Sayed's thoughts

New blog site

2005-12-28T14:14:00.000-05:00

Hi,
My new blog site is at my new website: www.sedodream.com. You'll find me talking about C#, MSBuild, Java and development in general over there.

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi

Upgrading eclipse

2005-08-29T01:07:00.000-04:00

Ok,
So recently I've migrated some of my projects to a new machine, and downloaded the newest version of Eclipse. I've done this before and knew that the .metadata folder was no good so I blew that away before anything. Then open Eclipse point to the workspace and create the new project. So Eclipse sees the .Project & .classpath files and loads the build path and everything. It was simple to recreate the dependencies because I had a JAR_RESOURCES variable that pointed to my jar directory. So all I had to do was define that variable and my build path should be set right? Wrong. Look at this error:

Here is the error in the Problems view:

The project was not built since its build path is incomplete. Cannot find the class file for java.lang.Object. Fix the build path then try building this project

So here is the line in my .classpath file that is doing this:

<classpathentry kind="con" path="org.eclipse.jdt.launching.JRE_CONTAINER/org.eclipse.jdt.internal.debug.ui.launcher.StandardVMType/j2re1.4.2_03"/&^gt;

I had to change this line to read:

Then I cleaned the project and it build fine. I figured this out by creating a new project in new workspace and examining its .classpath file. I'm not exactly sure how my original .classpath file got screwed up, but it somehow did. I think that it should have been fixed automagically, or idlest I should have been told how to fix it. What would have happened if I wasn't that familiar with Eclipse? I would have been up the creek without a paddle. I imagine I'd have to delete the projects and all the files associated with them and re-define everything. Idlest the problem is not fixed...no I have to see if my Ant will allow me to build it, something tells me I'll have problems with that too [see previous blog related to that :)]

Java & Focus

2005-08-22T13:36:00.000-04:00

Ok,
So recently I've been working a lot with .NET on some large projects. So I have a much better grasp of what happens on that side of the fence. One thing that I've noticed that it was soo much easier for me to go from a clean machine to coding. And .NET has some commercial controls (Syncfusion or Infragistics) There are some commercial controls for Java such as JIDE Soft, but they are nothing like the ones for .NET.
When you're using .NET there is NO question how to build/maintain your projects. This seems like a silly thing to question how to do, but in Java you don't! Lets consider this, you're trying to determine how company X builds/deploys their latest Java product. How do you think they do that? We'll you will first have to know which IDE they are using. You might think that they are using Eclipse, but there are many other IDE's that are very popular. For instance NetBeans and JBuilder. So there goes question number one. Let's assume they are using Eclipse, cuz that's the one that I'm the most familiar. So the team members have 3 (that I can think of off the top of my head) off-the shelf options, 1 of which is just stupid but practiced none-the-less.

Eclipse compiler
Ant
Maven

So (1) I won't even begin to talk about.
(2) Ant is a great tool and I really enjoy using it.
(3) Maven is also a really cool tool, and does soo much more then perform a build.
I have heard of several large companies that actually have created their own build tool and use that exclusively as well! But we'll stick to the ones available. So (2) & (3) are both great tools to use to build you're next Java project. But that's not the problem, the problem is which one is it? Why do we need two? Why do we need n-number of IDE's? Oh that's right because one doesn't offer what I want, so I'll write a new one. Great idea on a small scale, but horribly for the future of Java.
After reflecting on this behavior for a while, I have really been surprised. What I mean is that Java is a language that promotes the community. Like we have open-source software gaining ground, and we like to share. In the .NET world its just not like that, if you want something you just have to buy it, including support. Java having this community feel is one thing that I really love about it. Java is also very open, in the sense that they are not stuck to 1 compiler, they are not stuck to 1 build tool, etc. In theory this is great, but in practice it just sucks. Freedom is certainly not free! Because what you end up with is what we have. Many people working on many different things, each one trying to keep up with his neighbor's. If you follow the feature set of Eclipse & NetBeans you'll see what I mean. If these guys were working on the same product imagine how awesome it would be! If there was only 1 build tool from the beginning that was integrated into that IDE imagine how cool, and easy to use, that would be! This is what Java is missing. As Java projects get larger and larger, maintaining them is just getting crazy. I would definelty be willing to trade in my options for IDE's and build tools, if I could have 1 that was good and that worked great! And I'd even be willing to pay for it, but it would have to be used by most of the other developers. Why do we as developers have to waste time learning a new IDE or buildtool, or version control when we take a new job? Granted this is not a huge effort, it's still annoying and a pain in the ass. And when you think of all the effort that could have been combined to create one product much better then, it's just painful. Anywayz I'm done ranting for the night, just hope that things get better in this aspect for Java.

Ant & Java versions

2005-08-16T01:27:00.000-04:00

So I'm working on a Java 1.4 project, but my compiler in the Eclipse is jdk1.5. So I figure no big deal just switch it in the project preferences and specify it in the ant build.xml file. So I made sure that the project setting was for compilation for 1.4 in Eclipse as well as in the ant compile target. In the Ant target I specfiied both source and target to be 1.4. Here is:

So I build the app and try to execute it, but get the following error:

BUILD FAILED
java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: com/sun/tools/javac/Main (Unsupported major.minor version 49.0)

So this tells me that it has somehow compiled using the jdk1.5 instead of compiling to 1.4 source for some reason. Since I had run into the problem previously I wasn't surprised actually. But I once again looked through all the settings, even change the jdk to point to 1.4 instead of 1.5 for both ant and eclipse. Change relevent project and workspace settings, but none of this seemed to make a difference. So I go to the window->preference->ant->runtime in Eclipse. I examine the Global entries, and I see it pointing to jdk1.5 tools.jar file. I didn't think that this should be the problem, because I had specified in the build.xml to compile to 1.4. Anywayz I removed that entry and added the tools.jar for jdk1.4 cleaned everything then executed again and it worked! Not sure why this is an issue but seems to be. I think that when I made the change in Eclipse to specify to use 1.4 for ant it should have been auto updated. Now that I think about it, maybe Eclipse didn't know about the 1.4 compiler. Either way shouldn't have been an issue.

Java & Open Source

2005-08-13T14:33:00.000-04:00

Over the past few years I have grown as a developer. One thing that I notice when I work on projects is that I(we) use soo many third party, and mostly open source, tools. I haven't done much professional development outside of Java, but I'm guessing that using 3rd party libraries, especially open source ones, is more likely when developing in Java. I have some other thoughts as to why this is, but I'll leave those for another day. Soon I'll be working writing C# code so I'll know if my thoughts are correct or not. Then I'll write up a blog about it :)
Back to the topic at hand, I think that there are a few things that separate the programmers from the developers. One of those is to know what tools are available and how to access them. So if you want to be a developer then you should be familiar with a large set of tools that are available to you. For instance if you're writing a web service client, you should know about the
Apache Axis Project, and if you're having to deal with some XML for an app then you most certainly should know about JAXB and Apache Digester. Now how can we as developers stay on top of all these different third party tools? Well the truth is that we can't, but we have to do our best.
I have decided to start examining available open source tools and to share the results with you! I'm going to make an effort to examine a different project each week. I'd like to start with some tools that I'm already a little familiar with, and those that are significant. After a few entries I'll start moving into less known tools. I'll also make a note of what other projects they are using. That way I can find new project to blog on!

Graduation Pics

2005-08-11T23:12:00.000-04:00

Graduation Pics are in feel free to click them as you like.

Afghan Clone!

2005-08-03T21:58:00.000-04:00

Not that I support the whole cloning issue, but the first dog cloned (in S Korea) was an Afghan Hound.. For more info read the article at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4742453.stm

Dreamcatcher Changes

2005-07-06T13:37:00.000-04:00

Now the goals of the Dreamcatcher have change quite a bit. Previously the goals was to create a P2P forum and then provided an implementation that would overlay a dream specific ideology to the entries. But the actually forum contents would be the same. Now the end goal is to create a P2P Forum API that will allow for people to totally customize their forum, and to deploy it. I think this would be interesting and many people would excited about it.
First we will create a Proof-Of-Concept (POC) for the application to show that it works and to figure out where the weaknesses lie.
I think that their will be three major approaches we will undergo along the lines of where content is stored.

Only local database
Local database backed up by dedicated mySql database somewhere on the internet
Local database backed up by entry replication across other peers

The advantage of (1) is that it is the simplest, the major disadvantage is the an entry is only available if the owner is online. The reason to use (2) is that it should be pretty simple to implement once the forum is up and running, and will provide a means to access entries when the owner is offline. (3) can only be successful once many people are using it. If this happens I think that we could get to the point that we have 95% available entries at any time, based on replicating entries across peers. I guess you could also keep that mySql database to provide the other 5 entries. I guess we'll have to see what happens when we get to that point. Obviously we are no where near having to make these decisions.
I'll have to update the Dreamcatcher website, and the design documents soon. Hopefully I'll be able to do this by Monday.

Eclipse & Ant

2005-07-01T17:08:00.000-04:00

Lately for some reason I've found myself having to work from many different machines on the same set of projects. I've always hated working on a project from a machine that I hadn't developed on yet. Never could explain it but always seemed to be a pain. Today I'm working on my Dad's new notebook that he received recently. So here's what I did, from my other machine I copied the workspace onto a CD. When I got here I had to download Eclipse & Java and many other things, so I did all that. Then after I ensured that all the Eclipse classpath's were relative, and resolved any Eclipse build issues...I think I'm home free. But this was not the case. When I tried to invoke Ant to compile the project I got this error:

Need less to say this is not a very meaningful error message, lol. Oh well. So I dug a little deeper, check out the ant properties image below.

Since I knew that I had downloaded a newer version of Eclipse, I decied to confirm that this "C:\Program Files\eclipse\plugins\org.apache.ant_1.6.2" folder actually existed. But indeed it does not, it has been replaced with ""C:\Program Files\eclipse\plugins\org.apache.ant_1.6.5"". So now the question is how to change that? So I looked through the settings, both workspace and project and I was unable to find the entry for this, and I certainly didn't want to change that setting on all those jars listed in that image above, cuz that would just take too long. I'm sure there is a way to change this within Eclipse itself, but I couldn't find out what it was. So I went to the workspace directory and in the .metadata there is a file org.eclipse.core.runtime/.settings/org.eclipse.ant.core.prefs. This file contains all those entries that are displayed on that image from above. So I just did a find and replace, restarted Eclipse and it now works fine. In retrospect, if I'm working on a small project with out many Eclipse settings I might just get rid of that .metadata directory all together, because who knows what else is hiding in there. But it would suck to redefine many build entries for large projects. I wonder if there is a tool that will make all these changes for you, beacuse if you simply upgrade Eclipse on your own machine, you can run into many of these issues. Maybe I'm just in the dark on this one.

Tutorials coming soon!

2005-07-01T02:36:00.000-04:00

Ok, so my dad recently bought a computer. It's not really his first computer, but it kinda is. He 'kinda' had one a while ago, but I think it was really for us :) So now my dad is wanting to learn about these computers and what not. I have agreed to create him some tutorial documents. I have decided that I'll post them here as well, or links to them at least. Here are some topics that I'm going to cover. And these are vey basic things.

Check & Send email including pictures
How to search for stuff
maps.google.com
how to install stuff
word basics
excel basics

This list is not complete or in any order, actually I'm not even sure if I'll do all of these but we'll see. I'll try to create at least one tomorrow. Most likely the email one, because I think that will be the best one for him right now. First I'll get him hooked on email, then next thing you know it...I'll be teaching him Java :)

Hibernate settings

2005-06-30T13:07:00.000-04:00

Recently I've been playing around with Hibernate and Hypersonic for a project that I have going on. Seems to be pretty cool. Currently I'm using an older version of both Hibernate & Hypersonic but I think we'll upgrade in a bit. I'm using Hibernate 2 & Hypersonic 1.8(I think). I noticed that you have to set the following system properties when using.

hibernate.dialect
jdbc.drivers
java.naming.factory.initial

Here is what I have them set to:

Name	Value	Note
hibernate.dialect	net.sf.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect	Dialect for Hypersonic DB
jdbc.drivers	org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver	Driver for Hypersonic DB
java.naming.factory.initial	org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContextFactory	Provided by JBoss, can be found in jbossall-client.jar

log4j stuff

2005-06-30T12:47:00.000-04:00

For those of you who'd like to automate your logging settings here's an ant script that will do it. I'm sure there are many other available on the net as well.

<target name="setupDebugLogging" description="This will configure debug logging setting">
    
    <copy file="${logging.src.dir}/log4j.debug" tofile="${log4j.run.dir}/log4j.properties" overwrite="true"/>
</target>

<target name="setupRunLogging" description="This will configure the logging for use when clients run the app">
    <copy file="${logging.src.dir}/log4j.run" tofile="${log4j.run.dir}/log4j.properties" overwrite="true"/>
</target>


<target name="logDemo" description="Just a test delete me!">
    <antcall target="setupDebugLogging">
        <param name="log4j.run.dir" value="${build.dir}"/>
    </antcall>
</target>

This assumes that in your build.xml file you have defined the property logging.src.dir. Inside this directory there must be two log4j files (in this example that is) log4j.debug and log4j.run. When you call this set the param log4j.run.dir, this is where the log4j.properties file will be written, also where the log file will be stored at. In order for this to work this folder must be in your classpath. I this sample the build directory is where the log4j.properties file is and also where the log file will be saved. In your application you could place these elsewhere, but make sure that its in your classpath if you do. :)

Here is a sample log4j debug file that is used.

#Properties file that can be used for debug logging

# Set root logger level to DEBUG and its only appender to A1.
log4j.rootLogger=DEBUG, A1, R

# A1 is set to be a ConsoleAppender.
log4j.appender.A1=org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender

# A1 uses PatternLayout.
log4j.appender.A1.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.A1.layout.ConversionPattern=%-4r [%t] %-5p %c %x - %m%n

#Setup RollingFileAppender here
log4j.appender.R=org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender
log4j.appender.R.File=quantum.log
log4j.appender.R.MaxFileSize=10MB
log4j.appender.R.MaxBackupIndex=2
log4j.appender.R.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.R.layout.ConversionPattern=%-4r [%t] %-5p %c %x - %m%n

# Set log levels here
log4j.logger.net.jxta=WARN
log4j.logger.com.cluck=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.databaseSetup=DEBUG
#This is necessary for hibernate debugging
log4j.logger.com.net.sf=DEBUG

Jxta Article

2005-06-22T07:53:00.000-04:00

Previously I wrote an article, P2P Applications made simple, Part 1. A while ago a Brazilian contacted me about translating it to Portuguese. Seems like they did that and it's available at: http://www.java.pt/aprender/tutoriais/jxtatutorial.html. I have heard that Brazil is going to be a place where a tech boom is going to occur soon. I think this is pretty cool, especially because Gil lives in Brazil. I think he'll get a kick out of my translated article.

Dreamcatcher Update

2005-06-19T03:24:00.000-04:00

So I have registered the URL sedodream.com for my Dreamcatcher application.
sedo is calm in latin.

I'm probably not going to put anything up there anytime soon. Mainly wanted to use it for package names and what not. I'm now working with John Wu on the project. He's a PhD student at UT-Dallas. He is currently mainly focused on the user interface. I have told him that we should investigate using swixml for our UI. I don't really know that much about it, but have heard really good things from some people that know what they are talking about. Hopefully he will like it as he learns about it. I have told him to make some mock-ups for the UI, then we will proceed from there. While he is working on the UI stuff, I'll work on the backend trying to create some more design documents for the project and try to make sure that we are on the same page for where this project is going.

We have to try to provide the flexibility for use besides just dreams, but I still want that extra functionality to be there. I don't want it to get lost in the crevesas. After all this project is the Dreamcatcher. But it does certainly make sense to make it more of a robust application. We just have to keep in mind what its intended use was in the first place. My task for this week is to create a document describing all the technologies that we will be using and why. Also to try to describe what are the pros/cons of each technology and why I chose that over some of the other options.
I find it interesting that suddenly I'm a project manager. I'm kinda excited and scared at the same time. I think that one day I'll be a great leader of many developers, but I don't think I'm there yet. But I think that I will do a decent job of fulfilling the requirements for the Dreamcatcher application. I think that I'll do a great job for someone with my amount of experience anywayz. Only time will tell, guess it's still up in the air. I just wish I had more time to devote to this project. I think that after August I'll have a bunch more time, but it always seems like that. Hopefully I'll be right this time!

Dreamcatcher

2005-06-14T19:41:00.000-04:00

Seems as though Google's Summer of code has brought some attention to my Dreamcatcher project. There is at least one person who is seriously interested on working the project even if not accepted for SOC!
It is going to be nice to finally get the ball rolling on this project. Something that I've been wanting to do for a long time. Maybe now is the time for this application to finally be built like it should! Hopefully I'll do a good job of working on/managing this project. Only time will tell. One thing I do know, regardless of supporters, this project will be at a usable state in at most 6 months. But its always easier when other people are working with you.

Quantum Chess

2005-06-03T00:28:00.000-04:00

So I'm working on a project with my friend Daniel Brookshier. It's a JXTA application called Quantum Chess. It's a more complicated variant of chess created by a friend of his. Currently the application is storing data to an XML file, but we want it to be stored to a local database. Here is what we are using.

HibernateDatabase abstraction layer

Hypersonic SQLLocal Database

XDocletCode annotation package - specifically for Hibernate annotations

These are some cool technologies and if you're a Java developer and don't already know about these you should definitely look into them.
You might be wondering why we are using XDoclet as opposed to the annotations that are a part of Java 5. We'll simply because we're not using Java 5 yet. Currently there are few Mac's that use Java 5 and we don't want to keep those guys in the dark. So we'll use XDoclet to get the job done now. Later we will examine if we should switch or not. But I don't think it will be an issue anywayz.

Besides that project my Dreamcatcher application. If you know Java and want to help that would be awesome! I'm also planning on using Hibernate & Hypersonic SQL for that application, so my work on Quantum will be a great learning experience for that application.

Speaking of learning experience, I've found that I pick things up soo much quicker now then I did a year ago. Specifically with using new technologies and just cool stuff. I'm guess this is because my experience is much greater now then it was back then. Also I've been in a situation where I pretty much have to learn a lot of new technologies in little time. I think this will be one of my strong points in the future, to be able to pick up technologies as I go and not being stuck on a particular set of technologies. I think that every problem needs it's own specific set of technologies to conquer the problem effectively. Hopefully I'll get better at selecting that set of technologies and designing/implementing solutions to cool problems.

Open source projects

2005-06-02T03:54:00.000-04:00

My Dreamcatcher Jxta application has been approved and now under development. If you are a Java developer and interested in dreams join my project and lets get this thing rolling!
Also I have another open source project Dynamic Extensible Styles that is a tool for web developers. You can also join this effort if you desire.

log4net and Managed C++???

2005-05-29T00:29:00.000-04:00

So I tried to integrate log4net into my Virtual Human application. This is mainly a Managed C++ application. I had completly no luck doing this. Everything compilied and linked fine until I actually tried to make a log. Upon trying to conduct a log I would get a compile error (don't remember what this error was), that was related to argument type. I wonder if I'm just doing something stupid or not. Oh well, can't spend anymore time on it so I just worked around it by creating my own logging mechanism based on log4j.

Cool Simple PHP WiKi

2005-05-28T20:10:00.000-04:00

If you're looking to setup a PHP WiKi but don't want to deal with much hassel of installing one and you're not looking for a ton of functionality then check out: http://www.lars-ackermann.de/wiki/static. I am now using it for a few projects that I have going on. The easiest WiKi I've ever setup soo far!

On life today

2005-05-26T21:10:00.000-04:00

It seems like things are just really dynamic in my life right now. Just when I think that a situation has been settled it manages to turn upside down once again. Guess life is like this. You have to be careful on what you count on being there tomorrow. Guess this is a thing that I have learned in the past, but obviously not well enough. I'm sure that in the future I'll make the same mistake, but hopefully I'll be a little better prepared when it actually happens. Can't really imagine being any less prepared then I am at this moment.
Things changing like this for me is not only unusual but genuinely not good for me. I'm a person who likes thing to be done in a certain way (not to say that I'm stuck in my ways) and if they are not then I don't like it. We'll I take that back...it's not that I like them done in a certain way...it's just that I like knowing what to expect. So this causes me to do things in known ways..to avoid things happening that are unexpected. When unexpected things happen, and even worse things happening that are totally against my expectations, this kinda throws me for a loop. I really don't like being in this loop. I guess I'm searching for ways to get out of this loop and back onto a road. I don't care exactly where this road takes me, but I'd like to be going somewhere. This entry must be totally confusing for those who don't really know me...sorry.

Virtual Human project

2005-05-23T03:13:00.000-04:00

I have recently re-kindled my Virtual Human project for my senior project. Senior project is required for graduation. My senior project will consist of enhancing the virtual human application that I have created and letting users create some applications with it. After that I will make some changes and again distrubute it to users. Once this is completed the effectivness will be accessed and a paper will be written about it. All of this in the matter of like 3 months! You can read more at: http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~sih/index.php?misc=seniorProject/main.php.

If I could only say!

2005-05-23T03:06:00.000-04:00

There's a LOT of really exciting things going on in my life right now. But unfourtunately it seems like I can't talk about any one of thse things at this moment! The only problem is determining what I'm supposed to spend my time on. I can't believe that there is only 24 hours in each day. There have been times that I wished that there were less than 24 hours in a day, and now is the time of my life in which I truly hoped that there were much more than that in each day. Oh well, I guess we have to live with what God has given us, and just hope that we do the right thing. I hope that I can juggle all these repoonsibilities and take advantage of all the oppourtunities that have come my way in the past week. I am really starting to wonder why they have all surfaced to me. Besides I am still a student who's just trying to pass all my classes and graduate (in August!), but recently I've been feeling like soo much more than that! I guess it's a good time in my life, even though there is hardship still. But I'm really excited about the future and what I can make of all these chances that God has shown me recently. I hope that I don't let anyone down, especially my parents...but I know that they will support me no matter what happens with these projects that I'm currently working on.

Current work

2005-05-17T11:21:00.000-04:00

Currently I'm working on a few projects. At work I'm using JXTA to create a reliable messenger. But reliable in the sense of if you send a message to a machine and it goes offline the message will be saved in a queue until the machine comes back online. You can create many different sending strategies, and select the desired one at runtime. I've been trying to come up with a different name besides 'reliable' because it is confusing. The name that I'm currently leaning towards is 'persistent messenger'
Besides that I'm trying to get a lucid dreaming application accepted for open-source development at jxta.org. If you are interested in lucid dreaming joing my google group at: Lucid Dreaming google groupThe application will help users record, maintain, and search their dreams. Now the Jxta part, they will be able to share these dreams on a P2P network with selected peers. Besides that I'm working on another project with a friend of mine....and can't really talk about it...but it is going to be really cool! I'll let you know as more info can be released.

My Jxta article

2005-05-17T00:25:00.000-04:00

My first article was recently published, it can be viewed at:
Peer-to-peer applications made easy, Part 1
It's an introduction to Jxta using Java, kinda a simple article. Have to start somewhere. I'm hoping to keep some Jxta notes and some other random things here, don't be surprised if you hear me ranting about how desperatly I need coffee because this seems to happen on like an hourly basis now-a-days. :)

First blog

2005-05-09T12:32:00.000-04:00

Hi,
I'm Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi a Java developer currently focused on JXTA technologies. I'll start keeping a blog of my stuff here!

Thanks,
Sayed