I’ve just setup, here at NewBay, CruiseControl 2.2.1. There was nothing to it except…
1. On Linux the p4 plugin in cruise is a bit foo. Had to hack P4.java to get this to work.
2. I also hacked cruises Schedule.java in an attempt to fix what looked like a date parsing issue. In the end taking out the multiple property in the config.xml sorted this out.

So then I had finally a stable cruise up and running polling our perforce server. Next I decided to indulge myself and get a ‘modular’ build up and running. ‘Modularity Build’ is a tool by Malcolm Sparks that essentially replaces the need for maintaining your ant build script when introducing dependencies, extracting source trees, removing dependencies etc… Basically it has been my experience that with a little upfront effort (not much mind you; creating some templates) that using modularity-build reduces or completely removes the need to maintain your build script. It also allows you to extract modules of code with hierarchal dependencis that lead to a much cleaner seperation and ultimately complete reuse among other projects. How does modularity-build know what your projects dependencies are? Simply point it at your IDE of choice’s project file!

Once cruise was building our project; I put modularity to the test… There were a few obvious modules lingering in our code base. In IntelliJ -> Create new modules, move a bunch of source files over, setup a dependency and commit!

Next thing ya know cruise is reporting a successful build. Modular Bliss.

Saw this film last night. Some very nice scenes in the film alright. Would have liked to have seen this on a bigger screen. But very slow and unemotive on the whole. Based on dutch painter Johannes Vermeer.

Went to see Bewitched last night at CineWorld. I like Will Ferrell and don’t miss his stuff at the cinema. The film wasn’t great and Will Ferrell only really was allowed to be himself in one particular scene. You’ll know it when you see it I was thinking about Ferrell and his performances after the film and have come to the conclusion he’s a lot better when he’s in a role surrounded by other comedians; Old School and Achorman he is at his best. Nicole Kidman never does anything for me.

I’m sure this will not be the only time I post on this matter. I’ve been a huge fan of JetBrains java IDE IntelliJ for the last two years since been introduced to it at 3Q. A guy called Steve Quinlan there showed me the ropes and nailed the hotkey printout to my monitor. Their tagline is ‘develop with pleasure’ – this I have found is an understatement. However there are subtle differences using IntelliJ under linux and windows. I’ve been using IntelliJ on and off inside of Linux for the past two years… and more intensively lately. (8-10+ hours a day). Those subtle differences are in fact IntelliJ Linux Annoyances; and can sometimes turn using IntelliJ on Linux into a distinctly non-pleasurable experience.

1. Popups don’t always have focus and sometimes ‘Alt-F1 -> Project & Enter’ does not bring you to the Project panel :/ This is a documented bug; but they put it down to window manager handling. KDE works & GNOME doesn’t. I’m not moving to KDE anytime soon… I’d rather live with this one.

2. Since the last stable releases [5.0.1] my package level tests don’t run. Throwing a null pointer exception somewhere in IntelliJ’s guts trying to configure a classpath.

3. Debugging Tomcat Session can be flaky under Linux – always smooth in Windows.

4. Sometimes you need to focus out and in again for text editing to work.

After all that though, in my opinion there is no alternative to IntelliJ out there for the professional java developer.

I got to see Mylo and Underworld over the weekend at Marley Park, Dublin. Mylo’s – Drop The Pressure was amazing, everyone was rocking. I went looking for an Underworld playlist online before I went to see this gig and I wasn’t able to find one. They started off with Dark Train with Karl Hyde dancing on stage with sunglasses. Quicky Dancer; but it was perfect. They went on to play born slippy, the crowd loved that one. Pearls Girl, Rez/Cowgirl and mmm skyscraper were in there too. I’ll admit I missed a few queuing for buds :/

Moley enjoying himself at Stonemasons green. We couldn’t miss an opportunity like this before the gig.

Ok, so for some reason The Garage was running through my head since my last post. I got in touch with Ross Lynch and got him to forward on one of his posters hanging up in the garage. Wistful Pandas though?

Bought tickets for Underworld, Mylo & Basment Jaxx yesterday. They’re playing in Marley Park as part of the Bud Rising music festival. I first heard Mylo’s Destroy Rock & Roll in the garage maybe six months ago and I instantly knew it was something special.

Pretty groggy today. Spent last night out in Dublin with Gear and Moley. I can remember something about two indian sisters and a hacker named Luke?

I’ve been using a gnome application called streamtuner today for my music needs. It’s a music-stream directory browser with hundreds upon hundreds of channels and it’s absolutely fantastic. Will be sure to make my days more productive.

So, I’m just after completing my Ubuntu upgrade of hoary to breezy on one of my non critical machines at work. Everything went well, and everything seems to be working as per usual. No huge noticeable UI changes. Add panel applet is a little nicer. They’ve added ’services’ to the administration menu – something that was definitely missing. And a few other niceities aswell. I was more than anything looking forward to the Gnome 2.12 preview