New place, new lucks

2006-01-07T16:59:00.000+02:00

This blog, much like my personal blog has finally moved to the domain of Crazy Red Panda. You can find the new blog, with the old posts, at http://javachaos.crazyredpanda.com/.Blogger gave a great host and I appreciate what they're doing. Giving a free, reliable and easy to use platform for bloggers is very welcomed, and I can't stop directing people to it when they think about starting a blog,

When a framework uses itself

2006-01-03T23:38:00.000+02:00

I think the most fun part of using a framework, except for having others use it, is when the framework or producing company is using the framework itself for some task.Just like the Apache site running on an Apache HTTP Server, Atlassian's JIRA having their JIRA issues tracked by JIRA, and so on. Soon I will be facing Feature Requests 1380359 and 1380356, namely generating XSD from Java classes

Bug in java.blogs?

2006-01-03T08:06:00.000+02:00

I'm probably the only one to use the search option in java.blogs, which can explain the following image I received when searching for the term "ajax":Interesting TopicsContacts List ExampleConverters in XMLUsing the Mould

Using the Mould

2006-01-01T22:22:00.000+02:00

Lately I've realised that the Analyser code in X2J is messy, and wanted to treat it to a better design. For those numerous people out there who do not know the X2J code (yet!), I will offer some explanation:The Analyser's task in X2J is to take a Plain Old Java Object (POJO) and analyse it into a ClassInfo instance. This instance represents an xs:complexType in XSD terms, and contains information

XML to POJOs Example - Contacts List

2005-12-24T12:00:00.000+02:00

Showing off X2J I created the following XSD example, which is a simple definition for a contact list which can store connections between the contacts:

XML to POJOs Advantages - @Converter

2005-12-22T21:48:00.000+02:00

One of the poorest things in XML binding is when the binding framework generates classes from your XSD where you would have used a normal JDK class. For example, consider the following: 3 4 2005 Meet Omer and Tal 23 <

XML to POJOs - Alpha 0.1

2005-12-21T23:00:00.000+02:00

I invite you all to read the code, try the test suite, write your own tests, make it crash and submit bugs, everything at the project's web page! (when SourceForge are working, anyway)Please note that there are some dependencies you need to get, namely resolver.jar, xercesImpl.jar and xml-apis.jar from the Apache Xerces project. Download page here.Enjoy!Related TopicsX2J on the firing lineXML to

Thread Static List in Java

2005-12-21T07:06:00.000+02:00

We all know what a Thread is and what Static means, and how they collide. For a quick example: I have an event listener method where I want it to have a stopping condition for a suspected recursion. What I want to do is use a Collection of the items I've already received, and check for each call of the listener method if the calling item is already inside the Collection.I can't add a Collection

The horrible SAXException

2005-12-20T22:58:00.000+02:00

This is obviously going to be one of my rant posts. I've been working with SAX for a while, and I have to say that the SAXException (javadoc) class couldn't have had a better name chosen for it. First of all, it can "wrap an exception that is not a subclass of SAXException". Great. But why is it wrapping an Exception (javadoc) class? Why not accept Throwable (javadoc), the way most exceptions in

XML to POJOs Advantages - Repeating Types

2005-12-20T21:40:00.000+02:00

One of the things I totally forgot mentioning as a major improvement of X2J over XSDs is the most trivial thing: Not having to write complex documents to describe something already natural to you: Defining a class and reusing it over and over again on your other classes. Maintenence is another obvious issue. Instead of having one huge file to describe all your classes, they are separated over a

Class Enum>

2005-12-19T19:16:00.000+02:00

Check it out. It's not the first time I've seen this, but I've found myself explaining it more than once lately, so I thought I'd share my insights with the blogsphere.I'm probably not the first and not the last who was baffled by this line. Probably, the thought "What the hell were Sun thinking when they wrote this" came across many, many minds and in many different languages. At first glance,

12daily pro and Andrew Hillman are Comment Spammers

2005-12-18T22:20:00.000+02:00

This post is not related to Java. If you read proBlogger you might've seen this post. I've been attacked by comment spammers in the past and I know how annoying this is. I think Darren's method is effective, and would take them out to the open for what they are. Hopefully it would affect them in a way. End of digression.

Time to make a difference in your Java

2005-12-18T08:00:00.000+02:00

Well, complaining is fun, but making a difference is even more fun. I've posted this suggestion to the Feedbacks and Suggestions forum of Mustang (The codename for the next Java). Go, people! Flock and show your support in the reflection mechanism! Show that you really do care about the Class (javadoc) class, however funny it is to say it 15 times straight!Related TopicsAvoiding ErasureReflecting

Avoiding Erasure

2005-12-17T12:02:00.000+02:00

If you remember my post from yesterday, you'd remember my rant about how generics information is not available in the Class (javadoc) instance.Well, I've also written something which is wrong: That the information is not found in the .class file. It does, at some level. As far as erasure goes, it will erase all generics information and replace them with the highest bound possible. However, some

Reflecting on Generics

2005-12-16T16:48:00.000+02:00

To quote the java.lang.reflect package docs (javadocs), "Reflection allows programmatic access to information about the fields, methods and constructors of loaded classes, and the use reflected fields, methods, and constructors to operate on their underlying counterparts on objects, within security restrictions."Let me just say that I know it doesn't mention generics. It's weird for me too. But

Factory Design Pattern made simple using Enums

2005-12-14T21:09:00.000+02:00

Writing X2J I encountered a state most of us encountered before: The need for a Factory Design Pattern. In my situation, during parsing (using SAX), there is an interface called ContentHandler (javadoc) which is required by my handler. The handler should be created according to the type of the element being currently parsed. An obvious case for a Factory. Now, I already have an enum such as:

Possible advantages of X2J - Primary Keys

2005-12-14T15:54:00.000+02:00

I've been thinking a lot about where the X2J framework I'm toying with. I've thought of several problems with XML binding, and several nice solutions. I will give examples of the problems using JAXB, as I know it better than the other frameworks for binding and serialization. I will discuss one problem now, but you are welcome to read all the coming additions to X2J, as shown in the feature

Good ol' genetic algorithms project

2005-12-14T00:30:00.000+02:00

I've redirected my old GA project's home page to this blog. This is due to the amount of spammers this project had on its public wiki, which is totally my fault for not maintaining them. This is an old project I've started long ago in order to create a single framework for applications using genetic algorithms, and eventually it actually found its place in the CodeHaus. In the day, there weren't

X2J on the firing line

2005-12-13T07:13:00.000+02:00

I've been getting more than one comment about the X2J project I've introduced here and other projects, specifically XStream and XMLBeans. I wanted to clarify the differences (at least the ones I see) between the frameworks to what I intend X2J to be. The X2J framework, according to myself and the SourceForge title it holds, will "...performs serialization and validation of POJOs to XML, XML to

Xml to POJOs project is in the air

2005-12-13T00:22:00.000+02:00

SourceForge approved my project and you can access it. The page has nothing, really - The default source forge page. I only uploaded the code I have so far; I hope you enjoy it. Since I was writing this half for self-usage and half for pleasure, this might not (and most likely is not) written using best practices. I implore you - Take the code using CVS and see what you can make of it. Previously

org.w3c.dom should be deprecated

2005-12-11T19:51:00.000+02:00

.... Or at least changed to be more easy to use. Take NodeList as an example. Why isn't it Iterable on J2SE 5? And even in J2SE 1.4, why doesn't NamedNodeMap implement NodeList, even though they share the same methods for "iteration" (getLength and item)?I wrote this simple class. Hope you find it useful:class NodeListIterator implements Iterator { private NodeList list; private int idx;

XML, Annotations and a simpler life

2005-12-10T23:56:00.000+02:00

I've just posted a request to SourceForge so I could open-source my X2J framework. It's a little something I've hacked up lately that helps me generate XML files from POJOs, and POJO instances from XML files, with validation but Without pesky XSD files.To illustrate, suppose I have the following class:class ComplexNumber { public real; public imaginary;}Suppose real=1.0, imaginary=1.0, I would

Atom API for Java?

2005-12-08T23:59:00.000+02:00

I've been trying to write something in Java that would automate some of the tasks I do while posting to one of my blogs, such as related links or tags.I know Blogger uses Atom API, so I've looked around for a Java implementation of the Atom API. I could only find Atom4J, but their links seem to be broken. If there is no choice, I'll have to write down my own implementation. Is that really

Notifications - Old and New Data

2005-12-08T20:41:00.000+02:00

Gary Blomquist was kind enough to respond to my post about Data modification notifications and emailed me with an interesting document about implementing such a case using TCP/IP data transfer to all registered applications. We use a similar system with an Oracle package called dbms_alert. The paper Gary sent me proposed to send an SQL statement which would select the new data - We in turn send

Lightweight Java IDE

2005-12-08T18:23:00.000+02:00

Ever since I got Booky (iBook G4 1.25GHz 256MB RAM), I've been trying to delegate tasks I normally would do on my BigMac (PowerMac G5 2GHz Dual 1GB RAM). The reason for this is double: First, I'd like to take my work with me and only deploy it on BigMac, where they could consume resources as they please. Second, I'd like to be able to work from my bed, wirelessly. I'm spoiled. However, writing

Tapestry and @Asset

2005-11-25T16:17:00.000+02:00

Finished ranting about the @Script annotation, now it is time to rant about the @Asset one.In fact, it's not about the annotation itself I wish to rant, but about the way Assets are passed. It seems to me that assets are very strictly hard-coded, if in the form of an annotation or the XML file, they're specified before-hand. However, suppose I have a dynamic page in my store, which needs to show

Tomcat deployment failure is popular

2005-11-25T00:14:00.000+02:00

I guess my rant wasn't that irrelevant after all - It appears that from the Google searches which lead to my page, this is the most popular one. Sigh... It's really a shame about that error message...

Rants about EoD and other things

2005-11-24T17:34:00.000+02:00

I can understand people complaining about developers rushing for the newest technology (best example here). I appreciate the writer, and I agree with him in a lot of aspects. I have the same problem at my current work place, where people rush to use the latest of the languages, systems and software. Obviously, at our system, the usability of the outcome framework is irrelevant: We don't outsource

Tapestry's Script DTD published

2005-11-21T21:35:00.000+02:00

Could it be that my little rant helped? I am willing to swear that this wasn't here yesterday! And the site says that it was Last Published: Mon Nov 21 2005 16:50:52. Even though I'm sure it's a total coincidence, I'm proud of myself.

Oracle, Java and data modification notifications

2005-11-21T15:42:00.000+02:00

I've been handed a task to see if it's possible to create a single Java method which would parse old and new values in a before update/insert/delete trigger. The idea is to send the parsed data to a middle tier layer which would then propogate the data to all the business objects. We Could do that using PL/SQL, only that we'd have to create a method for every table, which is unacceptable. If,

Tapestry 4.0 and @Script - I'm stuck!

2005-11-20T19:46:00.000+02:00

I'm trying to create a simpe script in Tapestry. To that end, I decided to start by using their example. Too unfortunate for me, it doesn't work. Talks about root specifications when I try to run it. I am using Tapestry 4.0-beta 12, and I can only guess the example was written for Tapestry 3.0 . Or that it's not complete.The DTD specifications page claims that A fifth type of specification, the

Tapestry's Components

2005-11-19T00:38:00.000+02:00

Trying to create a small component that handles user login and can be placed anywhere I stumbled into a problem where the Tapestry framework couldn't find "the components' template". Reading and re-reading the documentation assured me that I was doing it fine: A .java file in the package specified in the application specifications, a .html file in my context folder, and since it's still a

Documentation, Documentation, Documentation!

2005-11-16T22:25:00.000+02:00

Luckily, the great documentation of Tomcat helped me out and I found my problem.I am pleased.I will not share my problem in the blog; I feel to embarassed - As always, it was something stupid. As always, it was my fault.

Tomcat Deployment

2005-11-16T21:55:00.000+02:00

So, I pulled up my sleeves and got to work. After all, if I want to switch from WebObjects to Tapestry, some configurations are in need to be done.That's the problem, I think, with using open source applications. Sometimes the developers don't really care about the UI of their application or framework, and even though they made the best or one-of-a-kind application, users don't use it except for

WebObjects to Cayenne

2005-11-16T06:32:00.000+02:00

Switching to Cayenne from WebObjects was not easy, for me at least. Or maybe, it wasn't easy on the mental level, because I've already seen how easy it is to actually Do Stuff with WebObjects. There is no doubt, however, that the switch was smooth; I'm going to count some points here about it.1. I could use Eclipse. Or JetBrain's. Or anything. I wasn't stuck to Xcode which, as strong as it might

My Java Tech Blog Is Back!

2005-11-14T21:36:00.000+02:00

In the far past, I had a blog called "Aviad's Quest for Sentience". It was mainly about Java and my Genetic Algorithms framework I developed at the time. This blog will also be about Java. It will be about all the projects I'll develop, both in Java or .NET, about comparisons, about genCore if I ever come to work on it again, and just about implementation ideas if I ever come to have any. Hope I

Alignment: Chaotic Java