Halogen Labs Weblog

I noticed via Matthew’s weblog that Steven Noels was going in for back surgery tomorrow. Best of luck, Steven!

My patch to the WebServiceProxyGenerator was applied to the 2.1-Dev tree of Cocoon.

You may now use it like this:

<map:generate type="wsproxy" src="http://host/endpoint">
  <map:parameter name="wsproxy-method" value="post"/>
</map:generate>

This tells the WSPG to use “POST” when contacting the remote server. The previous version of the WSPG only used GET, which was quite maddening when trying to figure out why you couldn’t post to a server.

Eventually I’ll add some more debug logging to aid trying to figure out exactly what the WSPG is going. In the meantime, enjoy the new stuff :)

So I have a month off until school starts back up, and I have all next week off work. Now my problem is to figure out what to do with all of my free time… any ideas?

I randomly hit Weblogs.com, which led me to Simon Fell’s site (which I read often), which led me to read about Scripting Groove Web Services by Jon Udell, which led me to another article which he wrote on the subject, which led me to the definition of REST, which was bugging me for a while since I didn’t actually know what it was.

And now I’m really interested in it :) The RESTful nature of using Cocoon with wildcard matchers now becomes apparent to me.

Well, well well. It seems that the local alternative newspaper just bought a few passes and managed to board the Cluetrain.

Oh wow, the mail links are live. They’re using Radio.

Wow. Why People Hate Journalists.

This is big. Real big.

Steve Perry (Editor (!)), David Schminke (Managing Editor), Britt Robson (Senior Editor), Brad Zellar (Senior Writer), Melizza Maerz (Music Editor), and G.R. Anderson, Jr. (Staff Writer).

Hey, isn’t G.R Anderson one of the writers indirectly accused of using the word “Opine” too much, as pointed out by Chuck and Joel of Cosmic Slop? :)

Regardless, welcome aboard, everybody, and I’ll be watching intently. I was trying to start a revolution when I asked Pioneer Press writer Leslie Brooks Suzukamo to start a blog. He was interviewing me for an article about blogging. He agreed to start his own blog (and did), but he didn’t maintain it. It only further proved to me that the Pioneer Press wasn’t ready to get on the train.

Much like Phil Windley, I tendered my resignation at my employer this week, and I’ve accepted an offer at the Civil Engineering Department of the University of Minnesota as an Infotech Professional. I’ll be done in two weeks. However, as an added “bonus” I get a week off because the University is on vacation the week of Christmas.

In the past year and a half at the MPC, my job has been fun, boring, exciting, mind opening, angering, loud, educational, funny, and sad. I’ve been inspired by the great minds of my coworkers, and saddened at the fact that I can’t stay onboard. I’ve also learned a great deal about various technologies, going from knowing almost nothing about XML and XSL, to using it every day.

My next job will probably not be as much of a rollercoaster ride that this one has been, but hopefully I can manage to keep myself busy, and continue to have the opportunity to learn new things.

Despite probably not using Cocoon at my new job, I plan on staying active in the community. Hopefully we can make the docs better :)

Congratulations team! :) Here’s the announcement:

Apache Cocoon 2.0.4 Released
—————————-

The Apache Cocoon team is proud to announce the new release of Apache Cocoon.

Apache Cocoon is an XML framework that raises the usage of
XML and XSLT technologies for server applications to a new level.
Designed for performance and scalability around pipelined SAX
processing, Cocoon offers a flexible environment based on the
separation of concerns between content, logic and style.
A centralized configuration system and sophisticated caching
top this all off and help you to create, deploy and maintain
rock-solid XML server applications.

Today, most web engineers consider XML as the key for an improved
web model and web site managers see XML as a way to reduce costs
and ease production. In an era where services rather than software
will be key for economic success, a better and less expensive model
for web publishing will be a winner, especially one based on open
standards.

This release of Cocoon is a maintainance release focusing on
improved performance and robustness. In addition some bugs were
fixed and new features were added. See the following changes list
for more information.

For more information about Apache Cocoon 2.0.4, please go to
http://xml.apache.org/cocoon
(more…)

Hey, cool, I got added to java.blogs! Thanks, Ugo! :)

Whilst playing around with what I have so far, I’ve learned two things:

a) My XSLT stylesheets need a little work :)

b) Ron Paul was the only person to vote against HR 339 (Roll Call 70), “Urging the Government of Ukraine to Ensure a Democratic, Transparent, and Fair Election Process Leading Up to the March 31, 2002 Parliamentary Elections.

Uh…

Whoa. And this guy is trying to run for President in 2004. Heh.

Update: According to the House website, he’s Republican, but according to his campaign site, he looks like a pretty big Libertarian. And he has a bunch of nuts posting on his messageboard. I guess the Cluetrain goes everywhere, eh?

Jennifer Klyse wants XML bill voting results.

I’m Bootstrapping (using Cocoon). These are all live, and I have a complete history of 2002 done already. All that’s left is reogranize the results so every person’s vote result is an attribute of the <rep> tag, and I should be good to go from there.

<hr number="483">

<ayes total="366"/>
...
</ayes>

<noes total="3">
<rep>Kerns</rep>
<rep>LaHood</rep>
<rep>Paul</rep>
</noes>

<no-votes total="62">
...
</no-votes>
</hr>