LSD::RELOAD -- Leo Simons' old weblogLeo Simons' old weblog. The new one is at www.leosimons.com. Mostly about java / open source / apache.Screw AOP, get me some metaprogramming!- September 27, 2005 Java in many ways is kind-of a joke (yes yes its great for some stuff). On the surface its this really type-safe, compiled, predictable language everyone is using for everything. When you dig a little deeper and look at what actually is going on in "real life", you'll see that there's usually some hack to get rid of all that type safety and predictability. For example, you generate source code based on XML, or you generate object code based on XML. And of course we don't stop there. Since its...http://www.jroller.com/lsd/entry/screw_aop_get_me_some How Not To Screw Up Java Exception Handling- September 18, 2005 So, uhm, I've been deep inside some closed-source java for the last few weeks. While I'm just about emerging from the swamp, its been a very interesting experience to be re-introduced to undocumented totally undesigned spaghetti code. Most important lesson: my "wrap my head around weird stuff" and "untangle the un-untanglable mess" skills aren't rusty, despite having worked on relatively high quality open source code only for the last few years. What amazed me is how bad exception handling...http://www.jroller.com/lsd/entry/how_not_to_screw_up Switched to Mutt- September 16, 2005 I used to use Microsoft Entourage as mailPIM client, mainly because a lot of Twente University pretty much standardizes on friggin' Microsoft Office (eg slides for lectures are PPT files, rosters are DOC files, Exchange is used everywhere), and also because I needed a good PIM client for the Mac, and lets face it, there are no serious contenders that offer the same level of productivity Since I no longer have to care about interoperating with the university and its sick standardization on...http://www.jroller.com/lsd/entry/switched_to_mutt Design Patterns considered useless!- September 12, 2005 A reader made an interesting comment to my previous post: This design patterns thing sounds really stupid. Where do you people find the time to write all that boilerplate I agree that judging from how I wrote things down they sound really stupid. I think I spent some effort trying to make that happen. I'm not always so happy with how, erm, "thought leaders" (brilliant as some people may be, I hate the idea anyone but me leads my thoughts anywhere!) make things sound brilliant without pointing.http://www.jroller.com/lsd/entry/design_patterns_considered_useless How Not To Screw Up Java Object Orientation- September 9, 2005 My previous howto proved popular. Strange, most of this seems rather boring to me. In any case, I'll do another one. Just holler if you want to hear more, maybe I'll do a series. Lets say we have some code like this: public final class Sample1 public interface SomeComponent void doA(); Object doB(); public class SomeComponentImpl implements SomeComponent void doA() throw new UnsupportedOperationException(); Object doB() throw new UnsupportedOperationException();...http://www.jroller.com/lsd/entry/how_not_to_screw_up1 Deadline!- September 5, 2005 Tight deadlines are fine. They keep you focussed. Insane deadlines suck. The kind that keep you working until 6am in the morning (it is 6:03 at the moment, which makes this a 20-hour work day). Why on earth do we do this kind of thing Oh right, its in the contract. In terms of messed up contracts, I think I might actually prefer the GPL to this. Currently, I'm waiting for a collegue to finish the last few modifications before I roll the newest tarball (which takes roughly 45 minutes, so I'm..http://www.jroller.com/lsd/entry/deadline Dropping out!- September 2, 2005 Wonder what Ken thinks of all this... For the very first time in my life, I'm quitting. Something. A big thing. Whoohooh! For most of the people close to me it should not come as a surprise that I've decided to put an end to the misery that is my physics education. I've felt "held back" and "straightjacketed" for a long time here. Coupled with the study environment here not being too stimulating ("yawn") and other environments being very interesting, I decided "enough is enough". On the one..http://www.jroller.com/lsd/entry/dropping_out |