Clarity occurs at the nth hour May 28, 2008
Posted by javafoo in OOAD, general programming, javanotes, technical design.add a comment
So I have been trying to put together a design approach document for over a week. I have been struggling to articulate a difficult design concept. I was afraid it was getting too wordsy as it was running over 3 pages. With a mixed audience for the design review, it had to be crisp and not appear as rambling forever. I drafted and re-drafted over the week and knew that with an audience with an attention span of a 2 year old (or is it a 4 year old), I couldn’t get across what I was trying to say.
But with two hours to the meeting, clarity struck. I was replacing paragraphs with patterns, words were just flowing and I had it reduced to 1 page, bullet pointed and all with space to spare. The meeting did actually go well and people got what I was trying to say. It’s funny how clarity always strikes at the nth hour. Just as the Zen master said.
Note to self April 10, 2008
Posted by javafoo in general programming, javanotes.add a comment
Recent happenings in my app have led me to this epiphany: If something seems to be computationally impossible and it still seems to work or not work, chances are you are looking at the wrong piece of code. Hint: Log statements that should show and don’t, should be a clear indication of that. And yes I still hate debuggers and will not use them, unless I have to 
Authentication and Authorization March 19, 2008
Posted by javafoo in general programming, java, javanotes, security.add a comment
I sometimes mistake one for the other. Of course a simple search on Google or wikipedia will clear this. But it doesn’t seem to stick with you, unless you understand, assimilate and put it in your own words. So here goes, for me authentication means, the authenticating entity (a server, for ex.) needs to know, that you are, who you say, you are (simplest mechanism: username/password). Authorization is the second stage to authentication: Ok, now I know you are ‘joeblack’ (you have been authenticated), so what are trying to do? what roles do you have (admin, user etc.)? Given your roles, can you do what you are trying to do? There, now I will never mix them up, hopefully.
