In this the last part of this four-part series I will zoom carefully into the ease of use of PMD. I totally enjoy PMD. The reason for this is the relative simplicity of writing your own bug pattern-capturing rules and using them under fire. More on that later. To round off we have included an in-depth interview with Tom Copeland, the author of PMD Applied and the newer JavaCC . It is no coincidence that Tom is at the center of the PMD development thrust.

Note: this is Part 4. Feel free to read Part 3!

In the previous posts, I have written about personal use of static code reviews via a GUI, in this case Eclipse. However, for large projects with hundreds of thousands of lines of code or more, with the code base being scattered amongst project teams, we have a problem. The economics of Quality Assurance demand a more mass analyzed and factory-efficient approach. Do things quick, hit the code, find the worst bugs and repair. The white box looking out, in combination with the functional or load testing black box methodologies looking in.

Note: this is Part 3. Feel free to read Part 2!

Static code reviews aimed at eating bugs (!) are unbiased and neutral. If you spill coffee on their laps or are applying for the same job as them, the advice given back will remain the same. Static code reviews work via rules; some rules are accurate in their assessment and others are not so relevant—or even false. Before building a thorough infrastructure for large-scale deployment, it is well worth installing the tool’s respective plugins. You can have a lot of fun kicking the tires of the rule sets for your own particular environment. Getting your fingers into the reality of the code is the first step in the path to Quality Assurance enlightenment. Note to self, remember to ask boss for pay rise.

Note: this is Part 2. Feel free to read Part 1!

Finding bugs in your code can be quite nasty—especially if you don’t know where to look. However, finding bugs automatically does not require astronaut training. I think it’s time to leave that “pleasure” to free (as in freedom) automatic static code review tools like the ones reviewed in this series of articles.

The 7th Sakai Conference took place from the 12-14 June in the Movenpick Hotel Amsterdam.

Some of you newer readers to my random ranting may be asking what Sakai actually is? Well Sakai is a rather excellent and rapidly transforming Collaboration and Learning Environment. With a solid history of rapid release cycles, ever evolving functional requirements and delivered features, it has a solid set of architectural principles supporting scalability.

How much material has been lost through the years? Now the question is of course what do I mean by material. For example, do I mean the trivial stuff such as typed office memorandums or the less trivial—the missing live broadcasts of the early Dr Who. No, let me focus on what I consider to be the most important material of all, that which may have a positive effect on the next generation— the historical and educational material that helps our children form sophisticated models of the Universe around us.

My younger son likes tractors; big machines and anything that can lift large objects up and throw them great distances. You know the sort of thing, The Hulk, Superman, Terminator III, my wife and sometimes my boss. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to you that I spend time sitting behind this computer trawling archive.org, an excellent repository of historical content for the correct media to present.

The big questions are being answered. Now is the golden age of cosmology. Astronomy, astrophysics, particle physics and the rest of the outward facing sciences are moving forward in leaps and bounds of credible theorizing and searching. Yes, a massive shift towards a truly profound understanding of how things work in this Universe. It comes as no surprise that with so much knowledge and data flowing that the elite temples of understanding such as Universities we risk submergence under the velocity of model change and data storage requirements.

I am a great believer in karma. If you are generally nice then generally nice are the events that you get back. Being the school bully is only short-term fun. As you get older and your bones become more fragile then others will take over your role and trample on your head. This is also true in business. Sure you have to be hungry and competitive, but not at the cost of losing your native support along the way. Let this blog be a warning to you… wag, wag my finger is wagging.

How should I say this politely: I do not like spam! I hate spam. Can I choose something different? Perhaps a nice cold beer on such a warm day, but definitely not hot steaming, bug infested spam.

Released Thursday was Sakai 2.2. With a growing community of Educational establishments using this product as their online presence or a significant part thereof; it is only a matter of time before Sakai breaks into the mainstream conscious. If you have a spare five minutes and a reasonably fast connection then I would say it is a fun product to try. The quick demo gives you an idea of the products potential. And it’s just a simple matter of unpacking and running a startup script.

Old news, the European Union is punishing Microsoft for abusing their monopoly position and in the process sucking a fine of 1-2% of the daily local profit out of the corporate wallet. The media is dancing and interested parties posturing. A high stakes festive party. One of the issues that is to the fore is that of documentation and openness. Microsoft say they have, the neutral third party arbitrating has said they have not. Reality is perhaps a little cloudy and no doubt, tactics and last minute plays will change our collective perceptions during the course of time.

Okay I admit it I am lazy. Well, I work four days a week as a developer and another two days writing. I am also good at pretending to be a father and a family man. However, in principle, in another life, in a parallel Universe, where elegance wins over brawn, I simply totally and utterly want to be lazy. When a lazy person, my hero, invented the wheel, the invention was not for the purpose of carrying heavy objects. The purpose was rather to avoid carrying heavy objects.

Hi all, well it has been a long tiring week. Everyone has those weeks occasionally, the sort of week where the traffic lights are against you. You need to send editors the same documents a couple of times, yes even the mail server is against me and the coffee machine is broken just as you reached the point of no return. Therefore, rather than rave against the world and all its contents. I prefer to look on the bright side and then go get some sleep.

I am a simple man. Well, if you define simple as someone who acts as a servant to two young men, occasionally his wife and has the ability to belch well watching football, then I am pretty simple. Anyway, I am a simple man with simple tastes. Not being imbued with complex potentials and the need to analyse every trivial detail before moving my chess pieces, I tend to know immediately what I like and act quickly.

Over the last week or so, I have been watching the World Cup with growing pleasure. Seeing such teams as the US, the Ivory Coast and Trinidad and Tobago fighting hard and not giving an inch to supposedly superior teams, pricks at the very essence of committed sportsmanship. This positive energy makes you wonder why in a fair universe that these small town heroes do not win their allotted matches.

I have noticed in life when you have issues that often a solution appears from the same environment at the same moment. Synchronicity challenges you to move to the next level of efficiency and quality. Problems force you to reroute and grow in new ways and directions. Once the fields have burnt the wheat may grow. Of course I would love to be able to pick my problems, hum, I mean potential solutions and have them pitched at only a slightly higher level than that of the background noise. This week I was lucky to find myself in such a mild training situation.

I have always wanted to invent a new word. Not any old word, but a word that would gets used even in the deepest, darkest corners of coffee shops in Amsterdam. Not that I would ever get to hear the word used. I don’t like coffee! So let’s try vistarization. The process of a sensible, definitely obvious idea degenerating into a heavy weight project that takes many extra years to complete. I have images of small spacecraft trying to divert asteroids that are going to hit the Earth.

It is raining in Amsterdam and I have a nice warm feeling in my stomach from a glass of red wine. I am lucky; I am forced to contemplate the wine for the next five minutes instead of doing any real work. My Windows XP box is starting up. I have two dual boot systems at home. In the past, I stopped my house from being a GNU/Linux only shop due to Word compatibility issues, legacy games that my kids love and the Exchange server that keeps my mail whole for me at my work.