10 must to do for Software Engineers!

Courtesy : Interesting blog

Recapturing main items

• Have your own domain, run your own web site, host blogs and contribute regularly.
• Install an Apache web server and configure it in a non-trivial way, e.g. to serve multiple domains.
• Install WordPress and have your own blog. Write blog posts regularly. Write well. Good writing is a critical skill to master in this profession.
• Write at least one complete LAMP web app, preferably two — one where P=PHP, the other where P=Python.
• Have your own [physical or virtual] server on the cloud.
• Install VMWare or equivalent in order to boot up your laptop with more than one OS.
• Configure your home DSL router so that you serve a web site or other kind of server from your home machine / laptop to your friends.
• Use a packet sniffer to learn about the network requests your computer does to your favorite game server.
• Make contributions to an open source project.
• Write an app that uses at least one of the popular Web APIs, like Facebook Connect or one of Google’s.
• Use Google AdSense on your web site, and make money just by virtue of attracting traffic.
• Compile a complicated open source project from scratch, like OpenSim or Matterhorn. (Thanks, Sean!)
• Read works of literature and, besides enjoying the ride, pay close attention to how the author tells the story and makes use of words. Your programs should be as carefully written as those works of art! 
• Get yourself involved in a software project where requirements are bound to change halfway through — that’s about 0.01% of homework projects and about 99.99% of real world projects, so find one of the latter kind. Finish the project with patience and the ability to take criticism in a constructive way. 
• Write an application using map-reduce. Run it on Google app-engine or amazon EC2.

Improve programming skills!

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Groovy Integration with Ant

Recently I come across a requirement to execute few SQL statements during the build process. Initially we thought of executing a shell/perl script to perform the job. Then we explored the power of dynamic JVM based scripting languages.. and here comes Groovy.

It jells with Ant very well and very good support for SQL operations, including executing a stored procedures. Adding groovy to your project is very simple and straight forward. Also, since groovy is much similar to java, literally there is no learning curve.

Check out the simplified and start grooving for your petty project needs....

<project name="GroovyBuild" basedir="." default="testGroovy">

<property name="jdbc.url" value="jdbc:oracle:thin:@yourdb"/>

<property name="jdbc.username" value="username"/>

<property name="jdbc.password" value="pass"/>

<path id="groovypath">

<pathelement location="C:\lib\groovy-all-1.8.0.jar"/>

<pathelement location="C:\lib\ojdbc14.jar"/>

</path>

<path id="groovypath">...</path>

<taskdef name="groovy" classname="org.codehaus.groovy.ant.Groovy" classpathref="groovypath"/>

<target name="setupDB">

<echo message="Test Groovy Started.."/>

<groovy>

import groovy.sql.Sql
def jdbcUrl = "${properties['jdbc.url']}"
def user = "${properties['jdbc.username']}"
def password = "${properties['jdbc.password']}"

def sql = Sql.newInstance("${jdbcUrl}","${user}","${password}","oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver")

project.addReference("groovy.sqlinstance", sql)

</groovy>

<groovy>...</groovy>

</target>

<target name="setupDB">...</target>

<macrodef name="read">

<sequential>

<groovy>

def sql = project.getReference("groovy.sqlinstance")
println "TestName - Updatetime"
sql.eachRow("select testname,to_char(updatetime) as updatetime from groovy_test order by updatetime") {
println "${it.testname} - ${it.updatetime}"
}

</groovy>

<groovy>...</groovy>

</sequential>

<sequential>...</sequential>

</macrodef>

<macrodef name="read">...</macrodef>

<macrodef name="add">

<sequential>

<groovy>

def name = 'test3'
def sql = project.getReference("groovy.sqlinstance")
try {
sql.execute("insert into groovy_test(testname,updatetime) values(${name},sysdate)")
} catch(Exception e){}

</groovy>

<groovy>...</groovy>

</sequential>

<sequential>...</sequential>

</macrodef>

<macrodef name="add">...</macrodef>

<macrodef name="update">

<sequential>

<groovy>

def sql = project.getReference("groovy.sqlinstance")
try {
sql.execute("update groovy_test set updatetime = sysdate+1 where testname='test1'")
} catch(Exception e){}

</groovy>

<groovy>...</groovy>

</sequential>

<sequential>...</sequential>

</macrodef>

<macrodef name="update">...</macrodef>

<target name="testGroovy" depends="setupDB">

<add/>

<update/>

<read/>

<echo message="Test Groovy Completed successfully.."/>

</target>

<target name="testGroovy" depends="setupDB">...</target>

</project>

<project name="GroovyBuild" basedir="." default="testGroovy">...</project>

Limitations of Javascript in large scale applications

Set of problems are very commonly encounterd while developing a large scale JS applications.

We really need to rely on custom framework until these are incorporated into standard specifications.

A Developer Gripes with Javascript

List of Programming Languages

Ever wonder how many programming languages are in the world? I just come across the wiki and wow...

List of Programming Languages

Joomla : Building new website in a minute!

Joomla is an open source content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular Web site software available.

They also offer 30-day free hosting of your website in one of the cloud servers. After the trial period you can download and port the content to your desired site.

Joomla