Ben Poole

Galileo is here!

Galileo—Eclipse 3.5—is here! The annual Eclipse release has happened, and there’s lots bundled up in that there Eclipse framework nowadays. Let us peruse the downloads page:

1. Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers (78 MB) Uh huh. 78 meg? Wow, that’s pretty small.
2. Eclipse IDE for Java Developers (91 MB) Apparently this includes Mylyn, which is “essential”. Hmm.
3. Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers (187 MB) ’Nuff said :-)

More seriously, the Eclipse platform is still my IDE of choice for Java development, and I enjoy working with it (so long as things don’t go wrong in the Eclipse Workspace). Time to get downloading!

(PS predictably, on twitter too!)

Update: actually, Mylyn really is useful!

Posted 06:49 PDT on 24 Jun 2009   |   Categories:    |    eclipse galileo   |    6 comments

As sure as night follows day

Here we go again, as sure as night follows day.

Then again, if the only complaints about the process are coming from people who have never contributed a line of code to the site in their lives, I can safely conclude that we’re on the right track.

Read Where’s OpenNTF.org?. Then go read the post (and importantly, the comments against it) that inspired Nathan’s outpouring: Volker Weber: Quo vadis OpenNTF?

And there was me thinking that vowe.net was quite a popular site which gathers a lot of comments. I’m glad Nathan is setting us straight, and that no-one is complaining about the current red-tapery apart from Volker.

Now, given Jeff Gilfelt’s observations maybe it’s a good thing IBM are getting the intellectual property and legal things in place—that way they can protect themselves from… themselves.

Posted 12:54 PDT on 23 Jun 2009   |   Categories:    |    openntf   |    6 comments

Some useful Domino Java code?

I am told that this could be useful to other newb Java Domino coders. Basically, it’s a wee chunk of code to drop into a Domino Java agent, which sets out a recommended approach for document looping and the whole recycle() thing. I don’t know if it’s utterly correct, and I really don’t want to get into the innards of the Domino JVM—Bob is doing sterling work there—but It Works For Me.

 // Here we iterate documents in a view
 try
 {
 Document doc = view.getFirstDocument();
 Document docTmp = null;
 
 while (null != doc)
 {
 // Your doc processing code here
 
 docTmp = view.getNextDocument(doc);
 
 doc.save(); // assuming changes
 doc.recycle();
 doc = docTmp;
 }
 
 /*
 * Could do this in 'finally' if you like,
 * but you need to declare objects
 * outside the try... catch in that case
 */
 if (null != doc) doc.recycle();
 if (null != docTmp) docTmp.recycle();
 if (null != session) session.recycle();
 }
 catch (NotesException e)
 {
 // TODO error handling
 }
 finally
 {
 try
 {
 view.recycle();
 db.recycle();
 }
 catch (NotesException n)
 {
 // Don't care
 }
 } 

Hope this is useful for someone. Feel free to comment away and improve!

Posted 03:39 PDT on 12 Jun 2009   |   Categories:    |    11 comments

Quiet innit?

This site is currently in recharge mode, with the owner and family holidaying in Florida. Normal service will resume shortly. In the meantime, we’re off to another theme park… :-)

Posted 08:47 PDT on 04 Jun 2009   |   Categories:    |    orlando disney   |    3 comments

Seven years

This weblog is seven years old now. In fact, as usual, I missed its actual birthday last week. Tsk.

I think seven’s supposed to be lucky isn’t it?? Either way, I definitely owe a present—perhaps some actual site content would be a good start. I know it’s been rather quiet here: lots of coding, lots of working, lots of general running-the-ole’-business-ing. Watch this space, and if you’re still here, my thanks!

Posted 00:36 PDT on 19 May 2009   |   Categories:    |    5 comments

Helping your users

I should like to draw your attention to this great post from Dmitry Fadeyev on usability:

Tell Me How.

I love this sort of thing, and it’s all about how error messages aren’t enough without guidance. Information isn’t power, information + guidance is.

Posted 07:37 PDT on 29 Apr 2009   |   Categories:    |    No comments yet

Tips for IT professionals

A couple of things for IT departments everywhere:

1. If your process gets in the way of delivering value to the business, you’re doing it wrong.
2. Please, don’t become the tail that wags the dog.

I thank you.

Posted 00:25 PDT on 28 Apr 2009   |   Categories:    |    11 comments

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