Java Data Objects and Russian Folklore

In this post I’ll try to explain in English few concepts that came from some Russian fairytales.

I just was sitting in the office and reading a book on JDO while somewhere in my head a thought bubbled that it would be great to have 4 things to have no problems:

• скатерть самобранка
• ковер самолет
• сапоги скороходы
• шапка невидимка

To start with all these 4 things are a bit magic, they possess certain supernatural qualities.

Скатерть самобранка can be translated like a magic tablecloth. It serves you a food whenever you tell it so.

Ковер самолет is a magic carpet that can fly. Just a transportation vehicle ))

Сапоги скороходы this is what is called seven-league boots. Just one more transportation mean.

Шапка невидимка is a magic hat. When it’s on your head you are invisible.

It is interesting to me which of these things have some analogues in the western fairytales. In slavic folklore there are much much more magic, seems like people always liked to dream about getting things without labor just by magic

Now you may wonder why I titled this post “Java Data Objects and Russian Folklore”… In the JDO book there is a section called “Transparency”. I think that is why my brain decided to rest a bit and went to some “шапка невидимка” things. Sometimes seemingly unrelated things can be related. Learn from it ))

Three things I can endlessly contemplate

So, there is a saying that there are three things you can endlessly look at: water, fire and something else, I don’t remember )))

I would rephrase this saying for IT people, especially for PMs: I can endlessly contemplate 3 things:

- how QA post bugs
- how developers fix bugs
- how QA close bugs

Tell me what you think

I just thought that it would be very nice to implement and support a service that can be called for example “Tell me what you think” or alike.

This service should be smart enough to answer any normal questions we humans can ask it. But it shouldn’t be a one more instance of wikipedia, that wouldn’t be interesting, at least for me. It should speak like an average dude from the street. If it has no answer it must tell me “I don’t know” or “I don’t care”. It should like some registered users and don’t like others, etc. I think you’ve got the idea.
For example I am reading now a book section dedicated to Singleton design pattern. So I open my service and ask him “WTF this singleton pattern is?”. That would be very constructive and funny if it answers me “I think mate that this thing is something for very smart asses and your girlfriend will not appreciate it”.

I am seriously starting to think how this piece of wisdom can be implemented

Coordinates

Ok kids, this time it’s a time to recall some math. Did you like math in school? I bet most of you didn’t;)

Math should be funny enough for people to like it. So here is some funny math for you. I don’t remember anymore how to properly call this simple stuff, but when you trapped – the most needed thing is a proper system of coordinates.

Here we go:

xyй

P.S. To appreciate this cordinate system one MUST consult the person who knows Russian language or language alike

I’m not that serious this time.. but that how it goes.

See ya, bye.

Are you smart?

Well,

have just compiled my first Flex application. No surprise – it is classical “Hello World” :p
I used Flex Builder so it produced me an HTML page with properly embedded object which plays the flash. Naturally I decided to look inside this HTML to see how complex it is to embed flash. It’s quite not easy, though looks very clean and compact.
But the most funny thing I liked is the 5th row of the HTML source:
Smart developers always View Source.

Those guys in Adobe definitely have a sense of humor