I code by the sea.

Finally updated the Macbook

2012-02-13T16:10:00.000-03:30

After nearly five years of faithful service I've finally bit the bullet and upgraded my old 2007 rev b macbook GiR. Just starting to setup and configure its replacement, Pintsize.

GiR kind of lived up to his name sake's reputation for strangeness, wondering how Pintsize will turn out. Ok, enough hardware geek time, back to code :)

More Snow Clearing!

2012-02-11T16:18:00.000-03:30

Some more photos of this winters' snow clearing activities.

The fun part not shown here was removing a good 35 cm of slush from our side of the driveway :S

Departmental Seminar @ Memorial University: Symbiosis, Complexification and Generalization: A case study in temporal sequence learning

2012-02-07T12:00:00.001-03:30

Another seminar upcoming for the Department of Computer Science at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Dr. Malcolm Heywood

Department of Computer Science

Dalhousie University

Symbiosis, Complexification and Generalization: A case study in temporal

sequence learning

Department of Computer Science

Thursday, February 9, 2012, 1:00 p.m., Room EN-2022

Abstract

Hierarchical reinforcement learning traditionally represents a framework in which a machine learning algorithm is applied to build solutions to temporal sequence style problems under the guidance of a priori identified sub-tasks. Once learning relative to one set of subtasks is complete, these can then be reused to build more complex behaviours. The principal caveat is that appropriate subtasks can be identified, preferably without requiring a priori knowledge. This work proposes a generic architecture for evolving hierarchical policies through symbiosis. Specifically, symbionts define an action and an evolved context, whereas each host identifies a subset of symbionts. Symbionts effectively coevolve within a host. Natural selection operates on the hosts, with symbiont existence a function of host performance. It is now possible to support hierarchical policies as a symbiotic process by letting hosts evolved in an earlier population become the symbiont actions at the next.
Two benchmarking studies are performed to illustrate the approach. An initial tutorial is conducted using a truck reversal domain in which the benefits of evolving a hierarchical solution over non-hierarchical solutions is clearly demonstrated. A second benchmarking study is then performed using the Acrobot handstand task. Solutions to date from reinforcement learning have not been able to approach those established 13 years ago using an “A*” search and a priori knowledge regarding the Acrobot energy equations. The proposed symbiotic approach is able to match and, for the first time, better these results. Moreover, unlike previous works, solutions are tested under a broad range of Acrobot initial conditions, with hierarchical solutions providing significantly better generalization performance.

My CS3716 Software Methodologies Guest Lecture experience :)

2012-02-02T23:44:00.002-03:30

Dept. of Computer Science

I had the opportunity to talk to CS3716 Software Methodologies students at Memorial University earlier this morning. My chat covered some of my industry experiences, views on technology, and discussions about the courses I took at Memorial as an undergrad so many years ago. Following this core discussion I moved on to briefly discuss the Apache Way, and Release Management Essentials.

Class starting to fill up.

This was my first time to present a talk specifically covering some of the best practices I've learned from performing the Apache Karaf release manager role over the last few years. I've covered some of those best practices in my prior posts about release management, which really condenses down to ensuring that releases are done in a clear, concise, orderly fashion that can be reproduced, and that at each step along the way information is communicated allowing contributors and users to know what is happening.

I hope that the students found the talk engaging. I really enjoyed answering questions one on one afterward - I can't wait to deliver my next lecture for CS3718 Programming in Small where I'll introduce modular programming using OSGi :)

Everyday I'm shoveling :S

2012-02-01T13:25:00.000-03:30

"10 cm snow fall"

I haven't been as active on IRC the last few days as I prefer to be. I've been spending a bit of time outside snow clearing. Thought I'd share a pic of the fun.

Memorial University CS Games Singles Winter 2012 Results!

2012-01-28T13:32:00.001-03:30

The Winter 2012 CS Singles programming competition took place last Friday night at Memorial University. Seventeen students took part, trying their skills against the algorithmic conundrums the programming competition committee prepare as their set of three problems (click here to see problems, and solutions).

After 150 minutes the competition time expired and the judges prepared the results.

The volume of submissions for this competition was impressively high, at the end though three students emerged with top results; in third place was Megan O'Connor, in second place was Adam Murphy, and finally in first was Ken Collingwood.


3rd	2nd	1st

I'd like to thank all the students, volunteers, and the games committee again for making these CS games possible. I hope to see everyone again on March 9th 2012, when we hold the Team Doubles competition.

Apache Karaf 2.2.5 Garbage Collection with IBM Java 6 on AIX 7.1

2012-01-24T23:24:00.000-03:30

I've been experimenting with the Garbage Collection (GC) policies in IBM Java 6 on AIX 7.1 while using Apache Karaf 2.2.5, and thought I'd share some tips and links for anyone else following in my footsteps.

If you're wondering why one would play with the GC policy of the underlying jvm Karaf runs upon it stems from wanting to get a better idea of the throughput of applications and the overall system, and the pause times that are caused by garbage collection (wondering what "pause time" is? It's the time spent by the jvm cleaning up, or freeing, heap memory when an object can't be created using the available heap memory).

The version of Java I was testing has three options for garbage collection; gencon, optthruput, and subpool. Gencon is a combination of concurrent and generational GC, it's goal is to minimize the amount of time spent in any GC pause. Optthruput is the default GC policy, and is designed to deliver high through put at the cost of occasional GC pauses. Subpool is aimed at large SMP systems, and attempts to deliver better performance on those systems. Unfortunately the system I have access too is too small to try out subpool with any meaningful results, as such I kept to gencon and optthruput policies.

To setup Karaf to use specified garbage collection policies edit the KARAF_HOME/bin/karaf file as follows:

# grep for the setup defaults routine:
setupDefaults(){

# in the aix section try adding the highlighted text:
DEFAULT_JAVA_OPTS="-verbose:gc
-Xverbosegclog:$KARAF_DATA/gc-log.txt
-Xgcpolicy:gencon
-Xverify:none -Xlp $DEFAULT_JAVA_OPTS"

When you start Karaf using the above Java options you will enable verbose garbage collection logging, sending generated data to KARAF_DATA/gc-log.txt. You can use this log file to review GC statistics as you tweak jvm options. The -Xgcpolicy flag is where you select the GC policy. When you change this value do not be surprised if you do not see this changed reflected in the Karaf info command's memory section. Use the generated verbose GC logs to perform your analysis.

Trying out gencon and the default optthruput policies I can see very different runtime behaviors in regards to frequency of GC and durations. Gencon ran more often, but for short periods of time, while optthruput ran infrequently but took longer when called. Given different application loads the characterization of GC runs could become important in providing optimal performance, the determination of "optimal" however is very subjective and will vary depending on the goals of your deployment.

Of course, changing the GC policy isn't the end of the story. There are a lot of parameters that can be tweaked which affect the size of the jvm heap in use, and the thresholds different GC policies use. I would recommend when testing to tweak one value at a time, then assessing it's impact. The online documentation (see below) will steer you in the right direction.

IBM JDK 6 Garbage Collection Links:

Overview of Java 6 Memory Management. Read this to learn about the garbage collector and allocator.

Detailed description of garbage collection. Dive deep into garbage collection.

Garbage Collector diagnostics. How to diagnose garbage collection. A must read.

Specifying garbage collection policy. Part of the running Java applications section in the IBM User Guide for Java v6 on 64-bit AIX.

Garbage Collector command-line options. List of all the garbage collector options (here there be dragons, careful tweaking these values).

Verbose garbage collection logging. Examples of how to analyze garbage collection logs.

Live music and Apache Karaf 2.2.4

2012-01-22T21:55:00.001-03:30

Apache Karaf 2.2.4 release wine.

Perhaps I should start a new tradition... During the build up to Apache Karaf 2.2.4 I was listening to Hawksley Workman albums while sipping on Quinta São João Batista Syrah Reserva 2007. Last Friday night I had the opportunity to see Hawksley perform live here in St John's at the Ship Pub.
The show, as expected, was awesome. Alan Doyle (a well known local performer) joined Hawksley for several duets, transitioning Hawksleys' regular set into an interactive request and story session with the audience.
I think pairing Karaf releases with wines and music has started a strange side effect - while listening to certain songs all I can think of are particular JIRA issues, features, or release tasks. It's not disconcerting, however it does nerd up a Friday night out.
So getting back to the idea of starting new traditions; I like the idea of pairing wine and music to Karaf releases, I just think it should be expanded to trying to see the band/performer perform live too :) I think I just set myself a next level release management challenge - not to do releases while at live concerts - just to see each act play live once.
I wonder what do other release mangers do along these lines? Any traditions, challenges, or other fun things you do to mark your project release milestones? I'd like to hear about them in the comments section below.

Hawksley Workman, Alan Doyle

Apache Karaf on IBM AIX 7.1!

2012-01-20T20:18:00.000-03:30

Apache Karaf has supported runtimes on IBM AIX for quite some time, this however has been my first opportunity to personally try out Karaf on AIX 7.1.

Apache Maven and IBM Java versions.

I'm happy to report that Apache Karaf trunk (currently 3.0.0-snapshot) builds from source using IBM Java, and using GNU Tar I was able to easily extract a snapshot kit, and start Karaf.

Apache Karaf console start up screen, and contents of info command output.

I've been using IBM JDKs on Linux systems for the last few months, it's nice to have a full AIX environment to verify that the source and binaries are compatible. As I take time to test out tools, tweaks, and demo projects I'll be sure to post here my observations of Karaf on this platform and any best practices.

Mun CS Games Winter 2012 Singles Competition!

2012-01-17T16:33:00.003-03:30

Each Fall and Winter at Memorial University's Computer Science Department an ACM rules programming competition is held for their students. These events have enjoyed much success due to the tireless work of many people on the CS Games committee. To help increase the popularity of the events I started donating prizes to the top placements in the competitions, and this Winters' Singles game is no different, so without more ado...

The prize chest contents for the Winter Semester 2012 CS Games (Singles) Competition.

The third place prize consists of a Mun market bag, a package of Bic Pens & Pump Pencils, a small CD binder, a USB card reader, a copy of 2600 Hacker Quarterly, and a Starbucks coffee set (Mug, Coffee beans, instant coffee sample, and shortbread cookies).
Second place prize consists of a Mun market bag, a package of Bic Pens & Pump Pencils, a large CD binder, a USB keyboard mini vaccum, a copy of 2600 Hacker Quarterly, and a Starbucks coffee set (Mug, Coffee beans, instant coffee sample, and shortbread cookies).
Finally, the first place prize consists of a Mun market bag, a package of Bic Pens & Pump Pencils, a Carnation variety Hot Chocolate pack (flavours: Rolo, Coffee Crisp, and After Eight), a copy of 2600 Hacker Quarterly, and a Starbucks coffee set (Mug, Coffee beans, instant coffee sample, and shortbread cookies).


Third	Second	First

The Winter 2012 CS Games (Singles) are tentatively scheduled for January 27th, 2012, in room EN2036 at 5:00pm to 7:30pm. There will be a sign up sheet in the CS department head office, please contact them if you're interested in competing - seats are limited (CS students only).

If you'd like to see sample of the kinds of programming challenges we've used during past competitions, please see http://www.cs.mun.ca/~harold/PC/.

Also, if you haven't already, please click the 'follow' button on the right hand column and be sure to follow my twitter feed @icbts. Best luck to all the students whom join in the competition.

Guest lecturing CS3716 Software Methodologies and CS3718 Programming in the Small at Memorial University Winter 2012

2012-01-13T20:57:00.000-03:30

I've been asked to provide a guest lecture for CS3716 Software Methodologies and CS3718 Programming in the Small at Memorial University this winter 2012 semester.

I've been asked before to talk to Software Methodology classes, usually I talk about various subjects including a brief introduction to the Apache Way, the projects I've worked on, my views on technology (locally grown and in general), and project management (specifically talking about Apache Karaf).

The Programming in the Small class on the other hand will present an opportunity to dive directly into technical discussion and demo. As the focus of this course is object-oriented design, style, documentation, APIs, frameworks, and practices, I think that I have a challenge of not trying to fit too many Apache projects into an hour ;)

Departmental Seminar @ Memorial University: The Apache Way

2012-01-06T18:02:00.002-03:30

Another seminar upcoming for the Department of Computer Science at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Jamie Goodyear

Apache Committer and PMC

The Apache Way

Department of Computer Science

Thursday, January 12, 2012, 1:00 p.m., Room EN-2022

Abstract:

Community over code is a concept taken to heart in the Apache development model. It is believed that by providing a collaborative environment for disparate people with overlapping needs that they will produce useful software. In this paradigm ideas such as Merit, Openness, Pragmatism, Charity, and Respect are commonly put forward as reasons for its success in growing communities and releasing software.
In this talk, we introduce the Apache Software Foundation, and the concept of the Apache Way. Following this we perform a brief survey of recently published papers using Apache projects, then quickly discuss a variety of Apache projects that may be beneficial to students interested in pursuing scholarly research.

A time to look back on 2011.

2011-12-29T20:33:00.003-03:30

It's that time of the year again when we look back upon what was. I'd like to take a few moments and reflect on some of the geekier high lights of things I was involved with, and with that in mind head on towards 2012.

Happy 1 << 5 years!:

To kick off the year the Department of Computer Science at Memorial University of Newfoundland celebrated its 32 years. Staff, students, and friends all gathered at the campus bar Bitters for a scoff, share a few yarns, and single malt scotch. Good times were had by all.

Paper Published:

This was a long time in the making, my thesis was published in Springer Communications in Computer and Information Science under the publication for "Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies, Third International Joint Conference, BIOSTEC 2010, Valencia, Spain, January 20-23, 2010, Revised Selected Papers". Since then several students at my alma mater have continued on the project, adding new features, exploring aspects of the design.

The Winter CS Games:

Each winter semester at the Department of Computer Science of Memorial University of Newfoundland we hold a pair of programming competitions following ACM rules. One competition sets individual programmers on three algorithm challenges, with the top three scoring competitors being awarded a small prize. The second competition is for groups of two competitors, again with three algorithm challenges with corresponding prizes. I really enjoyed this series of games as we had a record number of competitors register for the competitions, and some really great prizes to hand out to the students.

Security B-Sides Conference St John's 2011:

About midway through the year the Security B-Sides conference St John's NL event was held. This event brought together near 140 security experts, industry professionals and others in their community to directly connect, share ideas, insights, and develop long lasting relationships while discussing some of the major IT security related topics pressing in today's environments.

The Fall CS Games:

Each fall semester at the Department of Computer Science of Memorial University of Newfoundland we hold a pair of programming competitions following ACM rules. One competition is for groups of three competitors, in which the teams must solve three algorithm challenges. The highest scoring team moves on to the next round of the larger ACM games. The second competition sets individual programmers on three algorithm challenges, again with the top three scoring competitors being awarded a small prize.
The fall games had record attendance, straining our ability to handle so much interest from students. I really hope the trend continues into 2012.

Mentoring Apache Development:

As my blog's tittle suggests, I'm developing Open Source development here in Newfoundland. There really isn't a very large software development community around here, so if you want to talk about technologies, methodologies, and related practices you have to actively seek out others to share your interests. Luckily I have another active Apache Developer in town, but it's nice to expand the community.
To that end I've taken on another local developer and have started to help them become aquatinted with the Apache Way, starting with a focus on Apache Incubator Kalumet.

IGDA-NL Chapter:

The International Game Developer Association Newfoundland Chapter started up in ernest this past fall. I've been trying to help this group gain traction by getting the word out about their meetings and helping to bring attention to the accomplishments of some of their members. Earlier in the year I managed to arrange a few moments to talk with Celsius Studios and Binary Dawn about their experiences here in Newfoundland, these conversations can be viewed at Techvibes: Binary Dawn on WordUs2, and Celsius Studios on Red Nova.

Guest Lecturing:

I had two opportunities in 2011 to provide talks to CS 3716 Software Methodologies classes at Memorial University. Both experiences were fun, I focussed on various subjects including a brief introduction to the Apache Way, the projects I've worked on, my views on technology (locally grown and in general), and project management (specifically talking about Apache Karaf).

Apache Karaf Releases:

Over the past year I've had the honor to head up the release efforts for ten Apache Karaf releases. During these events I'd make mention of my wine and music selection to accompany the release process. For those of you interested in taking a tastefully musical review of our past years' releases I have put together the below table:

Version	Wine	Music
2.2.5	Maison Sichel Bordeaux 2009	City and Colour
2.2.4	Quinta São João Batista Syrah Reserva 2007	Hawksley Workman
2.2.3	Chateau Roc de Bernon Puisseguin-Saint-Emilion 2006	Joel Plaskett
2.2.2	Terre Dei Volsci Velletri Rosso Riserva 2004	Wintersleep
2.2.1	Carpineto Chianti Castaldo 2008	Hey Rossetta
2.2.0	Castello D'Albola Chianti Classico 2007	Our Lady Peace
2.1.6	François Pélissié Croix du Mayne Cahors 2008	Wreckhouse International Jazz and Blues Festival
2.1.5	Jacob's Creek Merlot 2007	The Novaks
2.1.4	Ricossa Antica Casa Barbera D'asti 2009	Metric
2.1.3	Rosemount Cabernet Sauvignon 2008	Tegan and Sara

So what do I see for 2012?

Good question!

For Apache Karaf I see...

The highly anticipated Apache Karaf 3.0.0 release should come to reality :)
Releases of Apache Karaf's new sub projects.
Apache Karaf 2.2.x and 3.0.x patch releases should come out on a regular basis.
New Apache Karaf 2.3.x and 3.1.x branches may make their appearances.

In the local Newfoundland tech circles I follow, I see...

Continued CS Games in the Winter and Fall 2012 semesters.
Growth of the IGDA-NL Chapter (more meetings and events).
More speaking opportunities at Mun CS Department via their Departmental Seminars and Guest Lecturing.

I know nothing earth shaking is listed above, but in context the above represents a lot of efforts, community growth, and optimism for the future :)

Before I end this rambling post, I'd like to share the below video for Bandages by Hey Rosetta! It's my favorite song by local talent for 2011, and its' video features many beautiful scenes of Newfoundland. While enjoying the music I'm opening a bottle of Auk Island Winery's Nautica (Blueberry Shiraz).

Music, Wine, Community, and Open Source Software Development in Newfoundland - 2011 was great, here's to 2012 :)

Apache Karaf 2.2.5 Released!

2011-12-25T00:32:00.000-03:30

The Apache Karaf team is pleased to announce the availability of Apache Karaf 2.2.5.

This release of Apache Karaf is based off of the 2.2.x series branch, representing an update to Apache Karaf 2.2.4. It contains bug fixes identified in the prior release, and introduces improvements including; multiple JAAS support improvements, better support for Linux systems with certain versions of libc, SCP support, and demos for extending Karaf's console commands and using Karaf Archives (KARs). Several dependencies were also updated, bringing Pax Web to version 1.0.8, Jetty to 7.5.4.v20111024, and Jasypt to 1.8.

To help make the transition from Apache Karaf 2.2.0/2.2.1/2.2.2/2.2.3/2.2.4 to 2.2.5 easier we've put together a table of changed dependencies which you can view here: http://karaf.apache.org/index/documentation/karaf-dependencies/karaf-deps-2.2.x.html

For more information please see the release notes.

As discussed in my prior Apache Karaf 2.2.5 preparation post, I enjoyed listening to City and Colour albums throughout the release process and was delighted to try the Maison Sichel Bordeaux 2009 once the release was complete.

Now that this release is out, I plan to relax and spend time with family and friends for the holidays. This past year has been a wonderful time collaborating with the Apache community, I can't wait for 2012 to begin :)

Departmental Seminar @ Memorial University: Build Order Optimization in StarCraft

2011-12-22T15:26:00.000-03:30

Another seminar upcoming for the Department of Computer Science at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

David Churchill

PhD Candidate

Department of Computer Science

University of Alberta

Build Order Optimization in StarCraft

Department of Computer Science

Tuesday, January 3, 2012, 11:00 a.m., Room EN-2022

Abstract

In recent years, real-time strategy (RTS) games have gained interest in the AI research community for their multitude of challenging subproblems – such as collaborative pathfinding, effective resource allocation and unit targeting, to name a few. In this paper we consider the build order problem in RTS games in which we need to find concurrent action sequences that, constrained by unit dependencies and resource availability, create a certain number of units and structures in the shortest possible time span. We present abstractions and heuristics that speed up the search for approximative solutions considerably in the game of StarCraft, and show the efficacy of our method by comparing its real-time performance with that of professional StarCraft players.

A brief introduction to Apache Karaf Archives (Kars)

2011-12-14T21:02:00.000-03:30

A relatively new feature to Apache Karaf 2.2.x is the Karaf Archive (Kar). Its purpose is to help make packaging and deploying Karaf features an easier process. A Kar accomplishes this aim by packaging all of a features' bundles and dependencies inside of archive file, which when copied into Karaf's deploy folder will be extracted into a local repo, and any included features files are then automatically registered with the runtime. A feature's bundles, and dependencies can be thought as one artifact to act upon.

Sounds good, so what are the benefits?

This is a large improvement over having to individually copy jars into the local system repo then reference them via a separate features xml file (generally calling features:addUrl). Production environments benefit as an application deployed as a Kar should not require Maven based resolution at runtime since all its dependencies are already provided. Further more, components built as Kars can be easily referenced as Maven dependencies when building larger solutions (just add Kars as dependencies).

Cool, so what's next?

We've documented using Karaf Archives in the users guide, and will as of version 2.2.5 include a simple demo.

Let's look a little closer at building the Kar demo.

There are two essential components to the Kar demo; the pom file which calls the features-maven-plugin (karaf-maven-plugin on Karaf 3.x), and the features xml file describing the content of the Kar to be generated.

Lets have a look at a sample pom file:

In Apache Karaf version 2.2.x the features-maven-plugin is used to generate Kars via the create-kar goal. When executed it will read all features specified in the features descriptor, then for each feature it'll resolve the bundles defined in the feature, then all bundles are packaged into the Kar archive.

<groupId>my.groupId</groupId>
<artifactId>my-kar</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<packaging>pom</packaging>

<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.servicemix.bundles</groupId>
<artifactId>org.apache.servicemix.bundles.commons-collections</artifactId>
<version>3.2.1_1</version>
<scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>

<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.karaf.tooling</groupId>
<artifactId>features-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.2.5</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>create-kar</id>
<goals>
<goal>create-kar</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<featuresFile>${project.basedir}src/main/resources/features.xml</featuresFile>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>

Lets have a look at a sample features xml file:

A features descriptor is a simple xml file that contains the feature's name, version, and list of bundles it depends upon. In this sample the Servicemix commons-collections bundle version 3.2.1_1 is specified.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<features>

<feature name="my-kar" version="1.0">
<bundle>mvn:org.apache.servicemix.bundles/org.apache.servicemix.bundles.commons-collections/3.2.1_1</bundle>
</feature>

</features>

To build the Kar file all that is required is to execute mvn install. The plugin will create the Kar file in the target build directory.

To deploy the KAR the user need only copy the resultant KAR file to the KARAF_HOME/deploy folder. Please note that the Kar deployer is a core part of Karaf, so no additional features need to be installed to use Kars.

You can now see your feature available:

karaf@root> feature:list | grep -i my-kar
[installed] [1.0 ] my-kar repo-0

Now you can use any commands available on features:

karaf@root> feature:info my-kar
Feature my-kar 1.0
Feature has no configuration
Feature has no configuration files
Feature has no dependencies.
Feature contains followed bundles:
mvn:org.apache.servicemix.bundles/org.apache.servicemix.bundles.commons-collections/3.2.1_1

I hope you found the above introduction to Apache Karaf Kars informative. If you have any questions please visit the documentation, see the demo, contact the Karaf user email list, or leave it in comments section below :)

Developed Right Here: IGDA NL Chapter Demo Night

2011-11-30T11:15:00.005-03:30

The Newfoundland chapter of the International Game Developer Association held a demo night on November 29, 2011, with approximately two dozen attendees packing the Computer Science seminar room at Memorial University, listening to three local video game studios show their latest efforts.

WordUs2

Roddie Kieley, of Binary Dawn, discussed the evolution of his company's games. They've touched on several genres including space shooters, word games, a drinking entertainment game - all on iOS devices. Their next tittle however would be a break away from that platform.

Although early in development, Roddie outlined some of the technology going in to their next game, of particular interest to myself was the use of Apache Maven to build a Flash based application. Unfortunately no playable demo was available to be shown.

Concluding his presentation Roddie answered several questions from the audience spanning his experiences with various tool chains, frameworks, and game platforms.

Colin Walsh, of Celsius Game Studios, took the audience on a tour of his game studios' first two tittles, then provided an early developer build demonstration of his up coming game Drifter.

The procedurally generated galaxy that Celsius is building into Drifter (10,000 star systems) was very impressive to see! I fully expect to hear great things about this game when it hits the market (see demo video below).


Chromodyne	Red Nova	Drifter

Following Celsius Game Studios was Best Boy Media Inc, represented by Dylan Fries.

Two game demos were presented, one for Mickey's Farm (a preschool child oriented game), and an augmented reality Christmas tree decorating game Yule Tree. Despite their younger target audience these games represented some of the challenges developers encounter when producing games for younger users. Color pallets, user interface design, and the technical issues of being able to provide large lively environments with in the platform resource budgets available all presented unique challenge. As well, designing an Augmented Reality App for a general audience who often have never seen AR before highlighted the importance of iterative testing and user feedback. Mickeys Farm is playable online at http://mickeysfarm.ca/ and Yule Tree is available for iOS in the iTunes app store now!


Mickey's Farm	Yule Tree

After all of the presentations the group started discussing the local video game industry in general, touching on topics from where to find classes on animation, graphics engines, and development, to the kind of software packages / tools the presenting companies used to make their games.

I think this was a very successful meeting for the IGDA Newfoundland chapter. It was a treat to see the kind of video game development talent / industry we're growing here.

Looking for an itch to scratch? How about contributing to Apache Karaf?

2011-11-29T15:36:00.000-03:30

The Apache Karaf 3.0 release candidate is approaching, it's a good time to try to get a patch in before we cut our first RC :)

Reviewing our JIRA entries currently slated for the 3.0.0 release, there are several issues that would make good targets for new contributors to step in and try their hand submitting a patch. I've list below several of these issues in the hope that a new contributor that's been sitting on fence not knowing where to jump in may pick up an issue and start their journey into Apache development :

Console doesn't like it when the console window is too small - no line wrapping for commands:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KARAF-479

Better support for Maven Proxies:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KARAF-846

Tab completion on path when installing bundles:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KARAF-413

Backspace no longer works in Putty after using 'connect' command to connect to other instance, and commands are printed in only 2 columns:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KARAF-536

Improve security docs with respect to roles policies:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KARAF-783

Winter has arrived.

2011-11-24T15:47:00.002-03:30

Winter has arrived here on the Avalon peninsula of Newfoundland. I thought I'd share a few photos.


Looking down the road.	Snow blowers are a live saver.	My cat has the right idea.

One of my favorite shots of the day can be seen here: Metro bus catching tow from a passing by snow plow.

Now that I have my driveway cleared I'm back to looking over issues for the Apache Karaf 2.2.5 RC. We'll be bumping out some issues to Karaf 2.2.6, while focusing our efforts on the remaining items. The community appears to be making nice forward progress :)

Departmental Seminar @ Memorial University: A Complexity Perspective on Adapting Reactive Architectures

2011-11-24T11:03:00.000-03:30

Another seminar upcoming for the Department of Computer Science at Memorial University of Newfoundland. This one is being present by a good friend of mine Dr Todd Wareham (he's one of the core people behind the local CS Games held several times each semester at Memorial).

Dr. Todd Wareham

(CS Mun)

Educating Genghis:

A Complexity Perspective on Adapting Reactive Architectures

Department of Computer Science

Thursday, December 1, 2011, 1:00 pm., Room EN-2022

Abstract

The problem of adapting an existing reactive architecture to meet new task constraints has applications in a wide variety of fields, including cognitive robotics, evolutionary robotics, and cognitive neuroscience. Such adaptation can range from simple reconfiguration of existing layers and the linkages between them to the the recruitment of new layers (either on hand or custom-designed). Though there are a number of proof-of-concept systems implementing such adaptation, it is not obvious if any algorithm can perform efficient adaptation in general or, if not, under which conditions (if any) such efficient adaptation might be possible.

In this talk, we present the initial results of a computational complexity analysis of reactive adaptation carried out to answer these two questions. Our main result is that even for a rather simple world and a simple task, adapting a subsumption reactive architecture to perform that task in a given world is NP-hard. Additional parameterized results in turn delimit those conditions under which efficient adaptation is possible, e.g., we show that architectures with limited sensory and perceptual abilities are efficiently adaptable.

(Work done in collaborations with Pim Haselager, Johan Kwisthout, and Iris van Rooij (Radboud University Nijmegen))

Preparing for Apache Karaf 2.2.5

2011-11-22T16:39:00.002-03:30

The fifth maintenance release of the Apache Karaf 2.2.x branch has entered the planning phase, as such I'm preparing for the release management role.

To prepare I've selected a bottle of Maison Sichel Bordeaux 2009 to decant while listening to some City and Colour albums. As it has been a common thread on my last few 'preparing for Apache Karaf' posts, the 3.0.0 release is still underway in preparation - the community is committed to seeing Karaf 3.0 being feature complete and polished before it is raised to production status.

Current high lights of this patch include multiple JAAS support improvements, and better support for Linux systems with certain versions of libc. This kit will also include new features such as SCP support, and a demo for extending Karaf's console commands.

The wine will of course only be sampled after being gave proper time to breath in its container, after the first release candidate has be up loaded for voting (see our release guide for more details on our process).

Unfortunately I can't share the wine with you, but I can share a few links to some City and Colour videos.

I'm looking forward to starting the 2.2.5 release process. I'll be posting updates to our Twitter stream (#karaf) and on our IRC channel (irc.codehaus.org #karaf).

Departmental Seminar @ Memorial University: Towards Engineering Processes for Web Service Repositories.

2011-11-19T15:45:00.003-03:30

Thought I'd post below the announcement for the upcoming Departmental Seminar at Memorial University entitled "Towards Engineering Processes for Web Service Repositories". Sounds like an interesting talk for anyone working with SOA technologies.

Towards Engineering Processes for Web Service Repositories

Dr. Adrian Fiech

(CS, MUN)

Department of Computer Science

Thursday, December 8th, 2011, 1:00 pm., Room EN-2022

Abstract:

Service-oriented Software Engineering embraces the construction of software systems from available modules that can be acquired from service providers and assembled into a complete system. Web services are particularly suitable to this approach.

The process of crafting successful web service repositories is complex and needs to be addressed with a rigor reminiscent of software engineering processes. We are working on creation of a comprehensive process framework that provides a set of practices and tools for web service repository design, configuration, testing, implementation and management.

We begin with practical case studies, which investigate and highlight promising problem domains that are suitable for (primarily commercial) repository development. Next, we design and implement prototype web service repositories for the most encouraging cases. The prototype repositories shall afford simple configuration, powerful query answering system and the support for diverse business models. Subsequently we summarize, discuss and evaluate the processes we used in our prototype repository design/implementations as well as approaches used by others.

Micro-Hackathons. This is what happens when two or more committers are in the same space.

2011-11-17T14:19:00.000-03:30

From time to time I like to post photos of what we're having for lunch when Jon and I have a little Micro-Hackathon. Today's menu consisted of Curried Pork, Lentils, Chickpeas, Basmati Rice, and Pappadums.

Finishing our lunch Jon suggested a round of cards... needless to say poker is now ruined :P

FuseSource EIP playing cards.

Winter is coming, time to plan a code project.

2011-11-15T10:49:00.001-03:30

As the Starks of Winterfell say, "the winter is coming". I don't know about you but I usually consider the run up to winter as the time to plan a code project to fill up those long cold days that we're going to be stuck indoors. Generally my side projects tend to be scratching an itch I have with one apache project or another, what I'd like to know is what will your winter side project be?
Please leave comments below pertaining the project you're planning to contribute code towards or describing the little side project your building for personal enjoyment. We may have to spend the winter isolated with our dev work stations, but we can at least share the fun of our code projects :)

IGDA NL Chapter meeting on November 29th, 2011!

2011-11-10T08:25:00.001-03:30

As I've been asked to relay any information on the next local Video Game Developer meeting, I happily pass along the below note:

"The next meeting of the Newfoundland Chapter of the International Game Developer Association will be on November 29th, 2011 at the Computer Science seminar room (EN-2022) at 7pm.
There will be presentations and Q&A from local game developers talking about their experiences developing games, followed by some friendly beverages at Bitters. Hope to see you there!" -- IGDA NL

Memorial University CS Games Singles Fall 2011 Results

2011-11-05T14:59:00.000-02:30

The Fall 2011 CS Singles programming competition took place last Friday night at Memorial University. Eighteen students took part, trying their skills against the algorithmic conundrums the programming competition committee prepare as their set of three problems.

After 150 minutes the competition time expired and the judges prepared the results.

Awaiting the results.

Competition Judges (Left to Right): Dr Craig, Dr Kolokolova, and Dr Wareham.

The volume of submissions for this competition was impressively high, at the end though three students emerged with top results; in third place was Nathanel Woodfine, in second place was Adam Murphy, and finally in first was Robert Hamilton.


3rd: Nathanel Woodfine	2nd: Adam Murphy	1st: Robert Hamilton

I'd like to thank all the students, volunteers, and the games committee again for making these CS games possible. I hope to see everyone again in the new year when we have the next singles competition.

Creating your own Apache Karaf console command.

2011-11-03T16:11:00.000-02:30

Have you ever wanted to create your own Apache Karaf console command but didn't know where to start? In this post I aim to show you how the critical code snippets required to create your own Apache Karaf console commands, complete with completer. Please note that the process for creating your own console command is well documented in the Apache Karaf documentation, however its nice to have a concrete example on hand.

The creation of a custom command can be boiled down to drafting a boiler plate pom file, extending OsgiCommandSupport, writing a command completer, and finally wiring it all together via blueprint. Don't worry about directory structure, or other boiler plate bits of code for now, a full source code demo will be included in Karaf starting on version 2.2.5.

The Pom File:

The critical bits you'll encounter in the pom file for making your own command will be the initial setup declarations:

  <groupId>org.apache.karaf.demos.command</groupId>

  <artifactId>shell-sample-commands</artifactId>

  <packaging>bundle</packaging>

  <version>2.2.5-SNAPSHOT</version>

  <name>your-commmand</name>

Adding in the dependency on the Karaf shell:

  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.karaf.shell</groupId>
    <artifactId>org.apache.karaf.shell.console</artifactId>
  </dependency>

And finally configuring the maven bundle plugin to package the command:

  <plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.felix</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-bundle-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.3.4</version>
      <configuration>
         <instructions>
            <Import-Package>
              org.apache.felix.service.command,
              org.apache.felix.gogo.commands,
              org.apache.karaf.shell.console,
              *
            </Import-Package>
         </instructions>
      </configuration>
  </plugin>

Extending OsgiCommandSupport:

The actual custom command logic is implemented in a class you write that extends OsgiCommandSupport. The annotations for 'command' and 'argument' is where you'll immediately need to pay attention. In the command annotation you setup your command scope and name (each scope can have several names associated via separate commands). In the argument annotation you describe the arguments that the command will expect. The doExecute() method is where you'll perform the action for the command, add any custom code you want to have performed here.

@Command(scope = "yourcommand", name = "hello", description="Says hello")
public class YourCommand extends OsgiCommandSupport {

@Argument(index = 0, name = "arg",
description = "The command argument",
required = false, multiValued = false)
String arg = null;

@Override
protected Object doExecute() throws Exception {
System.out.println("Executing your Command Demo");
return null;
}
}

Command Completer:

Although not strictly required, the command completer is generally a good idea to include. The completers' job is to allow the user to tab complete the command, possibly showing input possibilities.

public class YourCompleter implements Completer {
/**

* @param buffer it's the beginning string typed by the user
* @param cursor it's the position of the cursor
* @param candidates the list of completions proposed to the user

*/

public int complete(String buffer, int cursor, List candidates) {
StringsCompleter delegate = new StringsCompleter();
delegate.getStrings().add("one");
delegate.getStrings().add("two");
delegate.getStrings().add("three");
return delegate.complete(buffer, cursor, candidates);
}
}

Wiring it together with Blueprint:

Now to bring all these components together we use Blueprint. Blueprint is a dependency injection framework that we like to use with OSGi in Karaf. In short the below xml handles the instantiation of objects and wiring them together.

<blueprint xmlns="http://www.osgi.org/xmlns/blueprint/v1.0.0">
<command-bundle xmlns="http://karaf.apache.org/xmlns/shell/v1.0.0">
<command name="yourcommand/hello">
<action class="org.apache.karaf.demos.command.YourCommand"/>
<completers>
<ref component-id="yourCompleter"/>
<null/>
</completers>
</command>
</command-bundle>
<bean id="yourCompleter" class="org.apache.karaf.shell.samples.YourCompleter"/>
</blueprint>

Build and Deploy Time!

Now that we have composed the components of a custom command, lets build the code and test it out.

To build the command just invoke:

mvn install

This will build the command bundle and make it available in your local m2 repo.

To deploy the command bundle issue the following command in a running instance of Karaf:

karaf@root> osgi:install -s \ mvn:org.apache.karaf.demos/org.apache.karaf.demos.command/2.2.5-SNAPSHOT

After installing the bundle it will become available on the console command line. Your custom command will now act like the other commands already deployed inside of Karaf.

karaf@root> yourcommand:hello
Executing your Command Demo
karaf@root>

This demo will start appearing in Apache Karaf 2.2.5, so don't worry about piecing together the boiler plate code. I hope you found this short tutorial useful.

Apache Karaf Child Instances, what are they and why should I use them?

2011-11-01T22:11:00.000-02:30

An often under used feature of Apache Karaf is its support for child instances. In this post I'll cover just what Karaf child instances are, and discuss some ways that you may use them.

Two child instances, Alpha and Beta,
created from base Karaf installation.

A Karaf child instance is a copy of Karaf that you can launch separately (its own system process) and deploy applications into. An instance does not contain the full copy of Karaf, but only a copy of the configuration files and data folder which contains all the runtime information, logs and temporary files. This concept is pretty neat in that you can deploy a Karaf distribution to your server, adjust your basic configuration, then spin up copies of this initial deployment for use - the ports used by these child instances are managed such that you don't have to manually set them as part of the setup process (much easier than trying to setup multiple separate installations on one machine). Each of the Karaf child instances will "live" in your KARAF_HOME/instances folder.

If the above description doesn't have you excited then don't worry, here are a couple of deployment scenarios that may help illustrate why using Karaf child instances can improve your Karaf experience.

Operating System level process isolation:

We've all encountered this - Suppose you have an application that is known to have less than desirable runtime characteristics (cores the system, or regularly encounters Out of Memory exceptions for example), it may be nice to have that application deployed in its own Karaf environment. If the process becomes unwieldily then the entire instance can be stopped, restarted, or else wise manipulated without affecting other applications deployed in other Karaf child instances.

Failover protection:

Simple Master/Slave Failover.

I have to admit I like to use this setup when I need to have an extra level of assurance that my deployed application will be available. In this scenario two or more instances of Karaf are created on one server, with each instance making use of Karafs' JDBC lock mechanism to connect to local or remote DB. In this Master/Slave deployment if the instance acting as the Master was to become unavailable then an awaiting slave instance can spool up to take over (for faster switches I keep the slave instances hot loaded via container level locking).

Organizational Separation:

Keeping your user groups happy.

It's not uncommon for multiple departments or projects to reside upon the same server resource, it may be advantageous for the administrator to separate their Karaf deployments along these lines so that the operation of one group does not impact others. In example one may have an instance for supporting an application used by accounting, and another by marketing.

Clustering:

A more advanced concept is to create Karaf instances to join into a Cellar Cluster - Cellar being Apache Karaf's Hazelcast powered clustering solution. Creating Karaf child instances to join as cluster nodes allows for another degree of flexibility when allocating resources for Karaf deployments. Given a powerful server, an administrator may create child instances as required to add to the cluster. These additional cluster resources may be deallocated as required at a later time.

I hope that the above exploration of Karaf child instances helped clear up any general confusion about their purpose and perhaps provided some insight into how to improve your own Karaf deployments. For more information on Karaf child instances please visit the Karaf user guide Child Instance entry.

Apache Karaf 2.2.4 Released!

2011-10-16T19:31:00.001-02:30

The Apache Karaf team is pleased to announce the availability of Apache Karaf 2.2.4.

This release of Apache Karaf is based off of the 2.2.x series branch, representing an update to Apache Karaf 2.2.3. It contains bug fixes identified in the prior release, and introduces improvements including; significant improvements to KAR support, and new MBeans (such as Dev, HTTP, Log, OBR, Bundles, Services and System). Several dependencies were also updated, bringing Apache Felix Gogo to version 0.10.0, and Pax Web to 1.0.7.

To help make the transition from Apache Karaf 2.2.0/2.2.1/2.2.2/2.2.3 to 2.2.4 easier I've put together a table of changed dependencies:

Karaf Version	2.2.0	2.2.1	2.2.2	2.2.3	2.2.4
aopalliance.bundle	1.0_4	1.0_5	1.0_5	1.0_5	1.0_5
asm.bundle	3.3_1	3.3_2	3.3_2	3.3_2	3.3_2
cglib.bundle	2.1_3_6	2.1_3_7	2.1_3_7	2.1_3_7	2.1_3_7
commons-codec.bundle	1.3_3	1.3_4	1.3_4	1.3_4	1.3_4
commons-collections.bundle	3.2.1_1	3.2.1_2	3.2.1_2	3.2.1_2	3.2.1_2
commons-lang.bundle	2.4_4	2.4_5	2.4_5	2.4_5	2.4_5
jasypt.bundle	1.7_1	1.7_3	1.7_3	1.7_3	1.7_3
jetty	7.2.2 .v20101205	7.3.1 .v20110307	7.4.2 .v20110526	7.4.5 .v20110725	7.4.5 .v20110725
junit.bundle	4.7_2	4.7_3	4.7_3	4.7_3	4.7_3
equinox	3.6.0 .v20100517	3.6.0 .v20100517	3.6.0 .v20100517	3.6.2 .R36x_v20110210	3.6.2 .R36x_v20110210
felix.framework	3.0.8	3.0.9	3.0.9	3.0.9	3.0.9
felix.gogo	0.6.1	0.6.1	0.6.1	0.6.1	0.10.0
felix.eventadmin	1.2.8	1.2.10	1.2.12	1.2.12	1.2.12
aries.blueprint	0.3	0.3.1	0.3.1	0.3.1	0.3.1
pax.exam	1.2.3	1.2.4	1.2.4	1.2.4	1.2.4
pax.logging	1.6.0	1.6.2	1.6.3	1.6.3	1.6.3
pax.runner	1.5.0	1.6.1	1.6.1	1.6.2	1.6.2
pax.url	1.2.5	1.2.6	1.2.7	1.2.8	1.2.8
pax.web	1.0.1	1.0.3	1.0.4	1.0.6	1.0.7

For more information please see the release notes.

As discussed in my prior Apache Karaf 2.2.4 preparation post, I enjoyed listening to Hawksley Workman albums throughout the release process and was delighted to try the Quinta São João Batista Syrah Reserva 2007 once the release was complete. Now, sadly, I find my carafe empty... luckily Karaf 3.0.0 is now the focus of the community, with all efforts heading towards its release :)

Want to feel like a Rockstar software developer?

2011-10-12T10:15:00.001-02:30

Before I dive into how to feel like a Rockstar software developer I think we should ask just what is a software developer Rockstar?

There is no one criteria from which one can describe a Rockstar software developer, a collection of traits however can help encapsulate the concept. On Read Write Web, a "Top Ten Traits of a Rockstar Software Engineer"is discussed in detail - the abbreviated list is shown below:

Loves To Code.
Gets Things Done.
Continuously Refactors Code.
Uses Design Patterns.
Writes Tests.
Leverages Existing Code.
Focuses On Usability.
Writes Maintainable Code.
Can Code In Any Language.
Knows Basic Computer Science.

Reviewing this list I think I can simplify this Rockstar concept into "just be a competent, industrious software developer" (which to a junior developer these are all great traits to pick up). Really all of the above traits I find among most software developers I've encountered over my career - all of them doing these things to greater or lesser degrees, but I don't think practicing all of the above as placing developers head and shoulder above the rest of the pack. There has to be something more to being a Rockstar.

Searching some more I found another post describing the traits of a Rockstar software developer, this time from a blogger whom looks at things from the point of view of a startup looking for programmers. In the article "What makes a 'Rockstar' Developer?" the following traits are discussed:

They don't think of themselves as rock stars.
They have a proven record of multiple shipped products.
They care more about frameworks than plumbing.
They're not willing to work for free.
They believe in development process and best practices to speed up their work.
They have a positive attitude.
They get uncomfortable when you ask about their social life.
You don't want Alphabet/Acronym soup in their technical skills.
They're involved in the community.
You respect them.

I prefer this list to the previous as it hits on a many of the concepts I think make a Rockstar software developer - accomplishments, a great attitude, deep knowledge (know their projects from floor to ceiling), help their community, and garner great respect from their peers. You can tell that you've meet a true software developer Rockstar because they don't try to sell their self to you, their charisma draws you to them to join in the fun their having developing their project(s). Bonus points come when you've worked with the Rockstar for a longer period of time and feel just as excited to do so now as you did when you first started.

So what does this have to do with feeling like a Rockstar software developer?

I believe the essence of being a Rockstar software developer is sharing your passion and deep knowledge for software project(s), and having other developers seek you out for guidance. To this end I think the best way to gain this experience is to join into a mentoring program that matches your development background with other developers looking to learn best practices from you.

In my case I enrolled in the Apache Local Mentors Program - its purpose is to help link up new Apache contributors with existing Apache Committers in their community in order to help the new contributor to integrate further into the Apache community at large. From the point of view of the new contributor whom may have only had interactions with Apache via mailing lists, IRC, source control, and issue trackers meeting an existing Committer helps put a human face on the community. For the Committer they get to share their project with another developer whom is eager to learn.


Karaf/Kalumet Style Learning	Mentor	Protege

My experience so far has been immensely positive. Having another developer excited to learn about the projects you've worked on for so many years learn the ropes, and begin to contribute is incredibly rewarding. I would highly recommend all Apache Committers join into the program, and help mentor more developers into our community. To me this is what it means to be a Rockstar software developer, drawing in new developers to your project(s) and helping them work toward all of the traits discussed above. Some may say that there is more to being a Rockstar such as fame, fortune, influence, and prestige - to them I say be mindful in taking those aspects of the Rockstar concept too deeply to heart, there are many examples online that tell tales of Rockstars gone wrong. All things in moderation, the concept is good, just make sure you remain a developer other developers want to work with. In the end we're all just trying to spread our enthusiasm, craftsmanship, and joy of programming with others.

Growing Apache Communities

2011-10-05T22:45:00.000-02:30

Around a year or so ago I posted an article on the Apache Community Development Project, a community effort to help newcomers to the Apache Software Foundation take their first steps on their way to being a part of our community. I think this effort needs to be visited more often by community members, if not to just expand Apache projects' mind share then to connect with the people using and contributing back to the common good. At Apache community is everything, so ensuring it continues to evolve, and grow is something that community members should all be actively engaged in.

So how can we do this? I tend to side with the think global, act local philosophy. So here are my suggestions:

Provide Seminars/Guest Lectures to your local college or university Computer Science, Engineering, or Information Technology departments (students make great audiences).
Join the Apache Local Mentors Program (who wouldn't like to have a protege?).
If available, attend Local User Group meetings where you can meet and assist users with Apache projects your familiar (Java or Linux user groups tend to be a great meeting place).
Give talks at local level industry meetings (ex. See Jon Anstey's BSides security talk).
Give talks within organizations you work (become your teams' Apache expert or champion).

I've had the opportunity to do most of the above list. Of these I've most enjoyed talking with students at my alma mater, and participating in the Apache mentoring program, assisting new contributors directly into Apache. In both cases it has involved talking about the ASF, meritocracy, contributing, and making the transition to becoming committers.

On October 18th, 2011 I'll be giving my third guest talk to a class of Computer Science students as part of their Software Methodologies course. If you live in or around the St John's area feel free to contact the class' professor to see if their is space available sit in on my talk (there is limited seating, with priority to enrolled students). Another Apache talk with the Computer Science department is also in discussion to occur in the January 2012 timeframe, I'll post details when they're finalized.

If you have suggestions for other ways to help grow Apache communities, or comments in general on Apache community, please feel free to leave it in the comments section below.

Mun CS Games Fall 2011 Singles Competition!

2011-09-30T13:48:00.001-02:30

Each Fall and Winter at Memorial University's Computer Science Department an ACM rules programming competition is held for their students. These events have enjoyed much success due to the tireless work of many people on the CS Games committee. To help increase the popularity of the events I started donating prizes to the top placements in the competitions, and this Falls' Singles game is no different, so without more ado...

The Prizes!

The third place prize consists of a Mun market bag, a box of Carnation Hot Chocolate mixes, a Mun mug, a DVD of Office Space, and a copy of O'Reilly UML 2.0 pocket reference.

The second place prize prize consists of a Mun market bag, a box of Carnation Hot Chocolate mixes, a Mun mug, a DVD of Scott Pilgram vs the World, and a copy of O'Reilly JUnit pocket reference.

And finally the first place prize consists of a Mun market bag, a box of Carnation Hot Chocolate mixes, a Mun mug, a DVD of the four Matrix movies, and a copy of O'Reilly Vi and Vim Editors pocket reference.

Some lucky runners up will receive a loot bag containing a Mun pen and a Ubuntu 11.04 install CD -awesome I know!

The Fall 2011 CS Games (Singles) are tentatively scheduled for November 4th, 2011, in room EN2036 at 5:00pm to 7:30pm. There will be a sign up sheet in the CS department head office, please contact them if you're interested in competing - seats are limited (CS students only). When a link to the information regarding competition rules, and other details become available I'll update this post.

Memorial University CS Games Team (triples) Fall 2011 Results

2011-09-26T10:33:00.004-02:30

The Fall 2011 CS Team Programming Competition took place last Friday night at Memorial University. Six teams (18 students), took part - trying their skills against the algorithmic conundrums the programming competition committee prepared as their set of three problems (see link for problems & solutions).

After two and half hours of competition we were able to draw the games to a close and announce our top three placements.

In third place, Team C: Megan O'Conner, Ryan Brushett, and Andrew Hobbs.

In second place, Team D: Mark Stacey, Gerry Hall, and Ryan Russell.

Finally in first place, Team A: Robert Robere, Melissa Reid, and Ken Collingwood.

Please join me in wishing them best luck as they head to St. Francis Xavier University to enter the preliminary round of the Atlantic Provinces Council on the Sciences programming competition. If they place in the top three teams at SFX then they will advance to the Northeast North America Regional Competition of the 2010-2011 ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest sponsored by IBM.

I'd like to thank all the students, volunteers, and the games committee again for making these CS games possible. I hope to see everyone again for the Fall 2011 Mun CS Games Singles competition on November 4th.

Preparing for Apache Karaf 2.2.4

2011-09-22T21:51:00.000-02:30

The forth maintenance release of the Apache Karaf 2.2.x branch has entered the planning phase, as such I'm preparing for the release management role.

Preparing for Apache Karaf 2.2.4

To prepare I've selected a bottle of Quinta São João Batista Syrah Reserva 2007 to decant while listening to some Hawksley Workman albums. As mentioned in my last 'preparing for apache karaf' post the 3.0.0 release is still underway in preparation, this 2.2.x update is part of our efforts to make kit releases more often.

The wine will of course only be sampled after being gave proper time to breath in its container, after the first release candidate has be up loaded for voting (see our release guide for more details on our process).

Unfortunately I can't share the wine with you, but I can share a few links to Workman videos.

I'm looking forward to starting the 2.2.4 release process. I'll be posting updates to our Twitter stream (#karaf) and on our IRC channel (irc.codehaus.org #karaf).

Thanks GSU for playing the Piled Higher and Deeper movie!

2011-09-21T23:18:00.000-02:30

The GSU presented the Memorial University showing of the PhD Comics movie this evening. If you're a fan of the comic strip or have experienced Grad school then you won't be disappointed by this film. The core characters are faithfully reproduced on screen, with Prof Smith's intimidating and unsympathetic character shining through. I won't dive into any of the details of the movie, but I have to say that I wish we could see more of Cecilia's Hash Table dance -- queue the Key-Bucket-HashTable costumes for this Halloween at CS mixers near you ;)

Grad Students, PhD candidates, Post Docs, and the scattered UnderGrad filling up seats.

Worth the wait!

Apache Karaf on IBM JDK 7!

2011-09-21T09:57:00.000-02:30

As of Apache Karaf 2.2.3 JDK 7 is supported as a runtime JVM, it has only been recently though that IBM's JDK 7 implementation has been available so I took some time to test it out.

Apache Karaf console startup screen.

I'm happy to report that the Apache Karaf 2.2.3 tagged source tree fully compiles and runs on the new JVM! :)

Karaf info command output on IBM JDK7 for Linux.

There are a few IBM centric modifications related to JDK 7 that have been noted, mostly centered around the memory management, class data sharing, and diagnostics components amongst other changes (see IBM's JDK 7 information center for more details).

The memory management changes I find particularly interesting, new GC options are outlined here, and the new Balanced Garbage Collection Policy is outlined here. The new GC policy being of particular interest to users whose heaps are regularly larger than 4GB (not too uncommon these days).

When NL geeks gather...

2011-09-18T14:11:00.000-02:30

As a follow on to my last post, here are a few hang outs for our NL geeks online and IRL.

The International Game Developers Association Newfoundland Chapter are a relatively new community in Newfoundland. Their mandate is to provide a gathering place for the video game development community that is growing in the province. Their key online gathering place is their facebook group, from which they organize meet ups in St John's.

/newfoundland is our sub channel of the popular link sharing site reddit. They maintain a facebook group, and hold meet ups in St John's. All topics related to Newfoundland are discussed here, so posts can be quite eclectic.

The grand daddy of them all, #Goodtimes has been around since before the term social networking became a house hold term. The heart of this group is their IRC channel, where their web community takes on the feeling of a coffee shop, all topics are up for conversation and everyone feels welcome.

If I've missed your online community please let me know in the comments.

Other NL Geeks Coding by the Sea!

2011-09-17T14:46:00.003-02:30

My tech blog was recently nominated for the NL BlogRoll bloggers choice award for Best Science/Technonology blog 2011. I feel very honored to have my blog considered, and would like to thank everyone for all the support - you guys rock!

Seeing that I'm seeing some increased traffic during the awards voting period I thought that I'd take the opportunity to shine a spot light on some other NL geeks in the software and other industries.

So please click the below links, and follow my fellow NL coders.

Take it or leave it NL:
http://takeitorleaveitnl.blogspot.com/

Journey into gaming:
http://journey-into-gaming.blogspot.com/

Shameless Ramblings:
http://roderick-greening.blogspot.com/

Code Crystal:
http://code-crystal.blogspot.com/

Jon Anstey's Blog:
http://janstey.blogspot.com/

Adam Walsh:
http://www.adamwalsh.net/

Are you a NL programmer with a blog I didn't list? Please leave a comment below with a link to your blog and I'll be sure to add it!

Update(s):

Codenewfie:
http://www.codenewfie.com

Gedgedev:
http://gedgedev.blogspot.com/

Aceparadis:
http://www.aceparadis.horizon-host.com/

Reminder: Mun CS Team Games next Friday!

2011-09-16T13:29:00.000-02:30

The below is a repost from the Mun CS Department, announcing the team programming competition taking place next week. If you're a CS student considering entering a team for the first time but are put off from competing with third and forth year student teams please do not be discouraged! Teams composed of first and second year students have year after year placed very well, and all have enjoyed the event greatly (even if you don't place there is pizza, pop, and cookies served, as well as all the fun and excitement of the competition to take in). So drop over to the main office and register your team.

Hope to see you all there next week!

---

Calling all Computer Science Students! Team Programming Competition!

Here's the blog link with the CS Team games prizes for you:
http://icodebythesea.blogspot.com/2011/08/mun-fall-2011-computer-science-team.html

Also, here's the the URL for the solutions from our previous competitions:
http://www.cs.mun.ca/~harold/PC/

Team Competition

Would you like to participate in the APICS Annual Programming Team Competition? Each October, this competition is held in conjunction with the Annual APICS (Atlantic Provinces Council on the Sciences) Conference and is sponsored each year by a University in Atlantic Canada. This year, the Conference will be hosted by St. Francis Xavier University.

The top three teams from the Preliminary Round at SFX are then invited to the Northeast North America Regional Competition of the 2010-2011 ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest sponsored by IBM.

The winning team from our Departmental Competition on September 23 will be invited to attend the Annual APICS Conference at SFX and participate in the Preliminary Round. This conference also includes a Student Paper Presentation Session. Our departmental competition will be held:

Date: Friday, September 23, 2011
Time: 5:00 to 7:30 p.m.

If you are interested in participating, please contact Regina Edwards in the Computer Science General Office or by email redwards@mun.ca by Wednesday, September 21, 2011, with the names of your team members.

The Piled Higher and Deeper Movie at Mun!

2011-09-15T12:16:00.001-02:30

Jorge Cham's PhD Comics movie will be playing at Mun, courtesy of the GSU, on September 21, 2011, 8-9:30pm, in the INCO (Bruneau) Center, room IIC2001. Tickets are $5 with proceeds going to the campus food bank. You can obtain tickets at Bitters pub, and the main GSU office (GH-2007 Field Hall) or by contacting internal@gsumun.ca. I can't wait to see this movie!! Excited!!!

Programmer's Day 2011

2011-09-12T10:55:00.000-02:30

Tomorrow is International Programmers Day 2011, it's an unofficial holiday that is celebrated on the 256th (0x100th) day of the year. Like many other professions I think that programmers need an appreciation day, but the question is how to celebrate? I haven't read any material stating what would be traditional so I guess it's up to each of us (or employers) to decide on how to celebrate.

As a freelance contractor I set my own rules, so I think I'll kick back, have some BBQ and cold beer. How do you plan to spend Programmers day? Does your employer have special plans for you? If so please post in the comments below.

Guest lecturing CS3716 Software Methodologies at Memorial University Fall 2011

2011-09-09T09:30:00.001-02:30

I have another opportunity to talk with students enrolled in CS3716 Software Methodologies at Memorial University this Fall. This will be my third time to present to Computer Science students, so far it's been a fun experience. As with my past talks I'll focus on various subjects including a brief introduction to the Apache Way, the projects I've worked on, my views on technology (locally grown and in general), and project management (specifically talking about Apache Karaf).

The Engineering building at Mun - there is no snow down now, but give it a few weeks ;)

My talk is scheduled for 10:30am October 20th, in room EN-1051. If you're not enrolled in the class but would like to drop by for the talk, please contact the course professor for seat availability (generally there is room for an extra dozen or so people).

Sometimes it is sunny in St John's

2011-09-06T17:36:00.001-02:30

Earlier this summer I posted on walking the East Coast Trail Blackhead path, this past weekend I had another opportunity to walk the route but this time it was actually sunny out (a big deal here after a dreadfully overcast, rainy, foggy season). So I figured I'd post up some pictures to let you see what the Island looks like when everything is lush from summer.

The view from Blackhead looking towards St John's.

That little dot along the hill top on the right hand side is Cabot tower.

Blueberry picking - the essential past time while hiking the trails this time of year.

Looking towards Cape Spear.

Cape Spear Light House

Apache Karaf 2.2.3 Released!

2011-09-04T11:02:00.000-02:30

The Apache Karaf team is pleased to announce the availability of Apache Karaf 2.2.3.

This release of Apache Karaf is based off of the 2.2.x series branch, representing an update to Apache Karaf 2.2.2. It contains bug fixes identified in the prior release, and introduces improvements including; Optional JDK 7 support, a spring-jms feature, and a macro allowing users to identify the contents of a specific config file. Several dependencies were also updated, bringing Jetty to version 7.4.5.v20110725, Eclipse Equinox to 3.6.2.R36x_v20110210, and Pax web to 1.0.6.

To help make the transition from Apache Karaf 2.2.0/2.2.1/2.2.2 to 2.2.3 easier I've put together a table of changed dependencies:

<

Karaf Version	2.2.0	2.2.1	2.2.2	2.2.3
aopalliance.bundle.version	1.0_4	1.0_5	1.0_5	1.0_5
asm.bundle.version	3.3_1	3.3_2	3.3_2	3.3_2
cglib.bundle.version	2.1_3_6	2.1_3_7	2.1_3_7	2.1_3_7
commons-codec.bundle.version	1.3_3	1.3_4	1.3_4	1.3_4
commons-collections.bundle.version	3.2.1_1	3.2.1_2	3.2.1_2	3.2.1_2
commons-lang.bundle.version	2.4_4	2.4_5	2.4_5	2.4_5
jasypt.bundle.version	1.7_1	1.7_3	1.7_3	1.7_3
jetty.version	7.2.2 .v20101205	7.3.1 .v20110307	7.4.2 .v20110526	7.4.5 .v20110725
junit.bundle.version	4.7_2	4.7_3	4.7_3	4.7_3
equinox.version	3.6.0 .v20100517	3.6.0 .v20100517	3.6.0 .v20100517	3.6.2 .R36x_v20110210
felix.framework.version	3.0.8	3.0.9	3.0.9	3.0.9
felix.eventadmin.version	1.2.8	1.2.10	1.2.12	1.2.12
aries.blueprint.version	0.3	0.3.1	0.3.1	0.3.1
pax.exam.version	1.2.3	1.2.4	1.2.4	1.2.4
pax.logging.version	1.6.0	1.6.2	1.6.3	1.6.3
pax.runner.version	1.5.0	1.6.1	1.6.1	1.6.2
pax.url.version	1.2.5	1.2.6	1.2.7	1.2.8
pax.web.version	1.0.1	1.0.3	1.0.4	1.0.6

For more information please see the release notes.

As discussed in my prior Apache Karaf 2.2.3 preparation post, I enjoyed listening to Joel Plaskett albums throughout the release process and was delighted to try the Chateau Roc de Bernon Puisseguin-Saint-Emilion 2006 once the release was complete. Now, sadly, I find my carafe empty... luckily Karaf 3.0.0 is now much closer to release time :)

Passing the time during a RC vote, a Release Management perspective.

2011-08-30T10:50:00.000-02:30

The Apache Karaf 2.2.3 RC is currently up for vote for 72 hours, during this time we wait for our users and developers to download the staged kits (or build from svn tags) and test them out.
I've had some users ask just what are we supposed to do in order to test a RC? Well there is no set list of tasks to perform, but here are some suggestions:

Download the kit appropriate to the operating system you're using (zip for windows, tar.gz for *nix systems), extract the files, and run the bin/karaf script to see if it boots to command prompt.
Assuming the Karaf prompt boots, try issuing a few commands. If you have a project you're hosting on Karaf try installing it and see how it operates.
If you're looking to try the source code, then checkout from the release tag and try a full maven clean install on your platform.

So now that you've tested the Karaf RC, what do you do if you've found an issue? The first thing to do is report it to vote email thread (assuming its still in progress). Generally the information we'll need includes the platform you're working on, versions of maven & java, and a description of the error you've encountered. So a report such as "Attempted build on AIX 6 with Maven 2.2.1 & JDK 1.6 and found Class Not Found error in package XYZ during source build" would be greatly appreciated. If you've found that everything is in working order with the RC then please by all means reply to the vote thread with your +1 (it's counted as non-binding if you do not belong to the project PMC, however we greatly appreciate every vote an RC receives).

So while our users and contributors are testing the latest Karaf RC, what does the Release Manager do? It's the RM's responsibility to monitor the vote email thread, respond to enquiries, and make clarifications. If a critical or blocking issue is reported then the RM will have to mitigate the issue or cancel the vote, and see that the issue is reported for resolution and a new release candidate scheduled with the appropriate fix(s) applied. In the case of Apache Karaf, unlike other projects, the RM also takes this time to sample a fine bottle of wine and listen music (and quite often cook a lot). In the case of Karaf 2.2.3 RC for example, the RM is sampling Chateau Roc de Bernon Puisseguin-Saint-Emilion 2006 and listening to Joel Plaskett albums, while BBQing on a sunny patio deck.

Hanging out on the patio, flipping burgers - monitoring for RC questions and votes. Release management requires many sacrifices ;)

If you'd like to get involved in testing the Apache Karaf 2.2.3 RC please check out the following links:

Temporary online copy of Apache Karaf 2.2.3 release notes (will be published upon passing of vote):

https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/karaf/site/trunk/src/main/webapp/index/community/download/karaf-2.2.3-release.page

Staging repository (obtain kits from here - note this link will only work while staged):

https://repository.apache.org/content/repositories/orgapachekaraf-071/

Release tags (checkout the source from this tag for test building):

https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/karaf/tags/karaf-2.2.3/

Apache Karaf Sonar instance

2011-08-25T16:05:00.001-02:30

Apache Karaf now has a sonar instance running at:
https://analysis.apache.org/dashboard/index/70830 (thanks Olivier Lamy for setting it up).

If you're not familiar with Sonar it's a platform for managing code quality, covering architecture & design, duplications, unit tests, complexity, potential bugs, coding rules, and comments - all from analyzing the projects source code. If you're interested in learning more about Sonar please visit their site: http://www.sonarsource.org.

Mun Fall 2011 Computer Science Team Games

2011-08-22T22:28:00.001-02:30

Each Fall semester at Memorial University's Computer Science Department an ACM style team competition is held. These competitions are very similar to the singles competitions with the exception that teams consist of three students and the challenges are more difficult. To help boost interest in this Fall semester's team games I've gone ahead and provided the CS department with some additional prizes.

The Prizes!

Third Place: Each team member will receive a Mun market bag, 24 sleeve CD/DVD binder, air duster, USB card reader, 12 pack box of pens, and a copy of O'Reilly Java Pocket Reference.

Second Place: Each team member will receive a Mun market bag, 24 sleeve CD/DVD binder, package of cord wraps, Mun logo pen, USB card reader, air duster, and a copy of O'Reilly C++ Pocket Reference.

First Place: Each team member will receive a Mun market bag, 48 sleeve CD/DVD binder, tin of BBQ Pringles, Ubuntu 11.04 Server Install Disc, copy of IEEE Spectrum, and large tin of instant coffee. The first place team also gets to advance to the next round of the competition (see Mun CS department for more details).

The Fall 2011 CS Team Games are tentatively scheduled for September 23rd, in room EN2036 at 5pm. When a link to the information regarding competition rules, and other details becomes available I'll update this post.

Memorial University CS Games Fall 2011 Competitions Coming Soon!

2011-08-13T10:10:00.000-02:30

I've been asked by several Mun CS students over the summer if there will be CS Games held this fall, and if so will there be prizes? To answer, yes there will be CS Games in both Singles and Team competitions. As to prizes, here is a snapshot of the collected loot currently residing in my CS Games treasure chest.

I'll be posting details on the Singles and Teams games when they become available, and detail the prizes for first, second, and third places when the loot is finalized :)

Apache Karaf JDK7 support coming soon!

2011-08-02T13:04:00.000-02:30

Barely a month since my last post on adding JDK7 support to Apache Karaf and we're nearly there! The current Karaf 2.2.x branch and trunk (3.0.0) are compiling and running with JDK7.

You can expect the first release with JDK7 support to appear with the upcoming 2.2.3 patch update, then from the start with Karaf 3.0.0.

Returning lost ducklings to their mother (yes, there is a happy ending)

2011-07-29T20:44:00.000-02:30

This afternoon we noticed a small commotion along the side of the house when a small family of ducklings decided to huddle up and cry for their mother to find them. Being a fare ways away from any form of pond or lake, this was very concerning -- we have a lot of cats in the neighborhood and the ducklings wouldn't stand a chance if they were found. So the next two hours were filled with calls to wildlife dept and the SPCA, the later of which were very helpful dispatching two volunteers with a carrier to collect the ducks and attempt to relocate them.

Upon arriving the SPCA volunteers gathered the ducklings from underneath laundry baskets we & our neighbors had used to shield them from cats, then we all began looking for a safe place to deposit them. Walking the pole line behind the house we came near to the bog land near the highway. We discussed if these wet lands would be suitable for the birds or if we'd have to transport them to long pond or bowring park when above our heads the mother duck came swooping. We immediately opened the carrier and the ducklings and mother raced to meet again. Pictures of the happy reunion are below.

Mother and her seven ducklings reuniting.

Family back together.

Mother duck marching her charges into the bog lands.

My neighbors' have a few pictures of the ducklings in the laundry baskets while we were trying to contact the wildlife dept & the SPCA. I'll add those photos to this story once I have copies.

Preparing for Apache Karaf 2.2.3

2011-07-22T10:48:00.000-02:30

The third maintenance release of the Apache Karaf 2.2.x branch has entered the planning phase, as such I'm preparing for the release management role.

Preparing for Apache Karaf 2.2.3

To prepare I've selected a bottle of Chateau Roc de Bernon Puisseguin-Saint-Emilion 2006 to decant while listening to some Joel Plaskett albums. The 3.0.0 release is still underway in preparation, this 2.2.x update is our attempt to push as many of the fixes users will see in 3.0 out for review. I should note though that it has been indicated to me that more frequent updates to Karaf may be expected as we move forward -- I'm sure this will be welcoming to our user base, and great for me as I gain more excuses to indulge in wine tasting and great music ;)

The wine will of course only be sampled after being gave proper time to breath in its container, after the first release candidate has be up loaded for voting (see our release guide for more details on our process).

Unfortunately I can't share the wine with you, but I can share a few links to Plaskett videos.

I'm looking forward to starting the 2.2.3 release process. I'll be posting updates to our Twitter stream (#karaf) and on our IRC channel (irc.codehaus.org #karaf).

Apache Karaf 2.1.6 Released!

2011-07-17T15:34:00.000-02:30

Marking the last planned release for the 2.1.x branch, the Karaf team is pleased to announce the availability of Apache Karaf 2.1.6.

This release of Apache Karaf is based off of the 2.1.x series branch, representing an update to Apache Karaf 2.1.5. It contains a few small bug fixes and improvements, including; updated branding-console documentation, a new warning on osgi:shutdown to avoid inadvertently shutting down the container, and a correction to the Oracle JDBC locking mechanism behavior when the locking table is empty.

To help make the transition from Apache Karaf 2.1.0/2.1.1/2.1.2/2.1.3/2.1.4/2.1.5 to 2.1.6 easier I've put together the following table of changed dependencies:

Karaf Version	2.1.0	2.1.1	2.1.2	2.1.3	2.1.4	2.1.5	2.1.6
jetty.bundle.version	6.1.22_2	6.1.25_1	6.1.25_1	6.1.25_1	6.1.25_1	6.1.25_1	6.1.25_1
junit.bundle.version	4.7_1	4.7_2	4.7_2	4.7_2	4.7_2	4.7_2	4.7_2
slf4j.version	1.4.3	1.4.3	1.4.3	1.5.8	1.5.8	1.5.8	1.5.8
spring.version*	3.0.3	3.0.4	3.0.4	3.0.5	3.0.5	3.0.5	3.0.5
pax.exam.version	1.2.2	1.2.2	1.2.2	1.2.3	1.2.3	1.2.3	1.2.3
pax.url.version	1.1.3	1.1.3	1.2.1	1.2.4	1.2.4	1.2.4	1.2.4
pax.web.version	0.7.3	0.7.3	0.7.4	0.7.4	0.7.4	0.7.4	0.7.4
felix framework	3.0.2	3.0.2	3.0.2	3.0.2	3.0.2	3.0.9	3.0.9

*RELEASE version

For more information please see the release notes.

As discussed in my prior Apache Karaf 2.1.6 preparation post, I've taken in the Wreckhouse International Jazz and Blues Festival the last few days, and have sampled the François Pélissié Croix du Mayne Cahors 2008. I think that was a fitting end for such a great line of Apache Karaf. The source code is of course still available, and anyone needing to access it may find it in our SCM.

I'd like to take this time to thanks all of our contributors and users for all of their efforts and support during this branch. During it's time we've seen a major up swing in Karaf's adoption, with download rates steadily climbing. I look forward to enjoying even more successes with our community as Karaf 2.2.x and 3.x continue forward.

Preparing for Apache Karaf 2.1.6

2011-07-14T16:03:00.000-02:30

The final planned release of the Apache Karaf 2.1.x branch is now under way. As the release manager I've had to prepare a little extra for the end of life for this line.

Preparing for the Apache Karaf 2.1.6 release.

To prepare I've selected François Pélissié Croix du Mayne Cahors 2008 to decant while taking in the Wreckhouse International Jazz and Blues festival here in St John's Newfoundland. The combination of smooth jazz and strong red wines seem to pair nicely to celebrate the efforts that's gone into making the 2.1.x line.

The wine will of course be sampled after being gave proper time to breath in its container, after the first release candidate has been loaded up for voting (see our release guide for more details on our process).

Unfortunately I can't share the wine with you, but I can share a few links to the artists performing live here in St John's over the next week:

I'll be posting updates to our Twitter stream, and on our IRC channel (irc.codehaus.org #karaf). I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of our users and contributors during the journey of Apache Karaf 2.1.0 through to this very release candidate for selecting Karaf as your OSGi runtime, and I'd like to assure you that development is still very much alive on the 2.2.x line and the upcoming 3.0.x :)

For the Sommeliers on #karaf (irc.codehaus.org)

2011-07-11T13:48:00.001-02:30

From time to time on #karaf the topic of what I'm making for lunch comes up - especially if I'm at my server colocation (well fed systems admins (Read Dwayne Hart) == uptime). So here are some pics from today's trip to the server room:

Beef Rogan Josh

Basmati rice, Madras Chickpeas & Lentils, and Beef Rogan Josh.

The basmati rice was a simple combination of powdered curry, garlic, & cumin with onions, mushrooms, and mixed peppers. The Madras chickpeas and lentils were standard fare - just the legume in sauce, slowly heated until delicious. Finally, the Rogan Josh beef was a simple stack of steaks BBQed until medium rare, then sautéed in rogan josh sauce until it became thick like gravy.

What does any of this have to do with Apache Karaf? Well, the release build environment lives at the server colocation, and so far after nearly a dozen releases we haven't had one issue in regards to resource uptime ;)

Trying out JDK7 with Apache Karaf

2011-07-10T06:46:00.000-02:30

Java early access builds of JDK7 are now available for download, as such I thought I would get a copy and take it out for a test drive.

The Environment

VirtualBox vm of Ubuntu 11.04 64 bit,
Subversion,
Maven 3.0.3 binary, and
JDK 7 for 64 Bit Linux.

Setting Up

The base Ubuntu setup took only a few minutes to provision. Installation of subversion was straight forward via apt-get, and the Maven binary a simple tar xzf filename. The JDK7 binary snapshot is delivered as tar.gz file, so it too was a simple matter to decompress and extract. To simplify my test environment I wrote a very short setup script to source my tool chain:

MVN_HOME=/x1/apache-maven-3.0.3
JAVA_HOME=/x1/jdk1.7.0
export MVN_HOME JAVA_HOME
PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$MVN_HOME/bin:$PATH
export PATH

Testing the tool chain we see the following from passing version to maven: 

jgoodyear@LinuxJDK7:/x1$ mvn -version
Apache Maven 3.0.3 (r1075438; 2011-02-28 14:01:09-0330)
Maven home: /x1/apache-maven-3.0.3
Java version: 1.7.0, vendor: Oracle Corporation
Java home: /x1/jdk1.7.0/jre
Default locale: en_CA, platform encoding: UTF-8
OS name: "linux", version: "2.6.38-8-generic", arch: "amd64", family: "unix"

Once subversion was present I checked out the latest code from trunk, and was ready to start testing out the new JDK.

Test drive begins!

Starting from a clean slate I executed mvn clean install in trunk, and watched while maven took over and started downloading all the dependencies and resources it required. Once maven was satisfied it started in compiling Karaf, module by module.

The first snag encountered during the JDK7 build was with the Karaf JAAS module. The Felix Properties call get (key) and keySet now both require explicit type casting on their return values. A few simple casts, and we were back in business.

More explicit casting was required in Karaf Admin Core and Karaf Maven Plugin. Correcting these minor issues Karaf was able to completely build.

Unfortunately many of the integration tests fail. I suspect some failures are due to new security provider configurations, while others are due to dependencies not being fully JDK7 compliant at this point in time.

Trying a JDK7 built kit out...

Continuing on, I tried out the Karaf kit produced by the build attempt. The issues encountered above however prevented Karaf from fully starting. It appears that we'll be working towards a stable JDK7 build of Apache Karaf for the next while. On the bright side of things most of the Karaf code base is now compiling under JDK7, so our efforts here will probably shift towards assisting the underlying projects to become JDK7 compliant then return to Karaf to see how they integrate into the whole.

Walking Sugarloaf Path

2011-07-04T22:05:00.000-02:30

Another walk on the East Coast Trail, this time Sugarloaf Path. I thought I'd share some more photos of the landscape here Newfoundland. We don't get too many sunny days, so when we do have one we tend to get out and enjoy our great outdoors.

Quidi Vidi Lake

Quidi Vidi Brewery Company

Newfoundland Flag

St John's

Looking towards Cape Spear.

Looking over the cliff edge to the ocean below.

Apache Karaf 2.2.2 Released!

2011-07-03T22:15:00.001-02:30

The Apache Karaf team is pleased to announce the availability of Apache Karaf 2.2.2.

This release of Apache Karaf is based off of the 2.2.x series branch, representing an update to Apache Karaf 2.2.1. It contains bug fixes identified in the prior release, and introduces improvements including; improved behavior for the OracleDB locking mechanism and http feature jetty port usage. Several improvements to the shell have been incorporated, such as completion for shell aliases and a warning on osgi:shutdown to avoid inadvertently shutting down the container. There has also been a few small dependency upgrades to felix event admin, Pax URL, and jetty. For more detail please see the change log below.

To help make the transition from Apache Karaf 2.2.0/2.2.1 to 2.2.2 easier I've put together a table of changed dependencies:

Karaf Version	2.2.0	2.2.1	2.2.2
aopalliance.bundle.version	1.0_4	1.0_5	1.0_5
asm.bundle.version	3.3_1	3.3_2	3.3_2
cglib.bundle.version	2.1_3_6	2.1_3_7	2.1_3_7
commons-codec.bundle.version	1.3_3	1.3_4	1.3_4
commons-collections.bundle.version	3.2.1_1	3.2.1_2	3.2.1_2
commons-lang.bundle.version	2.4_4	2.4_5	2.4_5
jasypt.bundle.version	1.7_1	1.7_3	1.7_3
jetty.version	7.2.2.v20101205	7.3.1.v20110307	7.4.2.v20110526
junit.bundle.version	4.7_2	4.7_3	4.7_3
felix.framework.version	3.0.8	3.0.9	3.0.9
felix.eventadmin.version	1.2.8	1.2.10	1.2.12
aries.blueprint.version	0.3	0.3.1	0.3.1
pax.exam.version	1.2.3	1.2.4	1.2.4
pax.logging.version	1.6.0	1.6.2	1.6.3
pax.runner.version	1.5.0	1.6.1	1.6.1
pax.url.version	1.2.5	1.2.6	1.2.7
pax.web.version	1.0.1	1.0.3	1.0.4

For more information please see the release notes.

As discussed in my prior Apache Karaf 2.2.2 preparation post, I enjoyed listening to Wintersleep albums throughout the release process and was delighted to try the Terre Dei Volsci Velletri Rosso Riserva 2004 once the release was complete. Now, sadly, I find my carafe empty... hopefully Karaf 3.0.0 will not be too far away :)

Preparing for Apache Karaf 2.2.2

2011-06-27T20:46:00.001-02:30

The second maintenance release of the Apache Karaf 2.2.x branch has entered the planning phase, as such I'm preparing for the release management role.

Preparing for the Apache Karaf 2.2.2 release.

To prepare I've selected a bottle of Terre Dei Volsci Velletri Rosso Riserva 2004 to decant while listening to Wintersleep's albums New Inheritors, Welcome to the Night Sky, and untitled. It's been rain, drizzle, and fog for a long time now while waiting for summer to kick in, so I think the intellectual, macabre sounds fits in well with dark days outside. Please do not worry about the dreary theme I have going here, for there is an upbeat attitude coming for the 3.0.0 release. Seriously, how many projects do you know of where the release manager talks mostly about wine & music before a release? Apache Karaf is awesome that way ;)

The wine will of course only be sampled after being gave proper time to breath in its container, after the first release candidate has be up loaded for voting (see our release guide for more details on our process).

Unfortunately I can't share the wine with you, but I can share a few links to Wintersleep videos.

I'm looking forward to starting the 2.2.2 release process. I'll be posting updates to our Twitter stream (#karaf) and on our IRC channel (irc.codehaus.org #karaf).

Preparing for Apache Karaf 3.0.0

2011-06-26T16:36:00.001-02:30

The first release of Apache Karaf 3.0.x branch will be coming soon, as such I'm preparing for the release management role.

Preparing for the Apache Karaf 3.0.0 release.

To prepare I've selected a bottle of Stella Bella Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2007 to decant while listening to a pair The Idlers albums; Corner & Keep Out. It's summer here in Newfoundland, so I thought some up beat reggae from the island would be fitting for this release.

The wine will of course only be sampled after being gave proper time to breath in its container, after the first release candidate has be up loaded for voting (see our release guide for more details on our process).

Unfortunately I can't share the wine with you, but I can share few links to Idlers videos.

I'm looking forward to starting the 3.0.0 release process. I'll be posting updates to our Twitter stream (#karaf) and on our IRC channel (irc.codehaus.org #karaf).

Update:

Summer has come and gone (debatable in Newfoundland, but I digress), and we're now heading towards Winter. The Karaf 3.0 line is almost there now though. Expect to hear more as the RC approaches.

Preparing for Apache Karaf 3.0.0 and 2.2.2 releases

2011-06-23T14:45:00.001-02:30

I'm spending some time today at my server co-location host preparing the Apache Karaf release machines for the upcoming 3.0.0 (currently trunk) and 2.2.2 releases.

Traditionally when I visit the server colo I try to make a nice lunch, so here are some pics from today, and a shot of the current infra setup I have for Karaf (thanks Dwayne for setting up and maintaining all the machines!).

This is pretty healthy by my standards.

Perhaps a little ghetto, but it's safe & secure with backups :)

I'll be posting on the 3.0.0 and 2.2.2 releases as they approach, so expect more updates to come!

Newfoundland's game development industry is growing!

2011-06-16T21:09:00.001-02:30

The International Game Developer Association - Newfoundland Chapter is holding their first official meeting this weekend in St John's. While a portion of the event is private, members only, there will be a portion that is open to the general community (when details are available I'll update this post).

Over the last few years I've been posting articles surrounding the growth of the Newfoundland game development industry, and have had the opportunity to sit down with some of our local game companies to discuss their views on the industry, and on their successes in the market. So I'm looking forward to this weekend's meeting to find out more about how the industry is growing here, and where it's going in the years to come.

Update:

Time: June 19, 20:00 - 21:00.
Place: Yellow Belly Brewery, 288 Water Street, St John's.
http://www.yellowbellybrewery.com/place.html

Meeting is upstairs in the public house level.

Apache Karaf: Year one in review.

2011-06-15T17:20:00.002-02:30

On June 16th, 2010 Apache Karaf became a top level project at the Apache Software Foundation. During it’s first year the Apache Karaf team has enjoyed the process of creating a new Apache community, welcoming new contributors, producing many releases, accepting it’s first sub project, and planning for a bright future.

As it’s first birthday approaches we, the Karaf team, would like to look back at the year that was, and thank all of our users and contributors for making Apache Karaf’s inaugural year so exciting. For those interested in reading more about Karaf’s past, please see the article "A brief history of Apache Karaf".

Before we start our review of Apache Karaf’s first year, I’ve asked Guillaume Nodet (project founder) to share a few thoughts on were the project has been:

"Karaf is one year old as a top level project but the original code is more than 3 years old and I've spent a big chunk of that time working on Karaf's code base. The project is really great, but what I'm the most proud of is certainly having helped creating such an amazing and thriving community as this is definitely one of the best I've worked with.

Happy birthday Karaf !"

Year in review:

There are so many highlights over the last twelve months to talk about, new features, improvements, releases, new contributors & users, projects selecting Karaf as their platform to build upon - the list goes on and on. To start the review I'd like to look at some of the raw statistics surrounding Karaf.

Karaf by the numbers:

Over the last year Apache Karaf has seen a steady increase in interest from its user base and the development community at large. In fact, the average monthly download volume has increased 10 fold from 500 to 5000 kits/month during this time. These numbers of course are collected from our nine releases!

source: Nexus Central Statistics, reproduced here with permission of Karaf PMC.

Breaking down the volume of Apache Karaf downloads by release version we observe that Karaf 2.0.0, 2.1.0, 2.1.3, and 2.2.0 have garnered interest from a large portion of our user base. We also can also see that our minor or “patch” releases have a steady following.

source: Nexus Central Statistics, reproduced here with permission of Karaf PMC.

Release Version	Total Downloads	Percent of Total Downloads	Issues Resolved
2.0.0	7219	29%	39
2.1.0	5072	20%	71
2.1.1	266	1.5%	16
2.1.2	584	2%	9
2.1.3	3007	12%	24
2.1.4	526	2%	14
2.1.5	58	0.5%	10
2.2.0	7358	30%	177
2.2.1	608	2%	82

When reviewing these numbers please bare in mind that higher version numbers have been available for a shorter period of time.

Welcoming new Contributors, Committers, and PMC!

The raw data surrounding Apache Karaf downloads doesn’t tell the whole story of the project. The real numbers we’re happy to boast about is all of the new members of our community. Our new users and contributors have been and continues to be one of the most dynamic and growing aspects of Karaf. Starting with a group of ten initial committers we now have just about doubled our team - no small feat for a new project. We’re always looking for more contributors though, so please visit our JIRA, read our email lists, and say ‘hi’ on irc.

Karaf’s first subproject “Apache Karaf Cellar”!

In the spring of 2011 Apache Karaf accepted its first externally donated sub-project. Apache Karaf Cellar provides Karaf with a clustering engine powered by Hazelcast. The developer behind this sub-project, Ioannis Canellos, along with the community have been steadily helping to integrate the technology deeper into Karaf, while extending its features.

A word from Jean-Baptiste:

As Apache Karaf’s first year as a top level project comes to an end I asked Jean-Baptiste Onofré, Karaf PMC, to share his thoughts on where the project will be heading in year two and beyond.

"Karaf is a highly strategic project in the OSGi eco-system. We built it as container/kernel, and Karaf aims to be the foundation of a lot of other projects, with different business requirements and implementations. The Karaf team works on major enhancements and new features to provide an enterprise OSGi application server. Karaf will become the premium container to all applications and projects that want to enter in the OSGi world with a ready to use environment. But more than a technical project, Karaf is an amazing community. The team is very eclectic: we discuss and share a lot to create a very active and interesting community. I'm very proud to be part of Karaf. I would like to address a huge thanks to Guillaume, Karaf founder and first PMC chair: he made an awesome work. I have a deep respect for this guy.

Long life to Karaf and happy birthday !!"

The road ahead:

Now that we're entering our second year there are many new goals that we want to achieve. First and foremost will be our up coming 3.0.0 release, and our many planned patch releases for our currently supported branches. We hope to expand our community, and extend a warm welcome to everyone interested in contributing to Karaf's future success. So as we celebrate our achievements to date, please stay tuned for there is more to come :)

Security BSides St John's Recap!

2011-06-13T22:39:00.000-02:30

Did you miss Security BSides St John's? If you did then you'll probably want to read my in-depth recap of all the events : An in-depth look back on Newfoundland's first ever Security BSides conference.

Afterwards, you may want to check out the conference photos.

I'd like to take this opportunity again to thank Norbert Griffin, Travis Barlow, Victoria Vuong, the presenters, and all of the sponsors for all of their hard work and support putting together this great event. Hope to see you all again next year for another BSides!