Has anyone every gotten more press for doing less than Chancellor Rhee of the DC Schools? Don't get me wrong - I think she is doing things that are incredibly necessary for this broken school system we have here. Her argument for pay-for-performance for teachers is definitely reasonable - if you don't think you can do your job, then you probably don't deserve tenure anyway. I realize that education isn't that simple, but at some point someone has to draw a line and say "we have to start to fix this, and hope that the parents get on the bus sooner or later".
I am listening to the podcast of Rhee on Diane Rehm. I really want to hear about Rhee, but goodness would Rehm please, please, please speed it up? Anyone else hear the similarity between Rehm and this:
Just sayin...she gets good guests, but her show could be about 20 minutes shorter if she would just spit it out.
Showing posts with label ramblings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ramblings. Show all posts
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Happy Saturday!
Well, since I got married (and for a while before, even), I have been the subject of numerous jests from friends about how domesticated I have become. I had to giggle at myself today when I had an entire day free to myself, and did the following:
1) Woke up, got dressed, practiced guitar for about an hour
2) Addressed about 40 thank-you cards
3) Installed two new light fixtures in our walk-in closets
4) Did four loads of laundry
5) Bought a new phone
6) Practiced programming
7) Caught up on my blog reading
Not that many years ago my Saturday would have gone like this:
1) Wake up (late)
2) Locate friends and beer
3) Drink beer with friends
I think that this is a good thing, but I can't say I don't miss the utter lack of responsibility that came with my youth...
The phone I got is the LG eNV. I am not sure if it would pass the 'cool gadget test', but I think it's a lot spiffier than my last phone (LG VX-something-something flip phone). It has a QWERTY keyboard, which is really handy when I am writing my 10-12 weekly text messages. The camera is pretty good, I must say. Most importantly, the speakerphone is excellent - the last phone was completely useless in that respect. I went to the Verizon Wireless store with every intention of buying a so-called 'smartphone', but when I thought about being tethered to the internet, it just seemed like a bad, bad idea. If someone wants me to have a Blackberry, then they are going to have to pay for it themselves.
(Rant alert)
All I could think of as I evaluated the smartphones is all the people that I see/know who sit at the lunch/dinner table half-listening to the people they are sitting with, scrolling through their email, glancing every three seconds to see if another message has arrived, looking down into their lap, as if looking at the phone below the table makes it any less rude. When we were kids, we weren't allowed to talk on the phone at the dinner table, under any circumstances, and it is now one of my most gigantic pet peeves. I don't want to be that guy. Ever. If someone really needs my opinion on something while I am eating lunch or while I am out for a walk, they can call me, and leave a message. Or call twice so I know it's actually important. The fact is, 95% of these people and the messages they are ingesting like crack are not that important. The things can wait - they could wait before RIM incorporated, and they can wait now. Anyone who thinks that that email is that urgent is a bit full of themselves, unless they are working in a position where an immediate response is necessary (ie you run a production server that crashed, or you are a policeman, or something to that effect). I am okay with being unimportant enough not to need my phone attached to a POP3 server, for now anyway.
Sorry that was quite a rant, but today's phone store visit brought it to the surface. More later on failure, and picking yourself back up again.
1) Woke up, got dressed, practiced guitar for about an hour
2) Addressed about 40 thank-you cards
3) Installed two new light fixtures in our walk-in closets
4) Did four loads of laundry
5) Bought a new phone
6) Practiced programming
7) Caught up on my blog reading
Not that many years ago my Saturday would have gone like this:
1) Wake up (late)
2) Locate friends and beer
3) Drink beer with friends
I think that this is a good thing, but I can't say I don't miss the utter lack of responsibility that came with my youth...
The phone I got is the LG eNV. I am not sure if it would pass the 'cool gadget test', but I think it's a lot spiffier than my last phone (LG VX-something-something flip phone). It has a QWERTY keyboard, which is really handy when I am writing my 10-12 weekly text messages. The camera is pretty good, I must say. Most importantly, the speakerphone is excellent - the last phone was completely useless in that respect. I went to the Verizon Wireless store with every intention of buying a so-called 'smartphone', but when I thought about being tethered to the internet, it just seemed like a bad, bad idea. If someone wants me to have a Blackberry, then they are going to have to pay for it themselves.
(Rant alert)
All I could think of as I evaluated the smartphones is all the people that I see/know who sit at the lunch/dinner table half-listening to the people they are sitting with, scrolling through their email, glancing every three seconds to see if another message has arrived, looking down into their lap, as if looking at the phone below the table makes it any less rude. When we were kids, we weren't allowed to talk on the phone at the dinner table, under any circumstances, and it is now one of my most gigantic pet peeves. I don't want to be that guy. Ever. If someone really needs my opinion on something while I am eating lunch or while I am out for a walk, they can call me, and leave a message. Or call twice so I know it's actually important. The fact is, 95% of these people and the messages they are ingesting like crack are not that important. The things can wait - they could wait before RIM incorporated, and they can wait now. Anyone who thinks that that email is that urgent is a bit full of themselves, unless they are working in a position where an immediate response is necessary (ie you run a production server that crashed, or you are a policeman, or something to that effect). I am okay with being unimportant enough not to need my phone attached to a POP3 server, for now anyway.
Sorry that was quite a rant, but today's phone store visit brought it to the surface. More later on failure, and picking yourself back up again.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Struts 2 Error Handling...How do I put it?
You could start with...
NOT THAT AWESOME.
There have been two things I have found now that are bizarre. Allow me to describe:
1) Let's say that you have a jsp mapped in your struts.xml, and it has an incorrect path somehow. Sure this is your fault, but what would you expect to happen:
A) An error on startup saying that the jsp can't be found?
B) An error when the action tries to forward to the nonexistent jsp?
C) A blank screen (even if the bad jsp call is inside a functioning jsp call by way of s:action?
Now, one would think that A or B would be good, normal ways for an error of this kind to be handled. You web application won't start if you have an invalid action class mapping, so why should it be different for a bad jsp mapping? But, even if we allow startup, (hey, maybe you will put the jsp in there later), shouldn't we throw some sort of error if we forward to a page that doesn't exist?
No, the answer is, C. A blank screen. No messages in the error logs. Awesome.
2) When you have properties on your form that don't map correctly to the variables or setters on your action class, should the framework:
A) Tell you that the action class call failed because the properties couldn't be mapped to an instance variable?
B) Be even more specific and catalog the properties that failed?
C) Tell you:
If you answered C, you'd be correct! Odd, but true, you should get an error message that tells you that your property can't map to the action class. What makes this particular situation even stranger is that when you have s:checkbox params that don't map to variables on the action, it warns you. So odd. Ah well. Other than that, Struts 2 is great and I think it's still a big improvement over Struts 1, even if you spend a bit of time banging your head on the wall. At least when you are done, you don't have to code an ActionForm.
NOT THAT AWESOME.
There have been two things I have found now that are bizarre. Allow me to describe:
1) Let's say that you have a jsp mapped in your struts.xml, and it has an incorrect path somehow. Sure this is your fault, but what would you expect to happen:
A) An error on startup saying that the jsp can't be found?
B) An error when the action tries to forward to the nonexistent jsp?
C) A blank screen (even if the bad jsp call is inside a functioning jsp call by way of s:action?
Now, one would think that A or B would be good, normal ways for an error of this kind to be handled. You web application won't start if you have an invalid action class mapping, so why should it be different for a bad jsp mapping? But, even if we allow startup, (hey, maybe you will put the jsp in there later), shouldn't we throw some sort of error if we forward to a page that doesn't exist?
No, the answer is, C. A blank screen. No messages in the error logs. Awesome.
2) When you have properties on your form that don't map correctly to the variables or setters on your action class, should the framework:
A) Tell you that the action class call failed because the properties couldn't be mapped to an instance variable?
B) Be even more specific and catalog the properties that failed?
C) Tell you:
No result defined for action com.awesometown.SweetAction and result input - action - file: xxxAnd fail without giving you any clue about what happened!
If you answered C, you'd be correct! Odd, but true, you should get an error message that tells you that your property can't map to the action class. What makes this particular situation even stranger is that when you have s:checkbox params that don't map to variables on the action, it warns you. So odd. Ah well. Other than that, Struts 2 is great and I think it's still a big improvement over Struts 1, even if you spend a bit of time banging your head on the wall. At least when you are done, you don't have to code an ActionForm.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
The Communication Generation
It's truly amazing to me how far the telecommunications industry has come over the past few years. It's incredible to stop and think how impatient you get when you can't call someone on their cellphone. Not too long ago, I was in high school, and I had a PAGER. That was pretty sweet, because as long as someone was by a phone that accepted incoming calls, you could always get in touch with them. Now, obviously, we have cellular phones. Everyone always knows where everyone else is and what they are doing, and if they can't talk right now, well, you can text message them! I think the younger generation takes this for granted, but I can remember when I was nine years old and went for a bike ride for a couple hours, and my parents thought I was dead. I can remember the look of relief on their faces. Now the nine year olds have MotoRazrs. I am guilty myself. When I can't reach Jena for an hour, I sometimes start to fear the worst. Ten years ago, I would have thought "she'll be home when she's home".
The communication revolution seems especially incredible as I read some of the books I have read lately. The War of 1812 was basically over, the British and American delegations having signed the Treaty of Ghent. Today, this would all be done over a videoconference being streamed live to the State Department. Back then, the American delegation had to get back on the boat to come back to Washington to tell everyone that they could stop fighting. Now, if anyone has ever heard of the Battle of New Orleans, it was fought while the ship was sailing. Pretty amazing stuff. A pivotal battle in a war being fought after the war is over! Kind of funny to think that the US actually won the war after they had already stopped fighting.
Now, this all comes with a price. Now you can't claim ignorance as a reason for not doing something. "I couldn't find Bob, so I couldn't work on this widget" is no longer valid. Bob is always available, and so are you. People can always find you. If they don't have your cell phone number, they can call the other thousand people they know to get it. You are always "around". I still haven't necessarily reconciled that part of the communication revolution.
I guess there wasn't really much point to this post other than to stop and say "wow", because things go on in the world that we simply take for granted, and they are often pretty incredible.
The communication revolution seems especially incredible as I read some of the books I have read lately. The War of 1812 was basically over, the British and American delegations having signed the Treaty of Ghent. Today, this would all be done over a videoconference being streamed live to the State Department. Back then, the American delegation had to get back on the boat to come back to Washington to tell everyone that they could stop fighting. Now, if anyone has ever heard of the Battle of New Orleans, it was fought while the ship was sailing. Pretty amazing stuff. A pivotal battle in a war being fought after the war is over! Kind of funny to think that the US actually won the war after they had already stopped fighting.
Now, this all comes with a price. Now you can't claim ignorance as a reason for not doing something. "I couldn't find Bob, so I couldn't work on this widget" is no longer valid. Bob is always available, and so are you. People can always find you. If they don't have your cell phone number, they can call the other thousand people they know to get it. You are always "around". I still haven't necessarily reconciled that part of the communication revolution.
I guess there wasn't really much point to this post other than to stop and say "wow", because things go on in the world that we simply take for granted, and they are often pretty incredible.
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