Java on Miro's World

SSL Poke

Sun, 10 Feb 2019 11:22:48 +0800

Cybersource Testing Tool
#

Java utility that we used before when we were debugging the TLS 1.2 issues.

It needs to be compiled with JDK 1.8 - ideally the same one that runs in production and then run like:

java -Djavax.net.debug=ssl:handshake:verbose SSLPoke api.cybersource.com 443

replace api.cybersource.com with whatever the cybersource endpoint needs to be.

If the utility responds with ‘Successfully connected’, it was able to handshake with the SSL server and establish the secure connection.

VisualVM inside Docker container

Thu, 23 Nov 2017 11:22:48 +0800

The idea / motivation
#

In order to run VisualVM from predefined configuration you need to point the app to the user directory. This directory takes about 20MB, but 90% of the the content is actually generated or repeated.

➜  4devops-visualvm git:(master) du -sh tw-sl/*
244K    tw-sl/config
7.3M    tw-sl/modules
 52K    tw-sl/repository
4.0K    tw-sl/update
104K    tw-sl/update_tracking
 11M    tw-sl/var

➜  4devops-visualvm git:(master) du -sh tw-wool/*
248K    tw-wool/config
7.2M    tw-wool/modules
 60K    tw-wool/repository
4.0K    tw-wool/update
104K    tw-wool/update_tracking
 11M    tw-wool/var

➜  4devops-visualvm git:(master) du -sh tw-wool
 19M    tw-wool

The only part that is specific and worthy of maintaining in the Git repo is repository

Fixing the shutdown problem with JBoss

Sat, 11 Apr 2015 11:22:48 +0800

Observed at QA environment. During automated shutdown sequence, the exception was thrown:

$ bin/gdi-qa-com1.sh stop
JBOSS_CMD_STOP = java -classpath /opt/jboss/jboss-as/bin/shutdown.jar:/opt/jboss/jboss-as/client/jnet.jar org.jboss.Shutdown --shutdown --user=admin --password=admin -s jnp://0.0.0.0:1099
Exception in thread "main" javax.naming.CommunicationException: Could not obtain connection to any of these urls: 0.0.0.0:1099 [Root exception is javax.naming.CommunicationException: Failed to connect to server /0.0.0.0:1099 [Root exception is javax.naming.ServiceUnavailableException: Failed to connect to server /0.0.0.0:1099 [Root exception is java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused]]]
    at org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContext.checkRef(NamingContext.java:1763)
    at org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContext.lookup(NamingContext.java:693)
    at org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContext.lookup(NamingContext.java:686)
    at javax.naming.InitialContext.lookup(InitialContext.java:392)
    at org.jboss.Shutdown.main(Shutdown.java:219)
Caused by: javax.naming.CommunicationException: Failed to connect to server /0.0.0.0:1099 [Root exception is javax.naming.ServiceUnavailableException: Failed to connect to server /0.0.0.0:1099 [Root exception is java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused]]
    at org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContext.getServer(NamingContext.java:335)
    at org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContext.checkRef(NamingContext.java:1734)
    ... 4 more
Caused by: javax.naming.ServiceUnavailableException: Failed to connect to server /0.0.0.0:1099 [Root exception is java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused]
    at org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContext.getServer(NamingContext.java:305)
    ... 5 more
Caused by: java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused
    at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.socketConnect(Native Method)
    at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.doConnect(PlainSocketImpl.java:351)
    at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.connectToAddress(PlainSocketImpl.java:211)
    at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.connect(PlainSocketImpl.java:200)
    at java.net.SocksSocketImpl.connect(SocksSocketImpl.java:366)
    at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:529)
    at org.jnp.interfaces.TimedSocketFactory.createSocket(TimedSocketFactory.java:97)
    at org.jnp.interfaces.TimedSocketFactory.createSocket(TimedSocketFactory.java:82)
    at org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContext.getServer(NamingContext.java:301)
    ... 5 more
To watch the log: tail -f /var/log/atg/gdi-qa-com1.log

The conflict of 1099 between Endeca and ATG was resolved according Fixing port conflict on 1099 between out-of-the-box Endeca and JBOSS - the actual port was 11199

Dealing with 'Java Runtime SE 6' required error

Tue, 14 Oct 2014 11:22:48 +0800

When trying to start DBeaver (http://dbeaver.jkiss.org) I got this

I do have Java 7 installed:

➜  Contents  java -version
java version "1.7.0_55"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_55-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.55-b03, mixed mode)
 
➜  Contents  which java
java is /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_55.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java
java is /usr/bin/java

which should be a superset. But it is not.

Solution
#

Oracle seems to screw up the PLIST capabilities in JAva7 install

Finding out the class in ATG installation

Tue, 26 Aug 2014 11:22:48 +0800

Java approach
#

Use the real time search with this JAR - https://jarscan.com/

➜  scripts git:(authoring) ✗ java -jar ~/bin/jarscan.jar
=========================
JarScan
written by Geoff Yaworski
gyaworski@hotmail.com
Version 2.0
=========================
Usage: java -jar jarscan.jar [-help | /?]
                    [-dir directory name]
                    [-zip]
                    [-showProgress]
                    <-files | -class | -package>
                    <search string 1> [search string 2]
                    [search string n]
Help:
  -help or /?           Displays this message.
  -dir                  The directory to start searching
                        from default is "."
  -zip                  Also search Zip files
  -showProgress         Show a running count of files read in
  -files or -class      Search for a file or Java class
                        contained in some library.
                        i.e. HttpServlet
  -package              Search for a Java package
                        contained in some library.
                        i.e. javax.servlet.http
  search string         The file or package to
                        search for.
                        i.e. see examples above

example

Binding DashDoc with editors and Eclipse

Tue, 31 Dec 2013 00:57:35 -0500

If you use DashDoc (see http://kapeli.com/dash), it can be integrated with editor or Eclipse to allow automatically find selected text in Dash documentation sets:

Sublime Text
#

This is easy - there is DashDoc plugin - https://sublime.wbond.net/packages/DashDoc
The plugin is OS-X specific, because the DashDoc is

Start Package Control (Cmd-Shift-P)
select Install Package (type Install)
select DashDoc

The Ctrl-H does the search

GVM

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 11:22:48 +0800

Installed GVM from:

http://gvmtool.net

~ $ curl -s get.gvmtool.net | bash
Thanks for using                                                    
 
_____/\\\\\\\\\\\\__/\\\________/\\\__/\\\\____________/\\\\_       
 ___/\\\//////////__\/\\\_______\/\\\_\/\\\\\\________/\\\\\\_      
  __/\\\_____________\//\\\______/\\\__\/\\\//\\\____/\\\//\\\_     
   _\/\\\____/\\\\\\\__\//\\\____/\\\___\/\\\\///\\\/\\\/_\/\\\_    
    _\/\\\___\/////\\\___\//\\\__/\\\____\/\\\__\///\\\/___\/\\\_   
     _\/\\\_______\/\\\____\//\\\/\\\_____\/\\\____\///_____\/\\\_  
      _\/\\\_______\/\\\_____\//\\\\\______\/\\\_____________\/\\\_ 
       _\//\\\\\\\\\\\\/_______\//\\\_______\/\\\_____________\/\\\_
        __\////////////__________\///________\///______________\///__
                                                                      
                                       Will now attempt installing...
                                                                      
Looking for a previous installation of GVM...
Looking for JAVA_HOME...
Validating JAVA_HOME...
Looking for unzip...
Looking for curl...
Installing gvm scripts...
Create distribution directories...
Create candidate directories...
Download script archive...
Extract script archive...
Install scripts...
Make init script executable...
Prime config file...
Attempt update of bash profiles...
Updated existing /Users/miro/.bash_profile
Updated existing /Users/miro/.profile
Updated existing /Users/miro/.bashrc
Attempt update of zsh profiles...
Created and initialised /Users/miro/.zshrc
Clean up local variables...
 
All done!
Please open a new terminal, or run the following in the existing one:
 
    source "/Users/miro/.gvm/bin/gvm-init.sh"
 
Then issue the following command:
 
   gvm help
 
Enjoy!!!

Using
#

binsh $ gvm current
Using:
groovy: 2.0.6
grails: 2.2.0
griffon: 1.1.0
gradle: 1.3
vertx: 1.3.0.final

Fix for zsh
#

http://blog.andresteingress.com/2012/12/14/gvm-the-groovy-environment-manager/

Tomcat 5 not reloading changes in JSP

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 17:33:34 -0400

Part of the beauty of JSP development is the easy of trying out the change. All you have to do is edit the JSP file, save it and reload the page. Yesterday I got caught by surprise by not being able to do exactly that. I saw some strange behaviour in an EL expression used JSP tag. As it was nothing ATG specific, I decided to try it out in plain old Tomcat rather than full ATG application. So I located the instance of Tomcat 5.5 (I always have couple of Tomcats lying around) and being lazy, I decided to inject the change into out-of the box jsp-examples Web application that comes with it.

JSP compiler configuration in JBoss 4.2.x for ATG

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:33:44 -0500

The post is on corporate blog - http://blog.thinkwrap.com/blog/2010/2/24/jsp-compiler-configuration-in-jboss-42x-for-atg.html

Bye bye Ruby, hello Groovy

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:08:35 -0400

I first time discovered Ruby back in 2006 (yes, I know, I was late to the game), and immediately fell in love with it. The dynamic nature of the language, the consistency, pure esthaetics and practicality certainly changed the way how I saw software development and programming languages.

Since that time, I made several attempts to integrate Ruby into my professional life and make it part of the toolbox. It was cool to play with Ruby in my spare time, but I wanted to use it on projects whose main development language/platform was mainly Java. Use it as scripting, glue language. Use it as toolkit language to e.g. generate test data, access databases, convert files, build projects and maybe even build a piece of Web applications (admin apps for example).

It's alive !

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:26:22 -0500

I was aching to blog about this since December 18th, when our system quietly and gently slipped into public visibility. Marked as Beta (thanks, Google for making this a legitimate way how to go live) it comfortably made it through Christmas shopping season into 2009.

Now when the site has been announced and mentioned few times in the media, I guess it's OK to mention it here too.

What is "it" ? A new, fresh eCommerce site selling music. A lots of really good music. Without any DRM or any other nonsense, as plain good high quality (mostly 320 kps) MP3's. The selection is actually very good - starting from several hundred thousands in December to several few million songs when full catalog is loaded. More great music being added every week.

After the Spring Storm

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:58:54 -0400

Few days ago, I have received an email asking to attend the SpringSource conference and offering $300 discount if I decide to buy before end of month. The timining was pretty ironical, considering the recent contraversy about SpringSource Entreprise Maintenance policy change. The was a heated discussion on TheServerside.com and even FAQ was compiled by Rod Johnson to explain the whole thing.

So what is the issue: SpringSource, commercial entity behind community driven Spring Framework decided to capitalize on the investment and push the community toward paid service suport contract. Whether or not it was related to funding round and VC's entering the game, is not important. Unfortunately, the terms were not really well explained and SpringSource did initially very poor job explaining and communicating the actual change. The community overreacted and lot of people started to call for code fork, project Summer or similar - or switching to different framework.

Trying out Groovy with Oracle database

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 22:44:17 -0400

There is a saying that necessity is the mother of invention. Such necessity happened last week and forced me to try out the Groovy language.

The trigger was need for creating good data set for testing changes in a full text search. I had to locate few hundred of obsolete technical documents to be used as test data, dump the metadata as well as the BLOB data to disc, create INSERT sql scripts and loader that would from Ant pre-load the database with the test set and insert the BLOB's. It is fairly simple task, the issue were boundary conditions:

Showstopper issue with JRuby ?

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:36:26 -0400

After some break, I dusted off the Ruby to try out one interesting idea Peter presented yesterday that literally ASKS for Rails. So I grabbed the latest and greatest RubyNetBeans from Ruby Hudson. For some reason it stopped updates on January 26th so the latest version I have got was build 6327. It is bundled with JRuby 1.1RC1 and the Rails version that comes preinstalled is 1.2.6. Using the menu Tools -> Ruby Gems, they can be easily upgraded to latest and greatest 2.0.2.

Versioning with Spring and Ant

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:11:33 -0400

This is post is NOT about version control in the sense of source code control. It addresses the issue how to easily tell which version of the Web application is running as well make sure that the same version is reflected in the snapshots performed by Ant. We have used this approach on several applications and found it quite useful.

The version I talk about is not the automatically generated version from VCS system (such as SVN revision). The version number is set manually.

iBatis, Date null values and Oracle

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 23:36:09 -0500

I better blog this before I forget what was the issue :-).

During daily run of unit tests, I started to receive this (very well explained) exception:

[sourcecode language='xml']
org.springframework.jdbc.UncategorizedSQLException: SqlMapClient operation; uncategorized SQLException for SQL []; SQL state [null]; error code [17004];
--- The error occurred while applying a parameter map.
--- Check the APPROVAL_TASK.insert-InlineParameterMap.
--- Check the parameter mapping for the 'scheduledDate' property.
--- Cause: java.sql.SQLException: Invalid column type; nested exception is com.ibatis.common.jdbc.exception.NestedSQLException:
--- The error occurred while applying a parameter map.
--- Check the APPROVAL_TASK.insert-InlineParameterMap.
--- Check the parameter mapping for the 'scheduledDate' property.
--- Cause: java.sql.SQLException: Invalid column type
at org.springframework.jdbc.support.SQLStateSQLExceptionTranslator.translate(SQLStateSQLExceptionTranslator.java:121)
at org.springframework.jdbc.support.SQLErrorCodeSQLExceptionTranslator.translate(SQLErrorCodeSQLExceptionTranslator.java:322)
at org.springframework.orm.ibatis.SqlMapClientTemplate.execute(SqlMapClientTemplate.java:212)
at org.springframework.orm.ibatis.SqlMapClientTemplate.insert(SqlMapClientTemplate.java:397)
... [/sourcecode]
Now the problem was that scheduledDate was null. Here is partial SQL map used:
[sourcecode language='xml']

How to generate and send emails using Spring and Velocity

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:29:38 -0500

Testing applications that communicate using email is more challenging than e.g. testing database access. Thanks to GMail and Spring, it can be done pretty easily.

Here is the scoop: I need to generate email notifying users about business events and after sending the email, store the content in the database. In real environment you will use corporate SMTP server and real email addresses of real people.
For development we can avoid bothering and spamming our customers by few simple tricks.

Spring PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer with Velocity

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:24:11 -0500

Part of the configuration magic is (one of several) Spring post-processors, that allows load the property file or files and refer to the values in these files inside XML configuration files. The rationale behind these is that property files are much easier to edit that possibly huge XML config file and using property values prevents repeating same value over and over again. With this approach, the following configuration:

[sourcecode language='xml']

Oracle SQLDeveloper and mystery of the missing host

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:48:07 -0500

If you work with Oracle database, a very good tool you should not ignore is the Oracle SQL Developer. It gives you much more power when it comes to manipulating data or managing database. I use most of the time MyEclipseIDE plugins, but when I need e.g. export data, the SQLDeveloper is way to go.

Today I tried it for first time on the Mac. I started to configure and database connection and was completely confused by the error message "Port must contain numerical value". Here was the dialog box:

Book recommendation: Java Concurrency in Practice

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 23:01:35 -0500

After long time, I stumbled upon something that is both educational and practical. Since Doug Lea's classic, this is very readworthy work on concurrency in Java world. It focuses on Java 5 features and addresses both Web applications as well as GUI apps - each group having their own share of concurrency related problems

Here is the Amazon page for the book - check the reviews. There is also a sample chapter available on the book's website. If you have Safari subscription, you can read it there as well.

Spring Framework - the biggest missing piece

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:04:18 -0500

I am having the pleasure working with Spring 2.x since about October last year. It is my return back to Spring, after first encounter in 2005 (counting only larger projects). Same as in previous project, it has been so much fun :-). So much fun in fact, that I was spending my evening playing with code and reading up what is new in 2.5, rather that blogging ;-)

I am still amazed about how nice is the whole thing designed and how many ways it can be used. It's flexibility is simply breathtaking. The price for the flexibility is complexity - sometimes it is not obvious what of many options should be chosen and what are all these options anyway :-).

Spring 2 MVC and ResourceBundleViewResolver problem

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 23:12:57 -0500

This one took some time to figure out - it is one of those problems that are obvious after you know the solution but hard to see beforehand.

I had the ResourceBundleViewResolver configured with Tiles 2, like this:

[code language='xml']

[/code]

and the view.properties was:

[code language='xml']
parent-view.(class)=org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView
parent-view.(abstract)=true

about.url=https://miroadamy.com/WEB-INF/jsp/about.jsp
form.url=https://miroadamy.com/WEB-INF/jsp/form.jsp
list.url=https://miroadamy.com/WEB-INF/jsp/list.jsp

[/code]

It kept givin exception saying that /WEB-INF/jsp/list.jsp does not exist. Which it did. I tried couple of things, no result.

Using iBatis with Abator

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 23:02:44 -0500

I am back to Java and on mission of re-discovering Spring coolness - and in awe how much was added since 1.2 to current 2.5.1. Thanks, SpringSource and hundreds of contributors.

Data layer of the current project is based on iBatis and Spring DAO. We have decided to try out the Abator tool from Apache (part of the iBatis suite) to generate initial version of data mapping (as we inherited the database schema).

Only necessary part is abator.jar (there are no other dependencies).

JRuby - keeping your database.yml really DRY

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 11:15:26 -0500

I am experimenting in JRuby and use database in virtual machine (VMWare Fusion). This is great because you can have multiple versions of multiple databases ready without polluting the notebook. One downsize though is that IP address of the database will change between the VM restarts.

First important setting in Fusion is to use the 'NAT' option rather than 'Bridged'. With NAT, you database host IP address will not follow the network. It was quite annoying to change it from 192.168.X to 192.168.Y everytime I reconnected at home from work or vice versa.

JRuby trunk - issues with JDBC connectivity

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 22:24:37 -0500

Following the book on JRuby I am discovering small differences when trying the examples. After installing activerecord-jdbc gem which is available in version 0.5, the shoplet application fails with Rails 2.0, as soon as you click on the 'About your application environment' link.

    => Booting Mongrel (use 'script/server webrick' to force WEBrick)
    => Rails application starting on http://0.0.0.0:3000
    => Call with -d to detach
    => Ctrl-C to shutdown server
    ** Starting Mongrel listening at 0.0.0.0:3000
    ** Starting Rails with development environment...
    ** Rails loaded.
    ** Loading any Rails specific GemPlugins
    ** Signals ready.  TERM => stop.  USR2 => restart.  INT => stop (no restart).
    ** Rails signals registered.  HUP => reload (without restart).  It might not work well.
    ** Mongrel 1.1.2 available at 0.0.0.0:3000
    ** Use CTRL-C to stop.

    Processing InfoController#properties (for 127.0.0.1 at 2007-12-23 23:13:25) [GET]
    Session ID: BAh7BiIKZmxhc2hJQzonQWN0aW9uQ29udHJvbGxlcjo6Rmxhc2g6OkZsYXNo%0ASGFzaHsABjoKQHVzZWR7AA%3D%3D--9791be23205677745e457b5bf62c50eba6e3813f
    Parameters: {"controller"=>"rails/info", "action"=>"properties"}
    Exception in thread "Ruby Thread11043409" java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.jruby.runtime.builtin.IRubyObject.setInstanceVariable(Ljava/lang/String;Lorg/jruby/runtime/builtin/IRubyObject;)Lorg/jruby/runtime/builtin/IRubyObject;
    at JdbcAdapterInternalService.set_connection(JdbcAdapterInternalService.java:122)
    at JdbcAdapterInternalServiceInvoker$set_connection_FS1.call(Unknown Source)
    at org.jruby.runtime.callback.FastInvocationCallback.execute(FastInvocationCallback.java:55)
    at org.jruby.internal.runtime.methods.SimpleCallbackMethod.call(SimpleCallbackMethod.java:70)
    at org.jruby.runtime.CallSite$InlineCachingCallSite.call(CallSite.java:158)
    at org.jruby.runtime.CallSite$ArgumentBoxingCallSite.call(CallSite.java:103)
    at org.jruby.evaluator.ASTInterpreter.fCallNode(ASTInterpreter.java:1092)
    at org.jruby.evaluator.ASTInterpreter.evalInternal(ASTInterpreter.java:345)
    at org.jruby.evaluator.ASTInterpreter.blockNode(ASTInterpreter.java:626)
    at org.jruby.evaluator.ASTInterpreter.evalInternal(ASTInterpreter.java:293)
    at org.jruby.evaluator.ASTInterpreter.eval(ASTInterpreter.java:168)
    at org.jruby.internal.runtime.methods.DefaultMethod.call(DefaultMethod.java:147)
    at org.jruby.runtime.CallSite$InlineCachingCallSite.call(CallSite.java:158)
    at org.jruby.runtime.CallSite$ArgumentBoxingCallSite.call(CallSite.java:76)
    at org.jruby.evaluator.ASTInterpreter.vcallNode(ASTInterpreter.java:1734)
    at org.jruby.evaluator.ASTInterpreter.evalInternal(ASTInterpreter.java:474)
    at org.jruby.evaluator.ASTInterpreter.blockNode(ASTInterpreter.java:626)
    at org.jruby.evaluator.ASTInterpreter.evalInternal(ASTInterpreter.java:293)
    at org.jruby.evaluator.ASTInterpreter.rescueNode(ASTInterpreter.java:1499)
    at org.jruby.evaluator.ASTInterpreter.evalInternal(ASTInterpreter.java:442)
    at org.jruby.evaluator.ASTInterpreter.eval(ASTInterpreter.java:168)

I found out that there is newer version of activerecord-jdbc, which is also renamed to activerecord-jdbc-adapter. It is important to uninstall the old gem as well as install the new one, otherwise the application will not work.

Installation of Mongrel gem on JRuby

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 20:22:50 -0500

I bought the Ola Bini's eBook on JRuby and started to work through the examples. The installation of the Mongrel gem in JRuby (trunk revision 5341 fails with the following error code:

``` $ jruby -S gem install -y mongrel> INFO: `gem install -y` is now default and will be removed> INFO: use --ignore-dependencies to install only the gems you list> Building native extensions. This could take a while...> extconf.rb:1:in `require': no such file to load -- mkmf (LoadError)> ERROR: Error installing mongrel:> ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.[/sourcecode]> This error is logged in JIRA with id JRUBY-1771Workaround (possibly applicable for other gems is to explicitly specify the plaform:> [sourcecode language='ruby']> $ jruby -S gem install -y mongrel --platform jruby> INFO: `gem install -y` is now default and will be removed> INFO: use --ignore-dependencies to install only the gems you list> Successfully installed mongrel-1.1.2> 1 gem installed> Installing ri documentation for mongrel-1.1.2...> Installing RDoc documentation for mongrel-1.1.2... ```

Great Spring blog

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:42:54 -0500

in case you have not noticed - Interface21 aka SpringSource (great name change, btw) runs a blog with lots of hidden treasures inside.

Recent article describes new addition to Spring portfolio which is territory within my "watched space": enterprise integration. See the blog entry for more.

If you are in corporate space that is keen on "standards", the comparison of Spring vs EJB3 is very good article as well. Not that EJB would matter too much these days (IMHO) - but a nice read nevertheless.

An advice to a fellow developer - 1

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 23:55:20 -0500

We are recently interviewing quite a lot in anticipation of the great things coming. It is sort of similar task as we did year and something ago, but I enjoy this round much better. This time, rather than "we have to assemble the project team ASAP", we have the luxury of longer term view and focus more on hiring the people that will be great match to the company culture, will be with us for longer period and will grow with the company.

Ragioni per fare il grande salto

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:51:28 -0500

During the vacation, we stopped in small bookstore in Verona which was selling computer software as well. At the entrance, there was a poster showing smiling Finder's face, Apple logo and announcing reasons why you would want to make the big jump - il grande salto - to Mac platform. That is to explain the title :-)

Grande Salto is exactly what I did. Without too much preparation or notice. Since Tuesday evening I am happy owner of the beautiful piece of hardware (17 inch 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro with 250 GB HDD and 4 GB of RAM) that is greatly complemented by the amazing software collection (OS X 10.5, iLife 08, iWork 08 and many others) running on it. I spent Wednesday playing with it and between 'Wows' and 'Ahhs' managed to setup the core applications I need for work: several configurations of Eclipse (with and without MyEclipseIDE), Netbeans with Ruby, couple of gems and of course THE editor. Then transferred the sources, installed Ant, Spring, Tomcat and couple of opensource packages (e.g. Jakarta Commons). And on Thursday, I jumped right into the field, to the client continuing in development of my current Java project in the place where I left it on Monday with Fujitsu N5100 running XP-ProSP2. As a plan B, I had my old notebook also with me - but did not have to resort to using it.

Installing ATG on Fedora Core

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:56:30 -0500

Trying to install ATG on the Linux platform turned out to be not completely hickup-free. The default installer died with the following message:

    $ ./ATG2007.1.bin>
    Preparing to install...>
    Extracting the installation resources from the installer archive...>
    Configuring the installer for this system's environment...>
    awk: error while loading shared libraries: libdl.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory>
    dirname: error while loading shared libraries: libc.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory>
    /bin/ls: error while loading shared libraries: librt.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory>
    basename: error while loading shared libraries: libc.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory>
    dirname: error while loading shared libraries: libc.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory>
    basename: error while loading shared libraries: libc.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory[/sourcecode]>
    Fortunately, the fix was easy after I found out what went wrong: incorrect assumption about kernel version. To make it work, this "hack" helped:>
    [sourcecode language='css']>
    $ mv ATG2007.1.bin ATG2007.1.bin.orig>
    $ cat ATG2007.1.bin.orig | sed "s/export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL/#xport LD_ASSUME_KERNEL/" &gt;ATG2007-1.bin

None of this of course happens on Windows - oh, yes - the joys of not swimming with the crowd :-). You will encounter issues otherwise unknown - but also learn something in the process.

Missing Java 6 on Leopard - is sky really falling ?

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:00:08 -0400

Since the big meow on Friday, lot of unhappy people had been talking and blogging about how terrible and unacceptable is the absence of the Java 6 from the Leopard. Some post were sounding very dramatic "I would not buy Mac if I only knew ..." - which is a bit silly. The Leopard's 300 new features were posted and touted and hyped for two weeks. Some of the "great" improvements were actually fairly modest improvements - so it was OBVIOUS that Java 6 is not going to be included because it would definitely make the list. QED.

Petstore for Ruby/JRuby

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 23:27:37 -0400

There is - after all - a Petstore implementation for Ruby. Somebody asked a question at the DZone and the response posted by Raphael Valyi was:

Re: Is there a Pet Store in Grails/Rails?

I'm speaking here for the Rails (JRuby) side:
there is actually a petstore, it can be found there:
http://viewvc.rubyforge.mmmultiworks.com/cgi/viewvc.cgi/?root=tw-commons

Some guys used it to compare C-Ruby vs JRuby performance:
http://www.nabble.com/JRuby-vs-MRI---Petstore-shootout-t4289470.html

Spring example Petclinic on Tomcat 6

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:07:37 -0400

If you try to deploy one of the Spring 2 samples included in the Spring framework source distribution - Petclinic on Tomcat 6 (6.0.14), the web application does not get loaded and fails with errror. The cause is the ClassNotFound exception for the class org.springframework.instrument.classloading.tomcat.TomcatInstrumentableClassLoader, more precisely:

SEVERE: LifecycleException java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.instrument.classloading.tomcat.TomcatInstrumentableClassLoader at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)

Java Web tools: Eclipse WTP, Netbeans and MyEclipse

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 23:10:51 -0400

Part of the technology upgrade in the three Java based projects is also tool update. We have started with Eclipse version 1 and gradually moved up to the currently used Eclipse 3.0. The build and deployment process was based on custom written Ant build script, which compiled, created WAR, deployed, undeployed, run the tests, created source snapshot - you name it. The Eclipse was used mostly as editor and debugger - using JPDA talking to Tomcat started in debug mode.

Good book on Spring Framework version 2

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 22:36:00 -0400

During my recent return to Javaland, I have noticed many improvements in newer releases of well established frameworks and toolkits, as well as many new ones. One such new release is version 2 of Spring framework. It is not really a hot news, because the final version of 2.0 is out for almost a year (October 2006), but it is new to me, because I spend pretty much all of last 12 months in DotNet, C# and OLAP worlds, with only brief visits to older Struts based, Spring-free Java projects.

Fresh cup of Java

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 22:28:40 -0400

Hi, all Java gurus inside and outside of Thinknostic - I have a very interesting problem. Imagine the following situation: we have three existing Java Web applications, written back in 2000/2001, based on open source libraries of that time: Struts 0.9/1.0 and JSP 1.x (no JSTL) with Tiles for Web layer, Apache Torque for ORM, early version of Quartz for job scheduling, Jasper Reports for PDF reports and Freemarker as template engine for email creation. The application has been (and still is) in production for almost 7 years and works great. Now the customer is expanding the functionality and wants add several Ajax features - in short, version 2.0 is on the table.

Netbeans Ruby IDE - great tool getting even better !

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 23:08:11 -0400

I have spent last two days (and few evenings before) playing with Rails and using Netbeans Ruby IDE. What a great experience ! Unlike before, it is so much easier to have really good debugger that allows put breakpoints not only into the Ruby code in controllers and model - but even into the RHTML view files !

Netbeans team works hard on improving the tool. With latest build - 2434, I have noticed great addition - Rails console. The IDE had IRB window even before, but the environment did not load the Rails context and would not recognize e.g. ActiveRecord. Now with latest build, everything works like charm.

MSDN Documentation - the follow up

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 20:01:02 -0400

Judging by the number of hits, Joel (and myself) are not the only people who would like to see nicer, better and faster MSDN documentation. As a very nice surprise, some of the feedback came directly from the people than actually can do something about it - like Darren Parker from Microsoft and Anand Raman from the Sandcastle project. Rob Relyea suggested and interesting looking tool based on XAML.

Thanks everybody - it is always nice to find out that even really big companies listen to the developers and want to address the problems. It almost feels like OpenSource experience where (it was few years back) we have encountered an issue in one of many Java templating libraries, posted to discussion group a question and few hours + several emails later had patch for the bug from the library creator :-). But back to the topic.

MSDN Documentation - the worst in class ?

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:41:36 -0400

Did it ever happened to you that you were using some tool day after day - and never realized it's pretty big deficiencies ? Until somebody, coming from different background pointed out what everything is wrong with the tool ? Before that moment of revelation, the issues were just inconvenience, but right after that they became real annoyance ?

Exactly this happened to me last week and the credit for pointing out what is wrong with MSDN documentation (and the "standard" .NET documentation format in general) goes to Joel :-)

Swing-ing back - to Netbeans

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 22:22:35 -0400

It has been quite some time since I used a Swing based Java application. Compared to beauty and close-to-native feeling of Eclipse based application, Swing just did not feel right - it looked differently and behaved a bit differently. For long time, my desktop was Swing-free (not counting the JDK demo). Not any more, though.

What made me to reconsider, is new release of the Netbeans v 6. In the latest milestone builds (M6 to M9), Netbeans team built amazing Ruby development environment. Compared to Ruby plugin in Eclipse, it has way more functionality, better debugging, really impressive editing support and very cool Rails extensions. The full description of new features is here.

DHH on RIA

Thu, 24 May 2007 20:46:02 -0400

DHH is (obviously) David Heinemeier Hansson (the creator of Rails) and RIA (in this context) means Rich Internet Applications. And here is the quote:

I think there's always room for new ideas, but I don't think that the whole fuss that's currently going on about RIA, rich Internet applications, is justified. I think we've been through this cycle so many times before that it in some ways amazes me how history seems to be ignored. We went through this with Java applets, they were going to rule the Web. Everything was going to be in a Java applet. HTML and CSS is history. And Flash came around, and Flash started focusing on applications. Now Flash is going to rule the Web and HTML and so on is yesterday. Now, Silverlight, Apollo, JavaFX, they're all bidding to take over the JavaScript, HTML and CSS [spaces], and I just don't buy it. I don't buy that developers by and large are going to jump into a proprietary technology and replace what HTML and CSS has given them.

New kid on the block in race to be Flash killer

Sat, 12 May 2007 22:27:42 -0400

After Adobe's Apollo and Microsoft's Silverlight, Sun has addes own version of scriptable, interactive platform named JavaFX. Unlike the previous three (Flash included), this is going to be Open Sourced - under the Microsoft's most hated license - GPL.

Now the race to replace Flash really becomes really interesting ...

Upgrading Java and Open Source libraries

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 21:28:22 -0400

As Murphy said - you cannot do just one thing. Thanks to JDK 1.4 entering end-of-life support period (and 1.3 being unsupported for some time), we need to move few applications happily running on these antique Java platforms to at least Java 5 and gain few more years of uninterrupted Sun-supported life.

Upgrading the applications was as expected, piece of cake - as long as you have solid build environment with build scripts and everything - which we certainly do. Ant runs on Java5 exactly as well as on 1.4 (maybe faster, but I did not measure), Tomcat was the same no-brainer thing and switching the Eclipse required only selecting different JRE in preferences window. Codewise, the only change required inside the application code was renaming few identifiers to something else than enum, which happens to be keyword in Java 5.

Ode on Eclipse :-)

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 20:52:31 -0400

After almost two years of uninterrupted C# and .NET development, I have got back for few days to Java world. One of our old customers asked us to do few enhancements and changes in the application we wrote. And because we always stand behind our work, always do answer the call for help and do support our customers as long as they want to be supported, I have squeezed-in few days worth of work into pretty packed schedule. So here am I on a short detour into world of class files and jars ...

Vista security and Java

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 20:44:11 -0500

I had a brief MSN chat with friend of mine today, who tried to install and use Vista as development platform. I mean install on the real hardware, in order to use it as core operating system. I have no feedback yet on how Visual Studio works, but as he found out, his Ant build files he uses to compile and deploy Java programs stopped working - because Vista did not allow to copy Javascript files. I can understand why Javascript files are treated with caution - however, it should not be considered the same when a file is copied from a local file to a local file, rather then downloaded from the internet.