Coming Up To Speed with The Open Source World and some of its players

CAVEAT: Comments in this post are just personal opinions gathered from various sources

Also see my pages on: Summary of Framework Terms all in one place
and: Testing Methodology Summary

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• .Net - think of it as Microsoft’s “me too” version of Java, in other words: machine-independent compiled code.

• Apache Ant - is a Java based software tool for automating software build processes
  (also see Make and Rake)
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• Ansible - a radically simple IT automation engine used for cloud provisioning, configuration management, application deployment, intra-service orchestration, and many other IT needs.
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• Apache -  is an HTTP Server, serving HTTP.
  (Apache Tomcat is a Servlet and JSP Server serving Java technologies)
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• C# (pronounced C-sharp) - a relatively new programming language designed by Microsoft for a wide range of enterprise applications that run on the .NET Framework. An evolution of C and  C++, the C# language is simple, modern, type safe and object oriented.

• Chef - is a configuration management tool written in Ruby and Erlang. It uses a pure-Ruby, domain-specific language (DSL) for writing system configuration "recipes"
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• CI - Continuous Integration - an automated build/test system that continuously validates code changes as hey are submitted to a code repository.
  Examples of CI server solutions include:
• Jenkins - The basic functionality of Jenkins is to execute a predefined list of steps based on a certain trigger.
  The trigger might for example be an change in a version control system or a time based trigger, e.g., a build every 20 minutes.
  The list of steps can for example include:
• perform a software build with Apache Maven or Gradle
• Run a shell script
• Archive the build result
• Initiate integration tests
• Bamboo - Bamboo is the product of Atlassian. When compared to Jenkins, Bamboo is sexy. It is easier to use and it looks better. Usability is one of the first differences one would notice. Moreover, it is well-integrated with the rest of Atlassian’s products (JIRA, Confluence, BitBucket, etc).
• TeamCity - 
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• Docker is a Linux based open-source project that automates the deployment of applications inside software containers, by providing an additional layer of abstraction and automation of operating-system-level virtualization on Linux
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• .EAR (Enterprise archive) - can contain any J2EE object - typically contains all of the components that make up a particular J2EE application
•  EJB - Enterprise  Java Beans
• JMS - Java Message Service API
• Servlets and all other web objects of a WAR
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• EJB - Enterprise JavaBeans are J2EE software components that exist and operate in a container. The container provides all the services an EJB needs to interact with other EJBs
  see below:OC4J
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• Apache Felix Framework subproject is an implementation of the OSGi R6 core framework specification
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• Git - is a widely used source code management system for software development. It is a distributed revision control system with an emphasis on speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows.
  It comes in two main forms:
  
  1. GitLab - self hosted
  2. GitHub - cloud hosted AaaS

• Glassfish - is the reference implementation of J2EE an open-source application server project started by Sun Microsystems for the Java EE platform and now sponsored by Oracle.
  GlassFish runs straight on top of the Apache Felix and uses a derivative of Apache Tomcat as the servlet container for serving Web content
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• GNOME - (GNU Network Object Model Environment, pronounced gah-NOHM) is a graphical user interface (GUI) and set of computer desktop applications for users of the Linux computer operating system. It's intended to make a Linux operating system easy to use for non-programmers and generally corresponds to the Windows desktop interface and its most common set of applications.
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•  IntelliJ IDEA - JAVA IDE
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• .JAR (Java Archive) - a group of .class files 
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• JAVA - one of the most widely adopted programming languages, used by some 9 million developers and running on 7 billion devices worldwide. It’s also the programming language used to develop all native Android apps. Java’s popularity with developers is due to the fact that the language is grounded in readability and simplicity. Java has staying power since it has long-term compatibility, which makes sure older applications continue to work now into the future.
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• JavaScript – not to be confused with Java – is another one of the world’s most popular and powerful programming languages, and is used to spice up web pages by making them interactive.
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• Jenkins - cross-platform, continuous integration and continuous delivery application. It is a server-based system running in a servlet container such as Apache Tomcat. It supports SCM tools including AccuRev, CVS, Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Perforce, Clearcase and RTC, and can execute Apache Ant and Apache Maven based projects as well as arbitrary shell scripts and Windows batch commands
  
  There are similar tools for other programming frameworks such as:

• Buildbot — a Python system to automate the compile/test cycle to validate code changes.
• Tox — an automation tool providing packaging, testing and deployment of Python software.
• Travis-CI — a distributed CI server which builds tests for open source projects for free.
• Django-Jenkins — Django (Python) Web Framework integration with Jenkins.

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• keytool - is a key and certificate management utility. It allows users to administer their own public/private key pairs and associated certificates
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• GNU Make is a tool which controls the generation of executables and other non-source files of a program from the program's source files.
  Make gets its knowledge of how to build your program from a file called the makefile, which lists each of the non-source files and how to compute it from other files.
  Make enables the end user to build and install your package without knowing the details of how that is done -- because these details are recorded in the makefile that you supply.
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• Maven - is a software project management and comprehension tool. Based on the concept of a project object model (POM), Maven can manage a project's build, reporting and documentation from a central piece of information. An Orchestration tool if you will ... bringing it all together.
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•  OC4J - stands for Oracle Containers for J2EE, Oracle's original lightweight app server.
  It is a slimmed down version of Oracle Application Server, written entirely in Java executing on a standard JDK VM.
  Oracle WebLogic Server (WLS) falls into the "Strategic" bucket while OC4J falls into the "Continue and Converge" bucket  see above:EJB  see Ref1:  see Ref2:
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• The OSGi Framework. OSGi defines a dynamic module system for Java™. The OSGi service platform has a layered architecture, and is designed to run on various standard Java profile

• Open AM - started as Sun Directory Server Access Management Edition (DSAME) in early 2000s. After many years and (at least) three rebrandings, the product was finally released as OpenSSO. That’s where Oracle struck and killed the product.
  ForgeRock has picked it up. ForgeRock Access Management is built from the OpenAM project. 
• OpenID Connect is a standard. OpenAM is a product which amongst many other things, implements the OpenID Connect standard 
• OpenAM is formally Java 6, which is a problem in itself as Java 6 does not have any public updates for almost two years. Worse is that bulk of the OpenAM code is still efficiently Java 1.4 or even older.
• OpenAM is huge. It consists of approx. 2 million lines of source code which is also quite complicated.
• OpenAM is in fact (at least) two somehow separate products. There is “AM” part and “FM” part. And these two were not integrated in the cleanest way.
• OpenAM debugging is a pain. It is almost uncontrollable, it floods log files with useless data and the little pieces of useful information are lost in it.
• OpenAM is still using obsolete technologies such as JAX-RPC. JAX-RPC is a really bad API

• Orbeon Forms - is an open source, standard-based web forms solution, which includes:  
• Form Builder: a browser-based WYSIWYG form authoring tool. 
• Form Runner: a runtime environment which facilitates the deployment and integration of large and complex formsIt implements the W3C XForms standard and is available in an open source Community Edition, as well as a commercially supported Professional Edition
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• Orchestrator - "Microsoft System Center 2012 Orchestrator provides a simplified way of building complex automation.
  Rather than writing multiple lines of PowerShell code to determine whether  specific events have occurred and taking actions based on those events, you use Orchestrator's canvas, on which you can drag and drop GUI objects relating to monitored events, configure those objects to issue alerts and connect to specific action objects in relation to resolving the work events. Instead of multiple lines of what sometimes seems to be arcane PowerShell code, you can accomplish the same tasks by using a drag-and-drop process that might take you all of 30 seconds.
  Orchestrator can also build upon already developed PowerShell Scripts by wrapping them in advanced pre and post processing events, extending their functionality and reducing human intervention in operation of those scripts.
  
  Orchestrator is a complete solution that goes well beyond basic automation through drag and Drop scrpting.
  Rather than waiting for a member of the support team to raise a job, you can automate the process entirely through the use of an Orchestrator runbook that is triggered by an event or condition (i.e an email is received or a file arrives in a folder), raises a job in a job-tracking system, runs a complex operation to resolve the work event, adds outcome information to the job in the job-tracking system, and then closes that job. The alert event is resolved, the job is logged and closed, and everything is completed without direct human intervention."
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• Powershell - is the most powerful automation tool that Microsoft has to offer, and its both a shell and a scripting language.
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•  Puppet - an open-source configuration management tool. It runs on many Unix-like systems as well as on Microsoft Windows, and includes its own declarative language to describe system configuration.
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• PuTTY - is a free and open-source terminal emulator, serial console and network file transfer application. It supports several network protocols, including SCP, SSH, Telnet, rlogin, and raw socket connection.
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• Python - is a general purpose programming language which is simple and incredibly readable since closely resembles the English language. It’s a great language for beginners, all the way up to seasoned professionals. Python bumped Java as the language of choice in introductory programming courses.
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• Rake - Rake is a Domain Specific build language, programmed in Ruby and similar in purpose to make and ant.
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• Samba - is a suite of Unix applications that speak the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol that provide seamless file and print services to SMB/CIFS clients." Samba allows for interoperability between Linux/Unix servers and Windows-based clients
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• SCOrch - stands for System Center Orchestrator. Orchestrator serves the role as the “automater” in Microsoft’s System Center suite, and it’s used to create “Runbooks” which are basically workflows that are used to complete a series of tasks.
  While there are many options to build a Runbook through the GUI, sometimes you might want to be able to do more with your Runbooks.
  This is where integrating your own PowerShell scripts can come in handy.
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• Spring is a framework that helps you to "wire" different components together.
  What Spring does is to wire the classes up by using a XML file, this way all the objects are instantiated and initialized by Spring and injected in the right places (Servlets, Web Frameworks, Business classes, DAOs, etc.)
  Spring is the "glue" used to integrate different frameworks and your own code.
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• Spring Security is a Java/Java EE framework that provides authentication, authorization and other security features for enterprise applications.
  There are related Spring projects for each of:

• Spring LDAP
• Spring Security OAuth
• Spring Security Grails
• Spring Security SAML
• Spring Security Kerberos

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• Subversion - Apache Subversion (often abbreviated SVN, after the command name svn) is a software versioning and revision control system distributed as free software. See also GiT
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•  Tarantula is a free tool for managing software testing in agile software projects. It is licensed as open source software.

• Tomcat - is an application Servlet and JSP Server serving Java technologies
  - see also Apache
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• Vagrant is computer software that creates and configures virtual development environments.
  It can be seen as a higher-level wrapper around virtualization software such as VirtualBox, VMware, KVM and Linux Containers (LXC), and around configuration management software such as Ansible, Chef, Salt, and Puppet.
  Since version 1.6, Vagrant natively supports Docker containers, which in some cases can serve as a substitute for a fully virtualized operating system.

• VirtualBox - supports the creation and management of guest virtual machines running versions and derivations of Windows, Linux, BSD, OS/2, Solaris, Haiku, OSx86 and others, and limited virtualization of OS X guests on Apple hardware.
  It may be installed on a number of host operating systems, including: Linux, OS X, Windows, Solaris, and OpenSolaris.
  There are also ports to FreeBSD and Genode
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• .WAR (Web Archive) - Group of web application components such as .
• JSP - Java Server Pages
• servlets - a Java class that is used to extend the capabilities of servers
• .HTML pages
• .CSS - Cascading Style Sheets
• .JS - JavaScript files

• WebLogic Server implements Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) which is the standard platform for developing multi-tier Enterprise applications based on the Java.
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• A WebLogic Server^TM J2EE application consists of one of the following modules or applications running on WebLogic Server:

• Web application modules—HTML pages, servlets, JavaServer Pages, and related files.
• Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) modules—entity beans, session beans, and message-driven beans. See Enterprise JavaBean Modules 
•  Connector modules—resource adapters. See Connector Modules.
•  Enterprise applications—Web application modules, EJB modules, and resource adapters packaged into an application.

• WinSCP (Windows Secure Copy) - is a free and open-source SFTP, FTP, WebDAV and SCP client for Microsoft Windows. Its main function is secure file transfer between a local and a remote computer.

•  WinAutomation - is the most advanced Windows Automation app, featuring a Macro Recorder and a Web Recorder. With WinAutomation you can teach your computer to perform your repetitive tasks automatically.

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• ZK is an open-source Ajax Web application framework, written in Java, that enables creation of graphical user interfaces for Web applications with little required programming knowledge.
  
  The core of ZK consists of an Ajax-based event-driven mechanism with over 123 XUL and 83 XHTML-based components and a mark-up language for designing user interfaces.
  Programmers design their application pages in feature-rich XUL/XHTML components, and manipulate them upon events triggered by end user's activity.
  It is similar to the programming model found in desktop GUI-based applications.
• It's important to note that ZK does not use the standard web request <=> response mechanism and DOES NOT send form fields to the server using GET + query parameters or one POST request. Instead, AJAX requests are sent to the server to update the internal state of each screen widget. At the browser, ZK only downloads a JSON description of the web page and uses a client renderer to turn that into a UI.
• In addition to component-based programming in a manner similar to Swing, ZK supports a mark-up language for rich user interface definition called ZUML

Summary of Framework Terms all in one place

Also see my pages on: Coming Up To Speed with The Open Source World and some of its players
and: Testing Methodology Summary

• TOGAF - The Open Group Architecture Framework, - a well-documented body of knowledge comprising a detailed method and a set of supporting tools for developing enterprise architectures. (Not purely limited to Information Technology)

• COSCO - Committee of Sponsoring Organisations (COSO) - enterprise risk management (ERM) model has become a widely-accepted framework for organisations to use.
 

• ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) - is a best practice framework for ITSM, made up of:
• ITIL Service Strategy ›
  helps organizations understand the merits of using a market-driven approach made up of
• service portfolio management 
• financial management for IT services 
• demand management 
• business relationship management 
• strategy management for IT services
• ITIL Service Design ›
  provides a holistic design approach to help an organization deliver better services.The five key aspects of Service Design are:
  
• Designing the service solution
• Management information systems and tools
• Technology
• Processes
• Measurements and metrics
• ITIL Service Transition ›
  helps plan and manage the change of state of a service in its lifecycle. Managing risk for new, changed and retired services protects the product environment.
• ITIL Service Operation ›
  encompasses the day-to-day activities, processes, and infrastructure responsible for delivering value to the business through technology.
  The five key aspects of Service Design are:
• Incident Management 
• Request Fulfillment 
• Event Management 
• Access Management 
• Problem Management

• Continual Service Improvement ›
  (CSI) uses a metrics-driven approach to identifying opportunities for improvement and to measure the impact of improvement efforts.

• ITSM (IT Service Management) - IT Service Management is a general term that describes a strategic approach for designing, delivering, managing and improving the way information technology (IT) is used within an organization. 

• AGILE - software development refers to a group of software development methodologies based on iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams.
• scrum - Scrum is a subset of Agile. It is a lightweight process framework for agile development, and the most widely-used one. A Scrum process is distinguished from other agile processes by specific concepts and practices, divided into the three categories of 
• Roles, 
• Artifacts, and 
• Time Boxes.
• sprint - (or iteration) is the basic unit of development in scrum.
  The sprint is a timeboxed effort; that is, it is restricted to a specific duration
• epic - captures a large body of work. It is essentially a large user story that can be broken down into a number of smaller stories. It may take several sprints to complete an epic
•  user story - a tool used to capture a description of a software feature from an end-user perspective.

• Test-driven development (TDD) is a software development process that relies on the repetition of a very short development cycle: first the developer writes an (initially failing) automated test case that defines a desired improvement or new function, then produces the minimum amount of code to pass that test, and finally refactors the new code to acceptable standards 

• Behavior-driven development combines the general techniques and principles of TDD with ideas from domain-driven design and object-oriented analysis and design to provide software development and management teams with shared tools and a shared process to collaborate on software development
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Choose Highlighter Colour to Mark-up PDF Documents with Acrobat Reader

I open my Power and Phone PDF e-bills with Acrobat Reader DC (version at time of post is  2015.010.20060) and I like to highlight certain text and values then add a colored-text annotation to each one.




One of the annoyances I have put up with until today has been not knowing how to simply access the color picker for the highlighter tool before creating a highlight.


Once you've highlighted something you can then choose the properties and change the color for that highlight but that's tedious.
What I want to do is simply open the "Highlighter Tool Properties" tool bar, choose my color then highlight something.
 
... is there a menu option for that? Who knows ... I've not found it!
Luckily though, there IS an accelerator-key option - Ctrl+E

Now ... how about the "Add Text Comment" tools bar.
As soon as you choose Comment - Add Text Comment and click on the document to start adding text, the required tool control appears and you can select the text color, font, size etc.
Currently, when I want to edit an existing Text Comment I click on the border of the Text Comment container and that brings the Add Text Comment tool bar active.
Alternatively, re-selecting the Add Text Comment tool from the tool bar will also re-activate the control.
While that is fairly "usable", it would be nice if there was a way of activating the tool control while actually editing the text!
i.e. by an accelerator-key or right-click context-menu option.
  
If any knows of  a way please do comment.