1. There May be Troubles Ahead
2. Errors whilst Compiling using Ant
3. Creating Eclipse Project
4. Eclipse Debugging Routines
5. wORD cASE bLINDNESS
6. Importing the Project Bugs
7. Have you Tried Restarting Your Program, Sir?
8. Show Your Bugs, Damn You!
9. Be Careful What You Wish For
10. Installing NetBeans

fRIDAY 13 jANUARY WAS NOT A GOOD DAY.

tHE vOGELLA TUTORIAL SAYS: > 1.4. Starting the Debugger
> To debug your application, select a Java file with a main method. Right-click on it and select Debug As ▸ Java Application.

tHAT SEEMS SIMPLE ENOUGH. hOWEVER, FINDING A main METHOD IN josm IS MUCH HARDER THAN AT FIRST IT SEEMS:-

~$ cd ~/workspace/josm
~/workspace/josm$ fgrep -ir 'main {' ./
./plugins/Mapillary/.svn/pristine/(removed).svn-base:  main {
./plugins/Mapillary/build.gradle:  main {
./core/src/org/openstreetmap/josm/Main.java:public abstract class Main {
./core/src/org/openstreetmap/josm/gui/MainApplication.java:public class MainApplication extends Main {

(aWARD YOURSELF A gOLD sTAR IF YOU SPOTTED THE -i IN fgrep)

sO, ONLY 2 SOURCE-FILES, + ./core/src/JOSM.java (DECLARED IN ./core/build.xml AS THE "Main-class"): > JOSM.java:
> /*
>  * JOSM main class (entry point of the application)
>  */

1. Main.java : public abstract class Main
2. MainApplication.java : public class MainApplication extends Main
3. JOSM.java: public class JOSM extends MainApplication

nONE OF THE 3 PROGRAMS ABOVE HAVE A Java Application AVAILABLE WHEN Right-click | Select Debug As IS TRIED. hOWEVER, Debugging a Java Program, tutorials.point POINTED OUT THAT THERE WAS A KEYBOARD SHORTCUT (i LOVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS) (PROGRAM NEEDS TO BE PRE-SELECTED WITHIN Package Explorer): > Alt + Shift + D, J

tHAT GIVES THE VERY WONDERFUL ERROR MESSAGE: > Selection does not contain a main type

…AND THAT LEADS TO HUNDREDS OF FORUMS & OTHER SITES ALL SAYING THE SAME THING: > Your class is supposed to be called ‘main’, not ‘Main’

… See full entry

1. There May be Troubles Ahead
2. Errors whilst Compiling using Ant
3. Creating Eclipse Project
4. Eclipse Debugging Routines
5. wORD cASE bLINDNESS
6. Importing the Project Bugs
7. Have you Tried Restarting Your Program, Sir?
8. Show Your Bugs, Damn You!
9. Be Careful What You Wish For
10. Installing NetBeans

Hours & hours of using terms such as “bugfix” as a search-string for Eclipse in Google were getting me nowhere. I finally broke through into sunlit uplands when I tried using “Debug|Debugger” as the search-string. That led to the following tutorial:

http://www.vogella.com/tutorials/EclipseDebugging/article.html

I’m getting very frustrated at this slow progress, but perhaps need to be a little less hard on myself. Remembering that my knowledge on all these apps was zilch at the start (just a little on using Subversion), I think that I’m heading in the correct direction.

1. There May be Troubles Ahead
2. Errors whilst Compiling using Ant
3. Creating Eclipse Project
4. Eclipse Debugging Routines
5. wORD cASE bLINDNESS
6. Importing the Project Bugs
7. Have you Tried Restarting Your Program, Sir?
8. Show Your Bugs, Damn You!
9. Be Careful What You Wish For
10. Installing NetBeans

Eclipse is an IDE (“Integrated Development Environment”). From the bug-fixing point of view, an IDE allows a program to be run until the program throws a software exception, when the IDE can re-appear, both showing the line within the source-code file that caused the error & giving opportunities to step forwards/backwards through the code, whilst examining changing values in key properties.

This is how Eclipse describes itself:- > Eclipse provides IDEs and platforms for nearly every language and architecture. We are famous for our Java IDE, C/C++, JavaScript and PHP IDEs built on extensible platforms for creating desktop, Web and cloud IDEs. These platforms deliver the most extensive collection of add-on tools available for software developers.

Having already used Subversion (SVN) to download the JOSM/plugins code, I thought that it would be easy to create a new Eclipse project from that directory, but could not find the way to do that, in spite of the advice in the Wiki: > Use Eclipse and the provided .project and .classpath file. Just import project using the JOSM core folder as root directory.

So, I decided instead to follow the YouTube Video to Checkout JOSM into Eclipse, even though it is years out of date.

… See full entry

1. There May be Troubles Ahead
2. Errors whilst Compiling using Ant
3. Creating Eclipse Project
4. Eclipse Debugging Routines
5. wORD cASE bLINDNESS
6. Importing the Project Bugs
7. Have you Tried Restarting Your Program, Sir?
8. Show Your Bugs, Damn You!
9. Be Careful What You Wish For
10. Installing NetBeans

Having used SVN to install the whole of the build directory into ~/josm, the developer’s Wiki says:- > The easiest way to compile JOSM … is to go to the josm directory and type: ant.

Hah! This is what happened to me:

~$ cd josm    
~/josm$ ant    
Unable to locate tools.jar. Expected to find it in /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/lib/tools.jar    
Buildfile: build.xml does not exist!    
Build failed

The reason for the error is that I’ve only got the JAVA-7 JDK installed (the default JRE is JAVA-8, but that is the runtime environment, and it is the development kit that is needed here):

~/josm$ locate /tools.jar
/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/lib/tools.jar

The fix is to install the missing openjdk-8-jdk, which I do via Synaptic. The result is still disappointing:

~/josm$ ant
Buildfile: build.xml does not exist!
Build failed

This is getting boring. build.xml is the buildfile (configuration-file) for the compiler. It’s default location is within the root of the directory from which the compiler is launched (./). Naturally, there isn’t a buildfile in the base directory, though there is within core/ & other directories. Which one to use? Who knows?

I try to use an intelligent pin:

… See full entry

1. There May be Troubles Ahead
2. Errors whilst Compiling using Ant
3. Creating Eclipse Project
4. Eclipse Debugging Routines
5. wORD cASE bLINDNESS
6. Importing the Project Bugs
7. Have you Tried Restarting Your Program, Sir?
8. Show Your Bugs, Damn You!
9. Be Careful What You Wish For
10. Installing NetBeans

terracer is one of the JOSM standard plugins. Almost all of my work updating the map involves adding houses in Nottingham, and most of those are either Terraces, Semi-Detached or Detached houses; terracer is invaluable in adding any or all of those houses.

Unfortunately, terracer began to show bugs soon after I started using it, and it rapidly became impossible to use any of it’s Relation capabilities. JOSM core was being rewritten to move from JAVA-7 to JAVA-8 (now complete), and I have a suspicion that terracer was written in the days of JAVA-6! Whatever the case, it has degraded throughout 2016 & is now almost completely unusable (at least in my experience).

6 months or so ago I declared that I wanted to bug-fix terracer. I’ve spent all the time since then finding excuses to put off making that promise good. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s simply that, whilst the weather is good enough, I want to get out of the house, make the survey, then get it up on the map. Before Xmas I caught two new ‘flu on the run; it took until Sunday, 8 January before I finally overcame the Bronchitus & felt strong again. Today the weather forecasters promised Britain a blast of Siberian air & snow by the end of this week. So, I’ve finally run out of excuses…

I’ve done a little C/C++ Linux/Windows programming + command-line x-compilation & bugfixing plus lots of PHP, HTML, javascript, database & other scripting, but have little experience with SVN & zero experience with ant, Eclipse and/or Java. So, as the Chinese proverb goes, the future should be interesting.

… See full entry

I started mapping in March 2016, and began producing these Diary entries based on the results of some of that mapping shortly after.

An October post got a bit of attention: > The Smallest Street in Porchester Gardens, Nottingham

Afterwards, I realised that there was a street much more local to me that was just as short (The Street With NoName). In fact, in many ways it was even odder:

1. It had no name
   (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:noname=yes)
2. It provides service access for not a single house

Many of these no-name streets provide service access to the rear of some flats or houses, and once a week or so the bin-lorries will make use of it. Not this one. The tarmac is in good condition, but nary a vehicle makes use of it.

I only took some pictures today. I’m recovering from ‘flu and the pics are bad because of it (not very steady, as I was ‘cough, cough, cough’ all the time):

There is a very-mysterious “Gedling Wharf” on the OS_OpenData_StreetView north of Arnold Lane and, having finally been able to join together just what it was and where it was, I’ve added it to the map.

The Wharf (more accurately “Bottom Wharf” — see Gedling Country Park) was where Gedling Colliery distributed coal from the pit:– > - Coal was sold from the Top and Bottom Wharfs:
- The Top Wharf was at the top of the colliery site (now Chartwell Heights) and was the main selling point for domestic sales to local firms Leapers and Trumans. - The Bottom Wharf was closer to Gedling village (the old Grey Goose Pub, now Gedling Village Care Home). From here coal was sold directly from the weighbridge. Leapers would deliver coal collected from here to all local miners.

… See full entry

My September diary entry contained a view from near the top of Marshall Hill, looking north down the length of Chatsworth Avenue at the spire of All Hallows Church in the middle distance (All Hallows is the CoE parish-church for Gedling village). I believe that that was my first photo of that church spire.

My mapping since September seems to have taken me in a clockwise-rotation around the spire, and I am now approaching the church from the west.

Most householders do not like having photos taken of their homes, and I try my very best to respect that. At the same time, I know that panoramic shots of a district are one of the best ways to allow strangers to get a feel for an area, and I do my best to include such shots if I’m lucky enough to come across one.

Below is, I believe, only the 2nd shot that I’ve taken of the Gedling Spire. It is at a very similar distance to the first (as listed at top), but this time looking east from a walk at the top of Linby Close:—

OpenStreetView? You are no longer hostage to Google’s car-driven vision
(14 Dec 2016, The Register)

One of the great bright lights of open-source software and user-driven community projects is OpenStreetMap, which offers an open-source mapping platform similar to, but also very philosophically different than, Google Maps.

This review is about Telenav’s OpenStreetView. I find it a little odd, because it mentions OSM at the top of the article (extract above) and also has a link to Mapillary and yet, does not contain a single link to either the topic of the article (OpenStreetView) nor to OSM. Most odd.

Coda:

(with thanks to mmd (see comments)):

The Register review is already well out-of-date as, after OSV attracted the wrong kind of attention from Google, OSV changed it’s name to OpenStreetCam on 25 Nov 2016 and can now be found at openstreetcam.org.

Last Friday 9 December I thought that I’d spotted yet more Khazis on houses near the head of Perlethorpe Drive but in fact it was more interesting than that. These 1959 houses had been built with combo Wash-houses and Coal-Sheds.

These two are in superb condition:

(if you get a broken picture then try another browser)
(for me, this page is broken in Chromium though fine in Firefox)
(2016-Dec-12: upgrade to 55.0.2883.75 fixed the broken Mapillary photos)

It is soon to be Xmas and that is the starting-gun for spammers.

(15) 24 Hours since creation: 0 Edits, 0 Traces & 1 spam (removed - thank you) for a Hungarian Lockmaker: Zarkiraly (user removed)

A volley of Winter Virus breached my defences — the first in 10/15 years — so I’ve spent a week or so indoors with Bronchitis.

At one stage I examined my phlegm in a piece of tissue & it was the colour & consistency of a mid-green emulsion paint typical from the 1980s. My more recent sputum is clear, with the odd bit of yellow stuff in it, and the earlier result may well have been a delusion caused by sleep deprivation (every time I fall asleep I cough & immediately wake up again). Well, whatever, I finally got to the point that I could convince myself that I was both strong enough to go out, that I was no longer a male variant on Typhoid Mary, plus I needed the fresh air. The boundary streets of Phoenix Farm Estate in Gedling, Nottinghamshire were waiting to be surveyed.

I actually reached a street sign on Arnold Lane, Gedling as I walked towards Gedling Church that said “Gedling Village”, which suggests that there should be some GIS for the village. The section that I’ve been doing so far is called “St James” (electoral ward), whilst the next bit on the east side of the (closed-down last September) Sherwood Academy is called Phoenix Farm Estate (also an electoral ward, although far more interesting as a physical link between JRR Tolkien & the initiation of Lord of the Rings).

Sherwood Academy is rapidly rotting on Wollaton Avenue, and it was on that same road that I first spotted today’s very fine example of Street Art / Garden Furniture. It is a miniature water fountain, and the Householder offered to switch it on, so we all have two bites of the cherry for this one:–

… See full entry

There are some that may be interested in Arohi khan (user removed - thank you), the made-up name for someone that joined OSM 10 hours ago & promptly put this comment (link removed) into my latest diary entry; however, I just want them dead to OSM:

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‘MPG’ = “Middle-Class Paranoid Guy”

These are the previous ones that I’ve documented:

August: Tracked & Mapped
July: Exeunt stage-right, pursued by a bear
March: Middle-Class Paranoia

Today, it is:

‘MPG’ = “Middle-Class Paranoid Gal”

For me, ‘Mapping’ is a process of:

1. Survey & collect info
2. Order the survey info on paper
3. Use JOSM to transfer into OSM

I have found it very easy to get confused when back at my desk as to exactly where I was at particular points when surveying, so I make a habit of photographing every street-sign. That gives me continual, solid reference points as to my location throughout the survey.

Yesterday I was mapping Welbeck Avenue in Gedling. The Welbeck houses at one end of the street are semi-detached houses which lie at an angle across the corner; one house is numbered on one street, whilst the other is numbered on the other street. It’s a confusing practice which is common locally.

I was at the Westdale Lane end of the street, and was getting myself clear as to the reference of each of the houses in the corner. I then took a photo of the Welbeck street-sign (see bottom). As I completed that, our female MPG burst out of her car and started shouting at me. It was difficult to decipher what she wanted, but it seemed to be on the lines of “what do you think you are doing?”. Calmly, I explained that I was taking a photo of the street-sign & turned the smartphone around so that she could see the screen (I hadn’t yet saved it). She grabbed hold of it & pulled it out of my hand!

There was a short tussle as I grabbed it back. She then started hitting me. I informed her that if she did that again then I would deck her. She hustled away into her house (I think to telephone the police).

… See full entry

Mapping within the St James ward of Gedling today, and in particular a set of flats on Beckett Court. There are gardens at the rear of the flats. So often in these circumstances, the fact that no single family has responsibility for the gardens means that they end up derelict. That is not the case here. This garden is immaculately maintained.

This is the garden for you to judge for yourself. Personally, I’ve never seen another garden like it. The section on the left that you cannot see is plain grass (and, in spite of the colour, I swear that this is natural grass rather than some kind of synthetic variant). I’m not qualified to make any judgement on it, so will not even try:

Just up the road from that garden are yet more of those plaster creatures that I love to find:

… See full entry

Having discovered that the part of Gedling south & east of Mapperley Golf Course that I am currently mapping is called Phoenix Farm Estate (not true, see below), I’ve wanted to know where that farm is, and have finally found it, with bonus extras.

Thanks to a post in nottstalgia.com I located Phoenix Farm on Arnold Road opposite the junction with Jessops Lane.

The farm supplies a surprising connection for Gedling with JRR Tolkein and his most famous writing (“Lord of the Rings”) - see the BBC website, although the link to Andrew H Morton’s talk is defunct. The farm was bought by his Aunt Jane Neave in 1911; it was called Lamb’s Farm in a Tolkein drawing (below) (named after the previous farmer) although was called “Church Farm” at sale. The farm was close to Gedling Church (a long-range view is here), but Aunt Jane swiftly changed the name to Phoenix Farm. It is said to have been demolished in 1954. I still do not know why Phoenix Farm Estate was named after the farm.

Contrition

… See full entry

Continuing to work my way through the Phoenix Farm Estate today, catching up in late-afternoon, with a late-Autumn sun low on the horizon at England’s high latitude & damn cold, on houses missed on Stanhope Road. And yes, it turns out that there used to be a “Phoenix Farm”, though I have zero hard information on that to date.

Regular readers will realise that I constantly seek to alleviate the boredom of collecting endless lists of house numbers by spotting & photographing good examples of art on the houses that I pass ([1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]). Here is the latest: –

Coda:

Phoenix is actually the next estate and not the current one.

The chap that I saw on Phoenix Farm Estate yesterday (Sunday 27 November) could not believe that I thought that his shed was worth a photo. My reasons were simple: partly it was the quality of the build: Google StreetView is October 2014 & shows a very nondescript garage, whilst the modern shed+garage is very smart. However, the reason that clinched it for me was the name that he had put upon the door of the shed next to the garage:

“The Man Cave”

Coda:

Phoenix is actually the next estate and not the current one.

There are some gardens that I come across whilst mapping that simply cry out to be featured in these Diary pages. There are two today, both located on an unadopted road (the householders have to pay for all road upkeep) in Gedling that I first walked on Wednesday 23 November on a truly dreadful day. The rain was interfering with the smartphone’s capacitative action, so I went back on last Sunday 27 November.

The first garden below is included simply because I found it sweet (and why not?):

The next seemed to epitomise water action. It was pouring down from above and even flowing in a culvert below, so it seemed only fair to have galleons in a pond as well:

… See full entry

There is a splendidly-named 1903 house & land called “Scot Grave Farm” (farmhouse, farmyard) on Arnold Lane that I revisited today (on the older maps it is called “Scotgrave Farm”):

The owner has both an old BT red phonebox & red Postbox in his yard:

… See full entry