Test-driven Java project moving on

I got a slight push to my own project when I gave a few days advanced course on Java programming. The topics on this course included Swing UI programming, JDBC database connectivity and many other interesting techniques. So during this course I came back to my application adding some user interface and doing this of course test-driven.

The normal JUnit framework wasn't enough for TDDing the UI, so I found JFCUnit that is an extension to JUnit and provides mechanisms for this. Using it is fairly simple and you can get started with quite small amount of effort. The documentation found on the website guides newbies nicely to the world of GUI unit testing.

Well anyways, the first version of the UI has been set up and the application is pretty close to being almost usable. Strange how a nice UI makes the application feel a lot more professional...

Agile way

I've just started a new project for automatic generation of article reference list website. As I've been reading, studying and teaching agile methods for a while already, I felt that I should try some practices in my own project too. So I started doing this Java application in test-driven way and I also created my own build server for continuous integration. The first impression on TDD is great: The software is building up almost by itself, refactoring is easy, Test & Profiling Tools Platform is smashing and everything works nice.

However the next step on the model is to create some kind of view. UI development in Java is not my strongest side and I guess test-driving that is not so easy. If someone knows how to do this, please drop me with a comment or an e-mail.

Well, I'll report on the progress of the project later on and we'll see if I'm able to get it out with some open source license. But before that, it should have some more functionalities and a clear direction where it should be developed to.

P.S. The Agile forums is a place to be in case you have questions about agility.

Very nice portal for free software

I just lately found the Wikipedia portal pages and immediately made one as my starting page: Free software portal. Now I'm waiting mainly on the possibility to gather parts from the interesting Wikipedia portals into my own customized portal. This portal would at least contain some RSS feeds on computer, ICT and business related news, some links to agile development pages and few starting pointers for open source software.

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Google presently

As a natural next step for Google online office suite, the rumours of the Google's alternative to Powerpoint are fueling. Few evidences have been presented in Google Operating System blog and its hard to doubt them.

Instead I thought of few things why I feel like this is not the perfect solution. At least the first and most important thing is that the software is online. Presentations are given in all kinds of places, and extremely often without any network available. So will there be a feature to dump the presentation into an executable form that can be used offline?

Another thing, coming from the same reason from previous one, is that I usually use Powerpoint mainly during my work trip in train. I also have a tendency to do things at the last second, so I may sit down in a small cafe and write my few thoughts about the customer down on a slide or two. Does this mean that with this Google Presently tool, I have to get connected to Internet through my mobile phone and after that I can write down the few lines?

Well, I'm not sure but this feels like the most trickiest question around the Presently. I love Docs and Spreadsheet, but I feel that I use these in a bit different way, than I would use Presently.

Apple iPhone introduced

Yesterday Apple introduced the Apple iPhone and just after few hours from the introduction, the net is full of posts about it. Well, nice UI, nice controls, elegant design: just what was expected from Apple. But in no ways could I say that the iPhone is revolutionary. Impressive yes, but not revolutionary.



We'll see how iPhone manages to face the competition at the mobile phone markets. I'm sure it will cut a decent slice, but will it threaten Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson? It will if we believe this article from Times magazines. I guess it won't...

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List of basic open source SW for Windows

I found a nice little list of Windows open source software. The list contains the most common programs for a common user and each of the software, at least on the "Basics" section, is easy to use and well documented. I even started to make few modifications on one of the note taking software to make it fit my needs better. I'll come back about how that turns out.

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iPhone is here... from LinkSys

Well, iPhone has been introduced as the rumours told, but from wrong manufacturer. LinkSys iPhone is a VoIP phone used with Skype and similiar VoIP clients. Apple has not commented the release of iPhone in any ways. It will be interesting to see what cards Apple has in its sleeve.

The end of the course

Well that's it. Time's up and its time to leave the managing dynamics part of the blog alone. More pictures would have been nice and a new navigation system. Well, I'll just put the posts in order from the earliest and show them on one page for easier browsing experience. Hopefully I'll have time to come back to this blog soon, maybe in some new thoughts about creative commons and open source. Or maybe related to a J2EE dilemma I'm facing currently at work...

Interesting sites gathered

I have been gathering some more or less interesting links at my del.icio.us list for the Managing Dynamics: Creative Content Business course. Looking back to the links I've remembered to save shows the way I've been going through the course. At the beginning I've saved some definitions related to the early topics. I felt unease with the new things and didn't yet know what to think about the cases and the whole course.

While the course progressed, I felt that I made some progress too. I started to save things that interested me: Creative commons, open source, mobile phones and even Christo's and Jean-Claude's installations...

Well here's few top picks from the link list in case you don't have time or interest to browse them through:

Creative Commons comic: A Spectrum of Rights
A nice comic explaining the ideas and usage of Creative Commons license.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar
A great book about open source and the differences between commercial "cathedral" way and the open source "Bazaar" way.

Lawrence Lessig
A homepage of a person who has contributed a lot on Creative Commons license.

Website of Christo and Jeanne-Claude
An artist couple that creates temporary environmental installations. Nice looking pieces of art and interesting business model behind it

OpenLife.cc | Open Life: The Philosophy of Open Source
An open source book about open source. Extremely interesting!

Individual readings and thoughts about open source

As two of my individual readings mainly concentrated on open-source, I'll try to reflect on my own ideas of it after reading some of these books. The Creative Economy by John Howkins takes a very traditional view on the creative content business with explaining different viewpoints. On open source Howkins mainly explains the basic licenses behind them and just touches the brilliant business and social models behind the whole thing.

The most interesting book of these three was Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture. It consists of many case reports about free culture, copyrights, open source and public domain. Interesting cases, some of them were already familiar to me, some of them were interesting smaller cases. All in all, the practical view and cases was just what I could think people would need to see the benefits of open source and creative commons. Also seeing that even open-source or public domain can make income to you. I must agree on Lessig on the potential of open source, but the time it takes for open source to grow will take long. As Lessig states in his conclusion:

"I’ve told a dark story. The truth is more mixed. A technology has given us a new freedom. Slowly, some begin to understand that this freedom need not mean anarchy.We can carry a free culture into the twenty-first century, without artists losing and without the potential of digital technology being destroyed. It will take some thought, and more importantly, it will take some will to transform the RCAs of our
day into the Causbys.
Common sense must revolt. It must act to free culture. Soon, if this potential is ever to be realized."

Creative commons seemed to be a license of choice for individual writings and open-source for small trivial software. Should I write something down every time I'm learning something? Should I publish software written for my own aid or just as an aid for learning? I can't think a reason why not. So I guess I'll license this blog under creative commons.

Back to the readings: The open life by Henrik Ingo was mainly chosen because I haven't had time to read this through before and this would force me to read it. :) The main point in this book is that it also concentrates on the social aspects of open source. It describes the actions of open source community and tells how the open source software projects are carried. Everything has a person centric start point and the results seem to be promising. The different business models in different cases are also a nice way to tell the reader that this "free open source thing" doesn't mean that you don't ever get paid for your job. The little practices for every day jobs from open source projects could benefit almost any academic worker.

Interesting readings and more thoughts on mind. Open source and creative commons feel natural choices right now. I'll guess I'll change this to Creative Commons right away.