bob mcwhirter http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/ en-us 2003-12-15T01:30:27-05:00 2005-11-25T18:18:14-05:00 Blogmoving My blog has a new home.

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http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/archives/000256.html Opinion bob 2003-12-15T01:30:27-05:00
First Groovy Release groovy 1.0-beta-1 is out! proclaims James. I've redeployed the website, so it should be the latest'n'greatest now. Plus, it matches the new haus theme. Much thanks to Sam for picking up much of my parser slack. Even James started diving into it towards the end.

This is the first ever release; so I'm sure there maybe mistakes or issues with the source / binary distro; we can fix any issues & do more releases much quicker now. A last minute feature that made it into the release (complete with typeo) thats not yet been documented is the script 'groovysh' which runs a groovy command shell. Its like the swing console but works on the command line - you just need to enter a blank line to execute a command (so hit CR twice).
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http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/archives/000255.html Software Engineering bob 2003-12-11T15:55:51-05:00
Getting Groovy with Drools drools/drools-groovy was imported by James Strachan yesterday. There ya go, Ted.

Current directory: [codehaus] / drools / drools-groovy
Files shown: 8
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http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/archives/000254.html Software Engineering bob 2003-12-10T10:50:12-05:00
Snow! Being from the south (by the grace of God?), we really haven't experienced much snow. My son, particularly, has only seen about a 1/4-inch of snow on the ground. So, for Christmas this year, we're fleeing to the Great White North to spend some time with our little Canadian friend Jason van Zyl. Of course, I made the mistake of going to Canada in January of this year, and swore I'd never do it again. Memories of frozen hair and snow-blindness apparently fade all too quickly. At least Noah will get to play in snow that is deeper than he is tall. And that's what really matters. Oh, and maybe we'll actually get some work done on the Maven book.

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http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/archives/000253.html Home bob 2003-12-07T22:07:39-05:00
XQEngine Howard Katz recently announced XQEngine on the [xml-dev] list.

XQEngine is a compact (roughly 250K) embeddable component written in Java. It's not a standalone application and requires a reasonable amount of Java programming skill to use. It has a straightforward programming interface that makes that fairly easy to do. It's single-threaded and should work well as a personal productivity tool on a single desktop, as part of a CD-based application, or on a server with low to moderate traffic. (Making the engine thread-capable is not overly difficult and remains a future project.)
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http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/archives/000251.html Software Engineering bob 2003-12-06T04:08:34-05:00
JSR-94 Proposed Final Draft The Java Community Process(SM) Program - JSRs: Java Specification Requests - detail JSR# 94 mentions that JSR-94 has reached the Proposed Final Draft stage. Yes, it's oldish news by now, but I finally got around to reading it. Was pleased to see myself mentioned in the Acknowledgements section.

Proposed Final Draft 29 Oct, 2003
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http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/archives/000250.html Software Engineering bob 2003-11-28T01:34:15-05:00
Elements of Style I've been doing a lot of writing lately, and I've also learned that many folks simply are not familiar with The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. Everyone seems to own a copy of The Elements of Java Style or The Elements of UML Style but are somehow blissfully unaware of the origins of these books.

If you write, you need a copy of Strunk and White sitting right next to your Websters Collegiate Dictionary.

The fact is, the vast majority of so-called book doctors are garbage. An exception would be Strunk and White's classic Elements of Style. It was originally written during WWI by William Strunk who was then a professor at Cornell, and it has since been updated by E.B.White, one of his former pupils. Strunk's strategy was to edit down the complexities of English grammar into those few basic elements which would help people to improve their writing skills. His central rule is simple:
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http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/archives/000249.html Opinion bob 2003-11-24T01:55:34-05:00
Involuntary Switch So, my mother-in-law called me the other day, asking me to diagnose her Windows Millenium Edition machine that'd freeze after running for about 10 minutes. Now, I'm completely Windows ignorant, but I poked around anyhow. Basically, all I could come up with was "ayup, you're right, it freezes after ten minutes." I figured maybe I could upgrade to WinXP as a solution. Upon further thought, I decided that was just a bandage to a bloody head wound. After doing a cost/benefit analysis, considering the hours of my time over the lifetime of the in-law relationship, I simply decided to amputate and replace.

So, I knocked upon the door today with a bag of new hardware and said "congratulations, you're a Mac user now!" She's now been vaulted into the 21st century with a G4 iBook, Airport Extreme, Wifi route/WAP combination and a bundle of new software. It was easier than dying a slow death diagnosing Windows.

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http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/archives/000248.html Opinion bob 2003-11-17T00:19:13-05:00
Business Rules (Opinion) So, I'm finally back from the Business Rules Forum and have one thought about what I witnessed. One of the BoF sessions I attended was all about rule management, addressing concerns about rule authoring, permissions, analysis and deployment. 98% of the audience came from "the business side" of the enterprise. A repeated theme was that they don't trust their business people necessarily to write and deploy rules. They still want the IT staff involved to do rule analysis and the actual deployment. Some audience members raised concerns that folks on the business side don't know how to write business rules. This scares me. If you're on the business side of the enterprise, your job is to write the rules, whether they are implemented via IT resources or if they are merely policies in a manual or the way you deal with customers. Business rules are the way you do business, and IT is certainly not (or shouldn't be) the expert in that regard.

I'll admit that currently there are technical limitations to allowing business folks to write and deploy rules on IT infrastructure without the intervention of IT staff. But ultimately, IT should be transparent and the people who write the rules (ie, who run the business) on a daily basis should simply be able to do so. If a business person can't write business rules, perhaps he should be flipping burgers down at Krusty Burger.

Of course, I'm also fully aware that some/many business folks don't know how to write rules and only can keep their jobs because it takes IT quite a while to realized bogus rules in code, and by then, it's assumed that it's IT's fault the system doesn't work or make sense. A transparent business rule facilitating technology will make the business side of the enterprise more directly accountable for their decisions. Be careful what you wish for.

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http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/archives/000247.html Opinion bob 2003-11-07T17:42:17-05:00
My Head Is Going To Explode As noted previously, I'm attending the Business Rules Forum in Nashville (insert obligatory "yee-haw!" here). In addition to being in the hotel where the Country Music Awards are taking place tonight, the BRF has been a veritable motherlode of knowledge. This is the absolute first conference that has been beneficial to me. In my head (and soon in some LaTeX) I've been sketching out some future directons for drools including rule management, repositories, deployment and analysis.

I've learned that the rule engine is but a small portion of the entire space of "business rules". There's plenty of room to grow. Nothing quite like a swift kick in the ass to get excited about a project again.

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http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/archives/000246.html Opinion bob 2003-11-05T16:59:28-05:00
Agile Methods and Enterprises So, I am attending the Business Rules Forum in Nashville this week (yee-haw!) and heard this quotable quote:

Agile methods don't produce agile enterprises because you're still writing code.

The context is, of course, that a business rule approach and technology can move a lot of your logic out of code entirely, allowing the enterprise itself to be agile. If you're using agile methods to write code, you're still locking business logic up in a form that's not easily mutable. Somewhat similar to doing agile brick laying instead of reconfigurable cubicle farms.

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http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/archives/000245.html Opinion bob 2003-11-04T20:09:25-05:00
Best Keyboard Ever Kinesis Contoured Keyboard is the best keyboard ever. I've been using one for about five years now, and have finally come across others who use them. If it weren't for the Kinesis, I'd have had to stop programming years ago due to chronic tendonitis. These things rock.

The Advantage USB contoured keyboard sets a new standard for ergonomic keyboards. The Advantage line incorporates the same advanced ergonomic design as our other contoured keyboards and delivers additional features not found on other USB keyboards.
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http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/archives/000244.html Opinion bob 2003-10-29T12:02:38-05:00
Don't Trust Anyone Over 30 Well, today I entered the "untrustable" phase of my life.

Happy birthday to me!

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http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/archives/000243.html Opinion bob 2003-10-29T09:39:36-05:00
Conference: Business Rules Forum Business Rules Forum 2003 is happening November 2-6 in Nashville (Nashvegas to those of us who have spent time in Tennessee). I think I'm going to attempt to attend.

Change is the only Constant

Your enterprise undergoes change all the time. Entering into new Markets. Introducing new Products. Complying with new Regulations. Making new Agreements with customers and suppliers. Changing business direction through mergers, acquisitions, alliances and divestitures. And the rate of change is increasing daily. Can your systems and procedures keep up?

A Business Rule Application is an Agile Application; one deliberately architected for continuous change in business logic. Even better, a Business Rule Application gives the control of Business Rules back to the business.

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http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/archives/000242.html Software Engineering bob 2003-10-17T19:25:16-05:00
blogref Been blogging on the hausblog instead of here.

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http://blogs.werken.com/people/bob/archives/000241.html Software Engineering bob 2003-10-08T19:50:00-05:00