I was looking through java.blogs yesterday and came across a link to a manuscript for the next version of Code Complete. From what I've heard about the original version, it's well written with solid practices, although a bit dated. Hopefully this second version should fill the gap. I look forward to browsing it as I get the chance to. You can download and view the chapters in PDF format, and even comment on them to the author (deadline: March 15, 2004).
Here is an except from The Religious Left that I find enlightening. Should make the conservatives think a bit when they want to base their definition of marriage on what the bible says about it.
The Presidential Prayer Team is currently urging us to: "Pray for the President as he seeks wisdom on how to legally codify the definition of marriage.." So here, in support of the Prayer Team's admirable goals, is a proposed Constitutional Amendment codifying marriage entirely on biblical principles:
A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5)
B. Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)
C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)
D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)
E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)
F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)
G. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36)
I took some time last night and got gallery running properly on my box. You can now look at pictures, including ones of the preperations for our kid, at gallery.shoutstudios.com.
Stacey has finished the templates for the baby site. It is now migrated over to MovableType and yes, it now has comment support. Check it out.
Found what looks to be a good article while reading Java.Blogs this morning dealing with using Eclipse and J-Boss in conjunction with each other to create an enterprise application. Looking over the table of contents, it goes into all of the different types of beans (which I have become fairly comfortable with), and the important part (at least to me), setting up Eclipse to interact with J-Boss and run in debug mode. It appears that it's using a plugin, (Lomboz) to handle the enterprise stuff, and not using the addon to Eclipse that I found for work, MyEclipseIDE. But it should be a good article to read through. Heck, can't hurt!
All i can say is wow! This sucks!!
Read this article.
Alright, I know we went through this over on John's blog in a very energetic and fueled debate, but I just have to post this.
According to MSNBC, President Bush is going to openly support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, or as he calls it, protecting the "sanctity of marriage".
I was unhappy with the whole situation before, but never really thought anyone would be dumb enough to try to pass this kind of legislation. It's basically political suicide. What I find very interesting, is that there is a (non-scientific) poll in the article, asking whether or not you support legalization of same-sex marriage. Granted, MSNBC is a very liberal media outlet and attracts those types of readers, but the results with nearly 100,000 responses is a statistical dead heat. Most other polls that I have seen show a slight support for some sort of ban on gay-marriages.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you need 2/3 of the states to ratify an amendment to the constitution? I just can't see that may legislatures agreeing this is the best way to go about it. Although, 38 states have supposedly passed laws protecting the sanctity of marriage (which is 76%), I just don't see them all agreeing that amending the constitution is the best way to go about this.
It's becoming increasing evident to me that the American people (as naive as they are), want to see something done to ensure that "homo-sexual" citizens are not treated fairly and given no rights. Do they not realize what kind of flood gate this opens up for eating away at our civil liberties? I guess not, considering it's the same group of people that support the "Patriot Act" (which is another topic for another post). As more and more of the world seems to move into more freedoms for it's people, and more liberal views, we seems to be headed backwards.
And wouldn't an amendment, revoking the equality rights of citizens, be unconstitutional? Or would gays no longer be classified as citizens? Doesn't the constitution provide for equal rights and protection under the law? Slavery was banned for that very reason. Equal means equal, period.
I was checking out MSNBC this morning and came across this article about the new constitution and the interim government that America is trying to "help" set up over in post-war Iraq. I must say that I am outraged about this. Basically, some of the Iraqi citizens on the counsel to create a new government want to make Islam the basis of law in Iraq. The American's on the counsel are concerned that doing so would lead to a loss of rights for women.
This is just another case of America throwing it's weight around where it doesn't belong. This is a constitution that the Iraqi people will have to live by and there is no reason that we should be threatening to veto anything they suggest (within reason), especially when it comes to their religious beliefs and thousands of years of history. I agree that we should have the ability to advise them, but it is not our constitution. If we wanted the country run our way, why not make it an American colony? That's what they are looking to do anyway!
Yay! I was at E-town HS on friday night shooting the wrestling tournament for Engle Publishing. It was me and two other, more experienced photographers, shooting the bouts. We each had a mat to ourselves and we were responsible for whatever happened on that mat. I had a good time and was happy with some of the shots that I was able to get. But i never expected this.
I just got an email from the sports editor thanking me for a job well done and telling me that I had the image of the night. And this wasn't the image that I was most proud of. I though I had a better one of a wrestler from Solanco, but now that I look at the image (he emailed it to me), I am very pleased with it. Frankly, I forgot I took it, but I know it was mine because of the background and the view I had.
Here is the image that got me this honor. :)
I decided to do an "emerge sync" on my Gentoo box and I don't like what I'm seeing. Most of this does not scare me, but I don't really like re-compiling GCC or QT/arts. I had such a good time doing QT/Arts before. Looking at that entry, I guess I still owe a mini HowTo for that. Good thing I have it written down at home :)
I think I will wait until this weekend when I can have the laptop going for a day or so uninterupted. It is going to take a LONG time to compile all these packages.
The output from emerge -pUDv world is below.
Stacey?
[ebuild U ] sys-devel/bison-1.875 [1.35] +nls -static 795 kB
[ebuild N ] sys-libs/db-4.1.25_p1-r3 -doc +java -tcltk 3,008 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-devel/libperl-5.8.2 [5.8.0] +berkdb +gdbm 11,617 kB
[ebuild U ] dev-lang/perl-5.8.2-r1 [5.8.0-r12] +berkdb -doc +gdbm -threads
11,617 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-devel/gcc-3.3.2-r5 [3.2.3-r3] +X -bootstrap -build +java -mu
ltilib +nls -static 23,451 kB
[ebuild N ] sys-kernel/linux-headers-2.4.21 -build 27,864 kB
[ebuild N ] app-crypt/hashalot-0.1.0 72 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-libs/cracklib-2.7-r8 [2.7-r7] 20 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-libs/pam-0.77 [0.75-r11] +berkdb -pwdb -(selinux) 3,551 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/pam-login-3.14 [3.11] +nls -(selinux) 137 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/util-linux-2.12-r4 [2.11z-r8] +crypt +nls +pam -(selinu
x) -static 1,819 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/baselayout-1.8.6.13 [1.8.6.10-r1] -bootstrap -build -li
vecd -(selinux) -static 101 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/man-pages-1.65 [1.64] 1,752 kB
[ebuild U ] x11-base/xfree-4.3.0-r4 [4.3.0-r3] -3dfx -3dnow -cjk -debug -doc
-ipv6 -mmx +nls +pam -sdk -sse -static +truetype +xml2 17,514 kB
[ebuild U ] dev-libs/libxml2-2.6.4 [2.6.3] -ipv6 +python +readline 2,582 kB
[ebuild U ] media-libs/audiofile-0.2.5 [0.2.4] 353 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/tcp-wrappers-7.6-r8 [7.6-r6] -ipv6 -static 18 kB
[ebuild N ] dev-perl/XML-Parser-2.31-r1 249 kB
[ebuild U ] dev-util/intltool-0.30 [0.27.2] 110 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/libbonobo-2.4.3 [2.4.2] -doc 1,349 kB
[ebuild U ] net-nds/portmap-5b-r8 [5b-r7] 0 kB
[ebuild U ] app-admin/fam-2.7.0 [2.6.10-r1] 294 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/gnome-vfs-2.4.2-r1 [2.4.1] -doc +ssl 1,042 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/libbonoboui-2.4.3 [2.4.1] -doc 868 kB
[ebuild U ] dev-libs/libxslt-1.1.2 [1.1.1] +python 1,659 kB
[ebuild U ] app-shells/sash-3.6 [3.4-r5] +readline 49 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/procps-3.1.15 [3.1.12-r1] 260 kB
[ebuild U ] net-www/lynx-2.8.4.1d-r1 [2.8.4.1c] -ipv6 +nls +ssl 4 kB
[ebuild U ] app-text/scrollkeeper-0.3.14 [0.3.12] +nls 663 kB
[ebuild U ] media-libs/lcms-1.12 [1.11] +jpeg +python -tiff +zlib 554 kB
[ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-3.3.0 [3.2.3-r1] +cups -doc -firebird +gif -icc -ipv
6 -mysql -nas -odbc +opengl +postgres -sqlite +zlib 14,064 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-libs/pwdb-0.62 [0.61-r4] -(selinux) 130 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/psmisc-21.2-r4 [21.2-r3] +nls -(selinux) 252 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/findutils-4.1.20-r1 [4.1.7-r5] -afs -build +nls -(selin
ux) 759 kB
[ebuild U ] media-libs/libvorbis-1.0.1-r2 [1.0.1-r1] 0 kB
[ebuild U ] net-ftp/curl-7.10.8-r1 [7.10.7] -ipv6 -ldap +ssl 995 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/eel-2.4.2 [2.4.1] 484 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/librsvg-2.4.0-r1 [2.4.0] -doc +zlib 0 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/nautilus-2.4.2 [2.4.1-r2] +cups -gstreamer +oggvorbis
5,554 kB
[ebuild U ] net-www/mozilla-1.6 [1.5-r1] +crypt -debug +gnome +gtk2 -ipv6 +j
ava -ldap -mozaccess -mozcalendar -moznocompose -moznoirc -moznomail -moznoxft -
mozxmlterm +ssl 30,710 kB
[ebuild U ] net-www/epiphany-1.0.7 [1.0.6] +gnome 1,787 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/gnome-panel-2.4.2 [2.4.1] -doc 2,600 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/libgtop-2.0.8 [2.0.7] 894 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/gnome-applets-2.4.2 [2.4.1-r2] -acpi +apm -doc -ipv6
3,962 kB
[ebuild U ] app-arch/file-roller-2.4.4-r2 [2.4.1.1] 925 kB
[ebuild U ] app-text/ggv-2.4.1 [2.4.0.2] 1,103 kB
[ebuild U ] app-text/gpdf-0.112 [0.111] 821 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-extra/acme-2.4.2-r1 [2.4.2] 0 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-extra/gnome-games-2.4.2 [2.4.1.1] -guile 7,236 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-devel/gdb-6.0 [5.3] +nls 11,684 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-extra/bug-buddy-2.4.2 [2.4.1] 550 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/gnome-session-2.4.2 [2.4.1] -ipv6 890 kB
[ebuild U ] media-libs/libexif-0.5.12-r1 [0.5.12] +nls 0 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-extra/zenity-1.8 [1.6] 430 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/gnome-2.4.2 [2.4.1] -accessibility -cdr -doc -dvdr -s
amba [empty/missing/bad digest]
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/kbd-1.08-r5 [1.08-r4] +nls 0 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-kernel/genkernel-3.0.1_beta11 [3.0.1_beta6] 3,176 kB
[ebuild N ] kde-base/arts-1.2.0 +alsa -artswrappersuid +esd +mad +oggvorbis
970 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/pcmcia-cs-3.2.5-r1 [3.2.4] +apm -build -nocardbus -pnp
-trusted 1,244 kB
[ebuild U ] app-portage/gentoolkit-0.2.0_pre6 [0.1.38] 56 kB
Total size of downloads: 204,674 kB
In the interest of sparking an intelligent debate on a deeply philosophical issue, I'm going to comment on this article that I found while reading Leo Laporte's Blog.
This is going to really show my liberal side/view of life, but that's who I am. And most of you know that already.
I for one applaud the South Korean scientists for their incredible accomplishment. I see no reason why we should not allow stem cells to be created and cloned for the advancement of modern medicine. It's an interesting point now, since I have a child on the way. Abortion (which is what some are calling the killing of an embryo grown for it's stem cells) is not something that I would choose to do to a child of mine, but, in the same sense of letting my child live, I would want him/her to have every chance possible to lead a healthy and happy life. And the ability to clone organs if needed is just another tool of modern medicine that will allow this.
I agree, there needs to be definate boundaries set up for this type of research. I don't know that I agree with human cloning, at least not in the fullest of potentials. But why not allow organs to be cloned to replace ailing ones?
Please, let me know your thoughts. Let's get a good discussion going here.
At work, we use both J-Boss and SilverStream enterprise java servers. I got my start on J-Boss so maybe my view of the way things "should" be is a little skewed, but that's just the way things are. I reallyl like the way that J-Boss deploys everything to the filesystem and it's extremely easy to create a DataSource or a MailSession, just by creating an XML file that describes it and drop it into place. With SilverStream, you either have to use the management console and try to figure it out (in the case of a DataSource), or spend 2 hours searching their non-existent help for a MailSession.
I have had the basics working in SS for a while now, pretty much without any problems, but then again, I haven't added any new stuff to it in all that time. But now for the project that I'm supervising, I have to set up a MailSession to handle outgoing emails. Well, it's not just as easy as creating an XML file for that or even find it in the management console. I searched the SS website for an example and was able to find nothing. Eventually, I ended up looking in the DTD's to see if I could find something that had to do with mail. I'll tell you, it's a good thing I learned how to read the DTD's, and that they even exist, or I never would have been able to figure out how to set up the MailSession. And their tech-support is extremely expensive, and we aren't allowed to use it because of that.
And to think, right now work is trying to proove that they can survive without me? No one else there has any where near the experience I have with SS, and my experience is extremely limited. But I have a decent J2EE background. And great resources. (John)
Well, all hell broke loose again today with our little water problem that we had on Tuesday of this week. I got up early this morning to go into work (in the nice ice storm that we had) because I was all but told that I had to be there regardless of the weather. Went in to work and had the meeting that was scheduled and my phone rang in the middle of it. After Karen called back within a minute, I answered it only to find out that she was not going into work because we had a flood in our basement. Again! This time though it was both of the window wells that were filled with water and it was pooring in the basement from both sides. Her parents came up and brought a wet/dry vac as well as a pump that Larry uses to drain the pool.
I ended up leaving work to come home and see what I could do to keep the water from completely flooding our basement. The pump worked really well, except for the fact that there was only a 10' hose on it so we coudn't get the water far enough away from the house, so it just ran right back into the window well. So after fighting with our frozen hose that's been in the garage since the fall, I ended up running to K-Mart to buy a hose so what we could get the water directed away from the house.
Well, that didn't work too well either :) Either the hose was too small or something else, but the pump was actually loosing ground with this hooked up. So I ened up removing the new hose and digging out a path way in the snow/ice through our yard that the water could run through. What fun! Right now it is under control, but we'll see what happens this weekend when it warms up and everything starts to melt.
And to think, none of this would have happened if our builder had graded our yard properly in the first place.
For my benefit and Stacey's, here are the steps I use to successfully update my gentoo box.
emerge sync
emerge -UDp --world
emerge -UD --world (make sure everything looks fine from the last step)
revdep-rebuild (this will rebuild everything that is now broken due to a dependency issue. This is in the gentoolkit ebuild)
ldconfig
Everythign should work fine for you now. But I don't guarantee anything :)
Work in the past month or so has been quite interesting. I have managed to loose all the respect and trust that I worked so hard to gain from most of my co-workers. I have requested new software and upgrades to existing software only to be shot down immediately because some people don't understand it. I know it's my job to convince them it's better, but lately they have refused to listen to me. It all comes down to "No, we don't have the money and we don't want to deal with learning somethign new". Sounds like a bad business philosophy to me.
Yesterday, one of the ladies that I am working on training in J2EE was having some issues with her project when it was moved up to the next level of testing over at the naval base. This project uses SilverStream 3.7 as it's application server, which is a POS if you ask me. Everything is deployed and stored in a table in an Oracle database, which makes deployments interesting. Well, we don't have permissions to move files up from one server to the next, so we had to have them do it. Well, all they did was copy all of the .JAR files from one DB to the other. This is all fine and good, except that the XML deployment descriptor didn't get sourced in on the new server so it had no idea what the beans were called and how they were stored in JNDI. In fact, they weren't.
I told her this, and she believed me. But when she told the project manager what needed to be done, he insisted that everything was done properly and it was a problem on our end.
After some fighting with the moron, we got the ability to move the files up ourselves and low and behold, everything works fine now. But I don't know what I'm doing.. :)
I went downstairs today to do a load of laundry in our new washer and dryer, and noticed that an area of our basement wall under our window was wet. Upon further inspection, I noticed that water was actually running through the seams of the window and down our walls, luckily, into our sump pit. Of course, we don't have a pump set up, so who knows how long that pit will take to fill up with water. It turns out, the water is collecting in the window well outside and is flowing through the seam in the window. So both our window is not sealed properly, and our yard is graded properly, because we should not have water building up in our window well, and if we do, it definately should stay outside.
I spent 30 minutes outside in the cold, rain, up to my knees in snow with a bucket scooping the water out and dumping it at various places around the yard. When i finished, and the washer stopped running, I checked it again. It had filled back up and is doing the same thing.
I just went down to check on it and it's still flowing. The sump pit isn't full yet, and it looks like there is about 8 inches of depth to go, but who knows how long that will last. I took a bunch of pictures and will post them soon.
The other great thing about this, the water is running down alongside of an electrical outlet put there for the sump pump that we don't have. I did, however have enough smarts to shut the outlet off at the breaker box in the garage.
I ran across an article comparing J2EE Struts and ASP.NET while I was looking though java.blogs today. I have not had a chance to read it yet, but I wanted to throw the link out there to see what other developers have to say about this topic. I have had many conversations with coleagues and friends of mine on roughly the same topic, just not so specific, and from what I can tell, there is no clear cut winner. Each platform has it's strengths and weaknesses. Anyone who has ever used both platforms and tells you that one is definately better than the other, is letting their emotional attachment to one language/platform get in the way.
It will be interesting to see if they conclude one is better and which one since this is an article posted on Microsoft's website. I'll post my thoughs on this comparison once I read the article.
I decided to take my car in this morning for a car wash, and it ended up costing me $63.09. :)
Actually, my car now has 30,000 miles on it and it was time for servicing. I had to have the oil changed, the other fluids topped off and the tired rotated. But she's all nice and clean now and running well :)