Mahyar SEPEHR

In several cases, I needed to parse html pages and extract data from specific tags.

For instance, I had to build a wiki migration, or to transform and import massively pages to a CMS.

JSoup, a Java framework, makes easier these operations.

Based on html5 elements, JSoup parses an Url, a String or a file with CSS selectors, or DOM transversal and gives facilities to manipulate the result found: you can easily replace some content, wrap with HTML tags.

If I say 400, you would say ‘Bad Request, client looser’.
If I get 500, you may laugh and go for an ‘Internal Server Error, server looser!’.
Or 200 : ‘OK, Good News for once’.
You probably know 407, 403 or 503. But do you know “414 Request-URI Too Long”?

This page is not only for your bookmark : http://www.w3.org/Protocols

A new Demo of jQuery Mobile Framework has been released. Check it on your Smartphone. The User Interface is really pleasant an sufficient for 99% of need. What if we work with it even for Desktop? I just don’t remember why we work with grids, columns, layers…

When working on a web project, you will one day need to illustrate, even when prototyping. The purpose is different from one job to another but the need is the same:

• You are Web Architect, Tech Lead or Project Manager, you need some cool and already made icons.
• You are webdesigner, you want to get inspired or to make some faster design.
• You are ergonomist, you shall need some clean and minimalist illustration for your wireframes.

If you are one (or more!) of those :  try the design vector icons library.

It is not free (So what? Do you expect to eat for free in a restaurant?), but it is not expensive either and most of all, it is nice & simple!

I know JavaEE is hot and Spring is Old-School! So, it’s the best time to talk about one component in SpringMVC 3 that I find quite nice & useful.

REST (REpresentational State Transfer) , as a Resource Oriented Architecture interested me specially for the URI functionalities. RESTful features in Spring MVC 3.0 are very convenient for that purpose.
You can manage your url directly within your controller. Thus, you can get as close as you want to your business terms within the url:


@Controller
public class ProjectController {
...
@RequestMapping("/{section}/{project}/index.html")
public String getProject(@PathVariable String section, @PathVariable String project, Model model) {
...
}
}


See also : rest-in-spring-3-mvc
See also RestTemplate : rest-in-spring-3-resttemplate

If the GWT concept is nice, its use was frusterating : the code generated by the core framework was mostly composed of … Html Tables, which is just a headache to render properly. And most of all, what I did not appreciate with GWT was how people introduced it: “with GWT you don’t have to work with Html”. In my opinion, if your aim is not to deal with Html, then don’t work in web technologies. As a matter of fact, web is Html and Html5 is not Xml yet…

I talked about that with a friend of mine who is my GWT psychologist (thank you Nicolas!) . He told me to have a look to UIBinder, a framework integrated into the official GWT since 2.0.

What I find really exciting in that framework is the possibility to define exactly what you expect as rendering.

But UIBinder brings the real solution: add the component that you expect, add any Css styles you need and bind it to your data. That’s it! The View implementation is very easy and efficient: a template made in xml, a widget class that is bound to your different fields with annotation. You can have the benefit of the whole GWT Engine combined with the best use of the browser with Html and Css.

I hope the GWT Team will integrate that in their best practices, because for me it is the best way to work with the GWT client.

One of the hottest aspects of today’s software market is on mobile devices.
In the other hand, many many software discussions are currently around standards and the User Interface process, the hole question is : what is the most appropriate representation standard for today’s internet need?

• Content Management Systems (CMS) versus Web Applications.
• Rich Internet Applications done with technologies as Flex, GWT versus HTML5 oriented as Javascript frameworks.

JQuery is a serious actor, my favourite User Interface and/or Javascript framework.

This month, it comes with one very exciting news : JQuery has just announced they are about to bring jQuery to mobile devices.
http://jquerymobile.com/2010/08/announcing-the-jquery-mobile-project/ As they say in Mangas : To be continued…

Usually, when you need to mockup a user interface, you start working in a tool Photoshop or Illustrator and after hours of functional oriented ideas and some creative solution, you realize that your final user interface is not compliant with for some technical reason…Here is maybe a nice solution : an iPhone prototyping app tool that runs right on your iPhone.http://lesscode.co.nz/interface. I like the idea.

Little something which I always forget: the maven2 lifecycle

Source : http://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-Eclipse-and-Maven2/images/lifecycle.png

My current project is beeing managed in Agile Software Development.
I must admit that I was quite a little suspicious but my first steps are positive.

The main point, as part of the Game Team, is that i know far more about the activities of my collegues: it’s a Team Play. During the Stand-Up Meeting, everyone talks about his work yesterday and his plans today. It’s the moment to communicate on your trouble, most of the time others met them too. Usually, you are working on a functionality close to your collegue next door and you don’t even know. Or maybe you have a brillant idea that may interest. Anyway, your daily work is clear for the team. So, priorities can be followed.The development team follows “as much as possible” the Extreme programming best practices as Continuous Integration, Test Driven Development, Pair Programming, Design Patterns.
But I have also discovered some limitations. The functionnal specifications are divided in pieces into greenpeppers. Therefore, it is hard to build a global specification interpretation and get into the project.
Key Words: Greenpepper, Hudson, Checkstyle, Cobertura, PMD, FindBugs