A new light

So after discussing a little more with Dr. Bowring, I changed the complexDataObject so that it contains a static arrayList of complexDataObjects and anytime one is created it is added to the array. The insertion is sorted to allow faster sorting using a comparator class. So after all that is done, the methods become a lot easier. For public boolean supportsView(String view) I do a search through the static arrayList for a object that has title of the string view. Returns true if the view is found else returns false. For public String[] getSupportedViews() I had to modify it to return an arrayList instead of an array and then I created a copy of the static arrayList of complexData and then return it.

Java.lang.Reflect

Thanks to Dr. Bowring I was able to find a much nicer way to implement my two methods for the complexObsHandler and complexData object. Reflection is a feature in the Java programming language. It allows an executing Java program to examine or "introspect" upon itself, and manipulate internal properties of the program. For example, it's possible for a Java class to obtain the names of all its members and display them. So after googling I was able to find some sample code and a tutorial on oracle to find all the instances of the class using reflect, now I just need to implement them into Openmrs which has given me some trouble but I'm confident I will get it done.

Still trying to fix my bug

So after trying to fix my bug I realized I needed to get a little more info on exactly what the openMRS team wanted. I view a discussion on the mailing list , I was a little more informed but I still didn't feel I had the information I needed to accomplish the task, so I started reading what the Complex obs handler actually did at the openMRS wiki. After carefully reading I have much better understanding of  the obs handler and its actually an interface. So in order to create the method to getSupportViews()  I'm thinking  need to find a way to have java return classes that implement the obs handler. As for   supportsView(String view), I was planning on using getSupportViews() to create a list of views and then search through that list for the view pass as the parameter if the view is found return true else it returns false.So now that I have a plan its time to try implementing, wish me luck.

Ok lets fix another bug

So after so carefully reconsideration, Each member of my team carefully selected a bug/feature for each of us to fix. I choose Trunk-2136. The feature is to add two methods to the complex obs handler object. One method verifies that a view is supported by the handler. The other returns a list of all the supported views in an object. I have begun to experiment with these a little bit and they seem conceivable so hopefully I will be able to produce some results.

POSSCON

    Last Friday was the last day of POSSCON but I was still very excited to attend. Not only did we eat good, I learned so much today. The first workshop I went to was with John Diamond about open source gaming. Designing games has always been something that I have wanted to do so I was finally able to learn about it a bit more. John began his discussion talking about blender, an open source program that is used for character development. I also learned about MD5 which is format that allows models to be animated by the use of an internal skeleton. Generally two files are needed to make a functional MD5 model; md5mesh and md5anim. He demoed the characters for his game, Alien Arena. He even taught us about rendering and shading techniques that he and his team used. I was briefly able to ask him some questions about what I should do to get started developing games. He told me I should definitely know C and/or C++. I still learning C and haven't really done any C++ so no im more eager to learn them. He also told me I didn't have to just settle for using the quake engine I could even use Epic Megagames' udk as a base engine so I could develop many different types of games. Lunch was the best, there was so much food and all you could drink soda it was like heaven. After that I went an sat in a workshop with John "Mad Dog" Hall about the History Of Linux. It was quite interesting and he brought up very interesting point about why software patents should not exists and I did learn a lot from his talk about Linux development.

POSSCON 2011!

So next  Friday is my classmates and I will be attending POSSCON 2011. I'm really looking forward to it and its also in my home town so I was able to invite my parents and some friends so hopefully they will attend. One person I really want to meet is John Diamond. Mr. Diamond is is the CEO and lead developer of COR Entertainment LLC and is a senior developer at Orange Technologies Inc. He codes and does the artwork for the games he designs. Gaming is one of my favorite hobbies and I always wanted to design games for a living. When I meet him I would hope to ask him "how can I get my foot into the world of game designing?", "Is there any specific programming language that I need to be familiar with?", and "What is your favorite part of designing games before the project is complete?". I would also like to meet David Trask to see how open source is taught is at other schools. John "Mad Dog" Hall also seems like an intere

Preview

sting person to meet since I'm just learning to use/getting use to linux. So I look forward to asking him about linux.

Time to work

So for a couple of weeks my team and I had some technical problems, but now all those problems are gone(at least the ones on my end). Instead of using tomcat to run a web server I could have used eclipse to do it, so that worked out a lot better than trying to configure tomcat(Major thanks to the guys on the IRC). So now we gathered together to create a timeline for what we wanted to do for the rest of the semester. The time line can be found here.