Thoughts, rants, and even some code from the mind of Barney Boisvert.
Next Thursday (Sept 11) I'll be presenting at the PDX RIA group (formerly CFUG) about Groovy. Someone (cough…Simeon…cough) hasn't updated the site with the new info, but rest assured that it's happening. As you might imagine, I'll be talking about my CF Groovy framework, but I'll also be talking about JVM language integration in general, Groovy in general, and how hybrid apps are a good thing. Included in that will be some Hibernate goodness, which I'm still amazed by every time I pick it up because of the drastic reduction in code to write.
Unfortunately, I'm currently at a job where leveraging these technologies is verboten. We use CF8 and Magnolia (a Java CMS) for most of our sites, so it could be really handy to shell out for some "Java" without invoking a compiler. However, it doesn't happen like that. We write some Java, compile, deploy, cycle the container, test, repeat. Or we hack together something with CFML to synthesize the functionality we need. I get some relief on personal projects, where it's CF Groovy w/ Hibernate all the way, but that understandably pales in comparison to my at-work efforts. C'est la vie. I do get a paycheck for the work stuff, which does a remarkable job of offsetting the downsides. ;)
After more use, I've uninstalled both Twitterific and Twinkle, and switched to Twitterfon. It's simple, fast, works well, and hasn't crashed yet. It touts a focus on the core, not extra features, but I'm not sure what is missing.
I also just found IMPlus, which is a multiprotocol IM client for iPhone. It can't work in the background, of course, but it seems pretty nice. Only used it a couple times do far, but no compaints so far.
Lastly, I'm getting the hang of typing a little better. One very interesting facet of this is that I simply cannot type upside-down. I'm pretty much always in bed before Heather, so I usually end checking my email and/or Twitter (or blogging ;)) while I wait. But try as I might, I cannot lie on my back to do it. I have to flip over, prop myself up on my elbows, and type that way. The weight of my hand is inverted on my back, so I miss everything. Not very fun.
Ok, so it wasn't "lastly". This time it is, though. Lastly, I had a whirlwind weekend of reading. Finished "Skinny Legs and All" Friday evening, read "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" on Saturday, and the "Ender's Game" on Sunday and Monday. More surprising is that it was the first time for all three, not just the first one. SLaA and EG definitely blew the pants off THGttG, though I've not decided which was better between them. Very different, and both very good in their own ways, though I thought both kind of copped out on the ending a bit.
I just created another blog for myself. Why have only one, when I could just as easily have two? I've always tried to keep things generally technical on here, knowing that most of my readers are here for the technical content. The new blog is a complete departure.
A few years ago, I started building an app that would allow me to take pictures with my cell phone and email them to my blog for automatic posting. But the problem ended up being fraught with complexity, and just wasn't much fun at all. So I bailed. But now with my iPhone and the WordPress app, putting phone pictures on a blog is a snap. I'll probably end up posting actual content at some point, but for now, it's just a photostream. We'll see how it goes.
This was also a good test for the WordPress management framework I've built. I host a number of blogs on my server, and because of the way WordPress works, you have to have a separate copy of the code for each blog. While that itself is not really an issue, managing the separate copies is. Enter Ant and Rsync. My Subversion repository for the blogs houses a set of config files, a single copy of WordPress, and a collection of custom themes. I use Ant to convert that into a set of complete installations, with the right themes going into the right installations, and configuring each one as needed (databases, urls, etc.). Then Rsync is used to copy all that crap out. Since most of the time little has changed, rsync really cuts down on the transfter time and bandwidth. Adding a new blog was as simple as dropping a new config file, registering the blog, creating the database, and running the Ant/deploy pair of commands.
The process could definitely be smoother, but for a use case that wasn't even on the table when it was built, it handled it admirably. Since I don't forsee creating a lot of new blogs, I don't think I'll be enhancing the functionality to accomodate that use case any better, but it made me happy that it was easily scalable in an unforseen way.
Cadence has retracted it's offer to buy Mentor Graphics. Good news for the company, and hopefully good news for me too. The chaos should definitely decrease now that the "threat" has passed, but it'll take some time to get back to normal, I suspect.
Time for another "State of the Barney" post. They're usually a January staple, but oh well.
The past few weeks (since the end of June, really) have carried significant unwanted stress because of the takeover bid for Mentor Graphics by our largest competitor. The odds of the deal actually going through are pretty slim, I think, but the whole corporation is a little jumpy. I'm also definitely in the "redundant" class of employees, so I'd very likely be gone after a token severance package, if that.
Because of the potential purchase, work has been a series of short-term "make the team seem really valuable" kind of projects. The projects themselves aren't really that bad, they're just focused on the wrong results. Frustrating for me, though, as a developer that just wants to build some cool, interesting, and useful apps.
Life at home has shared the tumultuous nature of the office since Heather's return from England on 4th of July weekend. That's not really a topic for a blog post, however, beyond saying my lack of energy is not due to poor eating and sleeping habits.
Emery just turned three on Tuesday, and Lindsay will be five this winter. They both head off to preschool in a couple weeks, Emery for the first time. He's still got some Mommy issues that Lindsay never really had, so we'll see how it goes. He really wants to go though, so any problems will almost certainly be short-lived. The toll of the past month and a half has been
My physical activity has also taken a severe downturn. I haven't done anything active aside from walk up and down the few flights of stairs at my office a handful of times per day. I want to get on my bike again, but it's hard to find time. I haven't even been riding my motorcycle much of late. I'm still far from overweight, but I'm definitely carrying more fat now than I ever have before, and it's not attributable to me getting older.
On the up side, I finally got an iPhone and it's largely lived up to expectations. Typing isn't so hot (expected) and performance leaves something to be desired (also expected - it's a Mac), but having instant access to the 'net is very nice. I've made a couple minor tweaks to some of my personal web apps, but nothing major. Biggest gripe on that front is the handling of HTTP Basic Auth, specifically the incredibly short expiration time applied to cached credentials.
Pic of the Day is a few weeks short of it's fourth anniversary and still going strong. Subscribers are continuing to come in organically, despite no marketing beyond a small text link on my sidebar to get it into Google. That has been a very fun project to watch grow over the years - if only I could list it on my résumé. I think I'm going to do a public "launch" at some point, but we'll see. It's an incredibly fascinating project, though the nature of the managed assets carries an unsavory stigma to many. Most of the interesting stuff I've done over the past few years has been centered around this app, though, not stuff I get paid to work on.
Hopefully life will improve, at least in some ways, but for now the shining points are sparse. C'est la vie.
As is typically the case, CFUNITED has a pair of themes. There's the conference theme, which, as always, is helping CF coders become more empowered by learning about new things (OO, using CFCs, learning frameworks, etc.), and then there's the "backtheme". This year it's all don't use only CF. Adobe's integrating Hibernate into CF9, Railo is preaching the benefits of the JBoss platform (clustering, caching, Hibernate, etc.), Groovy has a lot of lovers, and Grails (which is Spring and Hibernate for Groovy) does to.
The integration of Hibernate all over the place is very exciting. CF-based ORM tools suck, frankly. Which isn't to belittle Mark or Doug in any way, they've done a fantastic job, it's problems with CF itself that are the issue. With Railo's "CFC is a class" implementation, Hibernate is directly applicable. With CF's crazy "a CFC is a bunch of classes in a Map" implementation, I'm not sure how Adobe's going to get it to work. I'm very much hoping they fix the core issue (which would almost certainly give some nice performance benefits as well) instead of bastardizing Hibernate to get it to work, but we'll see.
I'm pleased to say that I'll be speaking at CFDevCon this September over in Brighton, England. The conference should be a great one: lots of great speakers, lots of great topics, and what should be a great location. They also announced last Thursday that early bird pricing has been extended to the end of the month, so if you haven't got a ticket, now's a good time.
I'll be presenting on two topics at the conference: AOP for ColdFusion with ColdSpring, and leveraging Java from ColdFusion. Both really ought to be "CFML" instead of "ColdFusion"; I expect I'll be using either Open BlueDragon or Railo for the presos, but time will tell.
In related news, I've since learned that the lighthouse in my blog header is about 20 miles (I'm from the US, what do you want?) from Brighton. We'll see if I can swing a trip over there to get a picture of me with it. It's kind of humorous that I'd been using that photo for well over four years without knowing where it was, and now I'm going to be flying half way around the world and end up 20 miles from it.
Eight and a half years ago, I posted the 26th best mid-season time for the NCAA men's 200 Freestyle. That was as close as I ever got to being the best of the best. I figure that's pretty good; roughly the 99.999997th percentile of college-age men. Three and a half weeks later, I quit competitive swimming for Heather and a life of code, never to return.
I've never come close to that level of proficiency since. Being there again is something I long for perhaps more than anything else. Utter competence - no question of success or failure, just how grand the success will be. No worry about the task at hand, complete trust in yourself and the ability to enjoy every moment in all it's glory. "Poetry in motion" is cliche to the nines ; ), but it's exactly what it is.
It being Thursday night, Heather's off at choir, the kids are in bed, and I'm tired for beating my head against problem after problem (usually clients who can't make up their mind) at work. So here I am dumping my mind into a blog post that few will read and fewer will really understand, listening to a song stream from YouTube. Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring is a most beautiful song, and Celtic Woman's rendition from the Helix really brought back that feeling of perfection. From 1:00 through 1:25 (particularly at 1:10 and 1:25), effortless perfection and enjoying every minute. The rest of the song is beautiful, but pales by comparison.
I wanted to thank everyone who read, and especially commented on, my My Blog, My Rules post a couple weeks ago. It's nice to know that people care, and even better to know that they appreciate what I've done. And apologies to Charlie for the firestorm.
So is this my blog? Or is it everyone's site, and I'm the only one that can directly start new conversations? It's public and the comment form is available to all, so the latter seems an apt description. Weblog implies a log of something on the web, not necessarily any sort of community foundation, but that's really what a blog is. I don't know how I feel about that.
I want an engaged audience, I want vibrant discussions, but I don't want an obligation. But it seems unfair to want that pairing, because what's in it for that audience?
Thanks for being part of that audience, even the silent ones.
