justaddwater.dk

Get started using advanced web fonts today

Jesper Rønn-Jensen — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:00:05 +0000

I saw this example on a blog today:

Studying the code, it turns out this is just clever use of Google’s font api. What you essentially do is to add this to your element:

Now the stylesheet referenced takes care of the rest. It’s as simple as that!

Browser support

The best part of this, is that it works for all modern browsers, and also for old IE versions (down to IE6).

From googles FAQ:

What browsers are supported?

The Google Web Fonts API is compatible with the following browsers:

Google Chrome: version 4.249.4+

Mozilla Firefox: version: 3.5+

Apple Safari: version 3.1+

Opera: version 10.5+

Microsoft Internet Explorer: version 6+

Does the Google Web Fonts API work on mobile devices?

The Google Web Fonts API works reliably on the vast majority of modern mobile operating systems, including Android 2.2+ and iOS 4.2+ (iPhone, iPad, iPod). Support for earlier iOS versions is limited.

Bandwidth considerations

One word of caution: Think twice before adding a lot of extra bytes to your web application. You should only add assets to it if it really makes a difference for your end users!

Criteria for the Capgemini Software Engineer Certification

Jesper Rønn-Jensen — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 22:38:42 +0000

It turns out i could not find any public web description of the certification I took last autumn while working with Capgemini.

I ended up at Level 2, which will have to meet all criteria from level 1 + the additional criteria from level 2.

So for convenience i will post all details here.

The table below is extracted from my certification sheet:

(bwt, i also have put the table below as a software engineer Certification Criteria)

Capgemini Certification criteria for Software Engineer, level 1-4 copied September 2011

Level 1

Expectations

KPI

Personal Profile

Consulting

Clearly explain issues, suggest way forward with client interaction

Versatility and Vocation

Demonstrate enthusiasm for Technology and S/W Engineering

Personal Development in direction of level 2 SEC

Technology Leadership

not applicable

SE Experience – Client Exposure

Client Delivery Experience

Successfully delivered within a client environment in one discipline

Provide individual performance meeting/exceeding expectations which resulted in two successful engagements, or provided individual performance meeting/exceeding expectations which resulted in 200 or more days of a successful engagement (engagement not necessarily complete)

Leadership and Management

Basic experience

Member of team with delivery ownership

Sales and Account Contribution

not applicable

Skills and Contribution

Structured Methods

Received briefing

Experience in at least 1 SE method (e.g. RUP, SLIM, Configuration Management, etc)

Received fundamental training

Is able to perform within project without the need for prior training

Software Engineering Skills

Masters 1 SE Discipline / Masters 1 programming language / Masters 1 vendor-specific technology

Works without supervision in 1 SE Discipline. External Certification is "nice to have".

Understands, at a high-level, the various SE disciplines and how they are interrelated

Contribution to Community

Member and active contributor of a Community of Practice (CoP).

Contributed at least one piece of content to the CoP. Pre-requisite for the applicant to be a part of SE community on KM2.0.

Developing Others

Coaching of peers in project, or
Coaching candidate through the SE certification process

Level 2

MEETS ALL LEVEL 1 CRITERIA, PLUS:

Expectations

KPI

Personal Profile

Consulting

Communicate clearly the relevance of a solution

Can explain the benefits of methods to client

Versatility and Vocation

>>> same as preceding level

Technology Leadership

Published within CoP

Knows B's and C's within 1 technology related to business issues, presents this within Capgemini or project

SE Experience – Client Exposure

Client Delivery experience

Multiple successful deliveries within a client environment within 2 disciplines, aware of distributed working approaches (off-shore, near shore capability)

Provide individual performance meeting/exceeding expectations which resulted in an additional 2 successful engagements (4 total), or provided individual performance meeting/exceeding expectations which resulted in an additional 400 or more days of a successful engagement (engagement not necessarily complete)

Leadership and Management

Guides individuals and groups toward desired outcomes

Team leader with delivery ownership

Sales and Account Contribution

Contributed to a bid/proposal

Has supported a bid in own area of expertise

Holds presentations in own area for clients

Skills and Contribution

Structured Methods

Trained in all aspects relevant to Software Engineering

Experience with at least 1 SE methodology

Trained in RUP and/or SLIM

Software Engineering Skills

Externally recognized validation of technology or Software Engineering area

Externally recognized validation/certification of technology or Software Engineering area

Contribution to Community

Participate actively in at least one CoP

Contributed multiple pieces of content to the CoP

Developing others

Coaching of peers/juniors on project, or
Coaching candidates through the SE certification process

Level 1 or 2 SE certification obtained for persons coached through the certification process

Level 3

MEETS ALL LEVEL 1 & 2 CRITERIA, PLUS:

Expectations

KPI

Personal Profile

Consulting

Communicate clearly the Business Benefits

Versatility and Vocation

>>> same as preceding level

Technology Leadership

Key note speaker/contributor

Has explained new technology to client and it's impact on business.
Published within Capgemini

English Language

Fluent in English language

SE Experience – Client Exposure

Client Delivery experience

At least one client project stream lead, exposure to distributed working approaches (e.g., off-shore, near shore working); thorough knowledge in all SE disciplines, strong experience across 2 or more SE disciplines; evidence that they have brought in xlob business and pull-through; Engagement QA experience

Knowledge / experience of distributed delivery and international working (could include Rightshore™ for SE's training)

and / or

Exposure to international working (including facilitation of multiple Capgemini University courses)

Leadership and Management

EM1 equivalent (Note, we are looking for the characteristics, not that EM Certification as a pre-requisite)

Has knowledge of project-issues related to level EM1 (not the project managers skills)

Sales and Account Contribution

Multiple winning bid contributions, technical lead on a significant bid, evidence of winning pull-through or add-on business to existing account; strong knowledge of at least two service offers

Skills and Contribution

Structured Methods

Able to apply and adapt according to context
Architect Level 1 equivalent knowledge

Can explain impact of SE method to client within project situation

Is able to adapt prior experience to client site used methods

Software Engineering Skills

Awarded master level of certification in one SE area and awareness in at least one other

Proven knowledge of multiple vendor technologies

Contribution to Community

Participate actively in at least one CoP including giving of training classes, providing thought content/leadership

Contributed multiple pieces of content to the CoP

Developing others

Coaching others through the SE Certification process
Actively participate in ongoing development of SE certification program
Attended Master Class
Lead briefing and training sessions

Level 1, 2 or 3 SE certification obtained for person(s) coached through the certification process

Level 4

MEETS ALL LEVEL 1, 2 & 3 CRITERIA, PLUS:

Expectations

KPI

Personal Profile

Consulting

Guru speaker

Versatility and Vocation

>>> same as preceding level

Technology Leadership

Has presented at non-Capgemini conferences

Spreads and implements innovative thoughts and Capgemini point of view.

Publishes outside Capgemini

English Language

Fluent in English language

SE Experience – Client Exposure

Client Delivery experience

Multiple client project stream lead, strong experience across 3 or more SE disciplines
Engagement QA involvement in multi-national or multi-technology related engagements

Leadership and Management

EM Level 2 equivalent (Note, we are looking for the characteristics, not that EM Certification is a pre-requisite)
Select awareness international and risk components of EM Level 3.
Involved in developing new service offers.

Has knowledge of project-issues related to level EM2 (not the project managers skills) and international and risk aspects of EM3

Sales and Account Contribution

Recognized business winner within and outside of region

Skills and Contribution

Structured Methods

Able to innovate and find new ways

Software Engineering Skills

Contribution to Community

CoP Leader

Frequently contributes content related to SE

Developing others

Coaching others through the SE Certification process
Actively participate in ongoing development of SE certification program
Led portions of a Master Class event
Led briefing and training sessions

Level 1, 2 or 3 SE certification obtained for person(s) coached through the certification process

GWT Developer Plugin now Works with Firefox 9

Jesper Rønn-Jensen — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:38:44 +0000

(UPDATED) The GWT developer plugin has been updated to works with Firefox 9, a couple of days ago.

Its not yet officially available, but can be downloaded directly from the codebase:
google-web-toolkit.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ prebuilt folder in here is the gwt-dev-plugin.xpi, and it works like a charm :)

Previously i wrote when the plugin was updated to work with Firefox 7 and 8.

More info in the group discussion: “GWT Developer Plugin for Firefox 9”

What timing, as Mozilla is likely to release Firefox 10 this coming Tuesday. For the sake of web developers that use GWT, i hope the plugin updates can come sooner in the future.

UPDATE 2012-02-02: This thread in the google group follows plugin development for Firefox 10.

Batch Screenshots with webkit2png

Jesper Rønn-Jensen — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:00:53 +0000

For projects I sometimes have lots of screenshots which I have to repeat whenever I change subtle things in the CSS or HTML.

I ended up creating this little handy script based on webkit2png (download source)

#!/usr/bin/env sh
HOST="http://localhost:8080/myproject/viewer"
/usr/bin/python webkit2png -F -o "01dashboard" $HOST/dashboard
/usr/bin/python webkit2png -F -o "02showdetail" $HOST/detail
/usr/bin/python webkit2png -F -o "03listpage" $HOST/list

This created the following 3 files in my directory:

$ ls -1
01dashboard.png
02showdetail.png
03listpage.png

Really simple and easy to use.

It only requires you to download webkit2png script (download on github).

Maven mirrorOf * in settings.xml breaks the build

Jesper Rønn-Jensen — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:37:59 +0000

In our maven3 pom.xml files for a particular project, we have defined a reference to an internal Nexus repository. Since we are behind a firewall, the Nexus repository also has to be mirror of the outside world. I discovered that this generic from my settings.xml is actually evil:



  
    insideFirewallRepo
    *
    Mirror of the world outside.
    http://nexus_url/nexus/content/groups/public/

The reason for this being evil was our project pom files which had the following references


  http://nexus_url/nexus
  http://svn_url/svn


  
    scm:svn:${subversion.url}/common-gwt-gui/trunk



    
        nexus-repo-releases
        Nexus Repo
        ${nexus.url}/content/groups/public/
         true 
         false 
    
    
        nexus-repo-snapshots
        Nexus Repo
        ${nexus.url}/content/groups/public-snapshots/
         false 
         true

[repeat the  section for ]

And the same pom file contains the following section:


    
        company.releases
        ${nexus.url}/content/repositories/company/
    
    
        company.snapshots
        ${nexus.url}/content/repositories/company-snapshots/

Finally we have the maven release-plugin, but this irrelevant for now:


    
        
            maven-release-plugin
            
                ${subversion.url}/project_name/releases

Error message: Using the wrong repository for snapshots

Now, the generic mirrorOf * in settings.xml actually overrides the specific repository information we set in the pom.xml. Because of that setting, the pom.xml is not used. And the result is an error message like this. (error message enhanced in bold)

Downloading: http://nexus_url/nexus/content/groups/public/com/company/dependency_project/1.18-SNAPSHOT/maven-metadata
.xml
Downloading: http://nexus_url/nexus/content/groups/public/com/company/dependency_project/1.18-SNAPSHOT/maven-metadata
.xml
Downloading: http://nexus_url/nexus/content/groups/public/com/company/dependency_project/1.18-SNAPSHOT/dependency_project
-1.18-SNAPSHOT.pom
[WARNING] The POM for com.company:dependency_project:jar:1.18-SNAPSHOT is missing, no dependency information available
Downloading: http://nexus_url/nexus/content/groups/public/com/company/dependency_project/1.18-SNAPSHOT/dependency_project
-1.18-SNAPSHOT.jar
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Reactor Summary:
[INFO]
[INFO] project_name ...................................... FAILURE [1.108s]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 1.364s
[INFO] Finished at: Fri Jan 20 12:28:04 CET 2012
[INFO] Final Memory: 5M/15M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal on project project_name: Could not resolve dependencies for project com.company:project_name:jar:2.1.1
3-SNAPSHOT: Could not find artifact com.company:dependency_project:jar:1.18-SNAPSHOT in insideFirewallRepo (http://nexus_url
/nexus/content/groups/public/) -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/DependencyResolutionException
[ERROR]
[ERROR] After correcting the problems, you can resume the build with the command
[ERROR]   mvn  -rf :project_name

Notice that the errormessage actually gave the ID of our  from settings.xml:

 
   
     insideFirewallRepo

So problem is that maven actually does not use the pom.xml settings, but we can easily fix this.

Solution: Exclude local repositories from mirrorOf *

We need to force Maven to use the values from the project pom.xml. And maven can do just that, since we need to take the ids and exclude them from mirrorOf *.

Take the repository ids from the pom file:


nexus-repo-releases
nexus-repo-snapshots

And exclude them to mirrorOf in settings.xml (add an exclamation mark in front of them). Line added enhanced in bold:



  
    insideFirewallRepo
    !nexus-repo-releases,!nexus-repo-snapshots,*
    Mirror of the world outside.
    http://nexus_url/nexus/content/groups/public/

Most users could probably just remove the block from settings.xml, but in this particular project, that is not possible since firewall blocks for access to maven central. So, in order for us to use external dependencies, we must use the in settings.xml

Then, you could argue, to use instead of in settings.xml. This may be a decent solution as well, but in my case i wanted to avoid that, since the company proxy required user/password. Our jenkins build machines would then have my username/password, and it would lock my account whenever my password expires.

Within those constraints, the block with excluded internal repositories seems like a decent fit.

For the issues described in this article, I have been using Maven 3.0.3 and Sonatype Nexus 1.9.2

IntelliJ Structural Search to Convert from JUnit3 to Junit4

Jesper Rønn-Jensen — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:37:24 +0000

Just a quick tip for intellij users. For an old project i wanted to convert JUnit 3 testcases to JUnit4 format. Most stuff was already in place, but after the conversion, i found that some of the old “assertTrue”, “assertFalse”, and “assertEquals” statements were failing.

So i ended up with some short search/replace, which are really handy in IntelliJ.

Replace “assertTrue” and “assertFalse” with “assertThat”

Search template

assertTrue($msg$, $actual$);

Replacement template:

org.junit.Assert.assertThat.assertThat($msg$, $actual$, org.hamcrest.core.Is.is(true));

Remove “assertEquals” with delta values

Search template

assertEquals($msg$, $expected$, $actual$, $delta$);

Replacement template:

org.junit.Assert.assertThat($msg$, $actual$, org.hamcrest.core.Is.is($expected$));

Optional Replace “assertEquals” with “assertThat”

Search template

assertEquals($msg$, $expected$, $actual$);

Replacement template:

org.junit.Assert.assertThat.assertThat($msg$, $actual$, org.hamcrest.core.Is.is($expected$));

Time For A New Job: Hello NineConsult, Goodbye Capgemini

Jesper Rønn-Jensen — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:12:56 +0000

As the year 2011 comes to an end, it is also time for me to quit my job, which i have had for more than a decade.

Starting February 1st, i will join NineConsult, which is a Danish consultant company. I am really looking forward to this change, and it will be interesting to be part of a 25 people organisation (as opposed to the 110.000+ employees in Capgemini).

Having good and skilled colleagues is one of the single most important criteria for happiness at work. And this makes it extra interesting in NineConsult, since they have a very high standard on the programmers they employ.

I think NineConsult is one of the best places to be for programmers at the moment. Paul Graham puts it this way when describing programmers in “great hackers“:

[...] what good hackers like is other good hackers. Great hackers tend to clump together– sometimes spectacularly so, as at Xerox Parc. So you won’t attract good hackers in linear proportion to how good an environment you create for them. The tendency to clump means it’s more like the square of the environment. So it’s winner take all. At any given time, there are only about ten or twenty places where hackers most want to work, and if you aren’t one of them, you won’t just have fewer great hackers, you’ll have zero.

I know a lot of my new colleagues from previous jobs, and all of them (no exceptions) are very skilled.

For this single reason alone, i am really looking forward to my new job :)

GWT Developer plugin for Firefox 7 is now Ready

Jesper Rønn-Jensen — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 22:18:42 +0000

UPDATED 2011-12-14: Prebuilt folder now contains Firefox 8 version of the GWT developer plugin.

Since Firefox 7 was released, i have defered upgrading for one simple reason: At work I am dependent on GWT Developer plugin.

Today I found the ready-to-release plugin which actually works with Firefox 7:

http://google-web-toolkit.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/xpcom/prebuilt/ in here is the gwt-dev-plugin.xpi, and it works like a charm :)

(In firefox, it asks you to download. And then you can drag the downloaded .xpi back into the browser to install. Why Firefox will not instantly recognize the .xpi file is kind of strange)

Useful Background research for Certification

Jesper Rønn-Jensen — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 19:44:55 +0000

I have just applied for certification to become Capgemini Software Engineer level 1+2. The process had some tests and a thorough application formula where i should describe my deeds.

The tests were of two formats: 10 questions in 15 minutes, and 30 questions in 40 minutes (multiple choice questions).

For the tests I took, these were some links with background material which I found most helpful:

IBM Developerworks: Understanding RUP roles
Wikipedia Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)
Wikipedia RUP (Rational Unified Process)
Wikipedia Software configuration management
Wikipedia Enterprise architecture
Unified Process for EDUcation: A Software Architecture Document example
and finally a blog post about test specification techniques

As you may notice, the topics mostly covered were RUP, IAF (a capgemini architecture framework), A little CMMI, and hardly any agile methodologies at all. No SCRUM, Lean, Kanban or similar references. Although i think i saw one question on XP (eXtreme Programming).

Now the tests are passed, the application is submitted. I will have a verdict probably within a month.

Collection of useful Git Tips to get started

Jesper Rønn-Jensen — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 18:44:17 +0000

I thought it was time to collect some of my most useful findings when working with Git.

These are typically from situations where I found a useful way, which I wanted to jot down. Also I have answered and asked some questions on StackOverflow. The good thing about it, is that I am always able to find it again this way.

Justaddwater.dk posts:

StackOverflow posts: