Bang Important

When using a framework that in some cases does weirdly nested stuff that overrides your CSS (I'm looking at you, ICEFaces), the CSS directive !important can be your friend. But maybe it's the sort of friend you need to keep a close eye on.

This is something it took me days to find documentation for, and certainly could cause a maintenance headache, but it falls into the the good-to-know category.

Case in point: with an ICEFaces ace:dataTable, displaying multiple rows from a database query, the table would not display the full number of rows, even though it was sufficiently large to do so, because the <div> that contains all the rows, class name ui-datatable-scrollable-body, was getting its max-height set to 100px, no matter what I did. This was enough to show three of four rows. I was finally able to get it to work with this CSS entry:

.ui-datatable-scrollable-body { max-height:250px!important; }

I may have to do some further tweaking so as not to torch any other datatables I may use elsewhere in the application, but at least now I can move forward. And I'll keep glancing over my shoulder, making sure this helper doesn't try to stab me in the back.

Nobody is singing the Aria.

The lack of clear and readily available documentation for support of Section 508, WAI-ARIA, and other accessibility standards in the various JSF libraries, such as ICEfaces and PrimeFaces, is shocking, and really pretty shameful.

Given that the support of user with various disabilities is not only the morally and ethically right thing to do, but in many cases is actually required by law in the US and most other countries, it points to a lack of interest by those privileged to not have to deal with those disabilities.

I suppose that means me, too.

SOP

What do you call it when the person knowledgeable on an legacy technology retires, there is not a replacement hired yet, and then an internal customer requests enhancements involving that technology and some other legacy systems?

Oh, yea, and the development environment for that legacy system has gone AWOL? And then your manager's manager very publicly put you in charge of dealing with it?

Oh, yea, business as usual.

Viewing fake composites, or compositing fake views

Using Hibernate to retrieve data from a database view that contains a join can be tricky, as Hibernate expects there to be a unique primary key. The trick is to fake a composite key using the @Embeddable annotation in a PK model class that contains the properties/@Column references chosen for the composite key, and a the @EmbeddedId annotation in the main model class to include the PK class as the id property.

There's lots of documentation in cyberspace on the syntax for that, but there's one piece that almost all of them miss, and that is how you actually reference the properties that are defined in the @Embeddable compound key class.

First, do not duplicate the properties in both models; they should only occur in the PK model. The PK class is defined as a property of the main model class, so the reference is model.id.property for each element of the CK, instead of model.property.

I created accessors in the main model for the key properties that test that there is an instance of the PK model defined, primarily for testing. Example:

    public String getFirstName() {
        if ( null == this.id ) {
            return null;
        }
        return this.id.getFirstName();
    }

    public void setFirstName(String firstName) {
        if ( null == this.id ) {
            this.id = new ErmsDocOrgPrsnDetailPK();
        }
        this.id.setFirstName( firstName );
    }

It remains to be seen whether those will actually be needed.

Doing and being

"Focus not on doing less or doing more, but on doing what you value." —Gretchen Rubin

And while we're at it, why doesn't doing rhyme with boing?

Virtual Reality as Operating System

Virtual world systems, such as Second Live (SL), Opensimulator (Opensim), and High Fidelity (HiFi), can be considered  as immersive, collaborative operating systems.

This is especially true as they support Turing-equivalent scripting languages, as well as interface design, and distributed asset management and directory systems ranging from basic (SL) to more advanced (HiFi).

It would be an interesting exercise to map common Operating System user operations from Unix-like, Windows, and Mac OS X to immersive equivalents. I'm sure there are lists available of most commonly used command line and GUI operations.

One of my favorite xkcd quotes

"You're curious and smart and bored, and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off.  There are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan.  To find them, look for tiny interesting choices.  And remember that you are always making up the future as you go."

– Randall Munroe, xkcd