It figures, after bitching about the lack of ROI for Developers on Open Source projects, I get an e-mail from Rob Cope of Out-of-the-Box. The e-mail said that I could get a free version of Out-of-the-Box Enterprise Edition for my contribution to the open source community.
So I think, "wicked cool" - this software sounds great! I downloaded (500 MB) and installed it, and that was the end of my experience with OOTB. No instructions on what to do next. I perused around the filesystem it installed and tried to run ant in a few directories, but no luck. So OOTB just gives me a bunch of OSS projects on my hard-drive, but they aren't built. I don't want to know what I'm doing wrong - I want to know where the documentation is that tells me what to do. I'd dig it if it let me install them projects (i.e. Apache) where I wanted, and also allowed me to upgrade existing installations. If it could migrate my existing settings or customizations, that would be even better. That is what I want.
That being said, I don't think I have much use for OOTB. Why? Because it's not updated enough. I'm the type of upgrade-happy SOB that wants to download and use as soon as the release announcement goes out. I want to get the latest snapshot from CVS and see if it solves my problems. I want to patch my local copy and fix the bugs myself. I want to install some applications in $TOOLS_HOME, and some in $SDKS_HOME. Lastly, while it's nice that OOTB sets the environment variables for me ($JAVA_HOME and $ANT_HOME), I'd appreciate it if it didn't overwrite my existing ones. A simple prompt to see if I want to change them would be sufficient. Especially since I have a newer version of Ant (1.5.3-1 vs. 1.5.3) than OOTB. I don't mean to be too critical - I just want to voice my true feelings. ;-)
Sue Spielman, local Java/Struts Guru, is heading out to JavaOne next week and
promises developer coverage (minus the marketing hype) in a DJUG e-mail today. [More] Who's going to start compiling the list of JavaOne bloggers?
Here is a link to all the cool new features in this release! You can download from here. [A Cup of Joe]
The upgrade-happy developer in me can't help but click the download link. The New and Noteworthy page (near the bottom) notes many improvements to Eclipse on the Mac. I'd really love it if Eclipse was fast on OS X and Apple released OS X on Intel. I really dig the OS, just not the speed of the hardware.
Does Sun have something cool up there sleeve? Or do they have something they think is cool? As far as I can tell, they thing that Sun ONE is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm sure it is when compared to their iPlanet products. I should know, I've done way too much development on iPlanet. Actually, most of the coding I did was workarounds, rather than writing code. Anyway, I found this post on architectslobby.org that indicates that Sun thinks they've got something good.
Sun Microsystems next week will unveil a developer tool and community portal designed to broaden the appeal of its Java programming language.
The new developer tool, code-named Project Rave, will be demonstrated at Sun's JavaOne Conference in San Francisco next week. It will incorporate the JavaServer Faces Web APIs as well as a number of Java Web services and database connectivity technologies, all with the aim of making Java development -- and in particular, Java Web services development -- easier to do. [Full Article]
I doubt it'll be that good - just some enhancements to Sun ONE Studio I expect. If it was written in SWT, and it was open source (so we could all make it better) - that would be very cool! But I doubt that'll happen. The'll also be going live with java.net (whois record). Hope it's good - it's going to take a lot to make me want to read java.net over java.blogs.
Regardless of this announcement (and the new logo), next week IS going to be a good week. Java will be on the spotlight and in the news, and we all get to look forward to a vibrant week of blogging and announcements. Cool - I can't wait!
I've seen the following message printed out as part of our build process for quite a few months now - and decided to try and fix it today.
compile-common:
Trying to override old definition of task runservertests
Trying to override old definition of task canoo
Trying to override old definition of task dbunit
I found that moving my <taskdef>'s from the root level (right under <project>) to inside my "init" target fixed the problem. Easy fix, no more messages.
I've been doing some research, trying to purchase roller.com or roller.org. Why? For the simple reason that I'd rather type "roller" than "rollerweblogger" whenever I go to rollerweblogger.org. I'm sure that folks that type in "raibledesigns.com" might feel the same frustration. There's always javawebapps.com, but that's pretty long too. What about mattraible.com? Needless to say, I found some humor when the folks at roller.com replied to my e-mail about the price of roller.com:
We want US $20,000.
Ha! I'm guessing this domain will remain for sale for many years to come. 
I'm thinking of getting a new computer. I currently have two Dell Dimension 8100's (1.5 GHz). One runs Windows XP and has 1 GB of RAM. The other, Red Hat 9 with 768 MB RAM. The reason I want a new one is that it's tough to ignore the performance increase from a faster CPU on my work machine, a Dell OptiPlex GX260 (2 GHz, 512 MB RAM). Also, my Dimensions are 2 years old and that's about the end life for a computer these days (if you're a developer that prefers Windows like me).
So the question is: Can I combine my two 8100's into a kick-ass Linux box. It has dual-processor capabilities (1 GB max RAM though) and I'm wondering if the performance increase is that significant. Is it easy to do?
What will I get next? I'm thinking about a Dell Laptop. Don't know which one, but I've never skimped on price (I have a PowerBook), so performance and wireless are the most important. Suggestions are encouraged. I like Dell because their customer service rocks - whenever anything has broken/failed on my machine, they've come out to my house within 48 hours and fixed it. This has only happened once (video card went bad).
Why don't I just get a new PowerBook? Because they're slow - especially for Java. And I'm slow on a PowerBook. Windows keyboard shortcuts are imbedded in my brain and I can easily get something done twice as fast on Windows as I can on a Mac. Java tools work best on Windows and Linux. I have to give it to Apple that Java client apps run best on a Mac, but I'm not developing those, or using those, so who cares. Actually, what I'd like to do is run Red Hat as the primary OS and run VMWare with Windows XP. VMWare is very fast and IMHO works just as well as a dual-boot machine. Unlike Virtual PC, which is slower than molasses in January.
