I recently forked Robotlegs (on github) because I wanted to be able to build Robotlegs using Maven. Currently, Robotlegs uses Ant to build, test, generate asdoc's, etc. However, in my day-to-day projects I'm using Maven...in fact I don't even have Ant setup (which only takes 30 seconds once you download the ZIP).

In the next few days I expect to be done configuring the pom.xml at which point I'll submit a "pull request". This will allow one of the main people behind Robotlegs to decide if they want to pull it into the main Robotlegs source tree.

Gradle is capable of using Maven to find artifacts, including your own local maven repository.

To get this working I had to put the following stuff in my build.gradle.

usePlugin 'maven'  // Maven plugin to install artifact in local Maven repo.

def localMavenRepo = new File('c:/work/.m2/repository').toURL().toString()

repositories {
    // Use local Maven repo location. We don't need this if we only want to install
    // an artifact, but we do need it if we want to use dependencies from the local
    // repository.
    mavenRepo urls: localMavenRepo
    
}

dependencies {
    compile 'com.itextpdf:itextpdf:5.0.0'
    groovy 'org.codehaus.groovy:groovy:1.6.7'  // group:name:version is a nice shortcut notation for dependencies.
    testCompile 'junit:junit:4.7'
}

I was trying to load an XML file that lives next to my SWF on a webserver that I run locally.

Example URLs:

• http://localhost/myapp/foo.swf
• http://localhost/myapp/foo-config.xml

I was trying to use HTTPService but I kept getting "URL must be specified with useProxy set to false". Even if I configured my HTTPService.useProxy = false I still got the same error.

I looked around for a resolution but nothing seemed to work, until I stumbled upon the URLLoader. I setup a URLLoader and requested my data, but when I received the Event.COMPLETE event the "event.target.data" property only showed the first line of my XML...I was expecting to cast the "data" to an XML object, but that gave me a null.

A blog post shed some light. Essentially you have to explicitly create a new XML object. Here's a short snippet, keep in mind this snippet only listens for the "COMPLETE" event, in reality you should also listen for the SecurityErrorEvent and IOErrorEvent.

public function getData():void {
  var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader( new URLRequest('http://localhost/myapp/foo-config.xml' ));
  loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onComplete);
}

public function onComplete(event:Event):void {
  // var data:XML = event.target.data as XML;  <--- doesn't work
  var data:XML = new XML(event.target.data);
}

Enjoy!

On the main wiki page there is a link to the FlexStuff page which provides various Flex goodies that I've come across while developing with Flex.

I've successfully setup this site to use Git...now I need to start writing code and putting in there!

Back in January of 2009 I attended the Core Spring] training. It was a solid four days of Spring Framework reference manual stuffed in your face. The most valuable part was the little bit of Q&A time that occurred, otherwise you could have sat and read the entire Spring Framework reference manual and probably have gotten all that you need. But honestly, it personally helped me because it forced me to sit and read, explore and discuss the Spring Framework from beginning to end...something I wouldn't have just done on my own.

After attending the training I formed a SIG (special interest group) along with several other people to meet monthly to discuss and learn about the Spring Framework. After a couple of months someone suggested that the group have some sort of goal in mind to help drive attendance and interest in the SIG each month. As a group we decided that each month 2 people would cover two topics from the certification study guide (there were 10 topics) so that by the end of 2009 we would be ready to take the exam.

On Monday, December 21, 2009 I went and took the SpringSource Certified Spring Professional exam and passed! The exam did touch on every topic that was listed in their study guide which surprised me since the exam only consisted of 50 questions.

The downside here is that many of the people involved in the Spring SIG haven't attended the Core Spring training. So they'll have to try and meet one of the other prerequisites to be eligible for the certification exam which is pretty lame-o!

Lots of times I would jot things down on paper in notepads (hence the chicken scratch), but it's about time I get those ideas/notes/opinions in digital form.

I created Digital Chicken Scratch so I would have a place to store things that interest me with respect to software development.