Is node order important in xml ?

"Is node order important in xml ?"

This has always been a pending question, I wanted to answer.

The quick answer:

• No dtd, xml schema(xsd) validation, node order doesn't matter
  
• Any type of xml validation, order does matter (unless using a special notation in the schema)

The long answer:

For a long time I was pretty sure the order wasn't important, you could write:

<root>
  <node1/>
  <node2/>
</root>

and

<root>
  <node2/>
  <node1/>
</root>

It was the same...

But when using eclipse and validating an xml document, the validator kept complaning if the node were not in the same order as describe in the xsd.

I didn't know if it was an eclipse validator limitation (the validator wasn't able to cop with node order) or a w3c xml requirement.

Untill I found this IBM page describing the same exact issue ;)
Principles of XML design: When the order of XML elements matters

Apparently you can specify in an relax ng schema that order doesn't matter (using ampersand "&") (see: chapter "Schema constraints of element order") but I suspect many people (me included) to use the easiest path and use the comma notation.
As a side effect that means the order does matter, but people writing schema usually don't do this on purpose...

Technorati tags: xml

[Eclipse] No more Ctrl+O Ctrl+F

I'm pretty sure many eclipse "guru" already noticed it but in eclipse ganymede you can now auto-format and auto-organize import on save.

This was already possible thought a plugin: http://sebzen.blogspot.com/2006/12/eclipse-les-plugins-cest-du-temps.html

But now it's available by default in eclipse :)

Just go to "Windows > Preferences" and find the "Save Actions" menu:

Technorati tags: eclipse

How to disable Windows Language Keyboard Switch

From time to time my keyboard goes from french to english (from azerty to qwerty). And that's quite annoying !

The faulty shortcut under windows is: "Alt+Shift"

To avoid such a thing, you need to remove the english keyboard from the localization status bar. 

Here's some screenshots explaining how to do it:

Select the english keyboard and hit "delete" (supprimer).

A sense of "déjà vu"

While looking at some movies informations on imdb, I stumbled on this:

• Helen of Troy (2003)
• Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

Lack of imagination or coincidence ?

Eclipse, classpath and subversion

I always have the same problem over and over to make eclipse, the project classpath and subversion work perfectly together :(
And I'm pretty sure thousand of other guys have the same problem.

The problem is that you need to do 2 things to avoid the output dir to appears as a folder under source control:

• add the output dir to the ignore list
  
• AND
  
• add an exclusion filter in the src dir to avoid eclipse to copy the .svn folder in the output dir

Example:
1- When you start a new eclipse project, you have that folder structure:





2- You add it to subversion but you don't want the output dir to be added so you just add the src folder:


3- You add the bin dir to the ignore list:


But you are not over yet! At this stage subversion doesn't complain anymore about uncommited changes in bin BUT you still have the .svn folder in bin.

This is specially anoying with tortoise svn since it displays svn icons on the bin folder.

4- Now you need to exclude the .svn from the src folder to prevent eclipse to copy them:

Does anybody knows how this can be achieve under Maven when using "mvn eclipse:eclipse" ?
I suppose one need to use the filters as describe in the pom reference...

Playing with wordle

Just a quick post to a tag soup generator: wordle

It seems I have a lot of ruby and rails tag in my del.icio.us account :D

This blog tag soup (I don't know where it picked those tags btw)



My del.icio.us account: no comment ;)

Vimeo: Nice HD player

May be you already heard about vimeo a youtube like website, famous because of the Office Lip Dub.

I just discovered they have a HD version of there player and I have to say it's quite impressive: quality is excellent, simple to use, no extra fancy widget everywhere.

You can see it in action with this Christina Aguilera Video Live at David Letterman.

Technorati tags: vimeo video

New Job at Sqli

3 years and a half later, I'm leaving Anyware Technologies to go to SQLI still in Toulouse.

This time it's: "Thank you julien" :)

New projects, more responsabilities as a project manager, new people, cmmi level 5 quality requirements... lots of changes. But I like changes ;)

So! Let's get started!

ps: Reminds me of that road in Terminator 2 ending (at 4:40) when a new futur lies ahead ...

ps 2: For the film enthusiast(s), David Lynch made a more freaky version (at 1:25) of it in Lost Highway few years later... but I'm get out of topic here :)

Feeling Good :)

Kt Tunstall - Hold On lyrics

I was tired of January
I was tired of June
I felt a change a-comin'
Oh, I was tired of January
Tired of June
I felt a change a-comin'
Oh, I felt a change a-comin
I felt a change a-comin
Felt a change a-comin, soon

Muse - Feeling Good Lyrics

It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good

Blog Posts you don't want to read

Most of the time, I read my blog posts in the morning.

Every once in a while I have posts that give me a headacke just by reading the title :D

Just step back a little from your daily "techno review" and read the titles out loud to have a good laugh ;)
Some examples:

• Microsoft Unity Dependency Injection Application Block Released
• SpringSource Enterprise Delivers Enhanced Spring Support and Monitoring Capabilities
• 
  Cyclomatic Complexity Revisited
• 
  New Thin Server Architecture and SOFEA Working Group Web Site Launched


• Generic versus User Specific Data Streams for Scalable Web Sites
• Communicating Intent through Idiom and Paradigm Selection

I only took the latest posts ;)
The reasons I find them funny is because:

• They use and combine "enterprisey" buzzword
• The title alone is so complex you need to read it twice
• There is few chances that you'll ever have to use what they talk about because it narrows to such a limited field
• Even if you have the courage to click on the link, you will read less than 10 words out of it
• As soon as you'll leave the page you will forgot about it
• When you encounter one, you know it's time for another coffee :)

ps1: It's not about a technology (microsft, java, ruby...) every community does this kind of posts ;)

ps2: InfoQ is a good source of information, I remove theserverside feed because it was getting so much worst than InfoQ in the buzzword competition ;)