http://devdaily.com Updates to the devdaily.com blog en Copyright (C) Alvin J. Alexander Wow, I was totally blown away earlier this week when I started listening to a book on CD titled The Mystical Kabbalah. The Kabbalah is referred to as the mystical aspect of Judaism, and what blew me away was listening to the first five minutes of the CD (more ...) http://devdaily.com/blog/ A couple of days ago I had a situation come up where I wanted to distribute a Java application that I wrote as a jar file. The problem I ran into is that my jar file depended on quite a few other open source projects that were also distributed as jar files, and I wanted a good way to build my application and also distribute it to my users. I've seen people provide their applications as batch files or shell scripts to get around this problem, but I knew there must be another way where I could just provide my application as an executable jar file. Beyond this, I also wanted to make sure that I could build my application reliably using ant. After a number of different attempts, I finally found a solution to the problem. http://devdaily.com/java/edu/pj/create-executable-jar-file-reference-dependencies/ I still haven't gotten around to writing a Cobertura code-coverage tutorial, but in lieu of that, I thought I'd include an ant build script here that does a lot of powerful things, including a task that generates Cobertura code-coverage reports. More ... http://devdaily.com/blog/post/java/sample-cobertura-ant-build-script/ Here's a crazy health-related story: Most days my finger joints hurt from arthritis, and my shins hurt because I've had two fasciotemy surgeries after suffering from compartment syndrome due to too much running (technically too much running, too fast, while also changing my running surface from gravel to pavement). The crazy part of the story is this: I recently had a bout with a stomach virus, and after not eating anything but crackers for four days, my fingers and shins no longer hurt. Shortly after I started eating again the pain resumed. This leads to one obvious conclusion (more ...) http://devdaily.com/blog/post/personal/stomach-virus-cures-arthritis-pain-hunger/ Continuous integration is a key to a quality build process for any multi-developer software development project. I can't say it much better than the way Martin Fowler describes it, so I'll just include a portion of his summary here (more ...) http://www.devdaily.com/blog/post/best-practices/software-development-continuous-integration/ For a little while yesterday I sat at a book store and flipped through several books on Ruby and Rails. I'm not the most passionate Ruby developer in the world, but I really do like the language, and prefer it at every opportunity. Given this, my brain managed to quickly combine (a) earlier thoughts of how short life is (many of my uncles died in their 40s), with (b) wow, if I was a really passionate Ruby/Rails developer I'd sure hate working with other languages, which led to (c) how unhappy I'd be with my life if I was that passionate about Ruby but wasn't working with it. I really used to love aerospace work, and (more ...) http://devdaily.com/blog/post/personal/life-is-short-ruby-rails-career/ For the third time in my life (that I can recall), I had a dream featuring a song that I've never heard before. In a way this one was even more bizarre than the others, as it began with me just strumming some strings on a guitar. When I found a tune I liked a little bit Faith Hill magically appears and (more ...) http://devdaily.com/blog/post/personal/faith-hill-music-dream/ Here's a simple test of my own devising: Take your hands off the keyboard, put them in your lap, look up from the screen and find a blank place on the wall in front of you, and just stare out into the distance. Don't do anything else right now, just do that for 15-30 seconds, and then come back here. (More ...) http://devdaily.com/blog/post/personal/what-do-you-think-about/ I'm generally an Apple/Mac fan, but I don't get the idea of the AppleTV. I rent maybe 10 movies per year on DVD, and Steve Jobs has stated that this is the market the AppleTV looks to replace. Let's take a quick look at this. First, the hardware: I already have a television, a DVD player, a DVR box, and soon, a Playstation 3 that will play Blu-ray videos. Big problem here: the AppleTV doesn't let me get rid of any of those existing boxes, and in fact I have to add another box to the mix. Sorry, but adding another box only benefits Apple and the electric company. More ... http://www.devdaily.com/blog/post/page-1/appletv-review-2008/ In 1993 I moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and started working as a consultant for a company I now refer to as The Evil Empire. The company didn't seem evil when I first started; in fact they were 26 of the nicest people I knew. Right away they made promises of considering me as a partner, and after my first year I was named Employee of the Year. Around 18-24 months into my employment I began to sense that the promise of being a partner was a ruse. I wasn't really being considered as a partner, it was just something the people at the top kept telling me because I was pulling in a lot of money for them, and they knew it was something I wanted (the proverbial carrot on a stick). (More...) http://devdaily.com/blog/post/personal/honor-your-dreams/ When talking about work yesterday, a friend said something like "It's all about the money, right?" Thinking about that last night, it quickly leads into a question of "What's important in your life?" If it really is all about the money, then most forms of work are inappropriate ... http://www.devdaily.com/blog/post/personal/why-do-you-work/ When a friend found a cow in her front yard the other day it reminded me of a story by Gerald Weinberg, and I think his question was like this: "How do you keep a buffalo from running away?" The answer is simple: give it just enough room so it doesn't realize it's in a cage. I've found that when it comes to work a lot of people are just like the buffalo in this story. They're in a cage, but their cage is large enough so that they're reasonably comfortable, and most of the time they forget that they're actually in a cage. So you generally forget about the cage ... (more) http://devdaily.com/blog/post/personal/how-is-your-cage/