Besides almost falling asleep from all the xml I did notice Seam supports Ruby style templating Strings(example 1.2), which is sort of nice.
I'm not sure if you can use simple java oneliners though.

A couple of things that suck:

- Validation of required fields in views (Example 1.7)

Username:

- Session beans require an interface. Let's define everything twice!

- Displaying a simple date requires 120 chars (Example 1.12)

- Configuration in the views and confusing prefixes.

- Removing duplication from views sucks because you can't extract methods.

I actually forgot how much JSF sucked (I remember it was hard to test).
The biggest problem is that it's been developed by someone who doesn't use it to write real applications.
It's full of crappy implementations of concepts that seem like a good idea from an ivory tower.

Here is a script that generates the same application in Rails(2.1), it's just a bit longer than just the web.xml from the seam example:

puts `rails seam`
Dir.chdir "seam"
open('config/database.yml', 'w') do |f|
f

puts `script/generate model user username:string password:string name:string`
open('app/models/user.rb', 'w') do |f|
f 5..15
validates_presence_of :name
validates_length_of :username, :in => 5..15
validates_uniqueness_of :username
end}
end

puts `script/generate controller Register`
open('app/controllers/register_controller.rb', 'w') do |f|
f :registered if params[:user] && @user.save
end
end}
end

open('app/views/register/index.html.erb', 'w') do |f|
f :index} do |f| %>
Username:
Real Name:
Password:

}
end

open('app/views/register/registered.html.erb', 'w') do |f|
f

puts `rake db:migrate`

Here is my version of the puzzle in Ruby. For a better comparison I've kept some of the Java style code and refrained from some one liners. Still, it's about half as long as the Java version.
My solution to the puzzle uses wikipedia to lookup the acronyms.

ordina.rb

require 'open-uri'
module Nl
module Ordina
class JavaSpecialist

def self.main
js = find_specialist_wanna_be
if js
js.start
else
puts "Geen JavaSpecialist implementatie gevonden"
end
end

def start
report = "Volgens de specialist #{name}\x5c\x6eHebben de volgende termen de betekenis" +
"\x5c\x6e\x55\x4d\x4c #{eval "waarStaat\x55\x4d\x4cVoor" } \x5c\x6e\x52\x55\x50 " +
"#{eval "waarStaat\x52\x55\x50Voor" } \x5c\x6e\x58\x4d\x4c #{eval "waarStaat\x58\x4d\x4cVoor" } " +
"\x5c\x6e\x4d\x56\x43 #{eval "waarStaat\x4d\x56\x43Voor" } \x5c\x6e\x45\x4a\x42 " +
"#{eval "waarStaat\x45\x4a\x42Voor" }\x5c\x6e\x41\x4f\x50 #{eval "waarStaat\x41\x4f\x50Voor" } " +
"\x5c\x6e\x4a\x53\x46 #{eval "waarStaat\x4a\x53\x46Voor" }"
puts report.gsub!('\n', "\n")
puts kijk_bij_ordina
end

private

def self.find_specialist_wanna_be
dir = Nl::Ordina.name.gsub('::', '/').downcase
Dir.new(dir).each{|i| require("#{dir}/#{i}") unless File.directory?("#{dir}/#{i}") }
Nl::Ordina.constants.each do |i|
unless i == self.name.split('::').last
obj = instance_eval(i).new
return obj if obj.is_a? JavaSpecialist
end
end
end

def kijk_bij_ordina
open("http://jobportal.ordina.nl/jobportal-front/pages/index.jsf").read
rescue
'Kijk op http://jobportal.ordina.nl/'
end
end
end
end
Nl::Ordina::JavaSpecialist.main

nl/ordina/impl.rb

module Nl
module Ordina
class JavaSpecialistImpl < JavaSpecialist
def name
"p8"
end

def method_missing(*args)
afk = args.first.to_s.gsub('waarStaat', '').gsub('Voor', '')
page = open("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/#{afk}").read
matchdata = /([^>]*)()/.match(page)
matchdata ? matchdata[1].gsub('- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia', '') : 'Onbekend'
end
end
end
end

Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/mysql/mysql.sock'.

This happened once before so I'm documenting the proper solution here for possible later use.

sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl stop
apache2ctl start

I tried Virtue Desktop (and all the other ones) but they were useless to me, because all the virtual desktops show all running applications when switching application with Command+tab. I only want to see the ones in my current desktop.

Creating another user account isn't an option either because I want to access my mail for both work and private use.

So I need a browser switcher I can run from the commandline so I can schedule it with crontab.

The Objective C part
For the Objecive C part I create a SwitchBrowser directory.
In it I create a file called ~/SwitchBrowser/SwitchBrowser.h:

#import

@interface SwitchBrowser : NSObject
{}
- (CFArrayRef) browsers;
- (void)setDefaultBrowser: (CFStringRef) newDefaultStr;
@end

... and a file called ~/SwitchBrowser/SwitchBrowser.m:
(Copied from Giant Mike's FavBrowse)

#import "SwitchBrowser.h"

@implementation SwitchBrowser

- (CFArrayRef) browsers {
return LSCopyAllHandlersForURLScheme(CFSTR("https"));
}

- (void)setDefaultBrowser: (CFStringRef) newDefaultStr
{

//Set the launch services settings for https:// and http://
LSSetDefaultHandlerForURLScheme(CFSTR("https"), newDefaultStr);
LSSetDefaultHandlerForURLScheme(CFSTR("http"), newDefaultStr);

//Set the launch services setting for web sites discovered via Bonjour
LSSetDefaultRoleHandlerForContentType(CFSTR("public.html"), kLSRolesAll, newDefaultStr);

FSRef newDefaultBrowserFSRef;
LSFindApplicationForInfo(kLSUnknownCreator, newDefaultStr, NULL, &newDefaultBrowserFSRef, NULL);
_LSSetWeakBindingForType(kLSUnknownType, kLSUnknownCreator, CFSTR("xhtm"), kLSRolesAll, &newDefaultBrowserFSRef);
}

@end

void Init_switch_browser(){}

In the SwitchBrowser directory everything is compiled with the following command:

gcc -o switch_browser.bundle -bundle -framework Foundation -framework ApplicationServices -framework AppKit SwitchBrowser.m

The RubyCocoa Part

I use RubyCocoa for the scripting part.
After installing it, create a file called ~/switch_browser.rb:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require 'osx/cocoa'
require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/SwitchBrowser/switch_browser'

new_browser = $*[0]

OSX.ns_import :SwitchBrowser
switcher = OSX::SwitchBrowser.alloc.init
browsers = switcher.browsers.collect{|b| b }

unless new_browser
puts "Select browser number:"
browsers.each_with_index{|b,i| puts "#{i} #{b}"}
new_browser = browsers[gets.chomp!.to_i]
end

raise "#{new_browser} is not a valid browser." unless browsers.include? new_browser

switcher.setDefaultBrowser(new_browser)
puts "Switched to " + new_browser

Now you can do:
~/switch_browser.rb org.mozilla.firefox

I've added this to my crontab together with quiting my work applications on the end of my workday.
It's been a real improvement!

As you become more experienced, you’ll find that being able to create your own control structures can dramatically decrease the size of your programs and sometimes make them a lot clearer. This is because you can create exactly the right control structures that are needed to solve your problem, and you are not restricted by a small and fixed set of control structures that came with your programming language.

Programming Erlang

...

As Montaigne found, nothing clarifies your ideas like trying to write them down. Once you’re freed from the worry that you’ll paint yourself into a corner, you can take full advantage of this possibility. The ability to plan programs as you write them has two momentous consequences: programs take less time to write, because when you plan and write at the same time, you have a real program to focus your attention; and they turn out better, because the final design is always a product of evolution. So long as you maintain a certain discipline while searching for your program’s destiny—so long as you always rewrite mistaken parts as soon as it becomes clear that they’re mistaken—the final product will be a program more elegant than if you had spent weeks planning it beforehand.

The following worked for me:

heckle Release -T 1 -t test/unit/release_test.rb
heckle ReleaseController -T 1 -t test/controllers/release_controller_test.rb