In Java 1.4, java.lang.Throwable finally allowed for nested Throwables. This may not seem like a big breakthrough, but in a world of n-tier application, low level exceptions from driver objects are not appropriate to return to end users. Also, loosing the root cause introduced its own set of problems. In a Java 1.3 world, we…
Category: Tech
I didn’t build it, but I am using it.
Kindle Set to Burn
I previously professed my love for ereaders, and for about a year I have been enjoying my Kindle. For the last couple of years, Amazon has been my perfect roommate. It never leaves a mess. Once a month, it delivers my subscription of caffeinated Jolt Gum. It keeps me knee deep in books and tech…
Singularity Happened In Sagan’s September
Singularity To astronomers, a singularity is a point in space where matter has gotten so dense that it is a black hole. Matter is so dense, lots and lots of it with lots of other matter to interact with. So much matter to matter interaction that this part of the Universe vastly different from the…
Personal Code Reviews
I just finished an exciting book that was loaned to me by a friend who wrote his own excellent book, Getting Started with Dojo. (Shameless shill, but it really is good). As a developer and a manager of other developers, I am bombarded by the latest, greates, hypest new way to streamline and silver bullet…
JMX4ODP Ver. 0.3.3!
I am proud to announce J4O ver. 0.3.3 is done. J40, is my open source library for simple, automated management of Java applications using the Java Management Extensions (JMX) standards. It allows for developers to easily: wrap objects with proxy JMX MBean add monitors create scalable event threads to handle monitor and jmx events use…
Computer Literacy for Tech Industry?
One thing that has become abundantly clear to me is that most people, like 90%+, have very little idea of even the basics of how computers or the Internet works. I could also say that a high percentage of people I run into also has very little clue about how chemistry works, but I don’t…
Why Does Everyone Hate Java?
Recently someone posted to Reddit, “Why does everyone hate Java?” It got a lot of very passionate responses and it made me wonder. It really did seem like everyone hated Java. I worry about this because I do a lot of work in Java. I like the language, it does well by me. But, like…
Generation Gap and Common Spaces
I am reading and seeing so much of the older and younger generations these days…but not together. I am watching old people freak out on Fox News at anti-health care rallies and young people throwing their hands to the heavens in despair that Twitter is down for another day. It is like I…
Eclipse, STOP Telling Java Newbies to Use serialVersionUID!
I have always been weary of IDEs and other programming tools that “do the thinking for you.” In the best of cases, they allow experienced coders to rise above the busy work and text pushing of adding getters and setters, refactoring and shuffling files around. They offer handy templates for starting projects and classes. They…
Hierarchical Configurations
It Came From Version Control A long time ago, some article convinced me to check my entire dev environment into CVS. Not just the code, but my servers, libs, configurations, everything. It turned out to be very good advice. Soon my entire dev team shared a single, version controlled environment. Third party library mis-matches were…
Outraged by Terrible Tech Book
I have now read two O’Reilly books that read more like fundamentalist religious texts than tech books. I read these books in hopes of picking up new skill sets. I want to get an honest assessment of a technology, its strengths and weaknesses. I want to learn about the gotchas before I discover them on…
You car’s warrenty is about to expire…
Just a quick question. Turns out that the NSA wasn’t just listening to the “bad guys,” they were listening to everyone. The NY Times reported that the NSA was doing widespread tapping of phone calls and emails. They don’t have a number of Americans spied on, but the calls and emails ranged in the “millions.”…