New photos for 2008

Here are the latest pictures of Julian and friends & family from this past summer.
You can see more albums from this year in our gallery: http://picasaweb.google.com/eric.rizzo/

Relative paths in Eclipse .link files

When setting up an Eclipse installation (or a target platform if you're doing Eclipse plug-in or RCP development), it is often recommended to use .link files to keep things organized. While this is excellent advice, all of the examples I could find use absolute paths in the .link files (for example, D:/eclipse/eclipse-plugins/MyFavoritePlugin), which is, in my opinion, less than ideal.
It turns out that the .link paths can be relative, and that is especially helpful if you want to check in your target platform into source control (CVS) or otherwise share it with others who may not install into the same absolute path (or even on the same OS).
The trick is getting the format of the path correct so that Equinox can resolve correctly. For example, here is the outline of the target platform we use for developing Skyway Builder:

TargetPlatform/
   eclipse-3.3.2/
       plugins/
       features/
       links/
           EPF-RichText.link
           maven2eclipse.link
   ext/
       EPF-RichText/
           eclipse/
               plugins/
               features/
       Maven2Eclipse/
           eclipse/
               plugins/
               features/

In that structure, the ext/ directory contains a couple of "non-standard" features that we depend on, the RichText editor component from the EPF project, and the Maven integration plug-ins. Now here's the meat of this post, what do the .link files look like to use relative paths. The EPF-RichText.link and maven2eclipse.link files each contain one line:

path=ext/EPF-RichText

and

path=ext/Maven2Eclipse

(respectively).

Note that the paths are relative to the directory containing both the base Eclipse installation and the ext/ directory. Also note that when selecting the target platform in the Eclipse preferences, you must select /TargetPlatform/eclipse-3.3.2/ (not /TargetPlatform/).

With this structure and the .link files using these relative paths, anyone can easily check out our target platform from CVS (and store it anywhere on their local file system they want), point their development Eclipse at it, and be ready to build our source code.

If you have a target platform set up this way with relative link files, and it is a full-blown runnable Eclipse (a target platform does not need to be a full runnable Eclipse, but in my experience it usually is), you have to be careful to not ever run that target (don't launch the eclipse.exe or eclipsec.exe). Once you do, something happens that prevents it from working; for some reason the relative .link files stop working and thus it will not be a good target anymore. In our target that is checked in to CVS, we simple removed the .exe files so that nobody can accidentally run the target platform.

One final note: this should also work across platforms (the link files are not Windows or Linux or Mac specific), although I have not actually tested that. If you can try it on Linux or Mac, please let me know how it turns out.

Model-Driven Software Development

Yesterday I blogged on my employer's site some thoughts on Model-Driven Software Development.

Customizing Builds for Your Eclipse Projects

I was answering a question on the Eclipse newsgroups today, a question that I must have answered at least 20 times in the past couple of years. The question was, basically, "How can I add additional steps to a project's build?" In my continuing (seemingly futile) efforts to make more use of blogging, I decided to put my explanation here.

The Java Project build really only does two things: it compiles source .java files into .class files into your project's Build Output location, and it copies any non-.java files it finds in your Source Locations to the corresponding place in your Build Output location (Source Locations and Build Output Locations are configured in the Java Build Path section of the project properties). If you want or need to do more during the builds, you can augment it with your own Ant script.
Open the Properties dialog for your project and select the Builders section. There you can add your own builder to run after the Java Builder.

You can specify your builder as Ant or any arbitrary program. For many typical tasks (such as copying/moving files, creating a JAR, signing it, etc.) I usually recommend Ant because it makes such tasks very easy to implement. There are more details available in the Ant Tutorial section of the Eclipse Help.

Be aware that all custom Builders will be executed for every build, which by default happens every time you save a source file (or something that the project depends on gets built). So having a Builder that takes more than a few seconds to start up and execute can be a real drag your the coding flow. If you find that you don't really want it to run on every build, I recommend opening the Ant View (I like to make it a Fast View to tuck it out of the way but still easily accessible) and adding your Ant script there. That way it is only a couple of clicks away at all times, easy to manually invoke at the times when you need it.

Imminent Cosmic Collision: You and Eclipse Ganymede

The arrival of Eclipse's latest release (named, like other Eclipse multi-project simultaneous releases, after a moon of Jupiter: Ganymede) is upon us. It represents version 3.4 of the platform what I'd call the "core" set of tools on top of it, and I applaud Eclipse for not succumbing to the version numbering frenzy that most vendors seem to follow, where new releases with only minor or cosmetic changes are given entirely new major version numbers. I've been using the milestone and release candidate builds for a couple of months now, and here are some of the items that I've noticed (the good with the bad).

• p2, the replacement for the much-maligned Update Manager (among other things), is a big step in the right direction. Up until the RC builds it had some pretty serious UI and error-handling problems, but it is now a pretty good front-end to the complex problem of managing an open-ended platform of plugins and update sites. I think there is still a lot of room for improvement and enhancement in the UI, but what will ship with 3.4 is certainly good enough and a LOT better than the old update mechanism (in terms of both underlying architecture and user experience). I still think it is too complicated and subtle for inclusion in the average RCP, but for developers (the primary audience of Eclipse applications, including the Java IDE), it will be welcomed with open arms.
  
  
• Plug-in Spy is a very handy tool for those of us who develop Eclipse-based applications (or for anyone who is trying to learn how Eclipse is put together and/or how to mimic what you see in the "standard" plugins). Just hit Alt+Shift+F1 and a convenient view will appear giving lots of details about current state of active Part (View or editor), such as the class that implements it, he plugin that contributes it, and lots of other details.
  
  
• Mark Occurrences has been enhanced to use different colors for write occurences and read occurences. This is a small thing that makes a big difference.
  
  
• The Error Log view has been vastly improved. Not only is it now packaged as a separate plugin/feature that is more easily included in RCP apps, but it now has the ability to group messages by various criteria, provides a "quick search" box for filtering the logs, and allows you to easily view the logs of workspaces that have been used when launching an Eclipse app to test/debug plugins and RCPs. Very nice!
  
  
• "Rich" hovers/tooltips. This is a broad improvement to many of the hover/tooltip lightweight windows that Eclipse pops up to give you information about elements under the cursor.
  • The Javadoc hover is really nice now - links work seamlessly, it is easily resizable, and it has a great little toolbar with actions like navigation (back and forward), transferring to the Javadoc View, and opening the source code for the thing whose doc is being viewed.
  • The debug hover is also much improved, letting you explore the contents of rich objects without using a separate View.
  • My favorite hover enhancement has to be the hover for errors and warnings. It now presents hyperlinks to Quick Fix options, right there in the hover window. Before, you had to manually invoke Quick Fix, but now my hands don't have to find the awkward keyboard combo of Ctrl+F1; I just hover over a problem marker and click the link for the fix I want. Very nice!
  
  
• Performance. The UI is as snappy as ever, I don't notice and decrease or improvement there. There is reportedly a lot of internal improvement made to the JDT compiler to take advantage of multi-core and multi-CPU hardware, especially when running on a Java 6 JVM. I did seem to notice some improvment in Java build times. Startup time seems to be slightly better than 3.3, but that is hard to really judge because of all the variables that OSGi, p2, and the list of 3rd-party plugins that might be installed, can introduce.
  
  
• Collapse-all button for the Projects view. OK, so this one is only on my list because I contributed the idea and code for it :-) Still, it is something that I have longed for for quite a while: in the Projects view (usually used in the Java Browsing perspective), there is a new button to collapse the entire tree (Collapse-All), similar to what you find in other tree-bsaed views like Navigator, Package Explorer, etc. Here's the bug report for the curious.
  

Overall, I am very pleased with this release and applaud the various project teams for their accomplishments over the past year. I even can brag that a piece of my own code has finally found its way into an official Eclipse release, so that makes it especially cool. :-)
The next challenge will be getting Skyway Visual Perspectives working with 3.4 and, eventually, taking advantage of the new features and API that are available.

Podcast with Wayne Beaton

When we were at EclipseCon, I did a podcast with Eclipse's official Evangelist, Wayne Beaton (yes, that's his actual job title - pretty cool job title if you ask me!). The topic was finding and giving help on the Eclipse newsgroups. Wayne just published it here.

EclipseCon 2008

I just returned from EclipseCon and, although I thoroughly enjoyed the conference/vacation, I have to admit that its nice to be home. I guess I should just get it out of the way and point out that I was only able to attend EclipseCon because I was the winner of one of the annual Eclipse Community Awards (specifically, "Most Prolific Newcomer Evangelist") and the foundation was very generous in their help. Specifically, I have to thank Wayne Beaton, Ian Skerrett, and Lynn Gayowski for their encouragement and help - thankyouthankyouthankyou!
As for the award, not only did I get a spiffy personalized acrylic trophy thingy, but a totally tricked out "cell phone," an E90 donated by Nokia - its really more of a mini-computer than a phone, very similar in function to an iPhone. Now I just have to read the 90-page User Guide and figure out what US carrier it works with. In any case, I was totally surprised and blown away by the quality of the prize.

As for the conference itself, I have to say that the highlight was just meeting, face-to-face, so many people with whom I've corresponded, cooperated, and collaborated over the past 5 years. It is great to finally put faces to names like Wayne, Ian, Ed Merks, Tom Schindl, Walter Harely, Denis Roy (thank goodness he introduced himself 'cause I would certainly planted my foot well into my mouth if I had called him "Dennis") and so many more that I can't recall. For me the people aspect was definitely the most interesting part of the whole week.
As for technical content, I was impressed by the long talk on Mylyn, a project that I had been aware of and moderately curious about before; but after seeing it live and presented by its charismatic and passionate creator Mik Kersten, I'm determined to give it some dedicated time and share it with my teammates at Skyway Software.
Speaking of Skyway, I spent considerable time hanging out at the booth and I think our product launch was well-received. Most people seemed impressed with the modeling GUI (I heard words like "slick," "easy-to-use," and "wow") which, admittedly, I am glad to hear because that has been the focus of my work there. But I think we also heard some good feedback about potential directions to take the runtime portion; hopefully the community thing will take off and we'll soon see some contributions in those areas.
The p2 effort is making good progress and looks well on its way to solving the problems with the old Update Manager (and much more).
I was also educated about the profiling tools that are part of the TPTP project. The presenters were clearly not 100% comfortable speaking English in front of a large audience, but the tools look quite robust and complete, certainly capable of competing with their commercial competitors. I will be profiling the Afriterra catalog (and probably Skyway Perspectives, too) in the near future.
Replay Solutions's product also looks very interesting, but as of now it is only for JEE applications so my current (paying) work can't really find much use for it.


I'll close with something that won't surprise those who have spent any amount of time talking to me or reading this blog, a critical statement about the future direction that The Powers That Be apparently have set for one of my chosen technologies. I attended the Eclipse 4 (e4) talk and am confused and somewhat dismayed by the overwhelming focus on bringing the Eclipse platform (specifically, its UI) to the web. Because the details are vague (intentionally, because as with everything else at Eclipse, the real story will be determined by "the community"), I'm having a hard time verbalizing my thoughts; suffice it to say, just in the area of SWT and Platform UI, I'd rather see the growing mound of bugs and feature requests be more addressed instead of spending scarce resources on a completely new "platform." I understand and appreciate the need for architecture cleanup and evolution, but I can't help but wonder how much say "the community" will really have in this, seeing as nearly 100% of the committers are employed by the big member companies. Jesper asks some good questions and raises some good points in this blog post. I'm keeping my mind open, but with a healthy does of skepticism - after all, the last thing that Eclipse needs is a bunch of yes-men all nodding along with the ideas of a very small number of vocal, powerful committers and member companies.

All in all, the week was very enjoyable. Jazmine and Little-j traveled with me and we had some wonderful family tourist days before and after the conference. I'll post photos later this week when my body recovers from the time-zone-difference whiplash...

Ugress direct-to-consumer store goes live

Score another victory for the direct-to-consumer music distribution revolution!
One of my favorite musical artists of the past few years, Ugress, has just released his latest album and made it available via direct sales from the independent label web site. The prices are very reasonable (£0.49 per song or about £5.39 for the entire album). The best part is, he has also made available all of his past albums, B-sides, and EPs, too. Not that I need to buy much of it - Ugress has been offering much of the music for free download for years.

I can't tell you how glad I am to see an rise in artists offering a direct channel to their customers; and the fact that this is one of my favorites is just icing on the cake.

Ugress is a bit difficult to categorize and describe. Superficially, the music can be described as electronica, but that doesn't really do it justice. I've seen him dubbed "mad scientist musical mastermind" but probably a more useful description is this:

• "Ugress dives into a groovy, spooky and cinematic landscape of weird samples, loops and sounds. Strong rythms carries soundscapes and melodies forth. The sources of sampling include easy listening records of the 60ies, unknown and well known classic funktracks of the 70ies, computer games, television commercials and the oldest aswell as latest sci-fi b-movie. The compelling groove of a breakbeat (or two, or three) is, of course, always present."

More Videos of Julian

I've finished a bunch of videos of Julian. View them all here.
These are still pretty old - I'm working on the newer ones...

The Borg that is YouTube

I finally have some video content of my own creation, so I'm assimilating myself.

We're starting to take a lot of video of Julian, so I'm succumbing to the Borg that is YouTube. Why not, it is a free way to distribute these huge video files to family and friends.

Here is the first one I've uploaded as an experiment (it is very low quality and over 6 months old):

Micro$oft pulls a SCO move

Out of ideas, the Redmond Giant has resorted to stealing ideas from maligned SCO.

Let's listen in on a high-level strategy meeting on location in Redmond, WA, USA....

SteveB: "OK, we are getting creamed by all this damned high-quality open-source free software."

BillG: "Why don't we give another try a making at better product, Steve?"

SteveB: "Huh? What does that mean? Bill, you're so out of touch with my company...
So anyway, we're turning to you, our attorneys, to solve the problem for us. What have you got?"

AttorneyA: "Well, sir, we could try to bomb their offices with smelt-flavored pudding. That would slow them down from making and marketing the good software."

SteveB: "No, that won't work you idiot - they don't have offices."

AttorneyB: "How about sending them all free copies of Windows Vista and asking real nice to stop making us look bad?"

Tech VP: "That won't work either - nobody can afford the hardware to actually run Vista with any useful features enabled. Except our development team, that is."

SteveB: "C'mon numbskulls! If you don't come up with a strategy, you're all fired!"

AttorneyC: "Um, Mr. B, sir? I have an idea. What about we 'pull a SCO' on the world and launch a FUD campaign. We could use the empty threat of litigation for 'stealing' our technology. And the best part is, SCO showed that we don't even have to come up with real details - just the innuendo about infringement is enough to make the world doubt those evil good-software makers."

SteveB: "Hmm, that just might work. Yes,... I like it! Let's see now, how many 'violations' can we get away with?"

AttorneyA: "I don't think it really matters, sir. Make it in the hundreds."

Tech VP: "We can write software to generate a random number to use for the campaign. I'll get our offshore team working on that right away, sir!"

SteveB: "How long will it take, Mr. TechVP?"

TechVP: "Initial estimate is... 265 man-months for development, sir. As usual, testing will be allocated 0.25 monkey-days."

SteveB: "OK, well we'd better get some funding for that effort. I'll talk to SalesVP about forcing another enterprise-wide upgrade on Mega-Customer. No, better yet, I'll just have him use the auto-disabling feature of Vista to force all the grandmothers to buy the new Office version. Yeah, we don't want to piss-off Mega-Customer any more this year, and how gives a rat's behind about the consumers anyway...
OK, men - we have a plan - let's execute!"

AttorneyB: "Sir, didn't SCO fail miserably with this strategy and end up taking the throne from us as the most hated company in the tech world? "

SteveB: "Who's SCO? And besides, Nobody hates us..."

And thus the FUD campagin begins and the ever-so-predictable reactions...

Java Closures

Here we go again with language syntax changes...but this time is it different?

Brian Goetz recently posted an article on IBM DeveloperWorks about closures in Java. It is a well-written description of both the theory behind closures and the two proposals that are currently being considered for including them in Java.

I applaud the article, but as for the issue, I don't really like either proposal very much. BGGA is just more of the increasing complexity of syntax that, IMNSHO, is going to kill Java. On the other hand CICE does not appear to go far enough in simplifying the syntax. It seems that what is keeping the syntax so ugly is the damn static typing, having to declare the types of all your variables; if we could get away from that we'd have lots simpler syntax options (and we'd not be in Java anymore :-)

I guess I'll root for CICE, since it is fairly obvious that one of thee two is going to be The One. However, I was delighted to see this at the end of the article, since it is precisely what I have been harping on for so long in relation to the Parameterized Types decision:

"The issue being debated is not whether closures are a good idea -- because they clearly are -- but whether the benefits of retrofitting the Java language with closures are worth the costs."

That quote notwithstanding, does anyone really believe this proposal won't be railroaded through now that the camel's nose is under the tent?

Get off iTunes' back!

Steve Jobs responded to critics of iTunes/iPod DRM, and he's right.

Steve Jobs has written an open letter to the critics who bemoan the DRM system of iTunes, and I have to say he is spot on with his reasoning and presentation. It is non-confrontational and follows a clear line of thought, detailing the history ("How did we get here?") as well as what possible future courses he sees. I've seen lots of people with apparently nothing better to do than criticize Apple for the DRM, completely ignoring these facts:

• Without agreeing to strong DRM Apple would never have gotten the record lables (the real bad guys in this situation) to license their music to be sold online. In other words, the alternative was to have no commercial, legal solution to meet the market demand.
• Under iTunes' system the consumer is given a lot more freedom to do things with the music than the labels originally demanded. In other words, Apple did a pretty good job of negotiating to slant the power more towards consumers than the labels would like. For example,it is trivial to burn DRMed music to a CD and then rip it back again, if you really want un-protected files from your music, and only the most audiophile of listeners can hear the quality difference.
• The only alternatives are either illegal and, even by my own liberal view of rights ownership, immoral, or just as proprietary as iTunes. Sony and Micro$oft, the only significant competitors, have the same restrictions as iTunes.

The critics, for the most part, conveniently avoid these facts, none of which are disputable. They just want something to complain about.

I am by no means a "Mac person" (don't own one and have barely ever used one), but I applaud Jobs' response for its level-headedness, honesty, and direct approach. I am really tired of hearing those who just want to gripe and want the world without paying for it criticizing the company and system that has revolutionized the music industry. The digital distribution revolution is even more important than the CD "revolution" was, because it is not just a better quality package of the same old model - this is completely new and empowers consumers in ways that were only possible via illegal and immoral behavior before. We have Apple to thank for sparking that and for remaining aggressive and the market leader. As Jobs' letter says, people and governments should spend their energies trying to change the archaic, stone-age attitudes of the record labels who insist on treating their customers as criminals while not slowing down the real criminals at all.

Funny Quote

Micro$oft is the blunt of many a joke these days, but this one made me chuckle out loud:

"The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners." -Ernst Jan Plugge

[found here - a useful page in its own right]

Why not Casual Monday?

American workforce culture is already too focused on getting to the weekend - Casual Friday makes it worse.

So I'm in the second week of working at yet another new job. It is a pretty good sized company (though nothing like the behemoth that was HSBC), and as is the norm they observe a "business casual" dress policy, including "casual Fridays " where jeans are acceptable. It got me thinking this morning as I donned my most comfortable denim: why is it always Friday that companies (the ones that are still enslaved by the idea that dressing in khaki's and golf shirts 4 days out of the week somehow makes people better workers) designate for "casual" attire? Why not Mondays?

I mean, it is already the sad state of the typical American worker mentality that so many see Friday as a kind of Elysian Field , a reward for surviving the rigors of the work-week. I find that "work for the weekend" attitude very revealing and pretty pathetic; it says a lot about the typical worker's attitude towards his job, satisfaction with his work, and the typical company's treatment of employees, that so many people are so focused on the nearing reprieve (Friday) instead of on what they can accomplish during the week. So when I see Friday accentuated as a partial release of our workplace burdens (in the form of a relaxed dress policy), I can't help but think it is just reinforcing the "work for the weekend" attitude: "I can't wait until the weekend so much that getting to wear casual clothes on Friday is a big deal."

Thus, I wonder why companies don't use the carrot of Designated Casual Dress to entice workers to look forward to Monday or even Wednesday. Who among us does not regularly loathe Mondays, dreading the return to the drudgery of the work week? Alternatively, how far would Casual Wednesday go towards wiping out the thought of Wednesday as Hump Day ? If employers offered Casual Monday (or Wednesday), would that not make those otherwise barely tolerable days that much more palatable?

Imagine waking up on Monday morning and being able to slip into those old comfy jeans and tee-shirt. Doesn't that make Monday at least a little better? Wouldn't that help fend off those draining attacks of Mondayitis ? I think it would.

Reaction to Sun's open source release of Java

It's been inevitable for quite a while now, and this week Sun finally officially announced the open-source plan for Java. Let me take this opportunity to log my personal reaction to this "long time coming" news:
Yaaaaaaaawwwwwn

As far as I saw, the only people who complained about Java not being "open" were the frothing-at-the-mouth FOSS zealots (OK, I'm going to get some flames for that word choice - but I have a soft spot for the overly-dramatic, so it will stay).
Let's be honest: the critical parts of Java, the libraries and reference implementations and compatibility test kits, have been source-available from the beginning. I just don't see a lot of people caring that the JVM and compiler are open now.
Actually, now that I think about it, I take back the yawn. I am very interested, because I'm now concerned that Sun does not have enough influence any more to keep Java from fracturing. We have to hope that the community can restrain itself to keep that from happening - but I would not bet on that. Maybe some other big players like IBM will be able to police the renegades who want this or that little thing and, when they can't convince the rest of the community, go off and create MyJava.
The last thing Java needs right now is to become the next Linux, where binaries aren't compatible and users of one distro can barely find standard file locations on other distros.

Julian at 4 months old

Julian is 4 and 1/2 months now, and September was quite a busy month for him.

There were road trips:

• to Miami to see his Abuela and Abuelo and meet the Miami chapter of the Official Julian Fan Club
  
• to Sanibel to celebrate his great-grandpa's 80th birthday. It was Grandpa's birthday, but Julian kind of stole the show - so many great-aunts and great-uncles and second-cousins, so little time!

He also had his first adventures into the swimming pool. He was skeptical at first but seemed to enjoy it after a while.

Last night he spent his first night away from Mom and Dad - Poppy and Nonni (Jerry and Marilynn) had babysitting duties for the night. We were lonely and wondered how he'd handle himself, but the report came back great.

There's lots of new pictures from September at http://www.rizzoweb.com/photos/Julian (including the road trips to Miami and Sanibel).
We have also uploaded all his photos to Walgreens web site so you can order prints and pick them up at any Walgreens store: click here to see them . You will have to create a free account at the Walgreens website in order to see them and order prints. Email us if you have any trouble.

Enjoy,
Eric and Jazmine

Update on Julian at 3+ months old

We've put up new pictures of Julian from July and August.
http://www.rizzoweb.com/photos/Julian
He is growing so fast you won't recognize him. Last week he was 15.5 pounds and over 25 inches long - 90th percentile on the growth charts for his age!
Julian will be 15 weeks old this week. He has started rolling over on his own, and really interacts with people around him - smiling, cooing, laughing. Last week he started sleeping almost completely through the night (a big relief for his parents :-)
This week we started him at a babysitter during the days - it is hard for us to leave him but this is a big step for him. Pray for us!

The Truth About Infants

Everyone gives all kinds of advice when you are expecting a child. Our least favorite (mostly because it is so dully predictable) is "Your life will change forever" (For a while Jazmine and I were counting how many people said that to us, trying not to roll our eyes each time). Well, Duh! Of course it is going to change - that is one of the reasons people choose to have children, isn't it?
Anyway, lots of people tell expecting parents how much babys like to eat, sleep, and poop. That's pretty much all they do.
But the thing that nobody actually pointed out was this important truth: In addition to eating lots of breast milk and formula, infants gobble up huge chunks of time, taking it up in surprisingly large gulps, until your entire day has been devoured by this little 11-pound time-eating machine.

This seldom-expressed truth is probably the most surprising thing about having Julian for us thus far - I'm sure there will be others, but right now it seems like every day it is 3:30pm by the time we blink, and then it is 10:30 at night before we take a breath. God help us... :-)

I Have Arrived!

Hi, I'm Julian Isaac Rizzo, the newest member of the Rizzo clan.

Click here to see more pictures of my exquisite handsomeness

I came aboard Thursday May 25 at 8:25am, carrying 8 pounds 9 ounces and 20 inches of adorable little ears, chins, arms bottom and toes.
I'm a little busy learning to forage for food and figuring out this whole night and day thing, so this is all I can write for now. I'll dictate some more notes later for Daddy to type.

Adios,
Julian