Doing evil things, overriding jar location in Maven

Every once in a while you are stuck in a situation where you just cannot add a jar into the repository but you still want to use maven, there is a work around. In the old maven 1.x you had to do this using the project properties now it is even easier just add a dependency  like below and add the jar to the ${basedir}/lib folder. The system tag was created for a totally different purpose, but here we are using it for our overriding jar locations.

<dependency>
 <groupId>pircbot</groupId>
 <artifactId>pircbot</artifactId>
 <version>1.0</version>
 <scope>system</scope>
 <systemPath>${basedir}/lib/pircbot-1.0.jar</systemPath>
 </dependency>

I want to work on Ruby

Man this is so sad, I want to be working on ruby and rails but my present job is all about Java  this is a very sad situation.

Now I can only work on it nights and weekends (and at work only when no one is looking).

OMG I am an Introvert !!

Oh My God, after 32 years I have finally realized that I am an Introvert !!

I read this recent post “Caring for Your Introvert” (only cause it appeared on Hacker News) and found so many things familiar, which lead me to question, am I an introvert ?

So as anyone would do I went to Google (the source of all answers) and found many articles and one of them was “Being an Introvert“  and this self assessment, I got 23 out of 30  so atleast I am not a total Introvert.

I invite everyone to take the above assessment, and figure out what orientation you are.

Write shell variables into environment.plist

Wrote a small hack to copy selected shell variables into environment.plist so that I don’t have to do it by hand every time I change something, you can find the script here . Just change the username to your username.

My lightning talk at Ruby Conf

http://mwrc2009.confreaks.com/13-mar-2009-19-18-deleting-pesky-rfc-incompatible-emails-devender-gollapally.html

Haskell Adventures #1

Ok so Haskell is now my new interest and I have been reading the Real Work Haskell Book and so far so good. Wrote my first haskell program that I am satisfied with.

data Tree a = Node a (Tree a) (Tree a)
            | Empty
            deriving (Show)

treeHight Empty = 0
treeHight (Node _ Empty Empty) = 1
treeHight (Node _ x y) = 1 + max (treeHight x) (treeHight y)

Mountain West Ruby Conf 2009

Just registered for the Mountain West Ruby Conf 2009, I am very excited. I went last year and it was a lot of fun and Salt Lake City itself was nice too.

Deleting those pesky RFC-822 in-compatible emails with Ruby

If you have landed on this post from Google you already know what I am talking about, if not read the below intro.

I work for an “Enterprisy” company, so the standard here is using the exchange server and I am on Linux using thunder bird. Every once in a while I get those emails that the exchange server cannot convert to an RFC-822 compatible format and thunder bird chokes on em and even the web mail cannot handle these, the only solution so far has been going to the web mail and selecting the mail and moving it to trash.

Finally I wrote a script to automate the whole thing, it telnets into the server checks each message to see if it is RFC-822 compatible and if not moves it into Deleted Items, you can find the script here. (It’s on GitHub feel free to fork it)

Usage ruby telnet-imap.rb <server> <username> <password> <dryrun>

All arguments are self explanatory, dry run can be y/n

PS : if you mange you blow up your inbox you are on your own!!

Learning Debt

Many of us in the IT industry know the term ‘Design Debt’ James Shore defines it as ”Design debt explains the problem. When a team is working under pressure, they take shortcuts that compromise design quality. It’s like taking out a high-interest loan. The team gets a short-term boost in speed, but from that point forward, changes are more expensive: they’re paying interest on the loan. The only way to stop paying interest is to pay back the loan’s principle and fix the design shortcuts.”

I would like to coin a new team ‘Learning Debt‘ (if not already defined by someone), every week (if not every day) that you let go without learning something you have just increased that debt. 

Conferences and books are excellent way to cut down on that learning debt. I find another really good way to keep it down is by joining or creating a groups of like minded individuals and having interesting conversations (after all what is life without interesting converstaions ? don’t know but it would suck), think about it as a gym buddy just as having a gym buddy helps you stay on track. 

Don’t want to talk about the dangers of letting this debt get out of hand you probably already know it loss of freash ideas, mind rot, loss of job……

Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S

Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S, This article was published in NY Times 

“The risk, Internet technologists say, is that upstarts like China and India are making larger investments in next-generation Internet technology that is likely to be crucial in determining the future of the network, with investment, innovation and profits going first to overseas companies.”

Remeamber the year 2000 bug and most developing countries did not have to worry since most of there systems were newer amd already handled that issue. Now with new Internet technologies going to outside US sounds like there is going to be a repeat.