Java Lessons [2]

2. Program Flow: 
Noticed another archaic coding style, apparently when there were no methods, where a single call had a ton of if..else.. handling the same condition. Why not branch off at the first if..else..?
This should be obvious by now, but isn't.

SOPA - Democracy vs Capitalism

This could be a possible test of the role of Democracy in Capitalism. Whether the people protesting against SOPA or Hollywood et.al sponsored bill, triumph?

I support artist's copyright, but don't support excessive governance. It will just be abused and it will intervene with freedom to share things. Why is internet any different from letting people borrow CD/DVD/BD  books or other copy righted material offline? Isn't this another ploy to make people pay even more than they already do. I think copyrighted material should be freely available after it has lived its glory days. Something, like brand vs generic drugs. Just put a label - "Free after 1yr". Just a suggestion!

But I am certainly against excessive governance/rules, it stifles growth. Fear can never lead us in the right direction. Do we want responsible people or opportunistic thugs?

Subversion Notes

1. Sharing library files among projects:
I discovered a nice way of managing the SVN repository where the library files need not be duplicated for every project. I started a bare bone project with the lib files and imported them into the trunk. Now any project that reuses these library files, only has to branch of this trunk and add its own files. Thus, the lib files remain just in the trunk and need not be checked in for every project that uses the files.
e.g.

ext-4.0 only exists in the trunk, a virtual copy exists in braches.

Next, I will explore svn:externals. Supposedly takes care of this shared files/project issues.

I am using svn 1.7.2 installed with cygwin/windows xp and Tortoise. Note: Apparently tortoise takes over the repository and svn command line seems to fail.

Java Lessons

1. Comments vs Naming Conventions:
Method names could be indicative of the operation but not a substitute for comments. There is perennial debate on whether we need java doc - comments vs choosing the succinct approach of choosing the right naming convention and yet I have increasingly found some archaic code that tries to use a method name to contain the entire description which could have been a comment.

cygwin home directory setup

Every new developer machine I get I always instal cygwin along with these essential tools.
Here today I will briefly write about setting the home directory. As per cygwin post here I edited the /etc/passwd file to set my home directory.
At work, I have a network space alloted to me whenever I log in and I use this as the default home folder for cygwin as well. I merely edited this file for my username and changed the home directory to the network drive letter mapped in /cygdrive.. and voilla!

AJ Computer Inventory

I am going to list some of the computers that I currently own and the different operating systems running on these. 

1. Apple Powerbook PowerPC G4 1.5 Ghz (Aluminum) (Feb 2005) 

- It came with Panther.

- I then tried Linux Yellow dog as a dual boot system. 

- Then I installed Mac OS X Tiger.

- I then tried Ubunut 8.04, just for while.  

- After more than 5 yrs finally it only runs Mac OS X Leopard.

2. iMac 24" Intel 2.4 Ghz the 1st all aluminum body launched late 2007 (Oct 2007).

- Came with Mac OS Tiger and the partial Leopard Upgrade DVD.

- I used Boot Camp and installed a custom packaged Windows XP 32 bit with SP3. (BTW this OS is 256 MB and is bootable from a CD).

- Mac OS X Leopard,

- And then the best ever upgrade - Snow Leopard 64 bit. Just awesome performance boost.

- I also have Parallels and Windows XP installed on it. 

3. Custom built PC - AJ-RAID (Dec 2009)

- Intel i7 920 Quad core,

- EVGA 896-P3-1171-AR GeForce GTX 275 896MB 448-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported

- OCZ Gold 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) 

- COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Full Tower

- CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W 

- I have a 1.5 TB RAID 5 configured on this machine.

I have Ubuntu 10.10 and Windows 7 Ultimate. I have tried so many linux versions on it, but now I have it down to Ubuntu 10.10. I will probably upgrade to 11.04 soon.

I tried Open Suse, Fedora Core, and went back and forth on the 32 and 64 bit versions of Ubuntu from 9.04 onwards.

I am using VMWare for Windows XP.

4. Apple Macbook Pro i7 8GB Memory upgrade (Dec 2010)

- Snow Leopard and now waiting for Mac OS X Lion

- I also have Parallels and Windows XP installed on it. 

 

Besides, these I have a 500 GB & 1TB external HDs. 

IE 7, no wait its IE 8, no no, IE 9 and wait we have word IE10 is the best!

Microsoft seems to be stressing the importance of the Internet Explorer version in their advertisements. 7, 8, 9 and now 10. My workplace still uses 6 and only recently and lethargically we may use 8. I don't use IE for personal use at all, unless for work and checking if my CSS/ExtJS/jQuery screens are IE compatible. 

What I fail to understand about this undue stress about these version numbers is, the supposed implication that the greater the number, the better is the browser. I would have rather appreciated fewer versions and earlier adoption of industry web standards, than this mad rush of incrementing the version numbers. 

As per Wikipedia, this is the version history of IE.

Internet Explorer 6 was released on August 27, 2001 

Internet Explorer 7 was released on October 18, 2006

Internet Explorer 8 was released on March 19, 2009

Internet Explorer 9 was released on March 14, 2011

Microsoft announced Internet Explorer 10 at MIX 11 in Las Vegas.