CruiseControl verses Ant verses Maven2

This week, I took at look at what CruiseControl and Maven2. I have used ant and customized versions of ant in for J2EE builds for many modules source tree as well as projects with one giant nested ant file.

Here is an overview of what the separate items are:

• Ant – Build script written in XML that is used to compile and run java projects. Ant build files are simple at first, but easily become more complex.
• Maven 2 – Build system that forces your source code to live in a directory layout. Maven supports all development lifecycle steps such as development, testing, deployment, versioning, and also remote libraries. This is definitely very complex.
• CruiseControl – Continuous integration tool. It will check out all your source files whenever it detects a change and kickoff another build and test. Pretty simple once you have it running.

This is my recommendation.

• Use CruiseControl for build automation and setting up the nightly builds.
• Don’t use CruiseControl if you do not needed automated builds.
• Use Maven2, if you want to follow the best practices for J2EE development.
• Don’t use Maven2 if your builds are too customized, or the work required to convert to maven2 would be too involved for your organization.
• Use Ant if your build is highly customized.
• Don’t use ant if Maven or Cruisecontrol can take care of the functionality that you need
  

I know that ant, and cruse control definitely have a place in the build environment at my current work. We’ll see if maven2 has a place.

Webservices Best Pratices

I have used webservices in a variety of ecommerce, enterprise, and mobile development enviroments. I thought of these quick pointers for Webservices Best Pratices.

• Make sure you version the your web services.

Webservices are often used for integration. Changing any deployed or used webservices will have significant impact on your clients. It would be disastrous for the method signature or data returned by a web services to no longer match.

• Use asynchronous model for web services communications.

Often webservices will perform some sort of business operation, which may take a significant amount of time to process. This time taken for processing introduces delays for users of your service. To prevent applications from use either a publish and subscribe method or a callback.

• Use caching for heavily accessed web services.

On certain web services, I have developed would be called millions of times per day. Even the WSDL on the apache axis 2.0 is generated dynamically. You might want to cache the data being returned or retrieved to improve the performance of your application.

Shortage of Engineers in India

Skills Gap Hurts Technology Boom in India - New York Times: "A study commissioned by a trade group, the National Association of Software and Service Companies, or Nasscom, found only one in four engineering graduates to be employable. The rest were deficient in the required technical skills, fluency in English or ability to work in a team or deliver basic oral presentations."

This is just like the united states. No one can work in teams or speak in english.

Damnit Juliet!

Why do you always win at tetris… My secret practicing with Steve has not helped at all.

1-5

Bleh!

Tom

Man lives to 112 despite junk-food diet - Yahoo! News: "'He had terrible bad habits. He had a diet largely of sausages and waffles,' Dr. L. Stephen Coles, founder of the Gerontology Research Group at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Friday."

This is my old roomate.

Sebastian the cat gets 'grilled' - Yahoo! News: "'It's possible to work on animals the same way we do humans,' he said. 'I did it to strengthen (Sebastian's) teeth, but it had an excellent cosmetic result. The cat gets a lot of attention now. Everyone is tickled to death when they see him.'

Sebastian's two gold teeth protruding from his furry face make him seem a little menacing, like a hip-hop star's guard-cat or a movie villain's pet. The feline didn't seem too happy with his new look at first.

'He's normally around me all the time,' Steele said. 'After I put the crowns on, he didn't 'speak' to me for two days.'"

161 one pound away from my kitty. maybe i'll get it some grillz

Coffee Might Trigger First Heart Attack in Some - Yahoo! News: "She stressed the study focused only on the short-term effects of coffee; the researchers only looked at the first hour after coffee was consumed. 'The acute effect of coffee as a trigger for heart attack is modified by habitual consumption. People who drink it regularly are still at risk. Only heavy drinkers are not at risk,' she said."

good thing i count as a heavy drinker. i'm safe from heart attacks.

Brocade to buy McData | CNET News.com: "Brocade will pay three-quarters of a share of its common stock for each share of McData's A and B common stock. The deal is valued at $4.61 a share, a 62 percent premium over McData's closing price on Monday.

'The acquisition of McData will build on Brocade's vision for the next-generation data center,' Michael Klayko, Brocade chief executive, said in a statement.

Last year, Brocade unveiled its Tapestry product line, which is designed to improve customers' management of information stored in their data centers. Brocade has traditionally focused on the low-end market for storage area networks (SANs), while McData concentrated on high-end SAN switches."

wowers... i remember brocade was locked in a life and death struggle with this company....

Cook my wookie

N.H. woman bakes cookies on dashboard - Yahoo! News

Fontaine first tested her dashboard oven three years ago. She said anyone can do it; the only requirement is for the outside temperature to be at least 95 degrees, so it will rise to about 200 degrees in the car. Temperatures in the area reached the mid to upper 90s on Wednesday.

Yums. I wonder if I can cook fish.

Single city block hosts world's longest race - Yahoo! News: "The longest foot race in the world is 3,100 miles, long enough to stretch from New York to Los Angeles. Those who run it choose a different route: they circle one city block in Queens -- for two months straight.
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The athletes lap their block more than 5,000 times. They wear out 12 pairs of shoes. They run more than two marathons daily. In the heat and rain of a New York summer, they stop for virtually nothing except to sleep between midnight and 6 a.m."

Run baby run! I make it to starbux every morning and turn back. one lap, one day, 5 days a week, with a coffee light frappacino.

dont steal my gloves

Feline felon suspected in glove thefts - Yahoo! News

PELHAM, N.Y. - A pink-and-white gardening glove was missing Thursday morning from Jeannine Goche's front porch. But there was absolutely no mystery about who had taken it. Willy, the cat who loves gloves, had struck again.
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"It has to be him," said Goche, an attorney. "I've heard about him."

As if the gardeners of Pelham don't have enough to worry about, with the rocky soil and the slugs and the big trees casting too much shade, a feline felon has been sneaking into their back yards and carrying off gardening gloves.

i sometimes run out and steal mag's pillow. She usually punishes me by making me stay off the furniture and sleep on the ground

super jelly fish invasion

CNN.com - Jellyfish slow Japanese nuke plant - Jul 20, 2006

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- A mass of jellyfish forced a Japanese nuclear power plant to slow part of its output this week after the slimy creatures blocked up the plant's seawater cooling system.

My sister's minions have blocked this nuclear plant. No advance word on when her special forces commandos will storm the plant and sting the plant operators.

Great EJB Book!

Free Book: Mastering EJB 3.0

Published in July 2006, the best selling book Mastering EJB is now in its fourth edition and has been updated for EJB 3.0. This edition features chapters on session beans and message-driven beans, EJB-Java EE integration and advanced persistence concepts. In-depth coverage of the Java Persistence API and using POJO entities with EJB is also included.

This is a great book that explains the workings of enterprise java beans. EJBs often provide a great mechanism accessing resources in another server or access to objects inside the database. If you work in enviroments that use a tiered architecture, you'll find this book useful.

Where can I live?

Out of College, but Now Living in Urban Dorms - New York Times

“Everyone talks about free-market solutions,” he said, speaking of the city’s shortage of lower-priced housing. “But the solution now is the rich get richer and for everyone else it’s the equivalent of being a sharecropper in the city. I’ve been working five or six years now, trying to save up and buy something. Every time I get closer, the goal moves farther away.”

Asked how adult-dorm life differed from college-dorm life, Mr. Fenn said: “You’re not really at the same place where you were psychologically. Now, for me, I’m kind of wondering: When does this end? When do I get to be able to buy a place and settle down?”

This is how I feel. When will I be able to setup my desktop computer, so I can setup bittorrent.

1995 style emails

Satire: Recently unearthed e-mail reveals what life was like in 1995 | CNET News.com

But the artifact reveals differences as well. According to Caspari, the find indicates that people from that era spoke a much earlier form of e-mail language alien to our own, employing the full spellings of most words, and lacking the versatility and advanced expression of smiley-face or frowny-face emoticons.

Maggie writes in 1995 style emails. 1 rite in 2006 style.

good writing

Calif. man makes bad writing judges cringe - Yahoo! News

SAN FRANCISCO - A retired mechanical designer with a penchant for poor prose took a tired detective novel scene and made it even worse, earning him top honors in San Jose State University's annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for bad writing.
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Jim Guigli of Carmichael submitted 64 entries into the contest. The judges were most impressed, or revolted perhaps, by his passage about a comely woman who walks into a detective's office.

"Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean," Guigli wrote.

Mags almost dug her eyes out one time too.

Tongues are big business in the meat trade - Yahoo! News: "Jay Simpson, global sales manager for commodity and trading at the No. 3 U.S. poultry company Perdue Farms, said his company's paws go to China and there is enough profit to make it worthwhile.

Without China, the paws would likely go to rendering companies to be processed into pet food or animal feed.

'It is my understanding they are used in sauces,' said Simpson of Chinese market. 'We have three or four plants that produce them. If we didn't harvest them they would go into rendering.'"

This would go great with my macademia nuts from hawaii.

EATING CONTEST IS DOGGED BY CONTROVERSY / San Jose challenger's dreams ground down as 5-time champ from Japan sets world record: "At about 1:50 p.m., with just a few minutes left on the clock, the 6-foot-1, 230-pound Chestnut was tied with his diminutive competitor as they neared the 50-dog mark. Suddenly, Kobayashi appeared to regurgitate -- a move that results in automatic disqualification and that speed eating experts call 'a reversal of fortune.'

As Kobayashi lifted a cup of water to his mouth, a spray of bread chunks and wiener bits shot into his cup, which the 170-pound champion immediately gulped down. Chestnut, unable to spit out words, pointed and gestured toward judges to draw their attention to the slip.

'The judges found a quarter of a hot dog in his cup,' said Patrick Chestnut, Joey's older brother who witnessed the spew from the front row as he cheered on his brother. 'If that's not grounds for disqualification, what is?'"

I tried this with Mago last night, she disqualified me at the dinner table.

What I ate today

Breakfast

Coffee Frap - 200
Bag of Nuts - 100

Lunch
One bowl of Salad with evil balasamic sauce - 100 calories
Chicken - 300

Afternoon snack
nuts - 100
mocha drink  220

Bastards

Police arrest cement soccer ball pranksters - Yahoo! News

Police in Berlin said on Wednesday they had arrested two men on suspicion of placing cement-filled soccer balls around the city and inviting people to kick them. At least two people injured themselves by kicking the balls, which were chained to lampposts and trees alongside the spray-painted message: "Can you kick it?"