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Danah was asking the question, Is blogging a privilege. I tried to follow the leadup stories to this question, but there was way conversation flying around for my little mind to grasp. While I wouldn't use the word privilege (or elite), I would agree that the perception is that majority of people online are straight white men. I say perception merely because I have no facts to back this up, but it sure feels to be true. But I don't think it's just bloggers -- it is technology in general. This is nothing new to me. Being involved in technology is even now (almost 10 years after the doc com "boom") still primarily for white men (I'm not entirely sure if sexual orientation is as big of a deal on the internet -- at least, I've never thought, "I wonder if this guy is gay?" while visiting a website).

There has been talk of the "digital divide", but that is nothing new either. Every new technology (phone, TV, car, fax machine) has always been accessible to the front runners of our society. I am a straight white man and I benefit from that greatly. I know I have a huge advantage. It's pretty obvious in fact. Actually, it's obvious for me. Apparently there are many people (usually the same people firmly against any form of affirmative action) that feel our society truly is equal.

Anyway, minorities will get to "blogging" someday. Five years ago minorities barely had email, and now it is much more common (though still not ubiquitous like it is with white society). The sad fact is that until much grander social norms change, white men will continue to dominate our world and will be the front runners on all new innovations (regardless of whether they actually did the innovation or just used it). This is why I am a believer in forms of affirmative action -- I truly don't believe that our current society is functioning in a way that will act as a "Great Equalizer"... at least not in the next 100 years anyway.

So just as blogging is a "privilege", so is being a CEO, a lawyer, or a doctor. They are all tried together and I think when equality happens in one area (more black CEOs, for example), you'll find that it will happen in all the other areas shortly afterwards (such as more bloggers)

Posted by Patrick Lightbody at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So I woke up this morning and looked at the top news so far. What I found was that the Supreme Court is holding up the right of the government to withhold the names of detainees considered to be threats to our national security. I had meant to bring this stuff up earlier after I saw Ross Mayfield object to the Patriot Act II, but it was this latest news that really pissed me off. (By the way, check out the various comments and trackbacks on Ross's blog, there is some good discussion there)

"It is better to let ten guilty men go free than one innocent man stay locked up". Yes, it's cliché. Yes, it's not actually realistic. Yes, Jonah Goldberg does make some good points with regards to various clichés like that one. Take away the numbers (10 vs. 1, 3000 vs. 19, whatever) and the underlying principle: we should err on the side of protecting the innocent than locking up the guilty. Well, duh, even conservatives, like Goldberg, understand that.

So where is the disconnect between the left and the right on this issue? Is it disagreement on the numbers? I don't think so. Numbers are just too blind. For example, would Goldberg let go one guilty man in order to save one innocent man? Would I? What about letting go all the innocent men in prison in exchange for one guilty man? What if the man is Osama Bin Laden? My point is, numbers don't mean shit, and it's not a black and white line. The cliché is merely there to express the underlying principle that our country needs to continue to uphold. The Supreme Court is the one that is supposed to uphold these principles and closely weight state power with the rights of the individual and decide what is best. That is their responsibility -- and no one said it was easy.

However, it's not just this simple. Those defending Bush/Cheney's War On Terror (or more specifically, the tactics such as the Patriot Act and this latest court ruling) will argue that it truly is in our national interest to not release those names. Really? Who told you that? Dick Cheney? George W. Bush? Why should I trust them? This is coming from a drunk driver (statistics show that by the time a drunk driver is caught he's usually done it up to a 100 times before) and a man who might have as much oil money clogging up his arteries as there is in his bank accounts. Are these people really looking out for my interests?

So the next question is: who would I trust to make that decision? Honest Abe Lincoln (who, by the way, was born on Feb 12th, my birthday, so I'm very partial to Mr. Lincoln)? Clinton? Dean? God no. These people are most likely just as out of touch with my interests as the fat cat Republicans. I know, I'm starting to sound an awful lot like a hippie Green right about now. Yikes. Either way, my point is there are very few people I would trust to actually make this decision.

I'd like to get back to why withholding these names is in our best interest. Can someone explain to me why that is the case? Call me naive, but exactly what harm would it cause? Suppose Osama learns that half of a sleeper cell in San Diego is actually detained. OK, so now what does he do? He either does nothing (no harm there) or he has to react. Reaction requirements movement and communication. These things are exactly what the CIA is looking for in order to pinpoint him. Yes, there is the chance he might actually react, replace the cell, and bring down 9/11 part II on us. There is also a chance that his reaction might be just what we need to find and capture him.

But which is more likely? Are the odds 10:1? 3000:19? At what point do we decide that yes, the names should be released, or no, the names are too sensitive to give out. The problem is that none of us will know. And I don't just mean "the public" -- I mean the people who even have the complete set of information. The White House, CIA, FBI -- whatever. There is no way to know the odds, just as there is no way to know the number of guilty people to let go to save an innocent man. If there is no way, then what do we do? Fortunately, it's still a binary choice and so there's only a 50% chance of making the wrong decision. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court made the wrong decision today.

Why? Because if we don't know concrete numbers, if there is no way to make a truly informed decision, then the only thing we can fall back on is the underlying principles our country is supposed to be standing on. In the entire United States history, every single time we've preemptively judged or acted, we've faced serious consequences. Bush et al do not deny that today's War on Terror is a preemptive strike. On its face it doesn't sound too bad. Hell, for months after 9/11 I was ready to enlist in the military, fly out to any old Middle Eastern country, and kill anything that moved. But then again, I was pissed off.

Then I cooled down. Then I remembered my history classes in high school and college and I couldn't recall one situation where a preemptive action was viewed in a positive light. It is said hindsight is 20/20. In fact, the only thing certain is the past. No one knows what the future holds. So if that is the case, and if I were in Vegas placing a bet, I'd put all my money on the outcome of this War on Terror as being bad. I'd do this not only because I personally believe it is wrong, but also because the hard facts and previous experience have shown that this kind of action turns out badly.

So for those of you thinking, "God this commie is out of his mind, the government is protecting YOU", you might want to read your history books again. Though it took years for this change to happen, laws like the Alien & Sedition Acts were eventually overturned and later Justices would be quoted as going so far to say that unless there was "provable immediate danger" (I'm paraphrasing) to the country, an individual's rights should never be trumped by the state. I don't see any immediate danger. I don't see anyone giving me any evidence. In fact, the only evidence I've been shown so far on this War on Terror has so far been proven to be either completely false (a lie) or at the very best utterly misleading. Weapons of mass destruction? And don't give me that "even-if-there-aren't-weapons-Saddam-was-a-bad-guy argument"... sure he was. He also was supported by the United States. And more people are dying due to AIDS and civil wars in Africa every year than have ever died in Iraq. It's a complete joke to try to say we're actually interested in the freedom and rights of everyone. No, we're interested in our vested interests, and Africa has no value to us (yet... there are some big oil pipelines opening up on parts of the coast). I'm OK with being concerned only about ourselves (I suppose I'm a selfish person). OK, sorry about that little tangent.

Anyway, I'm pissed off about today's news. We continue to move in the direction of a police state with the main weapon used against us being fear. I'm not afraid of some crotchety old man in Afghanistan, and I'm not afraid of another terrorist attack where I live. Shit happens, I'll either deal with it and live or I'll be dead. I'm much more worried about a far less transparent (and much more concerning) situation where my phone can be tapped, my computer bugged, and even my body locked away -- all without any reason. Just as individual people have to be help accountable, our government should be held as accountable (more even, given the power they wield). Without accountability, our checks and balances are lost and the very principle on which this country was founded is lost.

Posted by Patrick Lightbody at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Last night I learned of the Turducken. Good lord that must be the most amazing thing ever invented. The only thing that could top that is if there was chocolate inside the chicken -- but I guess not everyone might agree with me on that last part.

Once again, John Madden proves he truly is a genius.

Posted by Patrick Lightbody at 06:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After more than a few anonymous comments, I've decided that I will begin deleting any comments that are anonymous AND add no value to my blog. Since it's my blog, I can do what I like. If someone wants to provide constructive comments (positive or negative) that add some real value, I'll leave the anonymous comment. However, the majority of anonymous comments I see on my site and others tend to lack depth and usually result in mindless name-calling.

I have already deleted two comments from my last post. For the sake of fairness, I'll repost the comments here. However, this will be the last time I'll be allowing pointless comments to be posted from anonymous users. Again, feel free to post anonymously, but remember to keep the comment full of depth and actual insight. I'm not doing this to censor anyone who doesn't agree with me, but rather I'm trying to encourage thoughtful discussion or at least some accountability. You are more than welcome to post pointless comments under your real name, since at least there is some accountability.

Now to the first two comments I have deleted:

From "web@webwork.com":
The books sucked. Answer this question by youself: Can a reader go beyond the online documentation available for the projects covered to solve real world problem, by reading the book and the answer is a big NO.

From "passerby@yahoo.com":
Friends have the guts to tell the truth. The rest will kiss your ass. At least, Hani had the guts. Stop whining. Just do a better job next time.

For future reference, I deemed these comments as "delete-worthy" because they don't actually address anything at all related to my post. If you read my previous posting, you'll see I make several claims on a point-by-point basis. Comments like "this book sucked" without giving reasons (even Hani gives reasons, although some are incorrect) will quickly be deleted. Likewise, a comment like "this book rocks." without reasons will also be deleted (if you think I'm lying, try me).

If you feel that I'm censoring you, so be it. I know that I'll be fair, and you are more than welcome to provide insightful commentary to express your opinion. If you can't live with that, you are more than welcome to not visit my website.

So, the new rules are:
* pointless anonymous comments (both positive and negative) will be deleted
* pointless comments from real users will stay
* well-thought out anonymous comments will stay

Likewise I'll most likely start deleting pings that I feel don't further add to the discussion. I've had a few recently and it's quite irritating.

Posted by Patrick Lightbody at 05:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I just got home from a long trip to Tahoe to discover my book had been biled. Ouch. Disclaimer: I'm more than a bit pissed off and have decided to respond before cooling down. Also, keep in mind that Hani and I both spend a lot of time working together to try to hold OpenSymphony together. In fact, I consider him a friend. So seeing this 'review' was quite a shock if you can imagine.

OK, first, some point-by-point comments:

Hani's jab at the title.... I admit I'm not a big fan of the title, especially given that much of the focus is on aspects not related to open source programming, but rather Test Driven Development. But 'Developing web apps by avoiding all J2EE'? The technology discussed focuses on the Servlet and JSP parts of J2EE, but does not delve in to EJB, JMS, JNDI, or any other part of J2EE. Is that a problem? The book doesn't claim to cover the entire J2EE stack, so why bitching about this is just whining and nothing more.

As for the JUnit chapter, I don't see any real complaints here save the concern between not mentioning the difference between and error and a failure. I thought that this was covered, but I will take Hani's word that it isn't. This is an oversight.

The complaint about the mock objects chapter is a bit perplexing. While I admit it is a bit light (we point to several online webpages for further information -- why repeat content already there?), the complaint that the examples are not 'real world' is off the wall. The example calls out to writing some Checkout code that requires a Customer, a ShoppingCart, an Invoicer, and an OrderDispatcher. It notes that the real OrderDispatcher might need access to JMS, JDBC, I/O, JNDI, etc. It then goes on to show how we can mock it in order to test only the Checkout code. I don't see how this is a bad thing at all.

Moving on the Hani's complaints about the XWork chapter. In fact, OSWorkflow does support XWork (as of today). The fact that the print went out claiming this while in reality this only became true until today is due to an oversight on my part. JPublish does support XWork and I in fact had Anthony Eden, the owner of JPublish, verify the sentance for me ("Version 3.0 and beyond include support for XWork actions in addition to the JPublish API from previous versions"). If Hani is trying to imply that I am deceiving the reader, he should do his homework and speak with Mr. Eden (they both lurk in #java all day long). If there is any deception going on here it would be Hani's claims that the book says that "JPublish uses XWork", when in fact the book clearly states that in merely "includes support". To say that WebWork 1 and XWork are not very similarly designed would be a lie. Hani says this claim is misleading, but as I am the author of both the WebWork 1.x GenericDispatcher (the core in which all actions are executed) and XWork, I can say with absolute certainty that they are indeed extremely similar in concept.

The next comment Hani makes is totally off the wall. He indicates that we (the four authors) did no collaboration. While it is arguable that the final product may or may not indicate quality collaboration, I can say with absolute fact that the four of us worked very hard for 12 months meeting on a weekly or twice-weekly basis. Hani does not and could not know that, so for him to make this claim indicates his bias very clearly. We actually reworked the table of contents several times in order to make the chapter transition as smooth as possible, and I truly feel we did a good job there. However, I must admit it is hard to make perfect transitions when the book is one part reference guide, one part 'case study', and one part TDD process guide.

Hani then goes on to show his bias and anger toward Mike by complaining about the mention of JIRA in the book. I'll admit I was a bit worried that the reference might be perceived as a biased reference, and as such we made sure that alternatives were mentioned. Now if Hani believes that the alternatives mentioned in the book are complete crap, that is his opinion. But it is far from a systematic method of deception. His claim that the IoC alternatives shown (Avalon) were done to make XWork appear in the 'best possible light' is just laughable. Keep in mind that Pico was created by Joe Walnes (one of the authors of this book) and didn't exist until after the manuscript was frozen. None of us were aware of Spring until well after the book went off to printing, and even if we had it would have been increadibly hard for us to change the final drafts so late in the publishing process. Hani hasn't written a book and as such doesn't understand the complexities involved with trying to avoid dated material. In fact, the reference that OSWorkflow "supports XWork" is a case of me trying to get ahead of myself -- and as we can see this isn't a good idea as sometimes the material can be false (or false for a short period of time).

In his 'review' of the XDoclet chapter, it appears that Hani is complaining about the fact that we chose Hibernate over EJB (recall that Hani is one of the few people that refuses to give due credit to Hibernate or other EJB alternatives). Also, for those that are keeping score, a few years back I wrote a presentation at the San Diego Java Users Group called "is EJB always neccessary?", in which I explained that proper use of alternative technologies such as Hibernate or Ofbiz when combined with usage of the containers transaction service (where the _real_ magic is, in my opinion), you can usually avoid many of the pitfalls found with EJB. Feel free to google the presentation and decide for yourself if you think I am biased or not.

To me it seems that this isn't as much as a complaint about the XDoclet chapter but rather his annoyance that both EJB and Hibernate were covered in a book that he tries to play off as otherwise 'condescending'. Not only do I not believe the book is condescending, but I believe we have made a very fair effort to not knock on any technology that is considered a valid alternative. (one other reviewer has also said this, Grape Ape, aka Robert Nicholson, though his negative review is filled with as much bias as some of the positive reviews I've read, so it doesn't really count for much). For example, here's a quote from a sidebar in the WebWork chapter titled "What about Struts?": "Both frameworks are powerful and can simplify your development greatly". The sidebar also lists pros and cons to using WebWork and Struts. The list seems very fair to me (mature product, huge community, documentation, tool support vs. simpler to learn, easy to extend, clean API, easy to test, decoupled from the web tier). If you believe these pros/cons are inaccurate, biased, or decietful, please let me know.

Apparently Hani doesn't appreciate the section on communication and tools. I can agree that it isn't the most solid chapter, but there are some useful tips and advice in there. Not much else to say about that.

Hani is correct that the security chapter and the lack of wrap-up are problematic. There isn't much I can say about this other than he is right and if we had more time we would have certainly focused more time on those parts. Fortunately those two items are not central to the book and not much is lost.

I don't know what "style and ideas (mostly the lack thereof)" Hani is referring to, but I tend to thing that I'm very open to outside ideas and anyone who knows me or is on any of the mailing lists I'm involved in knows that I'm very open to alternative ideas. In the end, I feel that we did an excellent job of pointing out alternatives, listing pros and cons, and overall being responsible writers. I can't say the same for Hani. Then again, his site is called The BileBlog and focuses only on the negatives, so I hope readers keep that in mind when reading his so-called review.

I must say that I pride myself in my honesty and ability to stand strong with my principals. So when I see someone making claims that I deceived my readers I get very angry. If it were true I would quickly apologize and try to rectify the error. However, in this case it simply is not true and it is clear to me that Hani's anger towards one of the authors of this book clouded his judgment and caused him to state outright lies (coupled with some truths).

Do I think this book is perfect? God no. Do I think it is worth the $30? Definitely. To anyone interested in this book I recommend you not take heed to any of the reviews (positive or negative) as all of the ones I've seen thus far have been incredibly biased. Instead, I recommend you go to your local book store, flip through the pages a bit, and decide for yourself.

Posted by Patrick Lightbody at 02:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)