fred.doddridge.net

If you’re a company tool like me who gets stuck doing all of the JIRA modifications, you might be interested in this little tidbit of experience.

I’ve been struggling for a few hours trying to get the build script to build JIRA from source so that I can install it in my local maven repository. Normally I would just download the binary jar and be done with it, but we in our infinite wisdom have made custom source code changes to JIRA and some of the plugins I’ve written depend on these changes at compile time. In order for me to compile my plugin with the Atlassian maven tools I need to compile the source code changes into JIRA and deploy it to my local repository.

Yeah, fun.

The issue I was having was a ClassNotFoundException for some CodeHaus jar, specifically this:
NoClassDefFoundError: org/codehaus/classworlds/Launcher

In the JIRA source folder there is a file called build.sh. That file, when invoked, replaces your current M2_HOME and PATH with a custom M2_HOME that points to the ‘maven’ folder inside the source folder root, and a PATH that puts that M2_HOME first in line. When I invoked it the ClassNotFoundException would occur, even though the classworlds jar was indeed in the correct places. I did have maven 2.2 installed on my system, and the JIRA source included maven version was 2.1, but they both had that jar file. Out of frustration, thinking that somehow either Ubuntu or something in the line of scripts invoked was getting confused, I simply apt-get remove’d maven2 from my system and then tried to run the build file. That resulted in a system permissions error in build.sh, line 25, where it attempts to invoke maven.

You would think that I would immediately check the permission bits on the file, right? Well, if you did think that you are just a bit smarter than I, because I did not. I spent a good half hour checking that all of the files were exactly where they should be, then ‘sudo ./build.sh’, then checking again, then screaming at the monitor… They’re right there, stupid! See?! Right there, why can’t you see it?. I consulted Google on the subject and discovered that most of the hits were related to having a missing classworlds*.jar file or having to rearrange or uninstall their maven2 or $M2_HOME. I already checked that!

So, in the end I finally realized that it was a permissions error, smacked myself in the head, and typed ‘chmod +x maven/bin/mvn’.

Problem solved.

And the result?

[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESSFUL
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 39 minutes 18 seconds
[INFO] Finished at: Thu Jun 30 14:11:14 MDT 2011
[INFO] Final Memory: 381M/793M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------


Yay

I’ve been frustrated with the slowness of the Android emulator for a while, but just recently I tried something new that seems to speed things up a LOT! In the AVD Manager I edited the device I’m using and increased the RAM and maximum heap size to 512 and 64 respectively. I also gave it a 16 MiB SD card. I guess the emulator had just been resource constrained, cause it’s much snappier now

Yes, ok, so you’ve done the math and figured out that this isn’t really day 22, but day 25 or something. I had a few bad days and couldn’t fit in the workout so I pushed them to the next day and I still feel like I’m on track to get the results this program promises.

Today is the first day of the first recovery week: Yoga X. I feel like I did well in the mental area of the workout, but not so much the physical. I had a difficult time sleeping last night… I was in to the workout about fifteen minutes, doing an upward dog when the fatigue hit like a sandbag and I laid down to recover. I woke up almost an hour later. So yeah, I’ll have to do some stretching tonight to feel like I’m keeping up with the program. And then SLEEP!

I feel great otherwise, especially in the mornings when I complete the workout. I’ve noticed though that I have become a bit more irritable on days when I don’t feel like I got a good workout, or skipped it. Not sure what kind of chemistry is going on there, so I’ll just have to BRING IT every day to avoid the grouchiness. I guess it could be from the shortened sleep cycle, I really need to get to sleep earlier. I have also been doing well with the nutrition plan, trying to eat 4-5 times a day, 2 servings of veggies minimum, meals of equal parts carb and protein, eat until I’m full, etc. I really don’t put much more thought into my meals than that, I’m not the kid of person who can plan a week’s worth of meals and have everything ready in little baggies marked Mon-Sun, and Breakfast-Dinner. I’m just not that organized. For those who are interested, or more likely, for me in 10 years reading this trying to remember my life, here is my ordinary eating schedule:

Wake up – ~6:25am:
Before my workouts, which are usually within 10 minutes of me waking up, I’ll try to take a bite of whatever I find in the kitchen. Sometimes it’s a small pretzel or a bite of string cheese or granola bar or whatever. Sometimes I just drink a bit of flavored water.

< < Workout >>

Recovery drink – after workout, before shower:
Chocolate milk. Sometimes I’ll have the Carnation Instant Breakfast. I’ve read that it is basically the same thing as the expensive recovery drinks, and tastes a hell of a lot better.

Breakfast – ~9am:
I bought a bunch of Quaker oatmeal, and eat one every morning when I get to work with some hard-boiled eggs (sans yolk). Sometimes I can pound down a V8 without hurling and chase it with a Tropicana orange juice. (Gotta love the free employer paid drinks )

Lunch – ~12pm:
Usually leftovers from the previous day’s dinner with a Diet Mtn Dew. My wife has been making some great foods that are well balanced and healthy. You should check out some of the stuff she makes at her food blog. Now that she’s doing Weight Watchers she’s much more conscious of the foods she makes yet they are fantastically delicious. She is an amazing cook.

Snack – ~3pm:
Sometimes I’ll just eat oatmeal and eggs, same as breakfast, and sometimes I’ll eat more of what I had for lunch. Sometimes there are leftovers from a catered meeting here at work and I’ll snag those.

Dinner – ~6:30pm:
My wife’s fantastic dinners.

All day – inbetween meals:
Water. My wife bought this MiO liquid water enhancer that is fantastic! I squeeze a bit of it into a bottle of water and down about 60-80 oz. a day. It makes the water flavor very tolerable. If you decide to get some, I recommend the Mango Peach flavor, it’s really good.

I should note that this schedule is not exact, and neither are the portions. I try to follow the guidelines as best I can, but sometimes I’ll eat way more carbs than protein and vice versa. I figure that eating something is better than eating nothing and as long as I just do my best it will all work out for me. I’ll let you be the judge of that though when I post my “after” photos in about 68 days.

I’m still going!

Today I worked my legs and back. I’m not so wobbly today as I was last week, but I am still fatigued. I am starting to feel like the workouts are having an effect on my body. I know that I still look the same as I did before, I won’t kid myself about that, but I do feel an increased tightness in my muscles that was lacking two weeks ago. I’d like to think that my arms and chest are a bit larger than before but that’s probably just wishful thinking or perhaps better posture due to working my back today. I feel better in a number of other ways as well: my breathing, my confidence, my strength and balance to name a few. I’m also able to quickly sit up from laying on my back where I would struggle a bit before. It’s almost effortless and it surprised me the first time it happened. I really am getting stronger and I feel a lot more healthy already.

I have to confess though that I skipped the yoga workout yesterday. I felt a little sick Sunday night and got to bed very late, and didn’t make time to do it. I’m not going to let it interrupt my schedule any more though, I need to keep this rhythm if I’m going to get through the entire program.

What surprises me most about this whole program is how non-intimidating it is once I decided to just show up and do it. I do get my heart rate up, but I don’t push myself beyond what I am capable of doing, and I take frequent breaks. I’m nowhere near being able to do what Tony Horton and his crew do but I still feel great at the end of every workout because I know I’ve pushed myself to get a little better than the last time, I didn’t hurt myself, and I feel like I’ve done something important. I have put my trust in the P90X workout program. I’m going to show up and do my best, and prove whether this program will give me the results it promises or not.

I’ve just completed my first week of P90X!

This has been a long time coming, getting back in shape. I’ve watched over the years as my body has slowly deteriorated and wasted away, leaving only enough muscle mass to perform my job and occasionally have some fun on the slopes or the hockey rink. I have watched it transform from lean and fit to not-so-lean and not-so-fit. I don’t want to say that I am unhealthy or in danger of some kind of life-threatening condition due to this deterioration, but unfortunately my wants don’t get priority here. I am, in fact, unhealthy. My triglycerides are very high and my levels of some other good kind of chemical that I can’t remember are very low. In my yearly physical a couple of years ago the doctor warned me that I need to start taking some fish oil pills and get on an exercise plan. Yeah, a couple of years ago.

In my defense, I’ve been pretty busy. I know that’s not much of a defense, but I really have tried to keep myself active. That is, aside from sitting on my ass for 9+ hours a day… I’ve coached my sons’ hockey teams which gave me about an hour activity 3+ times a week during winter, and I’ve coached their lacrosse teams which gives me a little activity now and then in the springtime. Not too bad I guess for someone in their late 30s, especially if that someone is a computer programmer. However, it is oh-so far away from what I know I could be. I do not want to be the father who cannot hike with a pack up a half-mile gentle slope in the snow to his son’s boy scout campsite. I do not want to be the father who looks for excuses to not go play lacrosse with his sons in the backyard because he’s so “tired” from working all day. I do not want to be the guy on the hockey team who takes 20 second shifts ’cause he’s just too damn tired to keep skating. I’m only 37 years old and I feel like I’m 80! Unacceptable.

Now I know from previous experiments that in order for me to achieve the fitness level I want that I’ll need to get on some kind of fitness plan, a plan that I can follow, a plan that I know works. Just getting up in the morning to go lift weights or jog or whatever is not enough for me at this point. It needs to be something proven, something that I know will get me from point A to point B in a measurable time period. I don’t care if it’s the best plan, I don’t care if it’s the most sexy or “cool” thing to do, I just want it to work. After looking at my options I decided to go with P90X, a workout system based on watching, and following, a set of DVDs 6-7 times a week. But why did I choose this one over, say, the Jillian Michaels videos? Cause I’ve seen the results first hand: a friend of mine who is a Colonel in the US Army and flies Apache helicopters. After a motorcycle ride through the mountains a group of us stopped to get a drink and he told me about his experience with it. After that I was convinced. The guy was _ripped!_

Sooo, that brings me back to the present time and the reason for this post. I have completed the first week of this pretty intense program and feel great! I feel like I’m getting into a rhythm and am adjusting to the early morning wake up time, I’m doing my best to keep to the spirit of the nutrition plan, and my legs and ass burn like hell when I walk so I know it’s doing _something_. This is a commitment that I’m happy to have made, and I feel very confident that it is going to get me to where I want – where I _need_ – to be. And uh, before you comment asking for my “before” photos… no. Yeah I’m sure I’ll post them in another 11 weeks or so when I can show the contrast between them and the “after” photos, but for now…. I just don’t wanna.

Tonight was a good one for my sons and I.  For Julie too, she got to rest a bit and went to the gym.  But for the boys and I it was great!

Max had some homework to do and was having a very difficult time getting through it.  It was a somewhat difficult assignment, and he had a mental block that was preventing him from concentrating.  It was a pretty severe ADD moment and he would avoid it at all costs, so I had to be firm with him and required him to stay on task.  He cried a lot and made excuses, but I explained how rewarding it would be for him to get through this difficult assignment and know that he’d conquered it.  He of course did get through it, it took a while and he had to go through a hard mental block to do it, but he did it and did indeed feel pretty good about himself.

Wyatt and Jake meanwhile helped me make oatmeal cookies.  They took turns adding ingredients to the bowl and stirring them up.  It was a lot of fun, and everyone got along great.  Just as the first batch of cookies came out of the oven Max finished his homework and the remains of his dinner and was thrilled to be able to eat the cookies with us.  While the cookies were baking Wyatt and Jake pulled up some bar chairs and Jake’s Lightning McQueen blanket and watched the timer count down to 0.  They even made space for their stuffed penguin.  It was very, very cute.

There were even enough cookies left over that they can now each take two cookies to school tomorrow.  Ah, good times!  I love these years with them, I never want them to end.  I am very proud of my sons and of who they are.  They’re great kids, very great.

I listened to a rebroadcast of Radio West with Doug Fabrizio tonight on my drive home from SLC. He interviewed Dr. Richard Dawson, author of quite a few books on evolution and a renowned expert on the subject. It was a very interesting interview, of course… all of Doug Fabrizio’s interviews are fantastic, and while it got me thinking a lot about the subject of evolution, faith, and life in general I started to form some thoughts that I need to write down.

One of the first thoughts I’d like to get down is my view of intelligence, or rather, intelligent people. There is no shortage of people on this planet with above average intelligence, Dr. Dawson included (he’s even got the snooty British accent to prove it), but it strikes me as more than a little amusing that these people are so convinced of their intelligence and correctness that it allows little room for discussion. At all. Ok, ok, this is not a really full-formed thought. Let’s move on to another one.

Another thought that I had bubbling around in my head was one of curiosity. To preface this thought let me give a little background: I have a great respect for scientists and the work they do, and while I think there are probably a few quacks in the bunch, overall I am not a doubter of science. Evolution? No problem, absolutely, evolution is a fact as Dr. Dawson said. I also have a great respect for God. Yes, I believe passionately that God is a reality, and while there are probably a higher ratio of quacks in the clergy (educated Theists) crowd than the scientist (educated Evidentialists) crowd I cannot deny the faith I have that there is something greater than just what one can see and feel with their senses.

So having said that I began thinking about how faith and science are not mutually exclusive, but rather complimentary depending on how you interpret both faith and evidence. As Dr. Dawson rightly stated there is plenty of room for those in the clergy crowd to believe in evolution as truth, and many, IMO correctly, do. Now while this faith that I have may seem a liability to some, an impediment to clear and rational thinking, I believe quite the opposite: that it is actually impossible to get to the clear truth of things without the ability to believe in something that transcends human possibilities and the impediment actually lies in limiting one’s self to believing in only the evidence as proven by our current senses.

There are a lot of connections in science that I believe can be made by using “God” reasoning that would not be available otherwise.

This no doubt will land me in the quack camp in many eyes, including those of Dr. Dawson. I quite frankly don’t give a shizzle (yo Snoop) who’s camp people put me into, but it segues perfectly into what I wanted to address… which is this:

Update 15 Jun 2011: This post has been in my drafts folder for a very long time (since Dec. 2009). I have no idea what I originally wanted to vent about, but the thoughts above seem somewhat coherent so I’m going to publish this anyway… sorry for the mental interruption.

I will cyberstalk you! I will threaten you with death! I will harass you and call you names! I will try to discredit your life’s work!

…because God doesn’t like you.

There’s nothing so great that the dumbest of those in your group cannot destroy.

That, my friends, is the rule of the dumbest common denominator.  It’s the stupid, lazy, dimwitted, and clueless among you that have the power to destroy all that is good.  Why, you say?  Because these idiots are the ones who scream the loudest when they can’t have their way.

Case in point:  I am a software engineer.  My team at work is tasked with building one of the coolest products our company has ever seen.  It is the product that many executives have staked their reputations on, and which they hope will basically be the new direction for our company.  Yes, it is that cool.  Five of us started the project and came up with a technical design that was great.  It used the most cutting edge tools, and the best design elements, and looked absolutely amazing.  We were excited about coming in to work, and even put in extra hours to finish a certain feature here or there or to add a cool effect or clean up some code.  In short, it was fun.

Then we expanded the team to around ten engineers, and almost instantly everything that was cool and fun and great about the project seemed to melt away into one big suck.  It was like one big whine-a-thon:  This is too confusing.  Why are you doing it like that?  There’s too much *magic* going on and I can’t figure it out…  On and on and on, I mean WTF?!  These are supposed to be engineers, they’re supposed to be able to learn new things and figure things out right?!  I suppose that’s too much to ask though. 

It seemed like these guys were stuck in a time warp that would not allow them to use technology or design patterns less than 10 years old.  Anything that didn’t use the Factory pattern was “evil”.  Dependency Injection was mocked as one of those newfangled magical thingies that we just can’t understand… I mean look at that stack trace!  What do I do?  Awwww, maaaahhh gaaaawwwd I’m melting!…  And that event framework, why don’t you just attach listeners to everything?  I mean that way you know what’s going on right?

Eventually enough of the original team caved to the tantrums and demands of the “dumbest common denominator” that our application that was once great is now a mangled mess of Factories and … well I’m not really sure since we’ve basically gone back to the drawing board to design a new dumbed down version of what we’d already built the right way.

The tyranny is over!  WOOT!

Let’s hope the new guy does a better job.