Raible Designs

RE: A Better Way to Validate

Hmmm, Patrick seems to be doing the same thing I am - generating ActionForms from POJOs with XDoclet. I wonder if he's using my patch or if he's found another way?

Also, he asks if there's a better way to validate:

My ideal way to validate would be to add xdoclet tags right to my domain model to handle validation.

I guess I'm here to brighten your day then - this is exactly what I'm doing with struts-resume. Check it out: User.java contains @struts.validator tags that are pushed into the generated ValidatorForm via a custom struts_form.xdt (xdoclet) template. Enjoy!

No Fluff, Just Stuff - I'm In!

If I play my cards right, I'll be either (1) flying back from Florida for this conference, or (2) moving to Florida shortly afterwards.

------------------------------------------------------
Confirmation number: 338104
Name: Matt Raible

------------------------------------------------------
Rocky Mountain Software Symposium 2003: Spring Edition

Date: Friday, May 16, 2003 - Sunday, May 18, 2003

Sheraton Denver West
360 Union Blvd
Lakewood, CO  80228

Struts-Resume 0.6 Released!

After spending the last two nights burning the midnight oil, I have finished struts-resume 0.6. Not much new and exciting, but it definitely a more solid application now. Hopefully, I'll have a demo running in short order. [Project Homepage]

Ant Rocks (but you already knew that)

I have a few different side projects I'm working on right now. The first two, struts-resume and security-example are for the Wrox chapters and the third, AppFuse is the kindling I'm using to build these projects. Basically, I'm using AppFuse as a starting point for developing webapps. I think I've got most of what I want done for a baseline, so I'll be removing some struts-resume specific code from appfuse and calling it 1.0. For security-example, I'll be removing even more code.

The slick thing, and the reason for this post, is that I've been doing all my development on one project - appfuse. When I want to update struts-resume or security-example, I simply execute an ant command, and it updates whatever files have changed since I last updated. Ant figures out automagically which files have changed. I love it. I did a few updates and I'll be uploading the struts-resume 0.6 release tonight. Here's what I did to update the app from appfuse.

$ant new -Dapp.name=struts-resume -Ddb.name=resume
Buildfile: build.xml

clean:
     [echo] Cleaning build and distribution directories
   [delete] Deleting directory D:\source\appfuse\build
   [delete] Deleting directory D:\source\appfuse\dist

new:
     [echo] Creating new application named 'struts-resume'...
     [copy] Copying 17 files to D:\source\struts-resume
     [copy] Copied 1 empty directory to D:\source\struts-resume
     [copy] Copying 1 file to D:\source\struts-resume

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 27 seconds

Now all I have to do is commit it to CVS (BTW, you can get struts-resume from SourceForge CVS) and execute and dist. I could FTP to SF using Ant too I suppose (I have Erik's book sitting right here), but I'll just hope someone sends this task (or page number) to me. ;-)

Blogroll Cleanup

It's time to update my blogroll with the sites I'm actually reading now. I still click on the links on my blogroll every-so-often, but there are some that are hardly ever updated. See ya, it was fun reading when you provided regular content. ;-)

Taglibs Standard 1.0.3 Released

I've just noticed that a new version (1.0.3) of the JSTL reference implementation has been released containing some minor bug fixes. [Simon Brown]

Hmmm, no release notes eh? Makes you wonder if it's worth the upgrade/headache. I'll be in for it for quite some time with my struts-resume project. I'm using 17 different OSS packages - it'll be a maintenance nightmare to keep up. That is, until I break down and do some Maven integration.

Tivo and OS X

I think we're going to have to upgrade our Tivo. This OS X - Tivo integration looks like a good enough reason for me. Not to mention controller the shows you want to record from a web browser.

Validation - We need a common framework!

Jason doesn't like my Validator that matches two fields. I was just trying to help the Struts Community out by solving a problem that many have asked for. Oh well, I guess those WebWork folks will take any opportunity to bash on Struts ;-).

This is just another example of Struts making the common things hard. I'm more and more glad we went with Webwork, and once Xwork 1.0 / Webwork 2.0 are here, I'll be in nerdvana. [Jason Carreira]

Personally, I still think the Commons Validator is easier - you don't have to write any .java files in most cases (except for my extension, which will hopefully soon be added). I do like the ExpressionValidator - that looks cool. All in all, I think I'd bash on WebWork a little more - but I don't know enough about it. Where's the book ;-)

BTW, this post was sent (and edited!) via NetNewsWire. Very cool - but no titles.

Windows Trick o' the Day

I knew this trick existed, but I couldn't remember it. If you to drill down through your directory structure all the time, this is a real time saver. In Windows Explorer, you can highlight a folder and full expand it (and it's children) using the * key on your far right keypad. Using the - key will contract all folders. Other good Windows tricks I know are using the Win Key (that's the one with the Windows logo on it). Win+r = run, Win+e = explorer and Win+d = desktop. And last but not least, in Win2K+ right-click >> Properties on My Computer will get you to System Properties. If you have other good tips for Red Hat 8, OS X or Windows - please share!

New Oracle JDBC Driver for 9i and JDK 1.4

If you're using Oracle 9i and JDK 1.4, you might be interested to know the recommended JDBC Driver is no longer classes12.jar (I just discovered it from the tomcat-user mailing list). The Readme.txt (at least on Win2K) in $ORACLE_HOME/ora92/jdbc states the following:

New classes file name for JDK 1.4 and beyond
    Beginning with this release the classes files for JDK 1.4 and
    beyond will be named ojdbc<jdk ver>.jar. So, the classes file for
    JDK 1.4 is named ojdbc14.jar.  The names for the JDK 1.1
    and 1.2 classes files will not be changed. We will not provide
    .zip versions of the classes files beyond JDK 1.2.