Tip: use the axis:axis:1.4 Maven artifact if you need Axis 1.4 support

For a Java program that can be run from the command line I used the Maven Assembly plugin to generate a JAR file with all dependencies included.

Although the build was successful, running the software generated a NoClassDefFoundError, caused somewhere in Axis. After a lot of time I finally found some information about the existence of two Axis artifacts in the central Maven repository. Axis 1.4 is available under groupid axis and org.apache.axis.

The POM file of the axis:axis:1.4 artifact includes a number of runtime dependencies, which are not included in the other. Since I used the incomplete version the resulting JAR missed some necessary classes.

So if you use Axis 1.4, define a dependency on the axis:axis:1.4 artifact, not org.apache.axis:axis:1.4.

Google Closure tools

Google announced the availability of Google Closure Tools, a set of JavaScript tools to help development of web applications. The set contains:

• Closure Compiler: a JavaScript optimizer
• Closure Library: a JavaScript library with reusable UI widgets and controls, utilities for the DOM, server communication, animation, data structures, unit testing, rich-text editing etc.
• Closure Templates: a client- and server-side templating system that helps you dynamically build reusable HTML and UI elements.

Simple Cloud API

A new initiative called Simple Cloud API aims to give PHP developers easier access to cloud technologies. The project will produce a new Zend_Cloud component for the Zend Framework.

From the FAQ:

The Simple Cloud API is an open source project that makes it easier for developers to use cloud application services by abstracting insignificant API differences. One of the design goals of the project is to encourage innovation. To this end, the Simple Cloud API can be used for common operations while users can easily drop down to vendor libraries to access value-add features.

Showing related articles in a WordPress blog

A few days ago I made a small change to the site. On pages showing a single article, the sidebar now shows a list of related articles on the site. By exposing these articles I hope visitors will find other interesting stuff to explore on this site.

The WordPress plugins to add related articles I found seemed a bit to complex to me, so I was glad I found some PHP code to do the same. This code looks for other articles with the same tags as the displayed article. I changed it a bit into a separate part that retrieves the articles and a part to display them.

The only thing I need to do now is to tag all the older articles, since I only started tagging recently.

GMarker title deactivates mouseover event

Quick tip for Google Maps developers: the mouseover event of a GMarker doesn’t fire when the marker has a title. This isn’t mentioned in the mouseover documentation.

NoSQL

SQL isn’t always the best solution for data storage. The NoSQL movement is getting more attention, with a Meetup held not long ago.

Microsoft as OpenId provider, but when as a consumer?

Microsoft announced the public availability of a preview of the Windows Live ID OpenID Provider. For users, having more providers is nice, but you only need 1. To make the system work you want all sites you use to accept that ID. So it’s not only the availability of more providers, more important is getting sites to be OpenID consumers and letting users log in with their portable ID.

Ramsay Millar on trends in software process improvement

An interesting read is this DDJ article by Ramsay Millar in which he describes these trends he sees happening in software process improvement:

• A shift towards more collaborative, role-based teamwork and away from the “lone wolf” IT culture of code-and-fix.
• A wish to close the gap between business requirements and software delivery by applying an agile process and best-of-breed automation to the entire software development life cycle.
• An increasing acceptance and sophistication of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) standard.

Stack Overflow

Forgot to mention this, but recently the new programmers community Stack Overflow came out of beta and now is available to everyone. This collaboratively edited question and answer site for programmers could grow into a valuable resource for connecting programmers worldwide.

Creating upgradable bookmarklets

I haven’t seen this technique before, but the implementation of Reading Blinds bookmarklet, a tool to focus your eyes on reading a page, really eases maintenance of a published bookmarklet.

Instead of embedding the JavaScript code in the link, this bookmarklet uses the DOM to add a script link the <head> of the page. This gives the developer an easy way to release improved version, just update the file and all users will automatically use the new version.