batate's blog

Thanks...

java.net has been good to me for all of these years, but it's time for a change. I'm moving my blog to Paddle Like Hell.

I can't begin to express my sincerest appreciation for Dan and the great people at java.net (and O'Reilly) that made this such a great place to host my thoughts for so long. I've been reluctant to sever the ties.

We should learn from Active Record

There are at least two major styles of object-relational persistence frameworks. Mapping frameworks take an object-centered view of the world, and wrapping frameworks take a database-centered view of the world. Since Hibernate, Java developers have taken the mapping world view, pretty much across the board.

Popular vs. Great

Cedric posted a blog about fans of frameworks at The Fan Syndrome. I think the main point was that a framework could be good, without being popular. It's an interesting premise that I explore in detail in Beyond Java.

Joe, the Amazing Coding Monkey

What an amazing couple of weeks. Beyond Java became generally available last week, and my pet monkey learned to code.

Kudos to JCP executive committee.

JDO passes, without no votes. Of course, the abstain votes from IBM, Oracle and JBoss are thinly veiled no-votes. Still, when you combine this vote with those for the combined persistence API that effectively breaks persistence out of EJB 3, we're likely to have much better persistence alternatives in the Java space, and sooner rather than later.

The toy?

It’s way too early in the morning, but the kids are tearing down the stairs, and making more noise than my aching head should tolerate. But it’s Christmas, so I do. They are drawn to the biggest, flashiest, plastic toys first, but my wife and I share a knowing smile. That will change.

Why the JCP will do the right thing by JDO 2.0

"Bring out your dead!"

Early this year, the JDO 2 expert group submitted the JDO 2.0 draft to the JCP Executive Committee, and requested permission to deliver a reference implementation. This is the standard process defined by the Java Community Process. In a startling reversal, the JCP executive committee did not accept the public draft.

"Bring out your dead!"

Time, wisdom and AOP

I'm teaching a programming symposium on most weekends called nofluffjuststuff. I've had the opportunity to attend some excellent classes by my peers. One of my favorite was given by Nicholas Lesiecki, on using AOP in main stream projects. He contends that AOP is here, ready for prime-time today.

Spring and the English Archer

2004 is a year of revelation for me. Better, Faster, Lighter Java was a fun book to write, and I learned tremendously in writing it. A closer involvement in the Spring project, and in the Java persistence community, also led to similar discoveries for me. It’s humbling to evolve my thought process in this very public forum, and thanks for sharing the ride.

A strange car

I was shopping for another car. I pulled up in front of the greasy car lot, wanting to know why the vintage cars were so popular. When I found the place, it seemed more like a shady garage than a dealership, and the salesman certainly reinforced that image. He had the distinct smell of transmission oil in his hair, and grime under the nails of his extended hand.