The home page for gchart, a client side charting add-in for Google Web Toolkit (GWT), has a long screed about how the project's only maintainer thinks his Google account has been hacked and because of that he will be "disavowing/abandoning my own project and Google account". Does that mean the project is an orphan? Is somebody taking it over?
There is always a risk on basing your project on somebody else's code because they may stop supporting it or abandon it during your project's life time, but it seems to me that with the fast evolution of Java and GWT, using gchart in a new project may be a big mistake. Am I right?
I've released Client-side GChart 2.7 in a brand-new Google Code project (untainted by the previous rootkitting of my laptop) that you can find here:
http://clientsidegchart.googlecode.com
For details on the new security-related improvements I've instituted in an effort to prevent a future breach, follow the "release notes" link on the home page to the GChart 2.7 release notes.
I wish it had not taken me so long to re-release. I was attempting to correct the part of the problem that was under my direct control: my deep ignorance of all things related to computer security and systems administration.
I encourage you to give the re-released, better-secured and administered, Client-side GChart 2.7 a second look.
John C. Gunther, Client-side GChart author
I would have to say so. If the only maintainer of the project has lost control of his account, using any subsequent versions of gchart could mean you're implementing malicious code un-knowingly.
Unless he spins up another project to move the code-base forward, I'd avoid it.
Related
Is three20 still actively being developed? From the three20.info site, I see no new features/UI elements since earlier this year when I looked into it.
Besides three20, is there another good framework out there?
As far as i know, Three20 is only maintained by community (bug fixes). Jeff left the project and decided to clean up that mess & provide solid documentation.
He recently started a new project on github called Nimbus, his plan is to port all features of Three20 to Nimbus without the problems we face today with Three20.
I haven't given up on three20 yet. It's a good framework and it saves me hours of work. I'm submitting bug fixes and small improvements to the framework from time to time and I see some activity in github. (not as much as it used to be)
I tried using nimbus, and I was really impressed with the documentation and existing classes. However, note that the developer went to work in CA and said he'll contribute less to his new framework.
The three20.info site is not maintained, but you can download the latest version from github.com/facebook/three20.
I have been looking to switch to OAuth for my Twitter integration code and now that there is a deadline in less than 7 weeks (see countdown link) it is even more important to make the jump to OAuth. I have been doing Basic Authentication which is extremely easy. Unfortunately OAuth does not appear to be something that I would whip together in a couple of hours.
http://www.countdowntooauth.com/
So I am looking to use a library. I have put together the following list.
MPOAuth
MGTwitterEngine
OAuthConsumer
I see that MPOAuth has some great features with a good deal of testing code in place but there is one big problem. It does not work. The sample iPhone project that is supposed to authenticate with Twitter causes an error which others have identified and logged as a bug.
http://code.google.com/p/mpoauthconnection/issues/detail?id=29
The last code change was March 11 and this bug was filed on March 30. It has been over a month and this critical bug has not been fixed yet. So I have moved on to MGTwitterEngine.
I pulled down the source code and loaded it up in Xcode. Immediately I find that there are a few dependencies and the README file does not have a clear list of steps to fetch those dependencies and integrate them with the project so that it builds successfully. I see this as a sign that the project is not mature enough for prime time. I see also that the project references 2 libraries for JSON when one should be enough. One is TouchJSON which has worked well for me so I am again discouraged from relying on this project for my applications.
I did find that MGTwitterEngine makes use of OAuthConsumer which is one of many OAuth projects hosted by an OAuth project on Google Code.
http://code.google.com/p/oauth/
http://code.google.com/p/oauthconsumer/wiki/UsingOAuthConsumer
It looks like OAuthConsumer is a good choice at first glance. It is hosted with other OAuth libraries and has some nice documentation with it. I pulled down the code and it builds without errors but it does have many warnings. And when I run the new Build and Analyze feature in Xcode 3.2 I see 50 analyzer results. Many are marked as potential memory leaks which would likely lead to instability in any app which uses this library.
It seems there is no clear winner and I have to go with something before the big Twitter OAuth deadline.
Any suggestions?
I've used bengottlieb's Twitter-OAuth without issues.
Build+Analyse finds only one issue (in SA_OAuthTwitterController.m) and that's just a variable that has a value stored during initialization that is never read. I've not seen any leaks in my use of it. It was simple to implement and so far (two apps in the store using it, a third in development) no problems at all.
A new single-file solution is TDOAuth: http://github.com/tweetdeck/TDOAuth.
It's well-tested in that it is used in the TweetDeck iOS clients.
I recently had to implement "post to Twitter".
What I found was that none of the various projects would work out-of-the-box. They're all close, but not quite there.
Eventually I settled on OAuthConsumer, Stig Brautaset's SBJSon, with some ideas more than code borrowed from Ben Gottlieb's Twitter-OAuth-iPhone for pin processing.
I probably would have looked at MGTwitterEngine, but I didn't need to hit that much of the API - just status updates.
I seem to recall having to hack OAuthConsumer to set a few parameters correctly - that was the biggest stumbling block.
Try this Framework out for size: https://github.com/materik/meauth-ios, works well for BitBucket's API and am in progress of testing it with more sites. Please give feedback and contribute.
I am a long time intellij user.
The company where I work is likely to introduce Rational Team Concert to our department shortly. I went to the RTC demo and it looks like a reasonable product, built around Eclipse, but I would rather not give up using IntelliJ.
Does anyone have experience of using non-eclipse IDEs with RTC?
This is going to be hard - you could configure IntelliJ to call the RTC scm commands, but this is not going to be that easy. I have heard of a company planning to build an integration, but not seen this myself (they might have finished this already). Company is called CM-Logic and is UK-based.
I use both of them together. You can't use IDEA to checking or deliver code, but you can certainly edit code in IDEA and then use the RTC tools to checkin.
One warning: I'm on Ubuntu 64-bit, and everything is fine. I have a co-worker using IDEA & RTC on Windows 7 and he has to close IDEA every time he wants to check-in because IDEA has file locks that RTC balks at.
I have no knowledge of the CM Logic's JazzConnect-IDEA product. There doesn't seem to be any way to download a demo of it either.
Rational Team Concert's integration page says "Jazz Connect for IntelliJ IDEA enables developers using JetBrains to leverage the power of Rational Team Concert for source control, work item management, and collaboration services."
Also have a look at this page for other integrations of RTC.
I would say that it could, it looks like IntelliJ offers an version control integration point as does the Jazz SCM component, but I am not familiar enough with IntelliJ to say for sure(looks like ClearCase is already on the list so they are adding support for vendors), I would think that without a full fledged integration where your Work Items are integrated into your development RTC starts to loose it's flair but may be not for your management :)
It seems that the answer is no.
Coexistence could cover many aspects; source code repository, Task lists, builds etc. But the first step would be integrating with source code repository and RTC uses something called Jazz.
There seems to be no available plugin nor plans for such.
Update on this: A new feature for Intellij is in the works, and planned or release this year. Here is the internal RFE. The links tab has a video recording of RTC integration with IDEA.
https://jazz.net/jazz/web/projects/Rational%20Team%20Concert#action=com.ibm.team.workitem.viewWorkItem&id=358932&tab=com.ibm.team.workitem.tab.links (Jazz ID authentication required)
What is the best version control system to implement with PowerBuilder 11.5?
If you have examples of how you have did branching/trunk/tags that would be awesome. We have tried to wrap our heads around it a few times and always run into problems because we use shared libraries such as PFC/PFE in multiple applications.
Right now we are only using PBNative, and it sucks.
The Agent SVN is a MS-SCCI Subversion plug-in works with PowerBuilder.
Here is a link that describes how to setup Agent SVN to work with PowerBuilder and Subversion.
We currently use Perforce and it's P4SCC plugin, which works very well. In fact, I'm sure I read somewhere that the guys at Sybase who write PowerBuilder, actually use Perforce themselves.
So, to be fair, let's start out by saying that while you're asking about version control, PBNative is source control. If you compare something that is intended to have more features than just keep two developers from editing the same piece of source, then yes, PBNative will suck. The Madone SL may be an incredible bicycle, but if you're trying to take a couple of laps around an Indy track, it will suck.
"Best" is a pretty subjective word. There are lots of features available in version control and configuration management tools. You can get tons of features, but you'll pay through the nose. StarTeam has some nice features like being able to trace a client change request or bug report all the way through to the changed code, and being able to link in a customized diff tool (which is particularly useful in PB). Then again, if cost is your key criteria rather than features, there are lots of free options that will get the job done. As long as the tool supports the Microsoft SCC interface, you should be OK.
There is a relatively active NNTP newsgroup that focuses on source control with PowerBuilder, which you can also access via the web. You can probably find some already-posted opinions there.
Many years ago I used Starteam to control PB applications. PowerBuilder needless to say is an outdated bear, and it has to export each and every object from its "libraries" into source control.
Currently our legacy PB apps have its libraries saved whole into Subversion, without any support for diff's etc.
We use Visual SourceSafe. We don't use PFC, but we do have libraries that are shared among several projects. Till now, each project was developed separately from the others, and so the shared libraries were duplicated. To have them synchronized, they were all shared at the VSS level. Lately we've reorganized our sources so all projects are near each other, and there's only one instance of the shared libraries.
VSS is definitively not the best source control system, to say the least, but it integrates into PB without the need of any bridges. PB has an inherent problem working with source control, so it probably won't make a very difference working with one instead of the other (at least from the PB point of view).
Now, on a personal note, I'd like to say PB 11.5 is a piece of sh*t. It constantly crashes, full of unbelievable UI nuisance and just brings productivity to its knees. It's probably the worst IDE ever created. Stay away if possible.
FYI: The new PB12 (PB.NET) will integrate with SCC systems so you can easily choose which source control system that you want to use. Since we basically have dropped PBLs (they are now directories) files can be checked in/out individually - even with a plain vanilla editor since files are now normal (unicode) text files.
StarTeam integrates so beautifully with the PB IDE. I used that combination at my previous company (PB9 and ST5.x) for several years. You should be managing your code at the object level - don't log the entire PBL into ST...
If you're having problems with that setup, hit me up offline. phoran at sybase dot com.
We use Merant Version Manager for older projects and TFS for newer work. The only issue we have is that TFS does not support keyword expansion and changing the 'read the flowerbox comments' attitude people have. Some folks are nervous about losing the inline versioning history.
We use StarTeam and have been very pleased with it. It combines bug tracking with version control. Unfortunately though we don't store our files on the object level. We just store the PBL files directly in source control. Anything that supports the SCC interface theoretically should work correctly in PowerBuilder.
PB9: We used PVCS but had stability problems with pbl corruption and also problems co-existing with later versions of Crystal Reports (dll conflict) so now we use PB9 with Dynamsoft's Source Anywhere Standalone. This system is more primitive; it is missing the more advanced features for promotion levels and for pulling out an older milestone version of all objects to make a patch build.
What we are looking for now is something which will allow more advanced "change management", to support promotion levels at the change level (rather than at the object level). Would it be better to use perforce, starteam, or (harvest change manager + HarPB), or something else? Any advice on these combinations would be greatly appreciated.
You can always use Plastic SCM with PowerBuilder through SCC. Plastic is pretty advanced in terms of graphics, tools, replica and so on, so it's always a good choice to keep in mind.
I'm trying to implement a version control system, but as most of us know designers don't feel comfortable with version control systems. I'm looking for a solution mostly for our designers using Photoshop, Flash and other design tools.
It's not a big deal to use a version control system, like VSS 2005, with our frontend and backend coders, but we have some serious problems with our designers. They mostly refuse to use version control systems, and they are right at some points, mostly on productivity level. They mostly work on more than one file, and on more than one application like Photoshop and Flash.
I don't know if version controlling is the right answer or not. Maybe we have to implement a backup system, but there has to be a versioning system, I think. I and our designers are very tired of doing the same thing or going back to the previous designs over and over again.
It would be wonderful to know how digital agencies overcome this problem. If version controlling is the answer, please share your tips on how to make designers comfortable with version controlling.
EDIT 1: Maybe it would be great to have a solution like Dropbox, as it doesn't disturb you with check-ins/check-outs. All you have to do is to open up a file, work on it and save it, the rest is handled by Dropbox.
EDIT 2: We are on Windows, so no chance to implement anything other than Windows support :(
Thanks...
I haven't actually ever done this with graphic designers, but is it possible that Subversion's WebDAV support might work for them? You can mount a WebDAV share as a drive under Mac OS X and Windows XP & Vista, I believe. Each save becomes a new revision in the repository.
And as for your second, hidden question: Yes, you do need to implement a backup system. At least if you value your data.
Adobe has it's own version control, Version Cue, which is bundled with the Creative Suite package. http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/versioncue/sdk_overview/ Apparently, Eclipse can plug into this. I haven't tried it extensively, but I know it integrates nicely into the file dialog in Creative Suite.
NOTE: Version Cue has been discontinued by adobe after the release of CS5:
http://www.adobe.com/products/adobedrive/
Adobe Version Cue maybe?
You might want to try subversion because there are plugins for windows explorer and max OS X finder. integration with the filesystem has been a big help for me on projects where non-developers had to work with source control. This includes projects that have had designers.
Another key thing that helped was having a good directory structure for the files the designers and other non-developers worked with.
I just came accross ConceptShare and it's pretty great...it's not automated version control but you could use it for that and it's a great way to collect and document feedback.
You can try Subversion (installed on a local or remote server) plus Adobe Creative Suite plug-in that would face the designers - Pixelnovel Timeline
It's compact, has previews of all versions (submitted via the plug-in), works for Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign.
If developers also use Subversion, everything (code & design) can be kept in one place.
Instead of trying to integrate a version control system with lots of applications on different operating systems, you might want to have a look at copy-on-write file systems such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext3cow. That way your designers won't even notice a difference; all they will have to do is save their work to a network share on a linux/samba server using ext3cow.
I'm both a designer and coder. I usually version control code (text data) with git, and simply use "save as" with a version name for graphics (binary data). And I run Apple's Time Machine on top of all that, for safety.
To me, version control on graphic files would just be a burden. I'd have to roll back to see changes, and you wouldn't even get one of the great features of version control: see the changes you did in a specific commit just by looking at diffs. The log feature is nice though, to see how you progressed in time, and notes, but to me personally it's not worth it.
Take a look at Perforce - it has a plugin and tools that allow you to use it from within designer tools such as Photoshop, its also super fast and integrates well with Visual Studio - runs on Windows as well as Linux
What I did once was create a "Snapshot" shortcut on the desktop that added and committed everything from a specific directory.
If every designer commits to their own branch (trivial with a DVCS but easy with SVN too) there will be no conflicts, and the cross-branch merging can be done at intervals by someone who isn't afraid of it.
I've been having my eyes on GridIron's Flow for a while now. It looks like a competent version control suite that has some neat asset management features such as visualization on graphics between versions and relationships between different assets. Flow has support for handling files for adobe photoshop, illustrator, flash etc. However as of now (early january) GridIron hasn't released Flow yet other than having to announce the beta program.
Most digital agencies that I know of that mainly do web development use Subversion for version control. To avoid conflicts on image files an artist will lock the files he or she will work on. That way, another artist won't do the mistake of overwriting changes. This requires some coordination among artists and devs so that noone steps on anyone shoes. Also, if someone forgets to unlock, there is the possibility to break locks.
If you're into distributed version control you might want to take a look at Mercurial as it has good support for Windows and has some neat cheat sheets. The Ruby kids are using git but is rather lacking in Windows.
Before using version control with artists, at least make sure they know the basics of version control and let them fool around with it in a sandbox. Also make sure they've set up some basic rules of conduct when collaborating with each other and interacting through version control (i.e. ways to make sure they don't destroy each others works or step on each others toes).