Something to remember about JSP EL

I just ran into a little issue with the JSP EL. When you're accessing a property, say 'admin', the EL will choose the boolean type (isAdmin) over the string type (getAdmin). I know I shouldn't have named them that way but I wanted to at least document this behavior.

Connect NetBeans 6 Betas to local CVS repositories

As a continuation to my previous post, things seem to have changed in
NetBeans 6 for the CVS client from the Milestones to Betas. No problem,
we can still make this work. Funny thing is, it's now closer to the
Eclipse setup I had to do :)

Anyways, follow all the steps from my previous post through step 4;
we'll be making a change to step 5.

First create a file called cvswrap.bat. All it needs to contain is the
following:

@echo off
setlocal enableextensions enabledelayedexpansion
%COMSPEC% /c %CVS_EXE% server
endlocal

From now on we won't be using the :local: connection method anymore to
connect to CVS, we'll be using :ext:. Basically, your CVS Root should
look something like:

:ext:username@localhost:/location/of/repo

username can be anything you like since it wont be passed to CVS
anyways. In the Checkout dialog the only other thing left is to have
NetBeans use an External Shell. Just put in the location of your
cvswrap.bat file and you're on your way.

YMMV

Idiots who don't know how to use Hibernate

It's not a good sign when you see code like this in the project you were hired to maintain:

// Initialize the user history collection in case the
// user changes his or her password during this session.
user.getUserHistories( ).size( );

This is wrong on so many levels I don't even know where to start...

Connecting NetBeans 6 to a CVS repository on a shared drive

I'm sure there are others out there who've done this before but I wanted to make sure it was documented for myself. So, here's what you need:

• NetBeans 6 M10 - older and new versions will probably work with this as well
• cygwin - standard install plus cvs

Here are the steps:

1. After NetBeans and cygwin are installed correctly, add the following environment variables:
   • CVS_EXE - <cygwin-install>\bin\cvs.exe
   • CVS_SERVER - <cygwin-install>\bin\cvs.exe
   • add <cygwin-install>\bin to your path
2. Add a place in your cygwin virtual filesystem to set up the mount points, I created a /projects/projecname for each.
3. Set up the mount points in cygwin (note that this is done from the windows command shell and not the cygwin bash shell):
   • >mount z:\shared\drive\path\to\cvs\repo /projects/projectname
   You'll have to do this for each repo you need to connect to.
4. Now here's the really weird part. In the CVSROOT directory of your repo, there's a file named config. You need to edit this file and remove all the new-lines. This is very important as you won't be able to connect otherwise.
5. All you need to do now is open up NetBeans and do a CVS checkout. The path will be something like :local:/projects/projectname

YMMV

No more .NET...Ever!

Just started a new job. Much better pay but more importantly not having to do .NET development. I can be happy again.

Why I won't be using Guice

Why won't I be using Guice? Because if I need help, the only good place to go is the mailing list which is hosted at Google Groups. This obviously isn't a problem at home where nothing is blocked, but at work it's a no-go. At the last three companies I've worked for Google Groups is blocked since it's considered chat. Now I could probably get some kind of allowance for the Guice group but who wants to go through the hassle. So for the time being I'll be sticking with Spring.

Code Monkey

New space heater from Azul

Just read about this on the Register. Should keep you toes warm on those cold winter days...

...and it runs Java too!

http://www.azulsystems.com/products/compute_appliance.htm

A .NET short-list

Since I've been working on the MS side of the fence for about 6 months now I thought I'd share some of the things I've seen.

MVC is pretty foreign to about 99% of .NET developers which I find rather insane. Good thing there are smart people like and Hammett, Ayende and JP. Of course there are good people working at MS. But to make this type of stuff work they have to create these huge frameworks and tools (Web Client Software Factory - it's open source though :).

Oh, and don't get me started with Visual Studio...

Not that anybody is listening, but I hope to blog a bit more often.