tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-254614762012-02-01T11:14:58.989ZThe blog looks at using Java and programming in general as it pops up in life as a Java programmer. It will have links to interesting Java articles and resources. It will also have a lot of SCJP Java 1.5 information and links as I am currently studying for the Java 5 exam Whilst trying to keep up general programming ideas like extreme programming, Refactoring, Object Orientated design, Design patterns and unit testing.Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.comBlogger2541100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-75390644512626538712007-10-24T16:46:00.000+01:002007-10-24T16:49:27.585+01:00

I have been looking at a product called mule which is basically a Enterprise Service Bus. So to understand what Mule did I had to find out what an ESB is and this presentation was pretty useful and very detailed at 60 minutes longhttp://www.infoq.com/presentations/Enterprise-Service-Busif you like comedy check out this funny podcastHosks Half Hour - http://hoskshalfhour.blogspot.com/

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-51017956358923362092007-04-04T16:27:00.000+01:002007-04-04T16:29:25.344+01:00

Java J2EE Job Interview Companion I found this excellent book this week. I would recommend this book whether you are or are not looking for a new job. It basically sums up a number of well used things in Java programming but in short one paragraph sentences, which is why its a useful interview companion. It has questions like 1. Give a few reasons for using Java Built-in

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-435652762206199732007-03-27T17:14:00.000+01:002007-03-27T17:38:25.345+01:00

Today someone wanted to pass in the name of a file located somewhere inside a web application and then stream that file back to them. In this example they wanted to open a pdf file. We only wanted a quick dirty piece of code put in a jsp, which was okay with me being the cowboy coder I am. The first tricky point was they were giving me a URL and wanted back a file. I have tangled with this

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-90146284858420569282007-02-14T10:07:00.000Z2007-02-14T10:16:32.014Z

In reality I am probably the last person to give tips on giving presentations as I am not that good at giving presentations. Recently though I had to give a presentation so I thought I would note down how I did it and what worked for me, so if any of you other poor developers are bullied into your suit and made to give a presentation you can see how someone else did it. 1. Write it

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-65292531328660405442007-02-14T09:22:00.000Z2007-02-14T09:29:08.401Z

I was doing some coding that was creating files and changing directories inside a file. I did the work initially on a windows machine, tested on a windows machine and I don't think there was any talk of a Linux machine. So of course onto the Linux machine we go, my code popped up the white flag and promptly fell flat on its backside. I had of course heard about the nastiness of

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-33253953892725850182007-02-14T09:13:00.000Z2007-02-14T09:14:47.860Z

I don't use Scrum or Agile methods but I read about them now and again. If you are interested in Agile and Scrum I found a site with some good resources http://www.it-eye.nl/weblog/2007/01/31/agile-software-development-with-scrum/ The link above has a number of good resources, interestingly it has a number of links to google video's where they have talks on scrum, all of which are about

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-9151384403919503292007-02-07T14:04:00.000Z2007-02-07T14:11:45.672Z

I can't remember where I found this but someone has a made a list of a lot of SCJP resource links on my blog. This was something I was meaning to do, so it saved me the bother. I'm not sure if they are all in here, so my advice would be just to search on the SCJP topic on my blog and then it will return lots of stuff.here is the linkhttp://www.google.com/notebook/public/09466151404937120238/

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-50638735238735829742007-01-31T16:38:00.000Z2007-01-31T17:00:38.827Z

At the start of the year I often update my CV, well to be honest it's a bit of lie because I look at it and then update a little bit but nothing to dramatic.Anyway whilst updating my CV and adding in the fact I passed my SCJP 5 exam last year and then wondering if any would be employers would be impressed with it?I have posted various blogs about being certified which are here if you fancy a

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-2389913319338707792006-12-07T08:17:00.000Z2006-12-07T08:40:20.712Z

I found an interesting constructor type conundrum this week. I was created a class which held some values as instance parameters, a few strings and an Array. I then extended this class and hard coded some of the String values for the extended class. Basically I thought this was a decent way of placing the hard coded values into a little area, basically containing the hard coded values

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-70153658748774476972006-12-05T08:24:00.000Z2006-12-05T08:31:51.554Z

I have been using MySQL this week which is my first foray into the MySQL world and I'm happy to say it has been a nice easy ride. I haven't done anything fancy with it, in fact I have really only be using it to create two very basic tables but basically I needed a database and MySql is free so it was a good choice. The download from the site was simple and after I downloaded the latest

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-8117734337927036592006-12-04T14:15:00.000Z2006-12-04T14:25:40.300Z

I read a good description of this today, it said defensive programming is like defensive driving, you take responsibility for protecting yourself even if it's the other drivers fault. It's always a bit of conundrum for me, how defensive should I program my methods, classes because it's likely that I am the only person for quite a while to use it, so am I programming defensively for the benefit of

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-7042232653839053512006-11-30T17:21:00.001Z2011-10-25T16:50:38.041+01:00

I came across this little problem whilst coding this week and it was driving me crazy and it is only a little problem so I wasn't going to blog about it but I couldn't find any information on it anywhere so I thought I would write a blog entry in case someone else has this problem.The problem came when I tried to using String.split method, you replace String with an actual String and not the

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com85tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-87685238651611497802006-11-30T12:22:00.000Z2006-11-30T12:27:15.841Z

A friend of mine sent me an email today pointing me towards Stroustrup's web page, for those of you who don't know he is the person who invented C++. Here is his homepage http://www.research.att.com/~bs/ and it's quite interesting (even for a Java person) of course because he invented C++ he is bombarded with questions comparing Java with C++ and which one is better/faster/more Object

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-21945471824503118072006-11-29T09:24:00.000Z2006-11-29T09:29:18.501Z

This week I had been working with dates which is sure sign of a lot of tricky nitpicking code and lots of little methods each testing certain bits of the code. The first thing that got me annoyed was the Date class is basically all depreciated except for just creating a date. This is fine and the reason for this is (I think) because people needed a locale specific date or something like

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-2224452317782770312006-11-28T08:31:00.000Z2006-11-28T08:48:17.679Z

I read this article last week but didn't have time to blog about it, I found this on the BBC and this isn't the first time I have read an article in this vain, the title is Computer industry 'faces crisis' The article is about the number of students studying computers at university has dropped dramitically.It's quite an interesting thought that computers are no longer a fashionable choice for

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-17542025249283976982006-11-21T08:40:00.000Z2006-11-21T09:20:49.656Z

Yesterday I blogged about The Average wage for Java Developers and the page where I got this information also had some interesting statistics regarding what other skills job adverts had when the word Java was mentioned. The original source of that data can be found on this link.Below is are the IT skills that are mentioned in the same advert as JavaJava Related IT SkillsTop 20

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-2474417080187650942006-11-20T14:43:00.000Z2006-11-20T14:54:47.549Z

Every now and then I like to have a look at what the average wage is for a Java developer, I found quite an interesting site with a lot of statistics on. I am like everyone else and love statistics to look at, although every time I look at these statistics they seem quite high, especially considering they have another section for contract work. here is the link and below are the more

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-15536215651746025732006-11-17T15:27:00.000Z2006-11-17T15:47:22.991Z

I get this email from Jobserve now and again and it often has interesting articles about the employment conditions in the UK. The article IT candidates offered "flexible employment"is there if you want to read it in full.It has a couple of interesting quotes"The IT skills shortage has resulted in employers offering flexible employment packages to attract workers, according to new research.Hays

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-76052345665566403742006-11-17T14:44:00.000Z2006-11-17T15:21:04.367Z

I found this interesting website it searches the web for copies of your articles/blog entries to defend you site agaisn't plagiarismhttp://copyscape.com/PublishThe blurb on the site says"Copyscape is dedicated to defending your rights online, helping you fight against online plagiarism and content theft. Copyscape finds sites that have copied your content without permission, as well as those

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-5899585569442745552006-11-16T14:10:00.000Z2006-11-16T14:22:32.780Z

I raised a question on a JavaLobby forum the other day aboutFavouring composition over inheritance is a sign of a maturing programmeryesI know very nerdy of me, I basically asked the question what is the next stage of development in a programmers life. I was quite amused by this replyRe: Favouring composition over inheritance is a sign of a maturing programm getALife();Sex partnerSex = null;if(

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-6118694099060916692006-11-15T10:50:00.000Z2006-11-15T11:03:39.290Z

I found this link which has basically a whole books worth of Agile Skillshttp://www.agileskills.org/download.html.enI actually read this before but then found it again this week but I still read a few of the more interesting sections. What I like a lot about this book/tutorial is that is free and secondly it uses examples to explain the concepts. The examples are pretty good, I usually get a

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-62852426140592901782006-11-14T22:55:00.000Z2006-11-15T00:29:28.218Z

I thought I would post about famous programmers now and again because there are some names which keep on popping up as you read about programming.The real reason I am posting is because Robert C Martin or Uncle Bob as he is known posted a comment on my blog entry "are the principles of OOD going out of fashion" . When I saw the comment I was literally taken a back, not the Robert C Martin. It

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-89574081712230284802006-11-13T20:21:00.000Z2006-11-13T21:43:47.105Z

I think this is probably just my opinion but all the fuss about Java going open source filling up Java websites (although surely I am now contributing to it as well), Not to mention all the talk leading up today the announcement. Personally I am not to sure if I should be that excited about it or should I say in a more selfish way how is this going to change how I work with Java.I wonder how

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-5404223782820429372006-11-12T17:50:00.000Z2006-11-12T17:51:48.407Z

I'm not entirely sure what I am basing this theory on but I believe that favouring composition over inheritance is when a programmer/developer is maturing into a better programmer who creates code that is easier to maintain and extend, along with solving the problem you are writing the code for the two main goals of my coding.I wrote an article about why you should use Composition instead of

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1162934007691026942006-11-07T20:03:00.000Z2006-11-11T12:48:45.716Z

I read this article today with the titleAnother Nail in the Coffin of IT Certification A nice dramatic title if ever I saw one. Still it is an interesting point and I love this quoteIT certifications are worth less than ever, and the value of non-certified technology skills has surged, according to the third-quarter edition of the "Hot Technical Skills and Certifications Pay Index" from Foote

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1162909685347770102006-11-07T14:22:00.000Z2006-11-11T12:48:45.109Z

Recently the developers where I work moved up to using Java 5 from Java 1.4. I was the last to know which was ironic because I had to learn about all the new features to pass the SCJP 5 exam and was eager to use them. By the way there is lots of information on Java 5 new features and SCJP 5 stuff on this site, just search the blog for whatever you are looking for and it will point you to

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1162895895163298922006-11-07T10:10:00.000Z2006-11-11T12:48:44.422Z

I was trying to think of how to sort a Properties object today. I was baffled for a while to find a simple away it was at the end of the day so I went home. Then sometime during the night I remembered the Collections utility class, aha surely this will help sort it. There probably is an easier way to do it but I just couldn't think of one when I was trying but if you know of a better way

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1162737976635135302006-11-05T13:58:00.000Z2006-11-11T12:48:43.760Z

I was on a forum which was talking about free training and I saw this one. HTML is one of the things which I could do with improving because I always forget what goes and usually end up copying a previous piece of HTML. I know I could just learn it myself but I am a bit lazy and only use HTML sporadically.Although maybe I might bite the bullet and perhaps doing a course, even though I would

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1162572278558081532006-11-03T16:26:00.000Z2006-11-11T12:48:43.227Z

I read most of the book Better, faster, lighter Java by Bruce A. Tate, Justin Gehtland and although I didn't find the book as a whole that useful, some chapters did make some very good points.here is the description of the book on the oreilly site"In Better, Faster, Lighter Java, authors Bruce Tate and Justin Gehtland argue that the old heavyweight architectures, such as WebLogic, JBoss, and

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1162473926090216742006-11-02T13:18:00.000Z2006-11-11T12:48:41.849Z

I have been planning and designing this week. I am not always sure how much planning to do, except that I know you should definitely do some. There is a lot of talk about UML and planning and drawing big uml diagrams. I have mixed feelings about uml diagrams in some ways I just think they are a fancy way to label the rough sketches you do on your pad.The main benefit I suppose is that if

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1162400291192560272006-11-01T16:40:00.000Z2006-11-11T12:48:41.236Z

I have been gathering some requirements recently and I have done this a few times but quite sporadically so when it comes to writing the document, I am often have the problem known as Blank Piece Of Paper Syndrome. What I usually do is read previous Requirements Documents but although this gives you an idea it doesn't always help you with the current Requirements Document you are writing because

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1162250986801521172006-10-30T23:19:00.000Z2006-11-11T12:48:40.638Z

Ever since I read the small print and realized that having google ad's on your site doesn't really make you any money (the dream of an easy buck slowly fades away) I have been striving to reach the magical $100. The reason 100 dollars is the magical number is because Google don't pay you a penny until you reach 100 dollars, which is a lot hard than it sounds. Well it probably isn't that hard but

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1162249156980230702006-10-30T22:24:00.000Z2006-11-11T12:48:40.149Z

About a year ago or more (time flies pretty quick) I found some articles on Design Patterns and these bad boys blew me away and I have written many blogs about them but here is a more recent blog entry on Why Design Patterns are useful. I quickly looked for more information on Design Patterns because firstly they seemed to be solutions for common problems but I didn't really realize they were

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1161951505682099392006-10-27T12:19:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:39.068Z

As I have been on a training course all week I haven't been doing much coding so have been trawling the internet a bit and I found this articleThe Ultimate Blog postof course the ultimate blog post would be new comedy IT blog Amusing IT Storieswhich gives an amusing Friday spin on the IT and Office environment and mixed in with some rubbish paint pictures and links to other sites makes it a

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1161825039766111872006-10-26T01:14:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:38.182Z

I am on a training course this week as readers of my blog will know because I have been banging on about training courses and Linux all week. I was considering the value of training. There is a basic value of learning knowledge, learning a new skill. I think there is a value of going into an external environment and spending an extended period of time studying one topic. You could study the

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1161818672373848662006-10-25T21:04:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:37.851Z

I have been on a Linux training course this week, it's not as good as it sounds because it's Linux and security. The Linux stuff is good but the security stuff is a bit over the top for my needs, not to mention.We were talking about the cat command and the teacher explained that in Linux bigger functions are often made by linking smaller functions together. This was what I was talking about the

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1161802950761127142006-10-25T19:00:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:37.382Z

I yesterday decided to start a new blog based around amusing stories that happen to us ground soldiers of the IT industry. I will be posting some of stories which happened to me but I also need the help of other people in the IT industry, yes that's you people who are reading this.I am hoping to create an funny blog which I will send out maybe once a week, maybe twice maybe more, depending on if

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1161643659240502492006-10-23T23:26:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:36.913Z

You will probably notice that this week's blogging will have a definite Linux flavor to it and this is because this week I am on a Linux training course which has the titleAdvanced Linux Systems Administration and SecurityI have to admit that I was a bit nervous about going onto the training course because I am basically a Java developer who has used Linux a bit, installing Java and Tomcat and

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1161561933435037472006-10-23T00:52:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:36.646Z

I am fairly new into the world of Linux and it can be quite a daunting place to start with. Although there is quite a lot of GUI stuff these days so I am bungling along and learning a bit as I go. At the moment I am using Linux not very often, only usually testing or installing on Linux machines when a particular projects needs it. So I have basically managed to install Java, install Tomcat

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1161560146658951942006-10-23T00:17:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:36.306Z

I learnt a new term today and I talked about this a little bit during my rant on my blog entryThe benefits of writing modular codeThe new term I have learnt is Data Access Interface. It is basically the idea of hiding any data you are accessing which could be a config file, an xml file, a database and hide this data away behind an interface. The article I read also stated you can have service

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1161302454785923292006-10-20T00:49:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:35.280Z

As part of the SCWCD (Sun Certified Web Component Developer) exam you have to learn about J2EE Design patterns. You of course have the classic MVC, no I can't bring myself to talk about that.I found at interestingly that Struts is not an MVC pattern but is a Front Controller pattern. It's weird really when people mention Design Patterns I always think of things like the Singleton or the

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1161002207094703272006-10-16T13:32:00.000+01:002006-11-12T17:22:15.004Z

I have often read that you should favour composition (Interfaces) over using Abstract classes and inheritance. I have learnt myself that this is a better practise for creating reusable and easily maintainable code but I hadn't really come across a reason for this. So I started thinking about it over the weekend. The one problem I can see with inheritance is that the code will filter

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1160754526251202882006-10-13T16:24:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:34.389Z

I finished reading Ship it!: APractical Guide to Software Projects, it's always a good feeling when you finish reading a book, a sense of accomplishment. Here is a link to some free excerpts to see if it might interest you. The book itself is not really very long at around 200 pages but in some ways this is good because it means you can read it and there isn't too much waffle. It fits in very

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1160567983298059712006-10-11T12:43:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:34.020Z

I read this article - Top 10 Must-Read Java Programming Books today and found the list a bit odd really. I have never thought of 10 books just for Java developers and perhaps some criteria for this list was that they all had to have the work Java in the title. The list is bizarre because why shouldn't books like the complete programmer or pragmatic programmer be included or maybe the GOF book.

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1160551860555438092006-10-11T08:19:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:33.565Z

I read this article IT joblessness 'at lowest level since downturn' which is saying that the time between jobs for IT contractors is down to it's lowest level since the IT downturn (when ever that was). Here is a direct quoteThe number of IT contractors spending more than three months between contracts has dropped to four per cent from 13 per cent in 2002, according to new research.actually I

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1160353853696352532006-10-09T01:23:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:33.249Z

I have read a couple of articles recently stating the importance of using stubs and creating skeleton code. There were slightly old articles. I have also read this in the Test Driven development coding ethos, write you code have it return the correct type and correct value.Another article was talking about mock objects, start off splitting your the code you want to write into layers, work out

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1160122024694089582006-10-06T08:52:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:32.907Z

I found a very interesting article - 5 books every developer should read on DZone it's of a type you will have no doubt seen before but no doubt couldn't help clicking on again,the "random number" of books a developer should readOf course reads these articles to see how many they can tick off. I find these articles more useful the more I read because it then isn't just one persons opinion but a

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1160041660430397242006-10-05T10:42:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:32.472Z

I had an interesting problem today. I was reading in a file line by line and when a certain line came in I was catching it and replacing the line with a changed version. The problem I then had was when I was writing the file back out, the code supplied by the excellent Java Almanac helped with this The java.io stuff is really easy to use and saved me loads of time recently. Actually

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1159971293784504142006-10-04T15:00:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:32.047Z

I was reading the Craftsman articles from "uncle Bob" Robert C Martin I have read quite a few articles from uncle Bob but I always liked the Craftsman articles. I think it was because I didn't know about half of the things he was writing about so it was an interesting introduction and a good starting point to go and read up about the things he mentions.On the other hand the craftsman section is

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1159949813548754622006-10-04T09:14:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:31.769Z

I was writing some code which archived a list of files into a specified directory. As a supporter of unit testing and Junits I was keen to get some tests to see if my code was working. I actually wrote the test before coding the method. I won't bang the unit test drum today but needlessly to say if you haven't worked by writing the unit test first and then writing your code, I highly

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1159884587562669912006-10-03T15:03:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:31.287Z

I recently blogged about using Interfaces to encapsulate code changes in this blog entry. I seem to write about interfaces and Abstract classInterfaces and Abstract classes - don't design without themWhy Interfaces are better than Abstract classesWhy I found recently is that the idea I was writing about in using Interfaces to encapsulate code change is really talking about Abstract Data Types.

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1159522075258404272006-09-29T10:24:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:30.780Z

I read this the other day in the middle of an article talking about design. This is one of my favorite programming idioms because it makes reuse of the methods later so much easier. I ran into an example today and it's one of those examples that when you find you can reuse one of your methods you are pleased with yourself and thank your earlier self for helping you out now. This is a

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1159432524100980022006-09-28T09:25:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:29.750Z

I read this article today about a university professor who was investigating people "googling" his name. He talks about how everyone should "Self Google" apart from sounding a bit rude, it is something which I am sure everyone has done. It is an interesting thing to be aware off because I'm sure that most employers will Google your name before interviewing you, so it is worth trying to manage

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1158316242236941972006-09-15T11:22:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:29.399Z

I got a fair bit of criticism for this putting be modular as my last tip in my blod entry 10 tips on writing reusable code, in truth I couldn't really think of any more tips and I wanted 10. I have been thinking about this recently and thought I would perhaps try and explain what I meant be your code being modular.I view modular code as code that is like a black box, you know what you what you

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1158241661417614772006-09-14T14:40:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:28.855Z

I found this useful little podcast yesterday called the Code Sermon. It's basically tackles one development best practise each week. The good thing is it's only 10-15 minutes long so it's easy to listen to. Here is the link to the websitehttp://www.codesermon.org/ Below are the current podcasts available, I liked the topics because they are useful everyday things. CodeSermon Episode 1: The

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1158150765604576362006-09-13T13:28:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:28.446Z

I was thinking today about Design Patterns and I not only do I find them interesting but they are very useful as well. I thought I would note down the reasons why 1. A tried and tested solution to a common problem 2. Other programmers can understand what you are talking about and if they don't understand then there is information out there 3. Examples of code to aspire to 4. A good

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1158136246466675432006-09-13T09:20:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:27.828Z

Although once again based on one set of data and in a not very scientific format here is an article stating that jobs in the IT sector are on the rise.This isn't the first time I have heard this fact either my Mother read something about a lack of young un's studying IT at university, which means there is going is starting to be a shortage. Although this study is based on a world study as well it

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1158063502804322092006-09-12T13:04:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:27.477Z

This article although based on a small section of data is an interesting comment. I often wondered why employers let experienced staff go to another job, when the only reason they have left is for a small pay rise. Of course it isn't always easy to give someone a pay rise without rocking the boat for the rest of the developers.I suppose I am wondering is how much the value of company knowledge.

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1157977327708789732006-09-11T13:18:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:27.135Z

This is one of the more challenging areas of programming. It doesn't really involve doing much extra work at the time but the correct design decision can make your life so much easier in the future. It reminds me of one of the more memorable saying's"closed for change but open for extension" It is known (having just looked it up again) as the open closed principle and there are many

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1157716860591806952006-09-08T12:59:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:26.904Z

Although this sounds obvious it's still something we don't always do and the only realreason is sheer lazyness. The only real disadvantage is that it takes a few minutes to do but the benefits completely out weigh this.Where I work currently didn't have a method of storing customer issues. This resulted in all the developers keeping emails all over the shop. What this means is that the same

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1157586815261222942006-09-07T00:30:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:26.574Z

We currently use Visual Source Safe at work and it is a bit of an old clunky thing. It might be because we are using an old version of it or whether it's just rubbish but I want to change to CVS.I tried (all to briefly) before to look at setting up CVS but I gave up because I had to finish some work and I couldn't find any documentation to tell me how to easily install the thing. I also want to

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1157475440285759762006-09-05T17:56:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:26.071Z

I was reading Code Complete and the chapter was talking about Design and it was saying one of the most important parts of Design is managing complexity. This makes perfect sense really, the whole process of designing is breaking the problem into smaller more manageable bits. He states that humans struggle to comprehend one massive complicated piece of software but can understand it

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1157405467410422412006-09-04T22:06:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:24.215Z

This is something my Taekwondo instructor is always going on about, we practice TKD twice a week so if we are attacked then we will just react out of habit. It's important you must practice hard so that when it comes to the crunch you hit full power outside when you are being attacked.That isn't really that relevant to the point I was going to make but it's a slightly interesting story so I

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1157402955847315742006-09-04T21:08:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:23.961Z

I found this today and it's a really quick but useful list of tips on the pragmatic programmer website. It's a simple idea but a good one, I'm sure everyone has a few tips which they use when programming. I wrote 10 tips on writing reusable code so I could jog my memory when coding to try and make sure that I thought about trying to make the code reusable. In fact a lot of my blog entries are

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1157369353145157992006-09-04T12:16:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:23.532Z

I have been looking at Auto Starting Tomcat on Linux the final piece of my adventures with Tomcat and Linux. The other parts of my Linux Journey areIdiots guide to Installing Java 5 and Linuxinstalling two versions of Tomcat and finding out what ports are being usedIncreasing the memory allocation for TomcatAnyway so back to autostarting Tomcat on Linux. I have looked at various articles

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1157032608753703812006-08-31T14:39:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:23.213Z

Following on from my blog entry on installing Java 5 and Tomcat entry here on Linux and then moving the shutdown port so I could have to versions of Tomcat, blog entry here. So After doing that my next step was to increase the memory to my version of Tomcat on LinuxThe basic premise of increasing the memory Tomcat uses is by increasing the memory the JVM Tomcat uses. You do this by passing in

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1156951024513255622006-08-30T16:09:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:22.768Z

I learnt a good lesson today, look in the Java API it could save you time. It could save you time writing something that has already been written. luckily for me in this case it wasn't anything that took me very long, I saw me I had to ask someone about the logic of it but I thought I would write the a small util method in case I ever needed to do it again. I was trying to convert a

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1156935481067689772006-08-30T11:39:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:22.391Z

I have been having some troubles trying to deploy two tomcats on my machine. I had one on port 8080 and the other on port 8181. Although I changed the port used to show the web stuff I hadn't changed the port used to shutdown Tomcat and this meant I had problems because Tomcat usually listens out on port 8005 for instructions to shutdown the Tomcat server. Tomcat does also have something

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1156345388695066212006-08-23T15:24:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:22.032Z

I found this link today which said free ebooks. I'm a big fan of the free stuff so I had a peek. I think this link to free ebooks has been sent round before but I thought I would just highlight the fact that it has a free Ajax book which looks pretty good. I'm not sure if I am being a bit picky and you sometimes get what you pay for but a lot of the books are links to web pages and not

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1156321001489320432006-08-23T08:59:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:21.558Z

I was reading code complete and at the start it talks about finding bugs or problems earlier means you can fix them quicker. It is a basic introductory type chapter talking about why you should plan your code before you start working (coding) on it. The chapter is based as an argument to help persuade your boss it's a good idea. He Steve C McConnell also has some very good sayings in

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1155911517721585622006-08-18T15:23:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:21.130Z

I was reading the Sturts-action userGuide (link here) the other day and it had this quote at the end "It is wise to avoid creating lengthy and complex Action classes. If you start to embed too much logic in the Action class itself, you will begin to find the Action class hard to understand, maintain, and impossible to reuse. Rather than creating overly complex Action classes, it is

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1155855419642681022006-08-17T23:48:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:20.707Z

I thought I might as well finish off the SCJP blogs with this entry whilst it's still fresh in my mind. I recently blogged about me recently passing the SCJP 5 exam and I also posted a blog entry about a couple of articles saying why you should get certified or the benefits which is hereand I thought I would end the topic discussing does passing the exam make you a better programmer.It's a

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1155772844516571912006-08-17T00:07:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:20.208Z

Yes that's right I'm finally in the Java certified club and I am now waiting for sun to send me my special name badge and instructions about the special certified handshake and secret signalsAfter months of reading and staring at that the SCJP book I have finally taken and passed the exam.I got a rather ropey 66 percent but a pass is a pass is a pass.The last few days before the exam were a real

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1155683143830345602006-08-15T23:34:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:19.484Z

Whilst studying for SCJP 5 exam I have often wondered this question and I haven't really found any of any interest or an article's that really made some good points why people should take the exam (s). today I found that Sun had an article on the exact subject, of course they want you to get certified because they get £150 for 3 hours 15 minutes of their time. Obviously this could be biased

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1155123923489584102006-08-09T12:38:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:19.164Z

This website was very useful for easy to use instructions on installing Tomcat 5 and Java 5. It has a load of stuff before the tomcat installation instructions but I just ignored them and went straight to the main eventThe bit I wanted from the guide is down at the bootom of this email and well worth checking outI had a bit of a problem as well because I needed to have OC4J installed and using

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1155048376860695602006-08-08T15:21:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:18.798Z

This is my (current) tactic into getting myself match fit for the SCJP exam. Although reading articles, books and online stuff helps to learn the basic knowledge of Java, I have decided that to really get my knowledge up I am going to have to keep practicing questions.I think the problem with reading books/articles is that it's quite a passive way of learning and sometimes it's difficult to know

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1154968958142432872006-08-07T17:40:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:18.437Z

I have recently been given the task of installing Tomcat 5 and Java 5 (not in the order of course) onto a Linux machine. Where my Linux skills should be is a big black hole, so I did what any developer would do and went on google and had a look for some documentation to help me do it. The more I see of Linux the more I think it's not that, especially as there is a decent GUI interface so

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1154825718307271322006-08-06T01:49:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:48:18.037Z

I found this link today and it is a really good SCJP Java 5 Study resource. It just has links to most of the areas that need to be studied for the exam. Here is the a link to the site. I would recommend visiting it because it also has other SCJP stuff like study notes and mock exams and some articles of it's ownhttp://www.xyzws.com/scjp.do?cat=scjp&smenu=SGS12 Here are the links, it includes

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1154825176059209372006-08-06T01:35:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:50.579Z

I was curious about the effect of autoboxing on the switch statements and it has provided a potential exam gotcha. I was reading my SJCP book about control flow, if statements, switch statements and I was thinking to myself do I really need to read this stuff, I know it.But there are a few cheeky things in there. Like you are now allowed to use Enums as well as anything Int and below.Also if

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1154652589015081952006-08-04T01:16:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:50.358Z

The past few days I have been looking at a lot of Generic code, reading articles about generics, looking at more generics code, snacking on generic code and washing it down with a nice generic drink and finally going to bed and dreaming about ...yes of course Generics.I have been reading all sorts of stupid examples about putting apples and pears into a fruitbasket and how the Doctors class is

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1154649918285037192006-08-04T00:45:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:49.984Z

I got this email the other day from CW Jobs, every now and again (once every two weeks) they send me some speculative job email, which I usually delete without reading. Unfortunately I am just too lazy to go onto the website and take my details off but the other day I read this bit at the start of the email. I suppose I should link to CW jobs site as I am quoting a bit of their email so if you

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1154648192149798782006-08-04T00:24:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:49.528Z

I have been looking about on the web for any SCJP resources I haven't bumped into and I found this site which although based on an older SCJP exam it still had a couple of interesting pages.it had this page called SCJP Revision Tipshttp://www.tipsmart.com/studytools/revtips.htmSet is unique and do not allow duplicate objects to be stored. Elementsstored inthe Set are unordered and unsorted.

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1154521684068090152006-08-02T13:24:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:49.125Z

I was reading some stuff about Generics and Collections and doing some boring study for SCJP 5 Exam and passing this exam really is the carrot at the end of the tunnel. I have read a number of blog entries about Generics and complaining that it's the opposite of Generic and that it's infact prohibative. Although I agree with this in some way but it doesn't really bother me and in fact I

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1154517557840521382006-08-02T12:18:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:48.790Z

I was writing a class today and I was creating a method which returned an xml Element and then I thought perhaps I should write another method which returns a String version in case someone wants that. At this point I caught myself and thought "why are you doing that" I was about to spend extra time (not that much in this case) writing another method to return a String instead of an xml

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1154216402025916502006-07-30T00:14:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:48.171Z

My parents often struggle to grasp the idea of me being a programmer, they are always asking"what is it you actually do"My Mum sort of understands but my Dad cannot understand that the work I do cannot ever be held/seen physically. My parents do often look for the work Java, knowing that I use this witchcraft in my daily job.So it was with interest that my Mum sent me the article by cutting it

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1154213555361900772006-07-29T22:22:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:47.693Z

I have been trying to do more question practice recently and put my SCJP Java 5 knowledge to the test (literally)I'm sure a lot of you who have searched for SCJP 5 resources would have come across the whizlabs. The free demo is a mixture of being useful but limited. You get 20 exam type questions with detailed answers (if you get them wrong) you also get 15 or so quiz questions which are

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1154208021493608202006-07-29T22:06:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:47.164Z

I have also created another blog for myself, a non technical/java blog. The blog witters on about music, dvd's and books and it has a Hoskinators Voyage into the Center of CulterverseI'm pretty pleased with the title, I think it words exactly what the blog is about. I claimed the blog in Technorati, claiming it makes it sound like I had to rush to claim it first, it brings up a mental

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1154207136643751312006-07-29T21:48:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:46.420Z

An interesting turn of events has happen to me. My girlfriend who is baffled about "blogging" and who often tells her mates whislt on the phone that her boyfriend is "writing on his little nerdy blog". Well she is at the same stage of her internet evolution e.g. she has a hotmail account, goggles things, buys stuff of Amazon etc.My Mother on the other hand has branched out, not only has she

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1153958919803101032006-07-27T00:44:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:45.950Z

Me and a buddy were down the pub this week talking about software products and what we would do. We were discussing what we thought about the current position of certain software products and the fantastic drunken question of what you would do if you were in charge.It's a good question, a big question but a good one. The first part of the question is what do you think of a product at the

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1153957171817876482006-07-27T00:02:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:45.474Z

I found a good resource for Object Orientated information and some of it is in podcast style. I am quite fond of podcasts, I often put them on when I am in the car and have almost been driven insane by the morning DJ who constantly talks about himself, man those guys are annoying.I also like listening to a podcast when food shopping, I slowly plod about whilst my girlfriend scoots about looking

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1153878783889925582006-07-26T00:13:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:44.781Z

As I was reading my Java SCJP book tonight, it kept mentioning things that I should definitely learn and read a few times. I often find that writing things down helps me to memorize bits of information so I was going to write down some of the more important points which I didn't already know. Then I thought I might as well do a blog entry on it, then not only would I benefit but I would also

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1153820117882811042006-07-25T10:33:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:44.031Z

I set out to "learn" uml late last year. It was one of those things that when you see someone create a uml diagram you think, hey cool, that looks really good. sets out what is going on in the class and the dependencies between each class etc. A fellow developer often use to draw some class diagrams and if you don't draw any uml diagrams they seem quite impressive and you have an opinion that

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1153384872045389202006-07-20T09:38:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:43.634Z

I was reading one tip from Effective Java today, item 23 check method parameters for validity. It was talking about why you should check method parameters for validity. This is often something which you can forget about because you are usually using the class and method yourself and when testing the code you pass in a correct value. Perhaps if you are unit testing you pass in some unusual

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1153359483956616492006-07-20T01:45:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:43.198Z

I have recently begun to understand where a lot of the books/articles/blogs I have read recommend Java programmers to use Interfaces and composition and this has come about because recently I have been using a interfaces a lot more. I noticed this has been a definitive change because before I used to always think of using Abstract classes. I think as you progress as a developer you move away

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1153092812205403542006-07-17T00:17:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:42.876Z

I have been studying for my SCJP Java 5 exam for about 5/6 months but I am still a bit scared of taking the exam.The thing is I just don't want to fail the beast. I think I probably have learnt the stuff for the exam, well I have learnt it well enough to pass I think.I read the whole of the Sun Certified Programmer for Java 5: Study Guide Exam 310-055 (Certification Press S.) and blogged about

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1152905474972619572006-07-14T20:20:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:42.463Z

The authors at Head First team are looking for more authors to write in the Head First style.here is a link to what they wanthttp://headfirstlabs.com/writeforus.phpwhat is the Head First style. This is how they describe it"Head First requires a sense of narrative and pacing, a pinch of humor and a dash of hipness."I have read two of the books and the description above is very true. They focus

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1152835553435964742006-07-14T00:37:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:42.096Z

I don't know what you call it but I had an interesting programming dilemaI was writing some code which read in a text file and in this file it had six sets of data, with a name, date and then an int array. I decided to create a POJO (plain old java object) to hold the data. The next question I had was where to put the code that split up the data. I had got it to a point where I had read in the

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1152833579903910262006-07-13T23:45:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:41.773Z

I have been out on site for 3 days and it certainly was 3 long days.It can be tricky when you are out on a clients site, I tend to feel I have to justify all of my actions. In reality the customers probably really don't care how I do what ever it is I have to do as long as it gets done. I am always conscious of trying to pass on the knowledge in a"Give a man a fish, he can feed his family for a

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1152568212771929862006-07-10T21:55:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:41.403Z

I was wondering what to blog about and then I saw the term defensive copying. I have heard this term mentioned a few times but wasn't sure quite what it was. So I thought it was time for a bit of investigation.So what is defensive copying, also sometime known as object copy. Defensive copying is concerned with protecting mutable objects e.g. objects who's state can be modified by the user.

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461476.post-1152534111567626582006-07-10T13:19:00.000+01:002006-11-11T12:47:40.998Z

I read these articles about Test Driven Development, This first article is quite short but very succinct and explains the process very simply, which I suppose it is, This is how the article breaks down TDD (Test Driven Development), the article is reviewing a book but does also go through some of the basic tenants of TDD in an easy to understand wayhttp://www.ddj.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=

Hoskinatornoreply@blogger.com2