Java recently added a more strict verifier to the class loading mechanism. This isn’t really a bad thing, necessarily, because it conforms to what Java was always supposed to do – except a lot of projects now rely on the verifier doing what it’s always done. For all intents and purposes, the Java 8u11 (and [...]
The hardest thing about life is living it.
It’s easy to look at life’s little hurdles and respond with something trite, like “It could be worse,” or “You could have brain cancer.” The thing is: those things are true; it could be worse, you could have brain cancer… and sometimes you do. Sometimes the bump in the road is minor in comparison to [...]
Writing formats for books
I’ve recently started contributing to another book, and one of my tasks was, like, “start the book.” I’ve been dealing with the tyranny of choice – poorly, as it turns out – and I think I’ve finally solved one of the hardest problems: In what format should the book be written? I’ve gone around and [...]
A quick first-contact tutorial for PencilBlue
Let’s see if we can figure out how to use PencilBlue. It looks interesting enough, and I like much about the approach they’re taking (“Eventually someone who’s not in love with the technology has to manage the site”); let’s see if we can hammer out some basic workflows. The philosophy PencilBlue seems to prefer is [...]
PencilBlue on Fedora 20
Tom Callaway (spot) mentioned a company local to the Raleigh area, publishing an open source CMS, called PencilBlue. PencilBlue is written with Node.js, a server environment leveraging Javascript. You might wonder why I’m even considering trying a different platform. After all, I’m already a user of WordPress; I also work for a company that produces [...]
Rocket Java: Using different test resources in a single build
What happens when you have tests that need different resources with similar names? Confusion, that’s what. Let’s map out a project so we can see what happens: Parent Project Test Resources 1 Test Resources 2 Library Code (depends on both test resources projects) Now, in our problem code, the resources for the test data use [...]
Rocket Java: Shadowing private variables in subclasses
This morning, a user on ##java asked if private variables could be shadowed in subclasses. Upon being asked to try it and see, the user said that they didn’t have the time, which was ironic (and wrong), but errr… what the heck, I’ll write a test case to demonstrate that no, shadowing private variables (and [...]
The New Thor
I have to admit, I’m rather looking forward to the new Thor. There’re a lot of oddities surrounding the concept, but it’s the comics – it’s not like they paid much attention to the traditional Thor in the first place, so why not alter conventional thinking even further? Thor (“Þór,” among others, hereafter anglicized because… [...]
A quick tool to unescape HTML
If you follow me on Google+ or Twitter (or LinkedIn), you’ll have seen a lot of posts from me lately, mostly reposts of older articles, in a giant flood of content. I apologize for that – I guess I’d not really thought a whole lot of the social media impact of all of the data [...]
Repost: Welcome to the New Inquisition.
CNN posted Stopping ISIS today, containing some horrifying imagery: basically, ISIS filmed a man being forcibly converted from Christianity to Islam, and then beheaded him. I suppose that somewhere the god of irony is weeping tears of stone. God knows I’m weeping real tears. Is this really what we’ve come to? A religious movement, ostensibly [...]