leave from Transmeta to devote himself to working on the Linux kernel full-time via a fellowship at the Open Source Development Lab.
I guess it is a sign that you've made it when your job change becomes a headline on Yahoo! News.
Mr. Posh Spice was sold today from Manchester United to Real Madrid. Actually, that wasn't very nice of me to call him that especially since it seems that he was forced out. From the reports, there was lots of internal strife between Sir Alex and Beckham.
Russ has a post about the #mobitopia IRC channel and the bot they are using to harvest links. It's the Daily Chump bot which I'm happy to say I sent in a patch for a while ago.
Basically, the bot just listens on the channel for someone to post an URL. Then it saves it and gives it a unique identifier so that you can add metadata about it, things like the title of the link and various comments about it which add to the usefulness of the links.
Here's the web page with the latest links for the IRC channel. There's also a RSS feed for your aggregating pleasure.
Ah, to be over in Dublin right now for the Gnome Users and Developers European Conference. Of course, I haven't really kept up with GNOME since I got my iBook but being back on Linux reminds me why I liked it.
Perhaps next year, I'll find a way to go whereever it is.
One of the things which made last week tough was my iBook seemingly breaking. I took it into the shop today but won't no about it until Tuesday. Luckily, it is still under warranty so I don't have to worry about that.
The iBook is named che and I'm currently typing on my Linux laptop, mao. It always takes a bit of an adjustment to go from OS X to Linux but I'm not complaining.
I got in last night around 10:30 after spending way too much time in the Oakland Airport. I did finish a book though, Deep Writing. Of course, it wasn't one on my current reading list but it was relatively small and a quick read.
It was a tough week for no real reason. The workload was normal and I had some fun outside of work. I think I was a bit bummed about not going to JavaOne. I really didn't think about it before this week but then all of a sudden, it was everywhere. We were helping launch java.net and many blogs were following the conference. This made it really difficult to ignore.
Three years ago, I came home from JavaOne with an offer from CollabNet. It was exciting and new and I really didn't know what I was going to do. Obviously, I made the choice to work there and I haven't looked back since. Sure, there have been some tough times but every job has them and you just have to work through them.
I have more to say about this but I can't seem to find the words currently. Perhaps they'll come to me after some blog reading.
Looks like there will be a live-action Transformers movie. It's one of those things which could be amazingly cool or just awful.
I found Deep Black via Raible Designs. It's another Java-based blogging engine. Looks kind of cool though I need to figure out a machine to put it on.
So, I'm using a ThinkPad, running RH 7.2 to write this. My iBook's hard drive decided to stop spinning earlier this week. Luckily, I was up in the office so I could get a machine to use. I'll take my iBook into the shop tomorrow when I get home especially since it's still under warranty.
This is really just annoying.
So, last night, I went to Borland's party. Jacki, our PR bunny (that is a term of affection btw), got some passes and I tagged along with her and her friends.
The booze was flowing quite nicely and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. One thing that struck me though was how some of the night seemed like a high school dance with lots of people standing around the perimeter of the dance floor while the cool kids danced.
A few people have noticed the new java.net site. I think it's still a few minutes away from being officially announced. Sometimes it's tough to keep a lid on something which hopefully will be well-received.
There are few phrases in sports which excite more. It really doesn't matter what the sport is, a Game 7 is always fun to watch.
The fact that it is the Stanley Cup Finals means more to me on a personal level and I can't wait for the puck to be dropped.
Whew! Do I feel better after saying that!
Cubs took two out of three from the dreaded Yankees, showcasing some great starting pitching. Hopefully that will continue to hold up since they'll need it when Sammy starts his suspension.
I'd like to make a clarification to my post from earlier this morning. Based on Rob's post, it might seem that I don't think Sammy should be punished. That is far from the truth.
Sammy played with an illegal bat and should be suspended for cheating. Since his other 76 bats came back clean, the punishment shouldn't as severe as what possibly could have happened if his other bats were illegal. Whether or not, this episode puts a tarnish on all of his career remains to be seen. My guess is that most fans (not all of course) won't think of this when thinking of Sammy but the media will and always will include a snippet about this.
A few people asked me about the whole Sammy Sosa corked bat incident. Honestly, I believe him when he says it was an accident. Perhaps that's just because I'm a Cubs fan. If I rooted for the Cardinals, maybe my support would be non-existent.
This article makes it seem like Chicago has turned their back on Sosa. I would doubt that. Chicago is a town know to lash out at their sports hero's and then cheer wildly when the hero returns triumphant.
Case in point, 1994 NBA playoffs, the Bulls were playing the Knicks (again!) but this time they were without MJ since he was on his tour of minor league baseball stadiums. Scottie Pippen took himself out of a game with only few seconds left because he wasn't going to get the last shot. The media had a field-day with it and the next game found Scottie getting a few boo's when introduced. Of course, by the end of the game when Scottie played well and the Bulls won, the crowd was back to their usual excited selves.
I don't think short memories only happen in Chicago but I do think this will be another example.
Luckily, the great Tony Pierce interviewed Sammy about this and it looks like all will be right with the world again.
You could lose yourself at Erik Benson's blog. An incredible amount of information to dig through and think about. Things like information storage, presence and the ideal idea database are just a few thoughts from the past few days. Amazing!
I see Leonard is showing off our super-secret fish identification module for SourceCast. Hopefully the powers-that-be won't be too angry with him.
I finished Bodies in Motion and at Rest last night. I had bought a couple of years ago when it first came out but never got past the first essay. Good stuff.
Ben's article in the Guardian takes a look at the various API's one can use to add content to their site / app / whatever. Amazon, Google, Technorati and All Consuming are discussed.
Of course, I now want to stop working and start building cool little apps which use these. Hopefully I can hang on until tonight.
Dan gives a description of why we need a new computer magazine. It would be geared to anyone interested in new and cutting-edge technologies but doesn't have time to wade through book after book on the topic.
Personally, I would buy a subscription to this in a second. There's so much stuff out there that you cannot keep up without working really hard. That's one of the great things about weblogs which do keep track of things but there are times when you need something printed to read. Hopefully some publisher will see the value of this and start something.
Heh. It would seem that Charles doesn't like the skins. I honestly haven't dealt with many apps which have skins or if they do, I had no interest in experimenting with them.
