initially, i just followed the simple starting instructions, which don’t use the –prefix option to git svn init.

it wasn’t long before i saw someone’s suggestion to add a svn prefix to the remote branch names.. as a way of segregating the namespace, and to easily allow me to have local branches that have the same name.

i searched around, but there weren’t any explicit instructions on how to add the prefix post-init. well, you can. here’s how.

in your .git/config, there will be a block for the SVN configuration:

[svn-remote "svn"]
	url = http://example.com/your/repo/root
	fetch = trunk:refs/remotes/svn/trunk
	branches = branches/*:refs/remotes/svn/*
	tags = tags/*:refs/remotes/svn/tags/*

what you will want to do is edit this file and add the /svn entries that i have in bold.

then, re-run git svn fetch. this will populate the new branches. thanks to the metadata git-svn keeps, its aware that there are already local commits that correspond to specific SVN revisions.

finally, you can delete all of the old branches using something like git branch -d -r | grep -v svn | xargs -n 1 git branch -d -r

then sit back and bask in your new prefixed life

i needed to publish a jar containing the asdocs, but alas, the asdoc plugin doesn’t contain an equivalent to the javadoc:jar goal from the javadoc plugin.

needing something immediately, GMaven to the rescue!

the below profile will generate an attached jar when running mvn -P release

<profiles>
    <profile>
        <id>release</id>
        <build>
            <plugins>
                <plugin>
                    <groupId>info.flex-mojos</groupId>
                    <artifactId>asdoc-mojo</artifactId>
                    <executions>
                        <execution>
                            <phase>package</phase>
                            <id>attach-asdocs</id>
                            <goals>
                                <goal>asdoc</goal>
                            </goals>
                        </execution>
                    </executions>
                </plugin>
                <plugin>
                    <groupId>org.codehaus.groovy.maven</groupId>
                    <artifactId>gmaven-plugin</artifactId>
                    <version>1.0-rc-3</version>
                    <executions>
                        <execution>
                            <id>package-asdoc</id>
                            <phase>package</phase>
                            <goals>
                                <goal>execute</goal>
                            </goals>
                            <configuration>
                                <classpath>
                                    <classpath>
                                        <groupId>org.codehaus.plexus</groupId>
                                        <artifactId>plexus-archiver</artifactId>
                                    </classpath>
                                    <classpath>
                                        <groupId>org.apache.maven</groupId>
                                        <artifactId>maven-archiver</artifactId>
                                    </classpath>
                                </classpath>
                                <source>
                                    import org.codehaus.plexus.archiver.Archiver;
                                    import org.codehaus.plexus.archiver.jar.JarArchiver;
                                    import org.apache.maven.archiver.MavenArchiver;
                                    import org.apache.maven.archiver.MavenArchiveConfiguration;

                                    File asDocJar = new File(project.build.directory, "${project.build.finalName}-asdoc.jar")

                                    if( asDocJar.exists() ) asDocJar.delete()

                                    archiver = new MavenArchiver()
                                    archiver.archiver = new JarArchiver()
                                    archiver.outputFile = asDocJar
                                    archiver.archiver.addDirectory( new File(project.build.directory, "site/asdocs") )

                                    archive = new MavenArchiveConfiguration()
                                    archive.addMavenDescriptor = false

                                    archiver.createArchive( project, archive )

                                    helper = session.lookup("org.apache.maven.project.MavenProjectHelper")

                                    // need to attach to the *original* project
                                    // http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MGROOVY-172
                                    project.class.getDeclaredField("original").accessible = true
                                    helper.attachArtifact( project.original, "zip", "asdoc", asDocJar )
                                </source>
                            </configuration>
                        </execution>
                    </executions>
                </plugin>
            </plugins>
        </build>

        <dependencies>
            <dependency>
              <groupId>org.codehaus.plexus</groupId>
              <artifactId>plexus-archiver</artifactId>
              <version>1.0-alpha-7</version>
            </dependency>
            <dependency>
              <groupId>org.apache.maven</groupId>
              <artifactId>maven-archiver</artifactId>
              <version>2.3</version>
            </dependency>
        </dependencies>
    </profile>
</profiles>

if you were using Hudson, there’s a plugin that will start/stop Xvnc for you. there’s demand for a Bamboo plugin, but nothing yet.

however, you don’t really need a plugin! if you’re using maven 2.0, drop these three lines into ~/.mavenrc:

vncserver -kill :0
vncserver :0
export DISPLAY=:0

(be sure to run vncserver once as the user Bamboo runs as to set a password first).

then, when maven is launched, it will destroy the existing X session, start a new one, and set the display property properly. should anything go awry, you can always connect a VNC client to see the screen prior to the next build starting.

while it’d be nice to have it more automagic like what Hudson has, its easy enough to string a solution up

You can now get through firewalls, opening your applications to the widest audience ever using the new HTTP connection option. If a client can’t successfully establish a socket connection with the server due to firewall security then HTTP connection can be used and it will just work. As a developer, the only difference in the way that you use the API is you will call createHttpConnection instead of createConnection. All other calls and events are identical!

the implementation wasn’t bad at all. due to the usage of mina on the backend, it was very simple to plug in alternate frontend that wraps our existing protocol. i hacked and back-ported pieces of the mina 2.x branch http client code for a very simple http implementation that wraps the electroserver binary protocol as the request/response payloads. it was really just an extra link in the chain before the existing logic that expected the binary protocol on the wire directly. add in some support for storing messages for clients and voila.

due to how mina itself works, comet / long poll support also “fell right out” of the implementation. this means that for message receipt, if there is an open channel, using http is just as performant as electroserver’s native binary protocol.

there was also another funny bug that i fixed that involved making a reentrantlock fair. this was the first time i had personally witnessed the needed to use this option, but when dealing with the need to process things in-order where messages can arrive via multiple threads, its a lifesaver.

i have a lot of ideas on how to simplify the programming model we expose to plugin developers, some of which i’ll be expanding upon at a later date.

but, to help achieve those goals, paul hammant turned me on to a library mike rettig has ported from .net, jetlang.

it reminds me a lot of the old excalibur event code that the avalon team worked on years ago.. trading sinks and sources for publishers and subscribers, the end goal is the same. i tried to revive the event code a month ago or so, but it felt to large.. not all of the functionality was really needed.

jetlang does it right.. its simple and focused, and will be an excellent base to build upon.

mike posted about a 0.1.3 release today. i’m fairly happy with the api, and i think mike is too. next thing i want to tackle is a maven build, to help bring it to a wider audience. then, time to build stuff on top of it!

anyways, go check it out. post a message to the mailing list with your thoughts.

however, what i found interesting was:

Why ePACE? Olin indicates that a key attraction was the fact that the solution is based on an open source platform running on the Linux operating system.

as the lead architect of the system, reading this makes me proud. its using some very battle-tested technologies. apache avalon as the component backbone (i bet its still running in the phoenix container!), cocoon for the webapp, and all served up with jetty. we moved to an appliance model early on, shipping a debian-based machine that was turn-key

congratulations to the whole pace team, you guys did great!

edit: another good article (especially the comments) on the deal .. highlights what some of the customers liked about pace, and the industry in general.

paul graham’s talk was a motivational one to debunk (or support) one’s desires to either start a startup (or not). i’ll admit i haven’t read all of his essay’s, but i’ll guess that you can probably divine much of what he said from them, even though its not all in one single essay.

max levchin was easily the most entertaining speaker. his best advice: organize your work so that user’s motivations align with one of the seven deadly sins

the partovi brothers gave a time-constrained talk about do’s and don’ts…

• FOCUS
• don’t be distracted by the press
• politics will set it at ~20 people (if its going to happen). hard to extricate.
• don’t let crappy team members stick around, it’ll be bad for morale

rahoul seth talked about the financial details of startups. he described the financing stages, what the various types of stock are, and then some tips about various types of capital. founders goals should be to end up with 5-10% of the company at liquidity. the take-away? DO NOT FUND WITH DEBT.

mitch kapor had the “keynote” spot (the only 1-hour talk). spoke about his experience starting lotus. i didn’t take many notes here, but one interesting tidbit was about how startups say they are a great place to work, and then in the offer letter, put in verbiage about how you’re an “employee at will” and can be “fired for any reason”. he said how he’s always remove that language, and put something softer. for under-performing people, put them on a remediation plan, as it’ll be better for the health of the company overall. he also mentioned some research in the late 90’s his wife did about startup cultures, and found that overall, startups have more bullying and public humilation going on amongst employees.

mark zuckerberg came off as dick. he had no slides, and just talked like a pompous ass on the stage. he had two points: the importance of being technical (good!) and of being young (bad!). he tried to categorize innovation as only happening during youth, giving some examples. this contradicts what david galenson has postulated, that there are two types of innovators, and only one type occurs during youth. i’m sure facebook has plenty of public humiliation going on based upon his attitude.

finally, joel lehrer did his best to make a somewhat try topic (patents) interesting. intellectual property law has always been interesting to me, so i enjoyed it. i just would have appreciated a faster-moving pace though the material.

(there was a “recent founders panel” as the last thing, the most enjoyable thing being a hilarious slideshow from the reddit crew about their adventures)

overall, a very educational day. totally worth my time. i’d highly encourage everyone to attend next time it rolls around.

Workin Hard and Making Progress:

(Via Minding the Planet.)