Thursday December 12, 2002

Re: Code Readability

I've just got to chime in on this one, because I'm usually the odd-one-out on preferences: I agree with this form being most readable - in some cases. The primary reason I like this format is that it makes it easier to see the variable names amongst the other code. Now do I always do it this way? No. I lay out my code that way *when it makes it easier for me to read* and never elsewise. To me these are personal preferences, again, just like the old "where do curly-braces belong."

For the record I'll stand up and say I like curly braces on their own line. I know, this violates all sorts of rules and social conformity, but dammit, that's how I like it. To explain myself, this makes it easier to visualize a block of code (for me) than having the opening curly on the same line as the for/if/which/whathaveyou. I don't know which is worse for me to read: the Standard way, or my former co-worker's way. He put the curly-braces on their own line, but indented with the code (I guess this is another standard spelled out somewhere, I just never saw it anywhere else). Example?

if ( this == that )
    {
    code;
    more code;
    }

Tuesday December 10, 2002

Too good to not repeat

James Duncan Davidson:. As forwarded onto me from an unknown source...

Please accept with no obligation, either express or implied, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of a holiday on or near the date of the winter solstice, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious and/or secular persuasions of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, inclusive of the choice not to engage in the practice of any religious or secular traditions.

May you have a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted Western calendar year 2003, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose diverse contributions to society have helped make America great. (This statement made without implication that America is of relatively greater value than any other nation, country, kingdom, realm, emirate, sultanate, principality, or geopolitical state of any kind, whether or not officially recognized by any other nation, country, kingdom, realm, emirate, sultanate, principality, or geopolitical state, or that the United States of America is the only "America" in the western hemisphere, and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, gender, physical ability, religious faith, or choice of computer platform of the wishee.)

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others. This greeting is void where prohibited by law, subject to all Federal, state, and local taxes, and further is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

( Dec 10 2002, 09:48:05 PM ) Entertainment Permalink
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Temporal Decoupling

I just cannot seem to stop myself from misreading other's blog titles. Femoral Decoupling is actually my second mis-read of this title, the first being thermal decoupling. ( Dec 10 2002, 10:34:52 AM ) Humor? Permalink Comments [2] [Link]
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My Community, Your Community

Ben Hyde's post on community is interesting, but I think basically flawed. With the exception of the title of this post, I've never labelled myself a member of the java.blogs community (discounting my use of the java.blogs "button" on the right side of this page), yet I feel very much so a member.

I think that several of my posts demonstrate membership of my community without ever using that phrase. I know, Ben is trying to make a point, and a valid one. But his use of statistics generated by a google search create false results. Being a former (attempted) developer of "online community", I think it is primarily those trying to create the community, not the members, who like to use the word community. Looked at this way, I think the google numbers correlate to the books in an expected manner. ( Dec 10 2002, 09:05:36 AM ) News Permalink [Link]
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Monday December 09, 2002

On Configuration

To comment on Jeff's continuing configuration quest, I would add my vote to trying out Betwixt/Digester as the engine. I used this to build the RollerConfig object (for Roller, duh) and it was stupid-simple. I spent a couple hours futzing around trying to get it "perfect" (Betwixt has some inclusion/exclusion rules that I was unable to get to do what I want) but it was unnecessary work. So Jeff, if you want an example, check out the Roller cvs for RollerConfig. The roller-config.xml is here if you want an example of that as well. ( Dec 09 2002, 12:19:33 PM ) Technology Permalink Comments [1]
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Wednesday December 04, 2002

Out of Context

I've decided that will be my label for where I just want to quote someone regardless of the conversation:

Most programmers are not brilliant communicators, or we'd be salesmen...
( Dec 04 2002, 02:56:01 PM ) Entertainment Permalink Comments [1]
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Pluggable Persistence

Dave keeps coming back to pluggable persistence layers for Roller. Somebody or other (sorry I forgot who ya waz) suggested that this was more trouble than it is worth. But Cedric's post on Interfaces and Factory pattern got me thinking: Roller already uses a set of interfaces onto Castor Impl objects. Taking this to Cedric's option 4, "Use interfaces and pluggable factories", should allow for swapping in any persistence implementation. Using this approach the implementation could even be specified as a deployment descriptor (in web.xml?) once the factory and Impls are in place. Rather than having to change code & rebuild if you wanted to use Hibernate instead of Castor (for example), you would just "pick" from the list of supported persistence layers. Cool.

I haven't the time to investigate this (nor does Dave I know), but now it's documented for us and posterity. ( Dec 04 2002, 01:44:34 PM ) Roller Permalink [Link]
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Monday December 02, 2002

The S(e|o)x debate

Thanks to Charles for the link, but I don't think I can agree with this research. Now, I'm not saying it what way it doesn't apply to me, just that it doesn't! ( Dec 02 2002, 08:26:03 AM ) Entertainment Permalink
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