Raible Designs

Ant vs. Maven

I found a good post from Steve Loughran on what's wrong with Maven's repositories. I agree with most of his points, but would like to point out mvnrepository.com. This site seems to provide good XML Feeds for what's been uploaded to Maven's Central Repository. If you're using Maven, you should probably subscribe to its Atom Feed.

In related news, Timothy M. O'Brien has an entry about Steve's upcoming book: Ant in Action. This book is the 2nd edition of Java Development with Ant. I have a hard time believing Erik Hatcher is helping Steve write Ant in Action - AFAIK, he's off in Rails-land enjoying himself. Regardless, I'm sure Ant in Action will be an excellent book. Java Development with Ant is one of my favorite technical books of all time and is largely responsible for inspiring me to write AppFuse. I read JDwA way back in October 2002 and used a lot of its code to develop AppFuse 1.x's Ant-based build system.

Like Tim, I still like Ant. However, AppFuse 2.x uses Maven 2 and most of the projects I work on these days use Maven 2. It may surprise some folks, but I actually like Maven 2 (not Maven 1). Sure it has issues, but after a year of using it in anger, I know how to solve most of its quirks. AppFuse 2.x users will benefit from this greatly and I'm thinking of changing its tagline to "We make Maven work."

One of the most interesting things about moving to Maven is we were easily able to make AppFuse more like a framework than a project starter kit. We thought this is what most folks wanted - especially the ability to upgrade a project to the latest version of AppFuse. While some folks wanted this, it seems like most folks liked the full-source version that was a pain-in-the-ass to upgrade. I don't blame them. On the project I'm on, I'll likely be converting to a full-source version before the project is over. That's why APF-675 exists. I doubt we'll make it happen for the 2.0 final release, but it is on our radar of things to do shortly after. With any luck, we'll create a way to migrate projects using embedded AppFuse to full-source AppFuse.

I'd also like to point out something ironic. With AppFuse 1.x, there were a lot of folks that advocated we move to Maven. Their primary reasoning - the Ant build scripts were too long and complicated. How about a good ol' lines of XML comparison for those folks:

• Lines of Ant-related XML in AppFuse 1.x: 1655
• Lines of Maven-related XML in AppFuse 2.x: 2847

Oh wait, that's not a fair comparison. The above number is for AppFuse in SVN, which end users won't deal with. A new project created with AppFuse 2.x will likely have a pom.xml with 634 lines. That's about 1/3 of the amount needed for Ant in AppFuse 1.x. Maven hasn't exactly gotten us away from XML hell though. How about a LOC count for archetypes vs. installers:

• Lines of Ant-related XML for AppFuse 1.x framework installers: 2786
• Lines of Maven-related XML for AppFuse 2.x archetypes (including archetype's pom.xml files): Too much to count. Creating archetypes is waayyyy too complicated IMO. Basic archetypes seem to be around 740 lines (pom.xml for archetype project, archetype.xml and archetype's pom.xml), modular archetypes are around 870. 740 x 4 + 870 x 4 = 6440. I'm guessing the full-source archetypes will add another 5000 lines of XML. Ugh.

This XML-for-archetypes comparison might be unfair as well. With 1.x, you could only create a webapp, with 2.x, you can create a modular application and chop off the web-portion if you so choose.

Of course, the real benefits of moving to Maven are elsewhere. We've seen quite an uptick on the mailing list in the last few months. There's tools cropping up and I've gotten quite a few inquiries about training (yes, I do have a 3-day course on Spring, Hibernate, Ajax, Maven and AppFuse). To me, AppFuse 2.x seems more complicated than 1.x, but it seems the community thinks otherwise. Judging from the increased amount of developer activity on the project, developers seem more interested in a Maven-based system too. Then again, we are making Maven work!

Fenway Park

Time in traffic: 2 hours
Cost for parking: $45
Seeing a Red Sox game at Fenway Park: Priceless

But that's not the best part. The good story behind it all is how my buddy Chris made it happen. I dropped him off at his office on Boylston Street this morning. On the way, I asked him if his company had any seats and if he could "hook it up." He said, "I doubt it, but I'll see what I can do." At 10:00 a.m., his National Sales Manager said that the individual who got the most new contacts in their territory would get tickets to the Red Sox game. Chris worked his ass of all day and won the contest! Not only did he win, but the seats he got were phenomenal - as you can tell from the picture below.

I've never been to a baseball game where the fans were so into it. Everyone stood up and cheered for the last 1/2 hour of the game. The whole experience was incredible - definitely one of the top 10 sports moments of my life. Thanks Chris - you rock!

Going to Fenway?

Today is my first attempt to see a Red Sox game at the illustrious Fenway Park. A couple of weeks ago, I convinced my client I should come out this week (instead of last week) because the Red Sox were in town and I wanted to see a game. Originally, I wanted to go to opening day, but a friend (Chris) who lives here said "It'll be impossible to get tickets, and if you do, it'll be $500 each." Then another friend (Scott) said he had 4 tickets for Thursday's game and I was welcome to one. So I made plans with both of them to go to today's game.

Of course, in the meantime, Chris managed to score a ticket to Tuesday's game and didn't tell me until last night - that bastard!

For most of this week, the forecast has been "snow on Thursday." When I woke to no snow this morning, I figured the game was on and I'd better start heading for Boston. I left my client's office around noon and I arrived in Boston about 15 minutes ago. After paying $30 (!) for parking, I'm now at a Starbuck's - waiting for the game to start at 4.

Scott backed out this morning because he's a sissy, but Chris is still in and scored some tickets off Craig's list. To be honest, it doesn't look good. It's hovering around freezing, windy and poring down rain right now. I got soaked walking the two blocks from my car (sidenote: I got a new Dodge Charger for $30/day from Thrifty - it kicks ass). However, I'm still hopeful. I'm from Montana, so I'm used to miserable weather and I'm sure there's enough tasty beer to make it an enjoyable game. I heard on the radio that they were going to "do their best" to make this game happen. My fingers are crossed. Go Sox!

RE: 5th anniversary of Blogging Roller

From the Blogging Roller himself:

Today is the fifth anniversary of this blog, which I started on April 11, 2002 to promote the Roller blog software that I had just finished writing.
...
Now, five years later, Roller has graduated from the Apache Incubator to become Apache Roller, blog-tech is my full-time job at Sun and I'm still Blogging Roller. Thanks to Roller users and contributors everywhere for helping to make this possible.

Congrats Dave - 5 years is 20 years in Internet Time isn't it?!

It's hard to believe I've been reading Blogging Roller for that long. Thanks to Dave for getting me into blogging and creating Roller. It was his article that got me interested in blogging and inspired me to setup this site. Thanks to Roller, I met Lance, who got Dave and I the Pro JSP deal, which lead me to create AppFuse.

Thanks Dave! I owe you a beer or 12 for all the good things you started.

It's funny to think back when there was only a handful of Java Bloggers: Russell, Dave, Lance, Erik and good ol' Mike. Remember Mike and his "Java blogs" blogroll?

From Vegas to Snow to Boston

Our visit to Las Vegas was a lot of fun. Little did we know, some friends we were meeting there were getting engaged on Thursday night. Of course, the girl (Kim) didn't know, but the guy (Mike) had been planning it for quite some time. We had a great time celebrating with them - as well as at the craps and blackjack tables.

I was planning on staying until Saturday, but Julie made me leave with her on Friday night. Her reasoning was because she was up and I was hemorrhaging cash. I didn't like the idea at the time, but loved it once I slid into my own bed late Friday night.

Leaving Vegas's 90°F temperatures and arriving in Denver's 30°F was kind of a bummer, but the 1" of snow yesterday and today is kinda cool. I leave in a few hours for Boston, where it's supposed to be cold all week. I was hoping for a warm and sunny Red Sox game on Thursday, but with a forecasted high of 40°F it doesn't look like it's going to happen. Oh well, bad weather means I'll probably bill and work on AppFuse more, so it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Update: I just went online to check in for my flight tonight and found out that United cancelled my flight due to "crew legalities" - whatever that means. Orbitz booked me on the next available flight, which isn't until tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. Doh!

The good news is I get to spend another night with the wife and kids. Unfortunately, tomorrow is going to be a brutal work day since I won't get on site until 3 in the afternoon.

Candy for AppFuse

Candy for AppFuse tries to easy the adoption and usage of AppFuse 2.0 by adding some eye candy in the form of Eclipse Plug-ins. If you want the power of an integrated set of excellent J2EE tools and frameworks managed from the comfort of your IDE, give Candy for AppFuse a try.

I downloaded and tried out this plugin yesterday. Seems to work quite nicely. See Abel Muiño's blog for more details. Well done Abel!

Vegas, Boston, Amsterdam, Stuttgart, West Palm Beach and Connecticut

I have a hectic travel schedule in both April and May. The good news is it consists of trips for both pleasure and business, so hopefully I won't get too tired of planes. Tomorrow, Julie and I are heading to good ol' Las Vegas. A good friend of mine got us a free room at the Bellagio. Most of my trips to Vegas in the past few years have been for TSSS or bachelor parties, so it should be a lot of fun to enjoy it with my wife. Knowing us, we'll only be in our free room for a couple hours.

On Sunday, I'm heading out to Boston for a week on site at my client's. They wanted me to come out this week, but I convinced them that coming out for the Red Sox home opener was a better idea. I don't have tickets to the game Tuesday, but a good friend has tickets for Thursday and I'll probably go to Saturday's game too. If you have extra tickets to Tuesday's game, let's talk. I'd like to organize a tech meetup while I'm out there, but I probably won't have time. I'll be working long hours Monday - Wednesday in hopes of taking Friday off.

After Boston, I'm home for two weeks, then it's off to ApacheCon Europe. I'm leaving Saturday the 28th, staying in Amsterdam until two hours after my talk on Friday and then heading to Stuttgart for the weekend. I fly back from Europe and head down to Florida for a week's vacation with Julie and the kids. Then I'm off to Connecticut for a week to teach a training class on Spring, Hibernate, Maven, Ajax and all the other fun stuff that developers like to learn.

Phew, it's going to be quite the ride over the next month and a half. I'll try to take a camera and post pictures from all my adventures.

The Last Page

I started this blog way back in August 2002 as a way of sharing tips and tricks I'd learned with other Java Developers. It's been a fun ride for the last 5 years, and I do think having a blog is a great way to document your life's history.

For the last two weeks, I've only blogged a couple times and it's been really nice. After last week's incident, I think it's time to retire from the blogosphere. So here it is, my last entry. It's been a great ride y'all, thanks for reading. Hopefully we'll still see each other around - maybe on a mailing list or at a conference someday.

Cheers!

Tuesday Evening: April Fools! The hardest part of an April's Fools entry is making it believable. Looks like leaving it up for a few days was the trick. To Jim and Dave (who were offended by the way I used the Kathy Sierra incident) - I'm sorry. It was the only thing I could think that y'all might actually believe.

Taking the week off

I consider Kathy Sierra (and her husband Bert Bates) good friends of mine. I've seen them quite a few times over the years at various conferences. They're some of the nicest people I've ever met and I always enjoy our conversations.

The recent death threats she's received is sick and wrong. I don't know what to say, except that I hope they find the morons that are doing this and prosecute them appropriately.

I like Scoble's idea and will be taking the week off as well. Too bad, it looks like there won't be an April Fools entry this year.

Apache Struts 2 from Square One

Ted Husted has put together an impressive training course together for Struts 2 called Apache Struts 2 from Square One. He's released an initial version of the 127-page PDF on SourceForge.

Thanks Ted! The fact that you're contributing this hard work to the community (for free!) is amazing.

I'm teaching a 3-day training course in May that covers Spring, Hibernate, Maven 2, Ajax and AppFuse. I'm not sure if the client wants Struts 2 or Spring MVC for their web framework. If they want Struts 2, you can be sure I'll checkout Ted's course as a starting point.