Eclipse Review

There is a new magazine out that covers the Eclipse Development platform called Eclipse Review. You can download the premier issue here and check out P.11 to see a featured article on TripConnect and the development team that I lead.

If you're reading this blog and are interested in finding out more information on using Eclipse with small development teams, feel free to post a comment to this blog entry.
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Velocity Editor In Eclipse

We are using Velocity Web Edit in Eclipse to edit our velocity templates. It leads to some nice development procedures.

1) Whenever you're creating or editing a vm file, make sure that you have the Eclipse editor open the .vm file and have an editor open to the class (in our case, Action class since we're using Struts).
2) When you add a new object to the context, you can make Eclipse aware of the object. Just click on the Context tab (on the vm file's editor window, it will be in the bottom left hand corner) and add the name/class of the object.
3) This will help you keep the editor for the .vm file and your action class (or whatever you're using to fill the context) in sync. You'll now be able to use Eclipse's autocomplete features on your context objects.

One gotcha: VelocityWebEdit doesn't seem to know about generics. You can add a collection to the context and have VWE recognize this collection, but you won't be able to do an autocomplete on the objects that make up your collection.

Here is an easy work around. Let's say you have a ArrayList that you add to the VelocityContext under the name 'lstStrings'.

1) Open the context tab for the vm file
2) Add 'lstStrings' as a 'java.util.ArrayList'
3) Add 'strObj' as a 'java.lang.String'

Then, when you need to loop over your array, use 'strObj' as you're looping variable. Since you told VWE that strObj is a String, you'll be able to use the autocomplete features on this object.
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If Oracle Buys MySql

There has been a lot of writing and predictions on whether Oracle will buy MySql. Specifically, many users are concerned (or at least the trade magazines what these users to be concerned) that Oracle may cease putting out MySql as an open source product. For example, see Open Source Ripe for the Taking in eweek or Oracle tried to buy open-source MySQL on cnet.com.

So here is my prediction:

For those of you using MySql as an Open Source or low cost database, I don't think you have much to worry about. You only help Oracle's business since MySql is a lower cost database solution compared to Microsoft's SQL-Server. Since you're not going to spend the cash on Oracle licesnses, Oracle isn't missing much of an opportunity by allowing you to use MySql. And if/when you do need support, Oracle will be there to sell you all of their other products!

But I could see them requiring you to register your use of the product. They'll track you in their CRM software and decide when/how to sell you other Oracle packages.

If you're paying MySql AB for support, then Oracle acquiring MySql may be bad news. I can see Oracle raising the price for MySql support so that its equal or only a small discount off an Oracle support contract. Why? Well then enterprise customers would no longer have a low cost option to migrate off Oracle to MySql. Plus, enterprise customers that already pay MySql for support would either have to pay the higher support fee for MySql, or could consider upgrading to Oracle. Either way, Oracle wins.
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About Isaac Sacolick

Isaac Sacolick is President of StarCIO, a technology leadership company that guides organizations on building digital transformation core competencies. He is the author of Digital Trailblazer and the Amazon bestseller Driving Digital and speaks about agile planning, devops, data science, product management, and other digital transformation best practices. Sacolick is a recognized top social CIO, a digital transformation influencer, and has over 900 articles published at InfoWorld, CIO.com, his blog Social, Agile, and Transformation, and other sites. You can find him sharing new insights @NYIke on Twitter, his Driving Digital Standup YouTube channel, or during the Coffee with Digital Trailblazers.