Raible Designs

Life without the Internet

Our internet connection at home went down for the first time in two years yesterday. It's still down - which means I had to try to stop the shakes while I sat in front of the computer all night (working on an XDoclet/Remember Me presentation). I couldn't read any blogs, check any e-mail accounts, or talk to any CVS servers. It was miserable. However, I got a lot done and my productivity was much better. The problem is, who knows when it'll come back. Our ISP thinks it's on our end, and I think it's on their's. I suppose it could be my router. Have any of you had a Linksys router go out on you? My LAN still works fine, so I doubt it's the router. I just hope I don't have to resort to dial-up tonight.

To top it all off, when I got into work this morning, I was locked out of the network. In fact, I'm still locked out, but I have internet access, so the shakes have subsided for the moment. I guess my original contract was supposed to expire at the end of March.

I'm curious to know if anyone played an April Fools joke on anyone yet? I did on Julie - running into the bedroom all flustered and pissed, claiming that someone had stolen our car. She said, "which one?" and "well, better call the police." It barely even phased her, but I definitely got her hook, line and sinker. Then she got me back with "Want a quickie?" Of course I said "Sure!" and she retorted with "April Fools!" Damnit.

Cool TagLib Document

I found this gem on the strut-user list tonight.

* TaglibDoc
    This is a JavaDoc-like set of html and css files for browsing the
    taglib documentation.  Here's what this target does (I ran this
    about 15 minutes ago):

      http://struts.sourceforge.net/struts-atlanta/taglibdoc/

* TaglibReport
    This target will generate a grid-like view of the taglibs and their
    attributes so that you can see every tag in a typical package side
    by side.  This helps when comparing which tags implement a certain
    attribute, by allowing you to view them side by side and not have to
    look up each tag by hand. (also about 15 minutes ago)

      http://struts.sourceforge.net/struts-atlanta/taglibreport/

Project by Mohan Kishore, posting by James Mitchell.

WebWork Tutorial makes it look easy

I have to admit that this webwork tutorial makes WebWork look easy. In comparing this to Struts, it seems as if the Form and Action are the same thing. I wonder if I could use BeanUtils.copyProperties(wwAction, POJO) like I am with Hibernate/Struts currently.

The funny thing is that XDoclet has made it so easy (IMO) that I don't write ActionForm's anymore. All I really write is Actions, JSPs, DAOs and Services (a.k.a. Managers). So, with my current architecture I'm using, it actually looks like more work to use WebWork's Actions than Struts Actions. Especially since I have to write my validation in my Action. The XDoclet/Validator combo makes this super simple with Struts (and would with WW if they'd adopt it ;-). The only time I've been writing forms lately is when I have a form with indexed properties. Then I create a childForm that extends the generated form and has the appropriate accessors/mutators for the indexed properties.

The one thing the article does bring to light is how much cleaner Velocity is. JSP 2.0 will make JSP's a lot easier, but Velocity looks like it's already there. The one thing that worries me about using Velocity is that, according to their homepage, they haven't had a release in 8 months and their last release was a Release Candidate. What the?! Seems like someone might be dropping the ball on that project.

Red Hat 9 to be released soon

After receiving the e-mail below, I'm guessing that Red Hat 9 will be released on April 7th. Is it worth paying $60 to get it early - I think not. Hopefully, I'll have the same easy download and install experience I did with 8.0 in October.

Dear Matt:

You may know that Red Hat Network is the best way to keep your 
systems running the latest errata and always up to date. What you 
might not know is that Red Hat Network passed the one million users 
mark earlier this year. We've listened to valuable feedback and have
added two items of interest to keep those users happy - early release 
of Red Hat Linux 9 ISOs and improved technical support.

Beginning March 31, 2003, paid subscribers to Red Hat Network will 
have access to Red Hat Linux 9 ISOs - a full week before retail store 
and Red Hat FTP availability. Also, Red Hat Network subscribers will
receive dedicated Red Hat Network Technical Support. 

Learn more about the benefits of being a Red Hat Network Subscriber:
http://redhat.chtah.com/a/tA$f1ahAJPSNNAMoxTCAFzqKeVO/rhat1

To purchase a Red Hat Network subscription:
http://redhat.chtah.com/a/tA$f1ahAJPSNNAMoxTCAFzqKeVO/rhat2

Thanks again for using Red Hat Linux. We appreciate all feedback 
from our users and hope you enjoy Red Hat Linux 9.

Sincerely,

Red Hat

TagUnit for the Display Tag

Simon Brown was nice enough to whip up an application for testing the display tag library. Amazingly enough, it passes all the tests! At first glance, Simon's TagUnit seems to just test getters and setters and if classes are loadable. I think these are great tests, but for truly robust tests for the display tag, I think we need tests that test specific behavior (i.e. you click on a column heading and it sorts that column). IMO, WebTest is probably the best candidate. The problem is, it might take awhile to write these tests, and no one seems to have much time to work on the display tag project. Any volunteers? ;-)

Life as a Contractor

This weeks sucks to be a contractor. It's a 2-day week and that's all I'm getting paid for - 2 days. Damnit, wish I was full-time. Then again, if I were making the big bucks, 2 days would be plenty to pay the mortgage. Alas, I am not - and I'm tempted to work this weekend. What the hell is wrong with me - work on the weekend?! I make fun of my friends when they work on the weekend - now I'm a hypocrite. I have a to do list that makes my weekend boring as all getout:

• work 10-12 hours at day job
• add user administration to struts-resume
• release appfuse
• finish new design prototype for client
• release displaytag (no one else seems to want to do it)
• clean the house before Julie gets home

No wonder I miss Julie and Abbie so much when they're gone - I sit in front of the fricken computer all the time! When I get out of the house (or simply off the computer), I find I miss them much less (it's been almost 2 weeks!). I might have to scrap my to do list (save the paid part - item 3) and get off the damn computer. Booking happy hour and ski dates shortly... ;-)

J2EE 1.4 Installs just fine on OS X

I downloaded the Linux version of the J2EE 1.4 Beta today to install on OS X. I found that it installed flawlessly with the following nice little message:

[minime:~/Desktop] matt% ./j2sdkee-1_4-beta-linux.sh                            
Using /var/tmp as temporary directory...                                        
Searching for Java(TM) 2 Platform, Standard Edition...                          
Initializing InstallShield Wizard...                                            
running on mac

Cool! Now to see if I can get the Adventure Builder reference application running on the Mac. I also found this interesting article on the new JSP and servlet capabilities in J2EE 1.4.

Best Snow Report Ever

Winter Park has the best snow report that I've ever seen. 43.5 inches in the last 24 hours!! Too bad you can't get in (all the roads are closed). As a friend of mine said today, "It's a local's paradise."

What to do with my Chapters?

Julie suggested I just post them on this site. Then I got to thinking - what if all the authors made a PDF version of the book, and it was downloadable as the whole thing or as selected chapters. Let's say $5/chapter and you can pick and choose whichever ones you want. Sounds like a good idea, but the problem would be protecting the PDFs from being shipped around between friends. Or we could just give them away, in hopes that our knowledge would inspire others to hire us (as in a new job or a new book).

I don't know what to do, but I'd like to get my chapters out somehow. I'm afraid that if I just sit and wait, they'll never get out, and the technology will be old news shortly. The stuff I wrote about has staying power, but only until the next version of XDoclet and Struts.

I guess the good news is that I'll keep struts-resume up to date with the latest version, but the writing will be out of date by the end of the year.

RE: Wrox Going Under

Matt hopes for for Professional JSP 2.0:

[Larkware] A couple of weblogs have reported that Wrox is going under. Although at the moment this has to be classed as "credible rumor," it really doesn't surprise me, on two fronts. First, it seems to me that Wrox's strategy for the past year or so has been mainly "throw a lot of stuff at the wall and see what sticks."

I really really hope not. I was looking forward to Professional JSP 2.0...

Yeah, I was really looking forward to this book - my first time being published, busting my hump to write just after having a new daughter, among other things. It just sucks. It doesn't really suck for me, it really sucks for the people that actually worked for Wrox. As for Professional JSP 2.0, who the heck knows what'll happen. I really hope it gets published. I also hope to get paid for writing, but that'll probably never happen. If they don't publish it, they probably don't have to pay the authors. I think the book is done though, maybe we can talk them into publishing it... Let's get a petition going!

Or maybe I'll just sell my chapters on eBay.