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  • Oracle WebCenter Quiz

    - by Michael Snow
    Quiz: How many of the following business necessities can you accomplish with Oracle WebCenter? a) Employee On-boarding b) Policies & Procedures c) Regulatory Compliance d) Sales Enablement Dashboards e) Secure Deal Collaboration f) Document & IP Management g) Accounts Payable h) Records Management i) Claims Processing j) Marketing and Brand Management k) Call Center & HelpDesk l) Contract Management m) Collaborative Content Contribution and Sharing Environment n) Enterprise Application, Desktop and Office integration o) Share Content Across Intranet And Extranets p) Combine Content In Composite Applications q) Subject Matter Expert Location r) Personalize Recommendations of Spaces, Documents, Wikis, Blogs, and Topics s) Collaborative Community Websites t) Marketing Driven Websites u) Strategic Web Experience Management v) Online Engagement Optimization w) Create Targeted Online Experiences x) Manage Interactive Social Experiences y) Optimize Multi-Channel Customer Experiences z) End-User Personalization & Syndication aa) ALL OF THE ABOVE!!!  (HINT: CHOOSE THIS ONE!!) bb) NONE OF THE ABOVE Learn More - Join us for a Webcast   Do More with Oracle WebCenter – Expand Beyond Content Management

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  • EBS Procurement - Approval Workflow

    - by Annemarie Provisero
    ADVISOR WEBCAST:  Approval Workflow PRODUCT FAMILY: EBS Procurement    February 15, 2011 at 14:00 UK Time, 9:00 am ET, 4:00 pm, Egypt Standard Time, 7:30 pm, India Time This one-hour session is recommended for technical and functional users who would like to know about APPROVAL WORKFLOW TROUBLESHOOTING. TOPICS WILL INCLUDE: Introduction Purchasing Approval Basics How to See the Workflow for a Purchasing Document Advanced Troubleshooting Helpful My Oracle Support Notes Conclusion A short, live demonstration (only if applicable) and question and answer period will be included. Oracle Advisor Webcasts are dedicated to building your awareness around our products and services. This session does not replace offerings from Oracle Global Support Services.  Click here to register for this session ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The above webcast is a service of the E-Business Suite Communities in My Oracle Support.For more information on other webcasts, please reference the Oracle Advisor Webcast Schedule.Click here to visit the E-Business Communities in My Oracle Support Note that all links require access to My Oracle Support.

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  • Where are bluetooth received files saved

    - by Luis Alvarado
    I have used Blueman and the default Bluetooth manager an every time I accept the file transfer from the Phone to the PC, it shows that it is transferring and even notifies me that the transfer was successful but I can not find the image anywhere. Where are files stored after sending them via Bluetooth to the PC? I already checked my Home folder. The Picture folder which I thought it would be the one for images. Then the document folder and afterwards I did a huge check on all folders under /home. No luck. Is nowhere. I even checked this answer with no luck.

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  • Looking for a Python UI library comparable with Windows Forms [on hold]

    - by Mitten
    I am looking for a Python UI library which I could use to develop a desktop GUI comparable to what can be done with .NET Windows Forms. I have no previous experience programming UI in Python, so I would rather choose (if there is a choice) something simple. The application I am building would be a document oriented - rich texts, lists and grids, I don't expect to use much graphics - mostly formatted texts. Any pointers, and if there is more than one major GUI library available for Python - how could I quickly test them to see which one is a better fit for my needs?

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  • OM: Effective Troubleshooting Techniques to Debug Order Import

    - by ChristineS
    There is a new document available to help you debug Order Import in Order Management:  Effective Troubleshooting Techniques to Debug Order Import Issues (Doc ID 1558196.1) The white paper addresses debugging from a technical perspective. This approach is to assist users in understanding the actual issue, as well as help them in the early resolution of any order import issue. It will walk you through several cases, with supporting debug logs / trace files taken for each case. Educating you along the way for what debug logs / trace files should be gathered, as trace files are not always needed.  It will also walk you through the supporting documents so you will know what to look for in your case. Please refer to this note the next time you have an Order Import error. Or you could step through it now, so you are informed the next time you encounter an Order Import error.  Happy debugging!

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  • Oracle OpenWorld Update -- Developing Java Applications in the Cloud: Oracle Java Cloud Service

    - by Ruma Sanyal
    Today we are focused on the Oracle Java Cloud Service. There are multiple sessions on this topic. In this particular session (which will run multiple times), learn how you can use the Oracle Public Cloud Java Cloud Service to exponentially decrease the turn-around time for the development and production roll-out of your WebLogic Server applications. This session will provide an overview the Oracle Java Cloud Service and demonstrate some of the product's powerful developer productivity features. For more information about this and other Cloud Application Foundation sessions, review the Oracle Cloud Application Foundation Focus On document. Details: Thursday, Oct 4, 11.15-12.15pm, Moscone South, Room 304 Thursday, Oct 4, 2:15 PM - 3:15 PM, Marriott Marquis - Foothill F

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  • About Solaris 11 and UltraSPARC II/III/IV/IV+

    - by nospam(at)example.com (Joerg Moellenkamp)
    I know that I will get the usual amount of comments like "Oh, Jörg ? you can't be negative about Oracle" for this article. However as usual I want to explain the logic behind my reasoning. Yes ? I know that there is a lot of UltraSPARC III, IV and IV+ gear out there. But there are some very basic questions: Does your application you are currently running on this gear stops running just because you can't run Solaris 11 on it? What is the need to upgrade a system already in production to Solaris 11? I have the impression, that some people think that the systems get useless in the moment Oracle releases Solaris 11. I know that Sun sold UltraSPARC IV+ systems until 2009. The Sun SF490 introduced 2004 for example, that was a Sun SF480 with UltraSPARC IV and later with UltraSPARC IV+. And yes, Sun made some speedbumps. At that time the systems of the UltraSPARC III to IV+ generations were supported on Solaris 8, on Solaris 9 and on Solaris 10. However from my perspective we sold them to customers, which weren't able to migrate to Solaris 10 because they used applications not supported on Solaris 9 or who just didn't wanted to migrate to Solaris 10. Believe it or not ? I personally know two customers that migrated core systems to Solaris 10 in ? well 2008/9. This was especially true when the M3000 was announced in 2008 when it closed the darned single socket gap. It may be different at you site, however that's what I remember about that time when talking with customers. At first: Just because there is no Solaris 11 for UltraSPARC III, IV and IV+, it doesn't mean that Solaris 10 will go away anytime soon. I just want to point you to "Expect Lifetime Support - Hardware and Operating Systems". It states about Premier Support:Maintenance and software upgrades are included for Oracle operating systems and Oracle VM for a minimum of eight years from the general availability date.GA for Solaris 10 was in 2005. Plus 8 years ? 2013 ? at minimum. Then you can still opt for 3 years of "Extended Support" ? 2016 ? at minimum. 2016 your systems purchased in 2009 are 7 years old. Even on systems purchased at the very end of the lifetime of that system generation. That are the rules as written in the linked document. I said minimum The actual dates are even further in the future: Premier Support for Solaris 10 ends in 2015, Extended support ends 2018. Sustaining support ? indefinite. You will find this in the document "Oracle Lifetime Support Policy: Oracle Hardware and Operating Systems".So I don't understand when some people write, that Oracle is less protective about hardware investments than Sun. And for hardware it's the same as with Sun: Service 5 years after EOL as part of Premier Support. I would like to write about a different perspective as well: I have to be a little cautious here, because this is going in the roadmap area, so I will mention the public sources here: John Fowler told last year that we have to expect at at least 3x the single thread performance of T3 for T4. We have 8 cores in T4, as stated by Rick Hetherington. Let's assume for a moment that a T4 core will have the performance of a UltraSPARC core (just to simplify math and not to disclosing anything about the performance, all existing SPARC cores are considered equal). So given this pieces of information, you could consolidate 8 V215, 4 or 8 V245, 2 full blown V445,2 full blown 490, 2 full blown M3000 on a single T4 SPARC processor. The Fowler roadmap prezo talked about 4-socket systems with T4. So 32 V215, 16 to 8 V245, 8 fullblown V445, 8 full blown V490, 8 full blown M3000 in a system image. I think you get the idea. That said, most of the systems we are talking about have already amortized and perhaps it's just time to invest in new systems to yield other advantages like reduced space consumptions, like reduced power consumption, like some of the neat features sun4v gives you, and yes ? reduced number of processor licenses for Oracle and less money for Oracle HW/SW support. As much as I dislike it myself that my own UltraSPARC III and UltraSPARC II based systems won't run on Solaris 11 (and I have quite a few of them in my personal lab), I really think that the impact on production environments will be much less than most people think now. By the way: The reason for this move is a quite significant new feature. I will tell you that it was this feature, when it's out. I assume, telling just a word more could lead to much more time to blog.

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  • Showing All Pages in a SharePoint Wiki Library

    - by Damon Armstrong
    Opening a SharePoint wiki takes you to the wiki homepage, which is what most users want and expect.  Administrators, on the other hand, will occasionally need to see a full list of wiki pages in the wiki library.  Getting to this view is really easy, but you have to know where to look. The problem is that when viewing a wiki page SharePoint conveniently removes the Library tab from the ribbon, and the Library tab houses the controls you normally use to switch views.  Many an admin has been frustrated by the fact that they cannot get to this functionality.  A bit more searching, however, reveals that the Page tab in the ribbon contains a button in the Page Library group called View All Pages.  As the name suggests, clicking this button displays a document library style view all the pages in the wiki.  It also makes the Library tab available to switch views and gives administrators access to all of the standard Library tab functionality.

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  • template for terms of condition for social media based website?

    - by Rubytastic
    Im looking for a template for a terms of usage text based on social media websites. Im actually a coder and not into the legal blabla in general. Ofcourse you could spend a thousand or 2 on a lawyer but just a 3/4 paper text shoulder;t be to hard to compile yourself with some help. Im not sure if this is the right spot to ask this question but I love stack overflow and none of the sites in stack exchange I could find matched better then this one. My first idea lets look at some social media websites and grab some of there text, rewrite it for own specific usage Are there templates on writing such document Same goes with a privacy policy actually.

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  • Download images and other documents from external websites

    - by user359650
    We're running a website which enables users to download documents about our company, such as: -wallpapers with the company logo. -company logos in various flavours. -media kits in pdf format. Since these files are quite big in size (some reach 1MB), we no longer want them to be downloaded from our website directly as it's consuming our bandwidth. Accordingly we've been looking into document sharing services. For instance we found Scribd which could allow us to share pdf files, but not our wallpapers and logos which are in png format. Is there a free service we can use for our users to reliably download any type of files we want to host? (ideally on a service which allows users to easily browse through our files).

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  • Tack anchor link with Google Analytics

    - by Fredrik
    I have searched for how to track anchor links in analytics, but couldn't get it working. I have this code in the header: <script> (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('_setAllowAnchor', true); ga('create', 'UA-*******-1', '****.com'); ga('send', 'pageview'); </script> And my links looks like this: <a href='#/contact'><span>Contact</span></a> I also tried to use this links: <a href='#/contact' onClick="_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', location.pathname+location.search+location.hash]);"><span>Contact</span></a> Is there any tips on what I can do?

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  • [XSL-FO] Characters from other than English languages

    - by Lukasz Kurylo
    My client have departments in Europe Central and East, so there is highly possibility that in the generated pdfs there will be at least in the people names and/or surnames some specific characters for the country language.   With the XSL-FO we can use some out-of-the box fonts, e.g. the default is Times. We can change it for specific block of text or the entire document to other like Helvetica or Arial. All will be good to the moment that we use only an english alphabet. If we want to add e.g. some characters from polish or bulgarian language, in the *.fo file:         <fo:block >                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold">english: </fo:inline>                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold">yellow</fo:inline>       </fo:block>       <fo:block>                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold">polish: </fo:inline>                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold">zólty</fo:inline>       </fo:block>       <fo:block>                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold">russian: </fo:inline>                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold">??????</fo:inline>       </fo:block>       <fo:block>                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold">bulgarian: </fo:inline>                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold">????</fo:inline>       </fo:block>       <fo:block>                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold">english: </fo:inline>                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold">yellow</fo:inline>       </fo:block>       <fo:block>                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold">polish: </fo:inline>                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold"  font-family="Arial">zólty</fo:inline>       </fo:block>       <fo:block>                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold">russian: </fo:inline>                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold" font-family="Arial">??????</fo:inline>       </fo:block>       <fo:block>                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold">bulgarian: </fo:inline>                 <fo:inline font-weight="bold" font-family="Arial">????</fo:inline>       </fo:block>   The result can be diffrent from the expected depending on the selected font, e.g:                 As you can see Timer nor Arial work in this case.   The problem here is not related to XSL-FO, but rather to the renderer we are using. I have lost a lot of time to find a solution for the using by me XSL-FO –> PDF rendered to acquire these characters in my generated files. Fortunatelly all what have to be done it is to embed the font (or part of it) in the file(s) during rendering.   The renderer that I’m using it is an open source FO.NET.   For this one, the code to generate a pdf file looks that:   var fonet =  Fonet.FonetDriver.Make(); fonet.Render("source.fo", "result.pdf");   To emded the font in the pdf, we need to set the appropriate option to the driver:   fonet.Options = new Fonet.Render.Pdf.PdfRendererOptions() {       FontType = Fonet.Render.Pdf.FontType.Embed }; Right now, the pdf we get should look like this:               As you can see, the result for the Arial font looks exactly how it should, because this font has a characters included not only for the english language like the default Times, which we shouls avoid if we not generating a english-only documents.   This is worth to notice that in this situation the generated pdf file is quite large, it has more than 400 kb in size. This is of course because of embedding the entire font in it to make the document portable to systems, where the used font is not present. Instead on embedding the entire font, we can only embed the subset of used characters by changing the options to:   fonet.Options = new Fonet.Render.Pdf.PdfRendererOptions() {       FontType = Fonet.Render.Pdf.FontType.Subset };   Right now, this specific pdf is only 12 kb in size.

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  • SOA Suite demo pod at OOW 2012

    - by Simone Geib
    Visit us in the exhibition hall at Oracle Open World from Monday October 1st till Wednesday October 3rd. You'll have the opportunity to meet our engineering team and product managers and learn what SOA Suite is about and all the cool stuff you can do with it. Come to get a general demo, ask specific questions, give feedback or just have discussions with the Oracle SOA team. You can find us at Moscone South, Right - S-229. And don't forget to check out the Focus on SOA and BPM document for an overview of all SOA and BPM sessions

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  • compiz hiding unity and all menus

    - by Lennart Guldbrandsson
    After updating to Ubuntu 11.10, I was severly disturbed by Dash and wanted to go back to Ubuntu Classic. So I tried to read up, and found Compiz SettingsManager. In there, I clicked "on" never hide menus. For some reason this made all my menus at the top of the screen (volume, network, my login identity, and shutoff, etc) disappear - as well as the quickstart menu to the left (Unity). I am not very technical, so I have a hard time finding any programs now, and I just got on the internet by clicking on a link in a document, that I was fortunate to have on my Desktop. Without it, I wouldn't be able to ask for help. What I wish for is a) to get back the menu at the top, b) to restore the Ubuntu Classic without the irritating launcher and Dash, c) these two things to not disappear every time there is a new version of Ubuntu. Any help is greatly appreciated.

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  • Replace Libre Office with Microsoft Office

    - by user26272
    folks. I finally convinced my sister to drop Windows at her small business and go Ubuntu. She complained, though, that she does not want to use Libre Office and is willing to use Microsoft Office instead. I was like, ok, then. Then, she asked: - Libre office is the default, right? - Right. - So, if someone gives me a document, by default it will open on Libre Office. Can you make it open on Microsoft Office by default instead? So, even if I get it working via Wine, can I do what she requested or is it an impossible task?

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  • Ubuntu 12.04 - Unable to change brightness

    - by Raymond Standen
    So, as a number of users seem to be experiencing, I am unable to change brightness on my laptop. Using the Brightness and Lock in settings, the slider moves but brightness does not adjust. The fn keys work for volume but not for brightness. I have updated my drivers and installed all updates, however the brightness is still at maximum. I have heard that opening sudo gedit /etc/x11/xorg.conf and entering Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1" can fix this, however when opening xorg.conf through Terminal I am greeted with a blank document... Not very reassuring. Toshiba L750 Laptop Nvidia Graphics Card Dual boot with Windows

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  • How can I associate .doc files to MS Word 2010 using the same .desktop file as launcher?

    - by nastys
    I'm trying to associate .doc and .docx files to MS Word 2010 using the same .desktop file as Unity dash and launcher, so I can use the Word icon in launcher. I tried: [Desktop Entry] Name=Microsoft Word 2010 Exec=env WINEPREFIX="/home/nastys/.mso2010" wine "C:/Program Files/Microsoft Office/Office14/WINWORD.exe" %f Type=Application StartupNotify=true Comment=Create and edit professional-looking documents such as letters, papers, reports, and booklets by using Microsoft Word. Icon=29F5_WINWORD.0 StartupWMClass=WINWORD.EXE MimeType=application/msword; application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document; Using this .desktop file I can launch Word with its icon in Unity launcher, but if I associate .doc files to the same file Word will launch, but it won't open the .doc file. If I associate .doc files to any .desktop file generated by Wine it will launch Word, but it will use Wine icon.

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  • Cannot add DataTables.net javascript into Joomla 1.5

    - by mfmz
    I've been having this problem where i couldn't add Datatables.net javascript into my Joomla article. I have been trying to include it through Jumi. To say that my editor strips of the tag is somewhat not right as I have been able to execute Google Chart API in Joomla which also uses javascript. Any clue why? The code is as below : <link href="//datatables.net/download/build/nightly/jquery.dataTables.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.1.min.js"></script> <script src="//datatables.net/download/build/nightly/jquery.dataTables.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready( function () { var table = $('#example').DataTable(); } ); </script>

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  • General Session: Building and Managing a Private Oracle Java and Middleware Cloud

    - by Ruma Sanyal
    If you are developing, managing, or planning enterprise Java and business application deployments on Oracle WebLogic Server with Oracle Coherence or Oracle GlassFish Server applications or continue to have deployments of Oracle Application Server, this session will give you the roadmap of how Oracle is evolving this infrastructure to be the next-generation application foundation for its customers to build on in a private cloud setting. In the session, Ajay Patel, VP of Product Management, and the product management team shares Oracle's vision, product plans, and roadmap for this server infrastructure and how it will be used in the rapidly maturing cloud infrastructure space. The presentation will help you make key decisions about running your enterprise applications on Oracle's enterprise Java server foundation. For more information about this and other Cloud Application Foundation sessions, review the Cloud Application Foundation Focus On document. Details: Monday, 10/1; 4.45-5.45pm; Moscone West Room 3014

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  • Play audio in javascript with a good performance

    - by João
    I'm developing a browser game where the player can shoot. Everytime he shoots it play a sound. Currently i'm using this code to play sounds in JavaScript: var audio = document.createElement("audio"); audio.src = "my_sound.mp3"; audio.play(); I'm worried about performance here. Will 10 simultaneous sounds impact my game performance too much? Will all audio objects stay in memory even after they are played?

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  • Is there a way to export all the images of my tweening effect in Flash?

    - by Paul
    i'm using Flash to create the animation of my character in 2D (i'm just beginning). Is it possible to make a tween effect of a character, and then automatically export all the images/frames? So far, it's a bit fastidious : i create my tweening effect, then i put a keyframe for each frame i want to copy and paste, then i select the movieclips and shapes and copy and paste them into another flash document, i position those clips at the exact same location as the previous image, then i erase the previous image and export the image... For 30 frames! Is there any faster way? Thanks

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  • Google I/O 2010 - Scripting Google Apps for business

    Google I/O 2010 - Scripting Google Apps for business Google I/O 2010 - Scripting Google Apps for business process automation Enterprise 201 Evin Levey Learn how to use Google Apps for business process automation, and custom work-flow. We'll introduce the powerful scripting service along with several easy-to-use interfaces including Spreadsheets, Calendar, Sites and the Document List. We'll also demonstrate interoperability with third party web services and showcase exciting new developments in Google Apps Script. For all I/O 2010 sessions, please go to code.google.com From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 8 0 ratings Time: 53:16 More in Science & Technology

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  • Managing Files/Folder in Content Repositories or File Systems with Oracle ADF and WebCenter

    - by Shay Shmeltzer
    One more entry in a set of entries (1,2,3) about the capabilities that WebCenter adds to ADF applications. WebCenter is basically the new Portal framework in the Oracle stack - and one key thing that portals do is work with content, allowing you to compose and publish content from files as well as save and store content. In this demo you'll see how using a set of taskflows provided by WebCenter you can add a file management, creation and viewing capabilities to a regular ADF application. To try this out you don't need any fancy content management system - we'll just use your file system for now. All you need is the WebCenter extension installed in JDeveloper, and then you can follow the demo on your own JDeveloper instance. You'll define a connection to your content repository you'll be able to add a bunch of pre-built WebCenter taskflows into your page. And suddenly you can upload/download/create and view document directly from your applicaiton. Check it out:

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  • Marek's JAX-RS 2.0 content from Devoxx 2011

    - by alexismp
    Marek Potociar, one of the two co-spec leads for the upcoming JAX-RS 2.0 had a very well-attended session at Devoxx and wrote a blog post about it detailing his conference experience (1st time at Devoxx) and running through the new features of the specification. A link to slides is also included in his post. The work by the expert group seems very solid at this point as you can read for yourself in details in the recently published early draft document. You can follow the remaining work between now and the middle of new year on the specification project pages on java.net.

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  • Modularity through HTTP

    - by Michael Williamson
    As programmers, we strive for modularity in the code we write. We hope that splitting the problem up makes it easier to solve, and allows us to reuse parts of our code in other applications. Object-orientation is the most obvious of many attempts to get us closer to this ideal, and yet one of the most successful approaches is almost accidental: the web. Programming languages provide us with functions and classes, and plenty of other ways to modularize our code. This allows us to take our large problem, split it into small parts, and solve those small parts without having to worry about the whole. It also makes it easier to reason about our code. So far, so good, but now that we’ve written our small, independent module, for example to send out e-mails to my customers, we’d like to reuse it in another application. By creating DLLs, JARs or our platform’s package container of choice, we can do just that – provided our new application is on the same platform. Want to use a Java library from C#? Well, good luck – it might be possible, but it’s not going to be smooth sailing. Even if a library exists, it doesn’t mean that using it going to be a pleasant experience. Say I want to use Java to write out an XML document to an output stream. You’d imagine this would be a simple one-liner. You’d be wrong: import org.w3c.dom.*; import java.io.*; import javax.xml.transform.*; import javax.xml.transform.dom.*; import javax.xml.transform.stream.*; private static final void writeDoc(Document doc, OutputStream out) throws IOException { try { Transformer t = TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer(); t.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.DOCTYPE_SYSTEM, doc.getDoctype().getSystemId()); t.transform(new DOMSource(doc), new StreamResult(out)); } catch (TransformerException e) { throw new AssertionError(e); // Can't happen! } } Most of the time, there is a good chance somebody else has written the code before, but if nobody can understand the interface to that code, nobody’s going to use it. The result is that most of the code we write is just a variation on a theme. Despite our best efforts, we’ve fallen a little short of our ideal, but the web brings us closer. If we want to send e-mails to our customers, we could write an e-mail-sending library. More likely, we’d use an existing one for our language. Even then, we probably wouldn’t have niceties like A/B testing or DKIM signing. Alternatively, we could just fire some HTTP requests at MailChimp, and get a whole slew of features without getting anywhere near the code that implements them. The web is inherently language agnostic. So long as your language can send and receive text over HTTP, and probably parse some JSON, you’re about as well equipped as anybody. Instead of building libraries for a specific language, we can build a service that almost every language can reuse. The text-based nature of HTTP also helps to limit the complexity of the API. As SOAP will attest, you can still make a horrible mess using HTTP, but at least it is an obvious horrible mess. Complex data structures are tedious to marshal to and from text, providing a strong incentive to keep things simple. By contrast, spotting the complexities in a class hierarchy is often not as easy. HTTP doesn’t solve every problem. It probably isn’t such a good idea to use it inside an inner loop that’s executed thousands of times per second. What’s more, the HTTP approach might introduce some new problems. We often need to add a thin shim to each application that we wish to communicate over HTTP. For instance, we might need to write a small plugin in PHP if we want to integrate WordPress into our system. Suddenly, instead of a system written in one language, we’re maintaining a system with several distinct languages and platforms. Even then, we should strive to avoid re-implementing the same old thing. As programmers, we consistently underestimate both the cost of building a system and the ongoing maintenance. If we allow ourselves to integrate existing applications, even if they’re in unfamiliar languages, we save ourselves those development and maintenance costs, as well as being able to pick the best solution for our problem. Thanks to the web, HTTP is often the easiest way to get there.

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