Pencils Down

For some reason they thought this was a good idea – It isn’t.

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Web Developer toolbar by Chris Pederick.  If you are developing web apps – get it.  Every web developer function I have ever seen in one FREE download.

http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/firefox/

If you have your site on a less than dedicated hosting package and you need to import a large MySql script you are typically up a creek.  I tried all the usual ideas: using gzip, using bzip, split the file up, etc…  Nothing worked.

One of the last searches had the simplest solution: use a small PHP program to load file and execute directly on server!  Reference from the 1and1 q&a section but I am guessing the same method will work for any Linux host.

Best of all: it’s very fast.

I have a long term client with all of their sites hosted at one of the major vendors.

After tripping along for a while we decided to take up the host offer of adding multiple web sites/databases under one web hosting package.

Guess what?  It doesn’t work.  The sites (specialized job sites) are not generating any big volume at all.  The host says our database queries need tuning (how bad could a single query an hour be?).  I know though, come 2:00 PM, getting to the home page for any of the shared sites will fail.

The host must have some server side coding that notices traffic per package, compares to the price being received for that package and downgrades quality.  I know, this sounds ridiculous – how could they be that cool and uncool at the same time?

Of course, taking one of the sites out into their own web package removes any of the performance problems whatsoever with that web site.  (So, the supposed ‘database tuning’ wasn’t needed after all?)

I guess I don’t understand the point of advertising, promoting an offering that will not work.  Even further, then once it starts to break tell subscriber that their code sucks.

I have been developing Hibernate coding for a couple of years, seeing hundreds of mapping files.  I am guessing 1% of those required a full path to the class being referenced.  From the few of those that I worked on it was never clear why Hibernate, Java, Spring, whatever couldn’t find the class definition in those cases.

Just ran across another odd ball that needed the full path to the object (even though there are several others in the same package that do not need the path).

Any ideas would be appreciated.

I think I have it: if there are multiple objects of the same name in the build path then you have to differentiate.  For example, if you have a “package.one.Person” and a “package.two.Person” then when hibernate attempts to resolve your HQL “from Person” it will not know which Person object to attempt to locate.

I hope this is the answer – appears to make sense.

After trying several SQL statement queries I stumbled upon a built-in editor for CLOBs in SQL Developer:

1. SELECT the affected table record(s)
2. Double click on the column in the row you want to change
3. Should see a pencil icon on the right hand side of the field
4. Click on the pencil icon
5. Should bring up clob in text editor
6. Make changes
7. Hit OK
8. Hit Commit icon

Nice…

In the last several jobs I have used tools on a daily basis that are no longer supported by anyone.  Either the original company no longer exists or the original company came up with a ‘better’ idea and canned the old one.

The tools included:

• XML compiler
• Graphics processor
• Workflow
• Web Page Automatic Includes

Again, these were (and likely are) used on a daily basis by the companies involved, usually in a production environment.  Yes, documentation is sparse.  There are no online groups that discuss the product anymore.  Usage tends to be something like “Look at the project Dave did last year and do the same thing”.  And “Oh, yeah, Dave left the company six months ago.”  Getting to the web wayback machine becomes a favorite.

The products do work.  It has usually been pretty clear how to incorporate the product in the new, changed system.  It is just scary as hell that one of the bullet items on your to do list is to get this neglected piece of code to behave.  Just cross your fingers.

I have been developing Java apps for some time.  Most of them have used Hibernate to database access.  I think Hibernate is a pretty useful tool; very active user base; good, constant upgrades, fixes.

The last couple of companies I have worked at decided to hide Hibernate behind a homegrown facade.  I have never understood what possible use this could be.  The reasoning given was to:

• allow for upgrades to Hibernate without affecting entire applications or
• allow for substituting another ORM.

Upgrade affects on applications?  You mean when a Java library deprecates a bad idea, so the facade would mimic the old, bad idea?  Or the application would not have access to the new, neato feature?

What other ORM for Java desktop apps?  Are you seriously considering moving (backwards) to iBatis?

In both cases there has been a period of adjustment as you try to figure out what is really missing in the facade or what changes in behavior the facade introduces.

I can’t help but think it is really a case of ego, NIH.  I wish I had a bug recorder hidden in the room when the senior development staff described their reasoning.  On the other hand, maybe not – it might be too depressing to hear people rationalize such a bad idea.

After tossing and turning for some time with the query:

from Change

and getting the error “Change not mapped” when running the associated JUnit test I finally remembered to use the full path:

from com.dantoomeysoftware.domain.Change

Not sure why it can’t find the object. I know there is probably some nice, theoretical explanation, but I don’t care. The first query should work.

I live on the south shore of Massachusetts.  We recently had a pretty good winter storm hit that knocked down quite a few trees and power lines.  I am sure the local power company could not even approach to fixing all those issues on their own.  They correctly hired what appeared to be several hundred outside contractors to come into state and help.

The storm hit Friday night.

Saturday, whilst the outside contractors were arriving, someone took a wind measurement and proclaimed “high winds”.  This meant all of these contractors sitting in their trucks in a local mall had little to do.  Interesting seeing these guys walking around a mall – you can tell very few ever go inside a mall in their normal life.  You really have to envision most of a local mall packed with these bucket trucks and the contractors doing absolutely nothing for hours.  Oh, by mid-morning the weather was “pleasant” – no wind, no snow, partly-cloudy – perfect.

Sunday rolls around and the contractors are still sitting there.  Someone that talked to one of the contractors said “no one has told them what to do”.  Isn’t that amazing!  We hired all these people from out of state and no plan for what they would do when they got here.

By Monday someone woke up and started organizing their efforts.  We had power back soon.

I know I usually talk about software things, but I have been team leader, manager types many times.  I have had a budget and went to hire contractors.  There was never a day where we could afford to bring in a contractor without knowing exactly what they were going to do and how long it would take.