December 10, 2005
Ant
Yah, it has been a while, but I have been doing all sorts of stuff. Right now I am concentrating on ant. I wouldn't be concentrating on ant if import could be used within a target (why can't it). I was generating a file that needs to be imported. Unfortunately, if the file isn't there, you can't compile. I want this to be a single button thing, so now my ant task (which worked just fine thank you) has to generate a path.
All of this will help me when I start my next story - I have 3 projects right now, the next story is the first story in the second project. The ant stuff I am doing now could go opensource (it is a replacement for the eclipseclasspath plugin). The next stuff is DOD, so I probably will not be blogging about it.
I got two books on ant. Luckily, the O'Reilly book has been updated. I am taking notes for a possible book. I am a smart person - and it is not easy for me to figure out path oriented tasks.
Posted by liz at 09:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 14, 2005
Build/release
Until we find somebody who wants to do it, I have been named acting Build/Release Engineer at my new shop. This is to go along with my more formal title of Toolsmith and person who is available for anybody to work with (I guess that isn't a real title). They decided that I was the best person to be the acting B/R person because I am terribly interested in getting agile to play nicely with CMMI 3 (moving to CMMI 4 in the next year). Reasonable decision.
But, as usual, there is a problem here. I have No idea what a build/release engineer does when you also have 2 configuration engineers on the project. For some reason, I can't see how you can be one without being the other. Right now, I am automating the build process, but I would be doing that anyway in my role as toolsmith. If anybody who reads this (and there aren't that many readers) has a good definition of what the various people do - I would love to read the defs.
Maven2: We are giving up on maven 2 except for library management. I don't like a whole lot of things about it, but what I dislike the most is that it seems to believe that if you are managing with maven, you want to manage everything with maven. Well, all of you maven people, I don't want maven writing over my classpath file. I want it to update it. I don't want it to overwrite my project file either. And I certainly am not going to trust my code to a project that is averaging 100 bugreports a day after it is released. It is nice that they decided to rewrite maven - but they need better quality control.
I am refactoring the stuff I wrote 2 weeks ago. My partner in crime (even if he is across the whole damn country) is trying to get me to look at ivy. I am not sure if we can get Ivy to do what he seems to want it to do.
I got XPlanner working today. I am going to install it on a real machine tomorrow. I then will decide what we want to do with it.
Posted by liz at 04:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 14, 2005
Ant
I hate ant, I hate it with a passion, but I still like it more than I like maven. At least is ant is stable for some version of stable. Maven will have major changes while I am still trying to get a project out the door.
Right now I am trying to get ant and hibernate playing together. I am a newcomer to hibernate 3 (I hated hibernate 2 and used it daily). I think I am a reasonably intelligent person. So, tell me, why can't I get the reverse engineering task working in less than an hour? I not only need to get it working, I then need to document how/why/when on it. Let me tell you, the information on the web is very sparse for hibernate 3 tools. And, of course, nobody has come out with a decent book on hibernate 3. I have no idea if any are even planned.
Makes me think more and more of just going with straight spring/jdbc. Wouldn't have to teach one more framework. Wouldn't have to tear my hair out. Wouldn't have to document the how and why of hibernate tools.
Of course, I have also realized that I need to write a short, humorous, and factual manual on how to use ant. And why it will make your life easier and keep your manager from strangling you. I don't want to go into the api, I don't want to teach people how to write tasks. I just want to explain how to get hibernate working and how to build/deploy a war file.
Damn, I wish there was a decent book on hibernate 3. Or even on ant.
Posted by liz at 01:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 12, 2005
The ant task is finished
The ant sql is just too stupid to build triggers (in either firebird or oracle). One of these days I will look at the code and play with it - but not this week.
I am now creating my schema with isql, but loading my data with sql. Sloppy but works.
Next thing on my plate is talking to the firebird-rails person about using a hibernate sequence instead of a seperate sequence for each table.
Posted by liz at 03:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Ant and firebird
It is getting better. I found my class-loader problem (it was an ant problem of course). Now the only problem I am having is getting the sql task to deal with the DDL for firebird triggers.
I have to have firebird triggers because I need them for using the database with .NET. I don't need them for java IF I am using hibernate. I only need the seq for either hibernate or Ruby on Rails.
I will need them for various other code I can see myself using.
The help I am getting from the firebird-java people is excellent. I must commend them. I think I am coming up with problems they haven't thought about before, and they are consistently ready for help.
On the ant front - my huge script is now broken up into a bunch of scripts. It will probably get smaller yet. Hibernate is now seperate from the toplevel script (it is now imported), as is all the database stuff. No more antcalls from the top level build.xml to a lower level one. I consider this a win.
Now I get to play with classpaths. Oh, we all know and love the ant classloader.
Posted by liz at 11:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 08, 2005
Firebird infinitum
Ok, maybe I am just picky. But, really, I would like it if jaybird actually worked with the sql task in ant. I have code that has worked with 3 other databases (all it does is build tables). I get a null pointer exception when I use firebird.
This means (of course) that I now have to do all sorts of configuration (string replacements and such) and run isql through exec in order to create the tables, views, etc in my firebird code. I don't know about you - but I think this is the shits.
If anybody wants the code, I will be happy to supply it. Or am I the only idiot that is trying to do things like this?
I work in a big company full of consultants. Worse, these consultants never spend any time with each other - because they are too busy consulting. I am trying to write push button scripts that we can demand the consultants use - if we can't force them to unit test (they seem to think that unit tests are for use cases) we can at least build their environment in order to give them the opportunity to unit test.
So, this is why I am spending my time trying to write idiot proof scripts and processes. At least one lead has drunk the koolaid - and is beginning to follow my process and configuration. Now, I have to spread it through the rest of the company.
I was the tech interviewer 2 days ago for a person who wanted a tech lead job. 15 years in the business. She had never heard of Ant, Hibernate or Spring. I am not sure if she knew the difference between an EJB and a javabean. This is a woman with a masters in computer science. She also thought that unit tests are for use cases. Where are people getting this idea?
I am not real big on design patterns - but I do think people should be able to at least identify the MVC pattern. Come on, we can do better than this.
We aren't hiring her. At least, I hope we aren't.
Posted by liz at 12:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack