I read the K&R book when I was a kid and it was likely the most influencing reading I ever had on programming. At least, there were two stunning truths which, as I think, determined my life and profession:

The second edition of RDFBeans Java-to-RDF databinding framework is finally out. In 2.0 version the library underwent major refactoring to clean and enhance the API and provide new databinding techniques.

See what’s new

RDFBeans framework (see “Simple RDF data binding“) is a Sourceforge project now:

http://rdfbeans.sourceforge.net

A large part of SW development is representing the information as RDF for persistence and interoperability. It’s usually done with lots of the glue code to map the programming object model to RDF triples and vice versa.

I started another blog here on WordPress.com: Java AntiPatterns. It is created to be a “collection of bad practices” and short tips how to avoid them in everyday Java coding. The antipatterns are organized both by categories and by tags and some initial set is already on there. If I meet or remember another antipattern, I will post it to that blog.

I’m not thinking about it as of my personal stuff and welcome everyone to suggest new antipatterns and their solutions. if you want to post to that blog yourself, please contact me (you have to be a registered WordPress user).

Thanks to new WordPress feature, sourcecode quotes in the blog posts now looks awesome:

[sourcecode language='java']
/**
* HelloWorld
*/
public class HelloWorld {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(“Hello world!”);
}
}
[/sourcecode]

If ClassLoader Delegation, though esoteric and counterintuitive, is an example of some design, there are some things in Java that are confusing and just poorly designed at once.

Java is great platform for component development but there are some odd and counterintuitive things on the way. One of these hidden pitfalls waiting for a developer who is going to replace default system ClassLoader with a custom one.

Long tweaking and hacking an open source software code can lead to a sort of very special menthal syndrome. This is a real life dialog in the kitchen:

Me: This microwave has very annoying, shrill beep. I hate it! I gonna break it and cut that damned beeper off.
My wife: Don’t be surprised but there is a button sequence which makes the owen silent.

Probably, I have to take a rest.

I had nice last weekend gathering new harvest of apples, drinking fresh apple juice and playing with SuperKaramba widgets – a good opportunity to take a sort of “recreational programming”. Perhaps all modern KDE users know those nice resource eaters eye-candies which are living right on the desktop surface and displaying the clocks, calendars, weather forecasts, system monitors and so on.

Instead of developing some Yet Another Big Animated Clock, I decided to write something practical. What I’d like to have is a widget which would ask my e-mail client (KMail) for the headers of the latest unread messages to show them on the desktop.