OK, well, I thought I’d be able to find a few more interesting tidbits, but these two are interesting enough to me for a Wednesday morning. Obviously the Sun/MySQL thing is big – will they use the acronym SPAM for Solaris/PHP/Apache/MySQL? I claim “first post” on inventing that acronym, although I’m sure I’m not the first. Or perhaps Java Apache MySQL (“JAM”)? Or maybe even MySQL Apache Sun (or Scripting) Java (“MASJ”)? Pronounce MASJ as “message” spoken in the Deep South.
But seriously, given my current work with Open Source Risk Management (OSRM), I’m really curious as to what this will do for MySQL licensing. Sun has a history of really bizarre licensing (‘Sun Community Source License’, anyone?), and making their licensing byzantine enough to require people to be more paranoid about Sun stuff than other projects. I truly hope most of those issues are vestiges of a “pre Schwartz” time, and that going forward Sun will be much more direct and simple about their licensing terms.
Additionally, what might this do for MySQL/Java integration? I don’t think there’s been much of anything there so far, but maybe we’ll see the ability to do in-db scripting in Java? Integrate Lucene as another available storage engine? At the very least, perhaps they’ll start bundling JDBC drivers directly with MySQL so you don’t need to go download them separately (though, IIRC, it’s IBM that owns JDBC stuff, not Sun).
phpBB is running on the Project Zero PHP interpreter (written in Java)
The ProjectZero team is moving along on their PHP interpreter. I’ve been watching it here and there since middle of last year (well, perhaps September?) I’m mixed on this, but in general I think it’s a good idea. It may serve as a catalyst for some people to start straddling the PHP and Java worlds more directly, and may lead more people to Groovy as well.
Anyway, any thoughts from any of you out there on these two recent annonuncements?
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Dreaming in Code
I just picked up Dreaming in Code from the library yesterday (or was it Friday evening?) and I’m about a third of the way through it. I saw it at digitalguru.com when I was there a couple weeks ago, but didn’t know what it was about. Then I read a review in the latest “strategy and business” magazine (thanks Mark!) and it sounded great. I popped in to the library to see what they had, and lo and behold it was there! We’re in a very small community – the very idea that such a tech-oriented book would be in their ‘new releases’ section just baffled me slightly.
Anyway, it’s a great book so far. What’s more interesting to me is that I know some people at OSAF, the organization chronicled in the book. Both the people I know there started very late, and I’m not sure will even be mentioned in the book. Still, it’s been a very interesting read so far, and makes me feel old. Already, this OSAF project is ‘historical material’, and it’s only from 2002 and beyond. I still remember the hype when it (‘Chandler’) was first announced, and have watched the project struggle along on and off over the years, trying out the software every so often. To read about what motivated the decisions behind the final product is just fascinating beyond words. At least for me. 
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Ant “smart complete” in bash
My friend MPS just posted a quick note on his blog about the linux bash shell being able to auto-complete (or ‘tab-complete’) ant build files. Interesting find, MPS. Thanks!
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Codemash free admission drawing giveaway
The codemash organizers have graciously donated a free pass to the upcoming Codemash conference to be given away to one lucky webdevradio.com listener. To enter in to the drawing, listen to the codemash episode interview podcast on webdevradio with Jim Holmes, follow the instructions, and hope your name is drawn.
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Collanos broken with default Ubuntu Java
‘broken’ is a bit of a stretch, but not working 100%. I posted this to the collanos forum with my workaround.
Searched for this topic but couldn’t find anything on it.
We’re trying to get collanos running in a mixed environment. 2 XP, 1 mac, 1 Mandriva and 2 Ubuntu (7.10).
The XP and Mandriva work fine. Mac owner is out of town, but will try next week.
The ubuntu boxes both do not show any ‘object’ info beyond the word ‘file’.
Whereas in other platforms we see things like ‘file/application/msword’, the ubuntu versions only show the word ‘file’. No MIME information is getting displayed (possibly stored, I don’t know) beyond “File”. Adding a ‘.doc’ file from the ubuntu machine shows it as ‘file’ on that machine but it is shown as ‘file/application/msword’ on other machines.
This bug is preventing the ubuntu users from being able to launch anything from the workspace, which is a real drag. It might be preventing other behaviour too – this is just the first thing I’ve been able to track down.
It looks like collanos is using its own distributed JRE.
If I change the Workplace.ini file’s VM paramter and point to the sun 1.6.0 JRE installed on the system, the bug seems to go away. What’s odd is that this isn’t a problem with the collanos-supplied JRE on Mandriva, but only on ubuntu (well, those are the only two I tested).
So my /opt/CollanosWorkplace/Workplace.ini looks like
-nosplash
-clean
-vm
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.03/jre/bin/java
-vmargs
-client
-Xms96m
-Xmx256m
…
more data here
…instead of
-nosplash
-clean
-vm
/opt/CollanosWorkplace/jre/bin/java
-vmargs
-client
-Xms96m
-Xmx256m
…
more data here
…I hope this helps someone else with the same problem and helps Collanos fix the bug or workaround it somehow.
java still seems to be ‘write once, debug on every possible vm’
Java is still going, but has seemingly fractured so much, it’s a brand now, not a technology. Those fractures cause a lot of problems for developers and users alike. We’ve seen it with the Mac – Apple not shipping a Java 6, and frustrating a lot of developers. Why did Apple ever get in a position where they could decide Java’s fate on the Mac, instead of Sun? Apparently Sun agreed to let Apple maintain the Mac version of Java, and Apple went about creating Apple-specific hooks for Java (I’m presuming these were primarily desktop and ui integration points, but I’ve never seen a comprehensive list of Apple’s Java changes). Why did Apple get a free pass to do this when MS got their head taken off for *basically* the same behaviour? End result would be that I could right Java on Mac which would not behave the same on other platforms (or, likely, at all).
Many Linux distros ship the gcj/gij stuff from GNU as an ‘open’ replacement for a ‘commercial’ Java. Whether the GNU project compiles to the name ‘java’ or whether the distro makers do it, this is certainly a misrepresentation and/or damaging to Sun’s Java efforts. If on a Linux distro I see this:
$ java --version java version "1.5.0" gij (GNU libgcj) version 4.2.1 (Ubuntu 4.2.1-5ubuntu5) Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
I know that people will get a worse experience with ‘java’ than if they had the Sun java system (or any other java system that has had to pass all the compatibility tests). Why does Sun let all these Linux distros (and perhaps GNU itself) dilute the Java brand so much?
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Latest podcast up
I put up a new webdevradio podcast last week, day after Thanksgiving (or was it the day before? I forget now). Anyway, I’ve turned on the comments – apparently there was a bug that was stopping it from working – and am inviting more feedback and audio comments from listeners. The podcast is short this time (15 minutes) but I specifically invite comments on two topics. I get a lot of questions on these two, so I opened up the floor instead of just spouting off.
1. For someone just getting in to web development, what should they study/focus on? LAMP? Java? .NET? Rails? Flash? What would you recommend and why?
2. What are some good resources for learning advanced PHP, and more specifically good PHP OO practices?
There’ve been a few good responses already at http://www.webdevradio.com, but more are always appreciated, either text or audio (just upload an mp3 file!)
Thanks!
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Linux package management stinks
I’ve been meaning to write this for awhile, and saw a post (and the post it was in reply to) which made me put pen to paper, so to speak. Writing about synaptic on ubuntu knowing the related packages to install for mysql, Mark Pilgrim wrote “It’s called dependency management, and it’s built into all modern Linux distributions.”. His post was in reply to a step by step build and install procedure for MySQL on OSX, which apparently still requires a lot of steps. Well, building always does. Not sure why the author was advocating building on OSX specifically, though there are some, but relatively few, reasons for building from scratch applicable to the average joe.
In any event, what’s bugged me for some time is something my brother has been able to put in to words better than I can. Linux distro package management sucks. The current implementations on just about every distro I’ve seen are flawed when compared to MS and OSX. “What’s flawed?” you ask. The combining of userland applications and core system-level packages in to the same repositories. Actually no, what I’m meaning is that the mechanism for installing, say, “frozenbubble” is the exact same mechanism used to install “glibc”. The same level of rollback functionality, dependancy resolution, etc., exists for both, but they are vastly different in terms of system functionality, impact, benefit, etc.
From what I’ve seen OSX and MS have differing mechanisms for providing system-level updates than they do for providing userland applications. I’ve found it relatively easy to get myself in to untenable system situations which required nothing short of a disk wipe with modern linux distros (mandriva and ubuntu versions in the last 2 years) but I’ve not been able to do that with WinXP or OSX. Granted, I ended up normally using ‘experimental’ repositories to get access to current/updated applications that I wanted (and didn’t want to have to compile by hand), but the fact that I could still do it just with the standard distro package management tools should be a red flag.
I’m not in a position to write much more about this, but I may come back to it at some point, or perhaps someone out there (you?) will flame back telling me how ridiculous I am and that I don’t understand “the linux way” and all that jazz. Go on… I dare you.
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Microsoft Web Development Summit 2007
Ben Ramsey » Blog Archive » Microsoft Web Development Summit 2007
Ben’s part of a group of PHPers that have been invited to Microsoft to discuss PHP, MS, interoperability and other cool topics. He’s meeting with some bigwigs like Scott Guthrie, which means MS is serious about this topic. MS had a group of PHP people up back in 02 or 03, but I’m not sure it’s happened since. Good to see it happening, and that MS is being responsive to the needs of the PHP community. I guess they’d like more people moving from LAMP to WISP (Windows, IIS, SQLServer, PHP). Or would SPIW be a better acronym? 
Blogged with Flock
Tags: microsoft, php, benramsey, webdev
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Free GPL UML tool
My friend MPS wrote today about a free UML tool he’s recently stumbled on – bouml. The couple big claims to fame I see are 1) cross platform and 2) low memory usage. I’ve gone with argouml a few times, but it always feels a bit clunky. I’m going to give this one a shot this week to see how it compares. When I’m using linux I like umbrello too, but it’s linux only as far as I know.
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WebDevRadio MySQL DBA interview
Over at webdevradio, I’ve posted an hour long discussion I had with Keith Murphy, a local MySQL DBA. He’s recently started at icontact.com, fast becoming one of the industry leaders in managed mailing lists and community communication tools. I’ve known David Rasch, their CTO, for close to 2 years now, and have watched them grow to become one of the larger PHP/MySQL outfits I know of. Keith was a great find for their organization, and his experience is going to help them manage their phenomenal growth over the next few years. Additionally, Keith recently started a magazine for MySQL developers and users called – what else? – MySQL Magazine. The podcast interview discusses both of these topics in more detail, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I had putting it together.
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- Get better clients!
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- Avoid costly mistakes!
