...it's all fine and dandy that the Jakarta folks are improving Tomcat but I still can't understand why on earth they won't fix the damn hardcoded session cookie name.
I once asked about it on the devel list and the answer(s) was along the lines of "the spec says the cookie is named 'JSESSIONID' and we won't diverge from the spec in this case". Ok. Except that not letting users configure the damn session cookie name effectively prevents those same users from deploying their applications on Tomcat in certain shared environments.
I can live without having used Tomcat in that one project. I just don't understand why the Tomcat developers have been so reluctant of implementing relatively simple functionality that would clearly provide benefits for "enterprise" users who are simply not allowed to deploy anything behind a certain SiteMinder protected cluster with the standard session cookie name. It's not like 5 years is too short a time for such a drastic architectural change, is it?
I was recently reintroduced to the Python scripting language through a testing tool that uses a Java-based Python interpreter capable of importing regular Java libraries. Jython is currently almost feature complete with Python 2.2 while Python itself is already at 2.4. The difference is not that significant but still.
Anyway, since I've been looking into Ruby and Rails lately, I naturally gravitated towards the JRuby website to check out where the development is going these days. I've been using the RDT Eclipse plugin for a while and knew that at least the last time I looked JRuby was far from up-to-date with the "native" Ruby.
So, what did my sleepy eyes see on the website in the JRuby roadmap?
JRuby 0.8.4 (late March 2006)
- Rubygems working
- Webrick working
- Ruby on Rails working
Exciting. Very exciting. I really hope the JRuby crew can keep up the good work and hit the milestones. Who cares if Apple is about to release their first Intel-Macs when these guys release a Ruby on Rails with Java :)
Good news for everyone: JavaForge.com has been launched, the main differentiating features being their use of Subversion and some kind of an integration with CruiseControl.
Jim Shore's blog entry, XP Designs All the Time, reminded me of something I've faced in literally every TDD training I remember myself hosting--after a live demo of me pair programming with someone on the projector, every single time two things come up:
- "I knew the bit about refactoring mercilessly but I always thought it was just exaggeration"
- "It was fascinating to watch how the two of you were constantly carrying out little design sessions"
Just like with any other technique, you get so much more out of observing closely when someone more experienced with that particular technique is at it. In fact, the same holds for just about any combination of skill levels on the part of the observer and the observee. If only more people could see others do TDD...