Java

The Download Proxy's Back

A few years back, I had problems downloading files I needed in order to work. It’s not uncommon for developers to have higher access rights on their machine, but this almost never applies to the firewall. So, you may have the right to install all software you need and yet still be unable to download it without a two-day-long exchange with a security service located in another city. That’s annoying. And that’s when I came up with the Download Proxy.

How to Choose Your OJDBC Driver

When you develop a Java program that accesses a database, you’re likely to need a JDBC driver. When that database is an Oracle product, you keep that O for OJDBC.

For years, I just used the version an architect had selected. Then, I became the architect and I had to understand which version to choose. It’s not that complicated, just not really well explained. Let me try to contribute…

Learn the Technology, not the Framework

I’ve discussed with several people, this year. Technical leads, technical supervisors, architects… You get the gist. Among those discussions, I heard a recurring complaint, which I previously feared to be my demanding nature expressing itself.

But no! Other people noticed it too, and it basically boils down to something like this: we’re facing a new generation of developers, who like to do things fast and don’t care much about how things work deep down, and we’re living in an era proposing a new framework to help them go faster and not understand. The two together won’t make for great developers. Good developers, maybe, but not great ones.

Choose Your Font for Coding

We developers often spend a great deal of attention choosing our tools: computer, editors… Yet, we often fail to see the gain of choosing an appropriate font.

Here is some food for thoughts on this topic, and some of my favorite coding fonts.