Felipe Leme's Blog: Community Archives

Posted by felipeal on February 12, 2007 at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I have this blog for a long time - in fact, I think I was one of the first 100 or so weblogers, as I joined it shortly after JavaOne 2003. Still, I haven't blogged that much (just 22 entries in 41 months), specially last year (only 4 semi-crappy posts).

There are many reasons for this inactivity, but I guess the main one is lack of time, aggravated by lack of interest. But the good new is, this year I am in an overall better mood, so I write more frequently. At least, I will try to write about some topics I've been queuing over the months, such as:

suggestion for a new (useless :-) Java keyword
an useful Mozilla/Linux tip
rants about Ubuntu
JUnitFactory and its possibilities
nice-to-have Google features
Java EE productivity
Netbean issues
Eclipse improvements
cool Eclipse tips
Cactus and DbUnit 'state of union'
useful annotations usage
JCP, OSS and personal expectations
... and so on

Of course, the fulfilment of this promise is subject to the conditions of time, mood, and good will - most likely I will procrastinate it, but I will try my best to write about at least the first 4 or 5 items....

Maven 1.0 released

Posted by felipeal on July 13, 2004 at 04:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I haven't blogged in a while - even after attending Java One 2004, which is source for blogging heaven - but I couldn't let this date pass on without making some noise.
From Maven's main page:


Maven 1.0 Released - 13 July 2004



Maven 1.0 has been released.

Download | Installation Instructions | Release Notes

'Nuff said..

Felipe

PS: and, of course, congratulations to the whole Maven team :-)

When LinkedIn met JSTL

Posted by felipeal on March 26, 2004 at 08:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

JSTL's SQL and XML are controversial taglibs. A lot of people complain they hurt the MVC principles, while others defend they can be useful in some situations (specially on protoypes and small projects). The truth is, both sides are right: it can causes great havoc in a MVC-based application, but it is an invaluable tool in small, time-limited projects like the one shown below

Now let's forget JSTL for a while and talk about LinkedIn, which is the motivation for this blog entry. For those who don't know it yet, LinkedIn is a tool/site for social networking management. I joined the site a couple of months ago, invited by an old college friend. Although I was skeptical about the technology in the beginning, I slowly realized it was a nice way to keep in touch with old friends - or even strengthen my relationship with new ones.

My favorite way of using LinkedIn is browsing throughout my connections' connections looking for known folks. Once I found one, I invite him to be a direction connection of mine. There are 2 ways to ask for a connection: sending a request indirectly through LinkedIn or directly by email.

Sending a request is LinkedIn's core business. It would allow you, for instance, to propose a business deal to some one you don't personally know (but is indirectly "linked" with you through your connections) and LinkedIn would charge for the service. Although I think its a nice feature and a clever business plan, it is an overkill process if you just want to get a connection with someone you already know. So, in this case, it's much simpler to just send an email message to that person. The only drawback in this approach is that many times you don't know (or don't remember) that person's email address - and that's where my JSTL-based project can be handy.

The project's goal is pretty simple and straightforward: provide a repository of names and email address of LinkedIn users that know each other somehow (for instance, my Alumni class or java.net community users). Once a name is listed, you can just click on its email address and you will be redirected to LinkedIn's invitation page (with all fields already filled). (ERRATA: this part is highlighted because it has been missing from the original blog)

Considering the project's level of importance (it could be classified as "useless geek tools"), it has to be easy to use and even easier to implement (in fact, I spent more time configuring MySQL and writing this blog than developing the project). In other words, it's a typical example of application that could be written using JSTL's Core and SQL tags.

The application consists of only 2 database tables (users and communities) and 3 JSP pages:

index.jsp - protected page (user must login before accessing it), allows an user to add himself to the community or send an invitation to other users
login.jsp - welcome page where the user selects with community he would like to access (it's necessary to know the community's password)
listUsers.jsp - list all users in a community, with a link for posting a LinkedIn invitation to each user (this page is included from index.jsp

Here are some code snippets (the whole "source" can be found here):

<%-- check if user is logged on --%>


   


<%-- check if user already exists in this community --%>
        
           SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = ? AND community_id = ? 
           
           
        
        
           
        

<%-- handle submission --%>

   
   
   
      
         
      

      
        
           SELECT * FROM communities WHERE id = ? AND password = ?

Finally, the application URL is http://felipeal.net/liar/index.jsp. If you had the patience to read this lengthy blog till this point, please give it a try - the password for java.net is CafeBabe.

More JSR announcements

Posted by felipeal on November 25, 2003 at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I said in my previous weblog, more J2EE-related JSR final releases would be announced soon. And here they are:

NOTE: if eventually more of those JSRs are released today, I will update this blog (instead of creating another one)

JSR announcements

Posted by felipeal on November 25, 2003 at 04:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As a subscriber to the jcp-interest mailing lists, I receive many JCP/JSR announcements. In particular, everytime a JSR changes its status, I got an email about that change.

Sometimes it take weeks to get a simple message, while at other times you got a bunch of them at once. And yesterday was one these days: I got a batch of messages regarding final releases, 4 of them related to the upcoming J2EE 1.4:

JSR 151 - Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition 1.4 (J2EE 1.4) Specification
JSR 154 - Java Servlet 2.4 Specification
JSR 52 - A Standard Tag Library for JavaServer Pages (final release for JSTL 1.1, a maintenance release)
JSR 115 - Java Authorization Contract for Containers

These are great news: once all specifications are final (there are still a few missing, like JSR 152 - JavaServer Pages 2.0 Specification and JSR 153 - Enterprise JavaBeans 2.1), the J2EE vendors can release their J2EE 1.4 compliant servers.

So, if you'd like to receive the latest JCP/JSR news, give the JCP-interest mailing list a try. Note that this list is open to everybody, so you don't need to be a JCP member to have access to it (although you are automatically subscribed once you become a member).

NOTE: the other JSRs mentioned were released a few hours after I finished this blog, so I posted another one

A taste of Java

Posted by felipeal on October 23, 2003 at 07:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Abaporu, one of the technical conferences organized by Soujava (a Top 25 Jug) in Brazil.

During the keynote, my friend Manoel Lemos was invited to talk about the the National Health Card Project, which has won the Duke's Choice Award in the Massive Scale category, during the last Java One. So, when he was called onstage, he brought the Dukie in one hand and a bottle of beverage in the other, and said something like: "Well, Brazil have had Java for many years, even before the language was invented" and showed the bottle.

So, with no further ado, here it is: Java, the Aguardente de Cana:

You might be wondering: what is a "Aguardente de Cana"? Well, it's Brazil's most traditional beverage, a distilled liquor made of sugar cane. It's a very strong beverage (some brands reach 45% alcohol), in some ways similar to vodka and tequila. It also has many nicknames (like caninha, cacha�a and pinga) and drink recipes which can be made from it, specially the "caipirinha".

In fact, caipirinha is so popular that Bruno F. Souza always mentions that recipe in his presentations:

Caipirinha--"Little Country Girl" - Brazil's National Drink

Use a short glass. Cut a lime into 8 pieces. Add sugar to taste. Mash the lime and the sugar with the pestle until they are well mixed.
Add 3 cubes of crushed ice and fill the glass up with "cacha�a". Mix it all, and that's it!
Place a lime slice on the brim of the glass for decoration, and serve it with a stick for stirring.
You can change "cacha�a" for vodka, but then the drink name changes to "Caipiroska"

For those living in the Bay Area, you can find "cacha�a" (among other Brazilian goods like guaran�) at least in the follow places:

Sousa's wines & liquors - a place which sell Portuguese and Brazilian products, located in Mountain View
Caf� Brasil - a very good Brazilian restaurant in Santa Cruz (they serve the best feijoada I ate in the US :-)
Joao's Restaurant - another Brazilian restaurant, located in Santa Clara
a couple of restaurants and stores in San Francisco - unfortunately I don't remember the address and names, but if you're interested, drop a message in the comments area below and I'll try to find out

There are also sites which sell Brazilian products online, like Sendex, BrazilianShop.com or those listed here (DISCLAIMER: I only bought products from Sendex before, and they are a good merchant. I don't know about the others).

I doubt you're going to find Java on these places, because it's a hand-crafted brand - although you can surely find other major brands like Velho Barreiro, Caninha 51, Tatuzinho or Ypioca. But for those leaving in Brazil, you can order Java here.

The new JCP 2.6 is almost there. Do you have anything to say?

Posted by felipeal on September 02, 2003 at 09:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Java Community Process (or JCP) is the main responsible for Java being open and "democratic". Everything that is incorporated to the Java platform - from specific APIs to full J2SE versions - is created through Java Specification Requests (or JSRs), and everyone can propose a new JSR or participate in existing ones.

The current version of JCP is 2.5, but a new version (2.6) is being forged by JSR 215. JCP 2.6 will make it easier for people - specially developers - to participate in the process, which in turn will facilitate the job of spec leaders and expert group members. There is a good article recently published at Sun's about how these changes will make things easier overall, so I won't repeat these details here.

So, if you are already familiar with the JCP/JSR processes, I suggest you take a look on JSR 215 and express your opinions (and you should hurry, as the Community Review finishes on September 8th). If you are not, I strongly urge you to do so. After all, being part of the community is like being a citizen in a democracy.

PS: usually, the Community Review is available only for JCP members. But as JSR 215 is a JSR that updates the process of the JCP, the expert group opened the review to the public, in order to encourage everyone to review it and send them comments.

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