Friday, October 30, 2009

Continuous Integration Tools

Do you need to compile and test your software on an automated basis? Which continuous integration or nightly build tool should you use?

Hudson

Why? Because it's that good. Give it a try, you won't regret it. I've used Cruise Control and then LuntBuild. I've looked at and followed BuildBot, Zutubi Pulse, AntHill, Atlassian Bamboo, Apache Continuum, CDash, and QuickBuild.

And Hudson is better. It's easy to set-up, it's easy to configure, it's deceptively powerful, there are a ton of plug-ins. I don't think I've encountered another open-source projects that does releases more frequently. It's free and open-source. It supports large clusters of slaves or agents. It's management and set-up of slaves is the best I've seen. Because it's free, you can scale up your slaves as high as you want to go.

And no, I don't work on the project. And I'm certainly not getting paid to endorse it. I just found it one day and it's that good. Check out the public instance I administer for the Opticks project.

Ever try to use copy?

Today, I was working on some automated builds for Opticks, and I needed to use the windows "copy" command as part of the automated build process. So, I wrote:

copy foo.zip bar.zip

and then my 250 MB foo.zip was turned into a 55 byte bar.zip. And I was so very confused until I discovered that copy has "/B" flag. This apparently tells copy that a "binary" file is involved and then all my problems went away. I thought about researching the history of the "/B" flag, but I'm not sure I want to know. I think my life might be better not knowing.

So, for the record please use:

copy /B foo.zip bar.zip

It saves lives.

Like StackOverflow? Check out GeoExchange

If you've ever used Stackoverflow, you might want to give GeoExchange a look. StackOverflow is a collaborative site that aims to be a Q & A or knowledge base for all kinds of computer programming questions. GeoExchange just debuted and is running the same software, but is set-up to become the Q & A or knowledge base for all kinds of Geo and GIS questions.

I checked it out earlier, it appears to be in it's infancy. But it's worth keeping an eye on.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

New DoD Memo On Open Source Software - What does it all mean?

As a number of people have reported today, a new DoD memo was released that clarifies the DoD's usage/participation in OSS. See here, here and here for more details. And the actual memo should appear on the DoD's site soon. For now, you can read it from any one of the other posts I've linked to.

So, what does this memo mean?

I think you can see that momentum has been building and progress is being made. The OSS movement within the DoD hasn't stagnated from 2003 to 2009. So, why then is this memo so important? Because it is going to help remove some long-standing and problematic roadblocks and if you attended the Mil-OSS working group August session or join the Mil-OSS Google Group, you'll see there are still quite a few roadblocks.

So, jump in and help out. And by that I mean keep an eye out for the next Mil-OSS working group session in Spring 2010.

GEOINT 2009 - Recap

My colleague, Tony Wolf, just back from GEOINT 2009 and wanted me to post the following:

"Just got back from GEOINT 2009... Very cool

Lots of great exhibitors this year showed off some pretty cool tools. One that comes to mind was the "Liquid Galaxy" booth set-up by Google. It was a 340 degree view of LCDs all displaying Google Earth, steerable by a 3-D connexion controller. I want to build one in my garage. BAE showed off their new plug-ins for SOCET GXP, which included more Spectral enhancements than in the past. Finally, PAR Government built more capability to their FMV tool, GV 3.0.

The fun didn't stop there. Got to hear some great talks by people like James Clapper, Major Gen. John Custer, and of course Vice Admiral Robert Murrett from NGA. These guys speak plain english reminding us of the value of geospatial intelligence.

Of course no GEOINT is complete without the GeoWalk. Coincidentally, WorldView 2 got it's first collection over San Antonio that same day, just 12 days after launch!!! This called for a celebration. And no one throws a better party than DigitalGlobe. I got the chance to speak with Jill Smith, CEO of Digital Globe, who couldn't be more enthusiastic or grateful for the success of WorldView. Live music and open bar, what else can I say? The river walk itself was the perfect setting which made the GeoWalk even better than in years past.

I gave close to 30 demos of Opticks. All of which were well received. And I made some new friends along the way. I got the chance to show off just how many different types of data that Opticks will support and what that means to the open-source community. The thing people liked the most about Opticks is how easy it is to get your hands on a copy, without having to sign up for anything, become a member of anything, etc. All in all, great time, looking forward to next year."

Sunday, October 25, 2009

New Direction of this blog

Originally, this blog was to be pretty limited and scope and only talk about Opticks. Since then, I've decided that I'm going to use it principally as my personal blog. So, continue to expect topics about Opticks, since I am a committer on that project. But, I'll also discuss programming, website development, installation and the like, or whatever else I happen to be interested in.

Monday, October 19, 2009

New Opticks Website

I've just flipped the switch on the new Opticks website. Just go to http://opticks.org/ to see the new site. The goal of the new site is to better separate the Opticks community into three user groups (end-users/analysts/scientists, extension developers, and opticks developers) and then tailor the site towards those users. So, check out the new site and let us know what you think, either as a comment here or on the Opticks mailing list or real-time chat.

Over the next week or so, I'll be updating the old site (http://opticks.ballforge.net/) to point people to the new site.

GEOINT 2009 - Come See Opticks

GEOINT 2009 starts today and if you are attendance, stop by the Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. booth to see some of my colleagues demo Opticks.