I ran across an individual today asking (rhetorically) what you need to do to make a class serializable in java.

My response went something like this:

Have your class implement the Serializable interface, and if you need or want control over how it’s persisted at the stream level, override the readObject and writeObject methods.

At which point the individual began to say things like, “No that wrong. You just need Serializable interface. That interface empty, you don’t have any method to implement.”

I tried to explain that the extra information I gave let you control -how- the object is serialized, but it wasn’t -necessary- to actually serialize (as long as you’re OK with the standard means of doing that). At that point I got, “No. You wrong. Serializable empty interface.”

My response, “Well, I guess I gave you more information than you wanted. Sorry about that.”

Holy freakin’ crap. Talk about dense, ignorant, and self-righteous. I know what I’m talking about. Marrow-MUSCLE uses many of the concepts of serialization to handle object graph transformations to and from Muscle messages. It does it like this. While this isn’t a perfect example of overriding the Serializable format normally used by java, it does demonstrate that you have to know what you’re doing with serialization in order to accomplish the task.

In the past, I’ve even changed the way writeObject and readObject work on a few projects, just to save bandwidth when implementing an object storage & transfer protocol.

Needless to say, I don’t think very highly of the individual who was so indignant that I was wrong, when all I did was give more detail than they were asking (or apparently aware of).

Moral of the story: If you ask a question like this, and get an answer you don’t expect, or is more detailed than it should be, as the person responding to explain what they’re talking about instead of being self-righteous, ignorant, and indignant that they’re totally wrong.

Behold Attachmate Extra (Junky) a TN3270 emulator package that lets operators do things they otherwise shouldn’t.

For example….

A 3270 application can flag an input field on the screen as “numeric only”. This means exactly what you’d think when first looking at it. Users shouldn’t be typing non-numeric things into the field. Simple right? Well… Turns out that Attachmate Extra lets you override that behavior, effectively ignoring the specification, and the suggestion of programmers writing mainframe applications that you’re using.

Brilliant!

Even more brilliant, during a demo today where I’m using FreeHost3270 (with an as-yet-unfinished-and-unreleased souped-up JTerminal component) to demo interaction with a mainframe for some users, they start complaining and freaking out that they can’t type alphabetic characters into a numeric only flagged field. I had to reassure them that I knew what the problem was, and could fix it. This isn’t the first bad behavior I’ve seen Attachmate exhibit, but this is the first I’ve seen that effectively says, “piss off” to every form of 3270 specification, encourages users to input bad data, and makes me want to kick whomever thought this was a good idea firmly in the teeth.

Freakin’ Brilliant.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I don’t like this Attachmate software. Overpriced junk, if you ask me.

Oh, and HLLAPI is a nightmare. I’ll take FreeHost3270 with it’s sane API any day of the week.

It might be enough to get me to dump ubuntu on my desktops, which opens all sorts of options for the servers should the day come that I decide to restructure those again. :-p

I’m testing it out on my work laptop, which oddly enough chokes on ubuntu installs (the graphics card has never been detected correctly by a live CD before this OpenSolaris 2008.5 CD…) and seems to be doing fairly well on OpenSolaris.

Booting in 64 bit mode leaves me without drivers for my network card, the audio driver gets misconfigured, and the ACPI driver chokes.

I’m attempting to boot the 32 bit kernel now…

Kylene and I are installing bifold doors in the back bedroom, where sliding doors were. We’re replacing the bifold doors that cover the laundry closet, and we’re putting a bifold door into the (future) nursery room.

The existing door jambs aren’t going to be easy (nor do we want to) re-use them as door jambs. I’ll save the wood, I’m sure I’ll find a use for it… but for now, we need new door jambs so we can stain and polyurethane them like the rest of the doors & jambs.

It’s no secret I’m a bit tight with my wallet on things like this. So I priced out two 60″ door jambs, and one 30″ jamb. YIKES. It will cost well over another $90 to buy pre-made door jambs. I don’t like that idea.

The jambs you can buy these days are nothing more than veneered plywood cut to 4 7/16″, with 1/16 thick edge banding on each side, giving a final width of 4 9/16″. Then they rabbit the ends of vertical uprights. Well shoot. I can cut a sheet of plywood and edge-band it way cheaper than 90″. And a single sheet of 4′ x 8′ would provide more than enough wood to make all the jambs I need. As for the edge banding, I could make that on the table saw with a simple jig, and a piece of pine suitable for making edge banding wouldn’t cost more than $8.

I -think- I could do it myself for less than $50. I have yet to look into pine plywood prices, but I can’t image it would be any more than $40/sheet for sanded, 3/4″ thick pine faced plywood.