NL-JUG J-Spring proposal follow-up…

Posted on May 12, 2006 13:18 by Jeroen

A few days back I posted about my session proposal to the NL-JUG‘s J-Spring. Three proposols came in for a Maven 2 session. And it seems I failed the cut. Too bad for me.

I will definatly attend the J-Spring though. It’s an excellent place to see some old friends again and catch a few presenations. There will probably be a Maven 2 session, since it matches very nicely with the overall theme of this J-Spring. So I will probably sit in on that one to see if I missed any details on the subject. And I’ll have a few unanswered questions handy as well if I’m in the mood.

Also I’d recommend every dutch Java developer to join the NL-JUG. Great way to meet and greet, make new contacts, learn stuff and if you’re on a job hunt, get a few job offerings.

OS X’s Objective-C garbage collection

Posted on May 11, 2006 23:19 by Jeroen

Lately it’s been buzzing around on various blogs that in the next OS X release, Leopard, Objective-C can use garbage collection. For those who’ve been following the introduction of environments like Java, .NET and all other environments with the sligthest whiff of managed memory have seen the same crap all before.

Basicly there are two camps. Those that think automating memory mangement is a piece of crap and that anyone willing to use such “vulgar” mechanisms should be locked away carrying a straight jacket. And those that understand that it’s a good thing since it save complexity on the developers part.

Now this is stated a bit black and white. There’s a lot of gray between the two opposites. But isn’t it true that most applications are constrained by basic I/O speeds and user input rather then by the bit of extra work happening because of some memory reclaiming thread?

Now I haven’t gone into the details of Objective-C’s memory management model yet. But based on my limited observations sofar, the memory management is optional. So if and when absolutely every last instruction counts, yes you can stick to manual management. And then it is absolutly justified to do so. But in all other cases where that extra bit of CPU is not really noticable, why bother with manually managing your memory when in most cases it is just a tedious error prone exercize anyway. Better to save the hours to add functionality then to comb through bits of code to find that nasty memory leak.

I’d say hooray for garbage collection in Leopard and Objective-C.

Some more blog entries on the subject:

Magic keywords give a blog a free sexy swing in the visitor count..

Posted on May 10, 2006 22:54 by Jeroen

As Wayne Beaton noted in his blog entry. Proper use of certain keywords seems to boost visitor counts.

Time for a test… I’ll report in a few days what the effect of keywords is. Keywords like: sex porn free mp3 music

A Couple of Dutch Rants – Amsterdam Java Meetup (30th of June)

Posted on May 10, 2006 22:31 by Jeroen

A Couple of Dutch Rants – Amsterdam Java Meetup (30th of June) and SpringOne

A colleague of mine went to the previous meet-up. And he said it was worth it.

So I’ll guess I’ll have to look into this now. From what I’ve read the early birds get free beer. (Not like in “free speech”.) Esspecially since Alarmnummer is convinced we’ve never spoken IRL. Guess I’ll have to prove him wrong then.

Anyways, what’s this meet-up about? It’s sort of a flash mob idea. Set a time, set a place and then just show up and make the bartender happy. It’s a social event and with Java as a shared interest. Should be interresting.

Keep an eye on Olaf Arendsen’s A Couple of Dutch Rants weblog for more info. He has planned the meet-up on june 30th at 6pm, only the location is not yet set.

Feedburner: Something awfull…

Posted on May 9, 2006 23:00 by Jeroen

Just a note for anyone subscribed to the feed of this blog. I’ve updated to feedburner. So please update your feed URL to Feedburner: Something awfull…. By switching to feedburner I get an insight into how many people are subscribed.

And you as a subscriber will be able to happily travel with me if I ever switch the location of my blog. So the benifit is twofold.

I’ve tweaked the Blogger template as to help ppl use the correct feed in the future.

All hail the coffee machine…

Posted on May 9, 2006 21:37 by Jeroen

Not walking to the coffee machine can get you killed (almost in this instance). So please, fellow developers. Take that stroll to the coffee machine for that hot cup of brew.

Not only serves the coffee machine a nice hot cup of coffee, but it can alse serve as a meeting hub for the occasional bit of chit chat. Hear the latest scoops on the project. Get to know your colleagues a little.

Yes!

Do visit the coffee machine…

Now this is annoying…

Posted on May 8, 2006 22:03 by Jeroen

Here I am doing my merry thing with the Apple developer tools. Apple provides a great set of tools for developers. Believe me, it kicks hiny.

But why to the mother of all things good on this earth do they forget about updating the developer kernel extensions? Either by the regular kernel OS X updates or the developer tools updates.

See, what I was doing was this. The developer tools contains a tool called USB Prober, with only one mention on the entire apple developer site. So enthousiastic as I am, I give the little app a spin. I see some screens… I push a button labbeled start…

And now the fun begins. The app asks me to if it’s ok to install a file called “KLog.kext”. Sure, I pushed a button and then this message popped. I enter my PW. Wham, so that’s what a kernel panic on Mac OS X looks like. Sweet… NOT!! As mentioned I had to hard boot my system. Thanks guys, just lost 30 minutes of work while I was at it.

Rebooted and I do some searching, as any good
developer does…

Hmmm Hum… Something about getting the right version of the USB Debug kit…

Turns out I had to install the latest USB debug kit matching my OS revision and processor.

Why couldn’t they just push this KLog.kext along with the regular updates.. or atleast act more gracefully than crashing my system? Like a dialog stating that I should download the latest debug kit to proceed.

It is great fun though now I got this working. I actually never plugged in and out my mouse this often in a single session.

How enthousiasm can bite me in the hiny…

Posted on May 8, 2006 20:55 by Jeroen

We’ve all had this happen to us. You hear about something you would really like to do. You hear that it might actually happen. You filter out all uncertain parts and get all excited about it.

You know, like a little kid that sees a big christmass package and automatically assumes it’s for him.

In your enthousiasm you cut some corners, step on a few toes here and there. And finally someone drags you into a corner to contemplate your sins.

Boy did that happen to me when I was a kid. Fact is, it still happens to me these days. Only difference is that now when I understand when something was not entirely correct, I get this gut wrenching feeling of guilt.

The thing is, I’m an ethousiastic kinda guy. So it’s in my nature to “cut corners” and unknowingly step on a few toes here and there. Bah… Lets just keep it at that. Those in the known will know what this is about.

Peter’s blog…

Posted on May 8, 2006 10:10 by Jeroen

A colleague of mine blogs at our employers website. Now I chose against doing so, because of a reason I posted a bit earlier. Anyways, Peter’s blog is not one that updates very regularly. But when he posts, he allways makes sure it’s worth the read.

I know this will look like a huge plug. But Peter is hands down the best chap to work with. Peter and I worked together on our graduation assignment, so there’s the reason for me shamelessly plugging a company blog of the company I’m working for.

Please be gentle with me… But do take a peak at his blog.

Webdesign is a pain…

Posted on May 7, 2006 14:15 by Jeroen

Last week I finished reading the book Don’t Make Me Think (2nd Edition) and let me tell you. Sometimes it just plain hurts to see a user interface. Web desktop…

I won’t go into details. But I’ve seen things, things you would very likely wish upon your worst enemy. (Since it isn’t lethal or anything.)

Now to apply the things in this book. I’ve allways felt like I was a bit more design sensitive then most colleagues on a project. Guess I now have a book to slap them with.

The book isn’t a reference, but it does give you a firm grasp of the mode of thinking you have to use when designing a UI. Most of all, there is no such thing as an average user. That was kind of an eye opener for me. Pick up this one, since it’s a very short read, so it won’t cost you that much effort. But it will make you better understand what users need/want.