that’s great…

atmosphere’s glass house…

I was watching MTV Subterranean, and saw this video come on. First time I’ve seen this video, and I really liked it. Now, some videos are creative. That’s nice. But it’s rare that a video is great, and the lyrics to the song are just as creative. Kanye, Common, and a few others are good at this… not too many others.
Anyway, if you have the time, watch the video, but more importantly, listen to the lyrics. Enjoy.

like a boss…

There’s a rap song by Slim Thugg, called like a Boss. It’s OK. Andy Samberg has his own spin on it, http://www.hulu.com/watch/66312/saturday-night-live-digital-short-like-a-boss. Here’s sample:

Hit on Debra…
… Like a boss

Get rejected…
… Like a boss

Swallow saddness…
… Like a boss

Send some faxes…
… Like a boss

early adopter…

Since I’ve been introduced to WebWork, I was a serious proponent. It was built on some interesting technologies. Implemented some great concepts. Things that are now considered standard for any self-respecting web-mvc framework. After some evolution, WebWorkis now Struts2. Since I considered myself a proponent, I’ve followed most releases. Especially the security-related items.

Recently I decided to leave the 2.0.x series, and upgrade to the 2.1.x path. After a little work, you can piece together the major changes you need to adhere. For me, the biggest change was the built-in Dojo support. As of 2.1, it’s an optional, external module, which is fine. I went about making the changes. Things like changing my theme from Ajax to XHtml. Importing the Dojo taglibs into the necessary pages. Nothing too complicated. More time-consuming than anything.

OK, so I ran into a problem. I worked at it for a good weekend. After banging my head against this one, with no resolution, I sought help on the user-list. No response. None of this really bothered me. What really bothered me was my naiveté.

The affected projects are all on svn. For some reason, I did the upgrade on HEAD. So, after no resolution, I had to revert. Since the upgrade included some other libs (Hibernate-3.3, some Commons modules, etc), I actually had to revert and then reapply some other upgrades.

Regardless of your personal feelings for a framework/library, don’t ever assume it’s going to be that easy! If you have a source control tool, use it. A branch for these upgrades would have made things a bit easier. I used to think branches were for teams larger than 2-3. Yeah, not so much. It’s not a problem to adopt a release/technology early, it’s all in how you do it. Ugh, lesson learned.

ehcache-1.6

OK, no one should have to tell an engineer to use caching. If you’re dealing with non-trivial amounts of data, and have a reasonable requirement for availability, you’ll need caching. The real issue is what, and how. The what depends on your situation. The how? Well, I’ve always thought it was obvious: ehcache. I’ve been using it as my 2nd-level cache provider for years. As cache providers go, it’s done well by me.

Well, now Greg Luck’s taking it to the next level. By moving to a minimum JDK of 1.5, he’ll be able to remove all dependencies. Also, ehcache-1.5 was a performant module. Now, if his figures are right, ehcache-1.6 will truly obliterate its peers. It’s still in beta, 1.6 that is, but check it out.

she does not exist…