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The Risk Of Common Libraries
When you work on multiple projects you will come to one simple problem. Multiple projects use the same source code, or base classes! An easy example is a log library that aids in logging all problems, function calls, etc in an application. This is something you’re likely to use in all projects. So it would be perfect for an external library, be it a jar (in Java) or a dll in Windows.
So creating libraries with common objects in it seems to be a perfect way to balance duplication of code and ease of maintenance. But there are some things to take in mind when developing common libraries:
- Changing the library could potentially cause a lot of applications to crash or stop working
- When multiple people are working on the library it is possible it becomes fat and bloated
No need to explain the first, that’s easy! But the second one is a bit less obvious. If you have a lot of classes in the library it means the library becomes bigger. In a worst case scenario the applications will use about half of the libraries classes. When applications use less then 70% of the classes in a library it’s probably a bloated one.
Fat is bad!
Why is that so bad. Well lets consider a real-time system. If a car starts there is a lot of software running to check temperature, speed and other controls of the car. Lets imagine that the speed library has gotten a bit bloated. This would mean it takes longer to update speed information and the fat would take precious time from the rest of the application.
This could cause incorrect information to the driver or the cruise control. Can you envision the problems it could create. So maybe it’s time to rewrite the library a bit!
Netbeans 5.5 Developing Problems
When the first version of Netbeans 5.5 was released a few months ago I decided to give it a try. Lots of enhancements were promised. Nothing but problems, that was what it gave me! At first I blamed it on the beta, stupid me should never use beta software. Especially when it’s free.
A week back or so I choose (again stupid me :() to test if the final release was a bit better. The problem that kept coming forth was that for some reason my web projects started crashing, or more accurately put on of its libraries in charge of reading settings. We never had this problem with Netbeans 5.0 nor on any live environment. What’s even weirder is the fact that it doesn’t happen in all of the projects using that specific setting library and it doesn’t happen all the time.
So in a ditch all effort I tried dozens of solutions. From throwing away the project folder, which seemed to work initially, to deleting the Catalina home of Netbeans. This last thing forces Netbeans to reinitialize Catalina. All the solutions worked, for a little while that is. After a few debug sessions the problems returned.
Then alas it came to me. I noticed they had changed the version of Catalina from 5.5.9 to 5.5.15 (god only knows why). In a final effort I threw away the new Catalina and bound the old one of Netbeans 5.0 to Netbeans 5.5 for a quick test. And sure problem solved!
I don’t know who the genius is that decided to ‘upgrade’ to version 5.5.15 of Tomcat (running on Catalina engine), but it cost me almost two days to fix the damn problems.
The Time in between Assignments
We all have those days that we can’t do any work :). Especially when you are about to start a bigger project. Well I just had such a day. And what to do then as a developer:
- Support the customer support department with questions, after all that’s the last thing you want to do.
- Create new tasks, even if they don’t exist (be creative :))
- Start reading all those newsletters about development that have been collecting dust.
Not the best way to spent the day, but hay what else to do!
Using Google Sitemaps
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Loading ...The Google Sitemap tool has been around for a while now. It allows you to make an XML file with all the pages on your website in it. According to Google it’s supposed to help you get indexed faster and better.
Just recently I read a post that adviced against using this service. Now I’ve always been a sceptec in other peoples advice, especially when it comes to SEO. But they do make several points.
A clipnote version would be:
- You don’t know if you have indexing / linking problems
- Pages that aren’t worthy may be included in the index, which again prevents you from finding out they aren’t worthy
- Search engines loose the natural way of flowing through the web
I think they are right on all of these points. You can use the sitemaps to check the indexing status of you’re website, but I wouldn’t submit a XML file with all my pages to it. That will only work against me in finding potential problems.
Google Following Yahoo’s Webmaster Tools
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Yahoo has been running a public beta for a while that lets you explore a domain or webpage, called Yahoo SiteExplorer. I always thought this to be a very useful tool in finding out some info on my websites. It generated a summarized list of other websites linking to me.
I just noticed that Google has recently included a similar service in the Webmaster section. In the past they didn’t release much information on who is linking to you. This new tool was actually released on February 5th as I read on Matt Cutts blog today. I was actually pleasantly surprised that the Webmaster Tools gave a better indication then the “link:www.domain.com” version in the search engine.
Granted it probably is still hiding most of the inlinks Google is counting in their algorithm, but it helps getting an indication of how your website is doing.
