And they jokingly said:

"The best thing Microsoft has brought to the software industry is a widespread lower expectation on [the quality of] software."

It's just a funny quote, until it bites you. Following links I just digged up while understanding why some webapp doesn't show properly in MSIE:

• no transparent borders in IE
• people abusing bugs to get past other ones

Why? How come?

• my modest expectations on software (see how it reads 'transparent"?)

*update* I was pissed enough on this to actually browse some specs (no longer looking for a solution since the decission to roll out a better browser was made already) In the mean time I learned the 'transparent' border was an addition of CSS2.

• css1 allows <color> type as the possible values,
• while css2 declares values for background-color as: <color>{1,4} | transparent | inherit

css2 is dated 19980512

# Posted by mpo at 11:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

FlowScript Fun

Just stumbled (while reading up on the results of some student's end term thesis work) across a nice sample showing how Cocoon's flowscript coding naturally helps you with the classic 'stateless'-threshold of the web-app-coding paradigm.

See this silly function:

function askYesNo(msg) {
  var form = new Form("cforms/common/ask-yesno-def.xml");
  var info = form.lookupWidget('/info');
  info.setValue(msg);
  
  form.showForm("screen/ask-yesno-form");
  if (form.submitId=="submitYes") return true;
  else return false;
}

It's (obvious) goal is to just ask the end user for a confirmation on his action (using a cforms dialog-form). The power of flowscript however makes that adding this into your web application flow does not require more redesign then this:

Snippet Before:

...
} else if (form.submitId=="remove") {
    itemService.remove(item);
    info.setValue("Item removed.");
    form.showForm("screen/info-form");
}
...

Snippet After:

...
} else if (form.submitId=="remove") {
  if (askYesNo("Removal cannot be reverted! Are you sure?")) {
    itemService.remove(item);
    info.setValue("Item removed.");
    form.showForm("screen/info-form");
  }
  else info.setValue("Item Not Removed");
}
...

Scary? Or just scaringly easy?

# Posted by mpo at 05:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)

Resonating

This sounds a lot like what I (at least intended to have) replied during this way back in time seminar/discussion.

As a general observation the [by simon] selected quotes from Mr. Sharp make me think heavily about patronizing (neo-)colonists declaring 'doing it for the welfare of those poor colonised people'. (Yeah, I remember talking to some over in .za during the last holiday)

Uh: The biggest surprise is where and how these ex-colonising goverments suddenly found themselves trapped in? (us belgians had our 'experience' over in Congo, ha! another surprise from that little country!)

In any case there is quite some way to go, even if I see that some parties over here have been putting oss on the agenda as a logical choice for goverments. If not as a cheaper solution, then at least as way to build up some public domain (we don't even have the legal notion of such thing over here currently) as an extra return to the tax-paying community (rather then to some distant private company)

And rest assured: this will only be positive for Microsoft: Imagine the enormous motivational boost over in Redmond when finding out their products being bought out of true appreciation, and not merely out of the negative observation one can't do without...

# Posted by mpo at 12:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Fiddling with XML in the browser

Via Bertrand, just some bookmarks I have to go back to when I have some time...

• Using the XML HTTP Request object by Jim Ley.
• Mozilla's XML Extras Online Tests

# Posted by mpo at 03:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Self-conscious

Facts and figures on yours truly...

• length: 186 cm (for feet)
• body temperature: 36.2 celsius (for fahrenheit)
• blood pressure: 110 over 80 mmHg (actually in Belgium we normally use cmHg)
• number of wives: 1, els (age 34)
• number of kids: 2, fien (age 5), tuur (age 3)
• body mass index: 27.8 (hm, some overweight that is)
• sports statistics: weekly 1500m swim in average 27 minutes (fat helps floating)
• age: 34

Yesterday, Steven suggested that, getting conscious about this means I should really start *acting* middleaged now. I did a quick scan on Google for middleaged and decided I'll wait some more :-) Well, it does kinda give a special ring to Google's 'feeling lucky'.... Who knows, maybe next year? uhuh.

Today, my mother called me (early this morning) to tell me that one of those numbers pitched up over night (she should know). Her call made me decide to throw in some bottles of wine around the fireplace tonight, just to help fight the 'conscious' part. Feel welcome to stop by.

*Update*Looking at the first trackback this posting yields it should be clear: "You should only congratulate me if you are willing to share your BMI" (wow, I just started a new blog-rage :-))

# Posted by mpo at 10:53 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)

Why I like the guy...

Actually, there is a lot more to it, but on strict professional grounds it is mostly about socio-technological whisdom of this kind. Be sure to grab it, cause he's mostly quite implicit about these things :-) (At least less explicit then me, but damn more to the point)

# Posted by mpo at 08:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

-1 on wildcard imports

Over at Planet Apache I saw Justin Erenkrantz ask about the current recommended practice on doing .* imports in Java.

My first reaction was a slight: "Uh, who's still bothering with all these IDE's that CTRL-O/organize imports for you?" IMHO: There has only ever been one pro for using wildcard imports IMHO: and that is (on short term only) reduced typing and code management involved when doing the .* trick. This advantage (still IMHO) has gone with the new wind of the refactoring IDE's .

The oldest contra-indication I catched (well ahead of these IDE's) was about clarity in debugging/reading your code. If there is 3 .* imports on top and you see there is a problem surrounding some class of type Whatever, then you'ld actually need to get into all of those 3 packages to go and search for the actual class/file to continue your interesting read... Again, with nowadays IDE's that file is just a ctrl-click away. The odd hardcode vi user (perhaps you in remote connection hacking mode) might still be gratefull for the time saver in finding full qualified imports that hint him directly to the exact file locations.

In any case the true reason not to use them any more is compilation speed: 'Not having to look around in 'possible' locations for the dependencies of the files' is an equally appreciated time saver for the compiler. A very torough explanation of this can be found in the most complete (albeit most dull) book I've ever read about Java: Java Rules.

*Update* Uh, I should 've known! When you think there is no reason to discuss, someone will stand up and make some random noise Pun (but no offense) intended on the well chosen blog name. So let's have one more round of counter-arguments:

• Code get's read (at least) 100 times more then it gets written. (Forgot where I catched this quote) So the bit of time *you* win in typing is asking for a tough pay-back on wasted time on reading/interpretation. Please abondon the idea that you are doing someone a favor.
• When working in teams, you don't want to be CTRL-O'ing in different styles to limit the amount of noise on cvs-diff lists.

In any case, we already agree on the fact that it's the IDE making the real type-speed difference, and why wouldn't you then configure it so that it also optimises reading speed (where the benefit is 100-fold, remember). And just to show I'm not a hard-liner on this: just make sure you and your team can agree on an optimal modus vivendi, in my book that could be agreeing on 'some' allowed * imports (like java.util and java.awt) where the clarity is often bought by the fact that these classes are known enough.

# Posted by mpo at 10:17 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (2)

220, 284, and my other friends...

I confess: numbers have some magical spell on me. If you can read Dutch, you might catch some of the intriguing mystery in these short historical mathematics notes.

For the English only, there is only this to help you remember: 3, 14159 26535 8979

How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.

Update To the English readers: Just lose yourself in the links starting from "Wikipedia's Amicable Numbers"

. # Posted by mpo at 11:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)