Posts by Lucas Jellema
On the Integrity of Data
0To be useful, data held and used in information systems has to live up to a number of expectations. The data should be an accurate representation of its source. It should be reliable. The data should have internal consistency. The data should adhere to rules based on the logic of the real world. This accuracy, internal quality, and reliability of data is frequently referred as data integrity.
Safeguarding the integrity of data is a challenge, one that increases in complexity when multiple users access and manipulate the data simultaneously , obviously a common situation. And that challenge reaches new heights when the data is managed in multiple independent data stores rather than a single database.
Earlier this month, the Oracle Technology Network published an article that I recently wrote on this subject: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/soa/jellema-data-integrity-1932181.html. I was triggered into writing it by two recent experiences.
One was at a customer of mine where we are designing a service oriented architecture, based on a number of distinct and independent data domains. These domains are exposed through elementary (entity) services. A second tier of More >
ADF DVT: Analyzing Financial Position of the European Football (Soccer) Leagues using Treemap
1We all know a lot of money is involved with professional sports. One of Europe’s major sports is football (or soccer as some like to call it). A lot of money changes in hand in football. And it seems that the results are determined primarily by the money. The major pan-European competition – the UEFA Champion’s League- is called out of reach for representatives from smaller countries – because of their lag in terms of yearly budget. And the national leagues are dominated by [clubs that have the] money.
Together with my son Tobias we decided to investigate. How much money is in the budgets for all clubs taken together in each of the major football leagues? And how is that money distributed over the clubs. Is it evenly allocated or are there wild variations? And is money a guarantee for success?
We decided to use the ADF DVT Treemap component to visualize our findings. From left to right, you see four treemaps, representing the football leagues of England, Spain, Germany and The Netherlands. The size of each treemap corresponds with the sum of all club budgets in that league. Inside the treemap, each area represents a club. The size of the area corresponds with the budget of the More >
ADF DVT – Scaling TreeMap components for comparisons across masters and categories
0In a recent article (http://technology.amis.nl/2013/04/02/adf-dvt-using-the-tree-map-visualization-component-to-compare-relative-sizes-and-distributions/) I discussed the ADF DVT Treemap component. This component visualizes data in such a way that comparisons between data values for different records and categories can quickly be made. The size of areas is a measure for some numerical value. As an additional dimension, the color of the areas can be used to identify groups (all members of the group having the same color) or to visualize a second numerical value (color can range for example from dark red to rich green depending on the net revenue per record).
This article describes the situation where we want to use multiple Treemap instances lined up. Each Treemap instance represents a collection of records on one or possibly multiple levels. Each instance can be drilled down into independently. And each instance can represent a different data set, even though we want to compare these data sets. Using a PanelGridLayout, it is easy to position multiple instances in a row or a grid. Using the inline style to scale the width and height of the Treemap instances, we can set the relative More >
ADF DVT: Using the Tree Map visualization component – to compare relative sizes and distributions
0The tree map component is one of those data visualization components that can tell an entire story through a simple picture. But of course that picture is anything but simple. And it is not even just a picture: it supports various forms of interaction such as drill down and popup. I had seen the Tree Map for the first time in demonstrations by Oracle Product Management. It seemed okay, but nothing very spectacular. Now, after having tried out the component for myself as well as studying the documentation, I may have to revise my initial opinion: it is actually a pretty cool and powerful component.
The Tree Map is used to present data values in a way that makes comparison easy, using two dimensions: (relative) size and color. The TreeMap uses containers for nodes with sizes relative to the numerical value associated with the nodes. Each node can have details and the container is presented with enclosed areas for each of the details. The size of these areas is proportional again to the value associated with the child node. All areas can be colored automatically – to create a pretty picture – or can be colored according to rules we can specify in order to have the colors also convey More >
ADF DVT: Using the Timeline component to visualize the recent history of an RSS feed
0One recurring theme in my articles on ADF has been that end users usually do not care about data. They are interested in getting information that helps them answer questions, make decisions and take actions. Data may be the foundation, but information is to be derived from the data. One way therefore to create applications that are more valuable to our end users is by preprocessing data and turning the data into information – or even into answers, proposed decisions and actions. A powerful way of turning data into information is through data visualization. By presenting data in a format that converts it to readily interpretable information, we help our users a lot. Bar charts, line graphs and other traditional charting formats are one of way visualizing data. The DVT library in ADF Faces goes far beyond traditional charts. It provides components such as the Gantt Chart, the Hierarchy Viewer, the Tree Map, Gauge and the TimeLine that help visualize data in natural, informative and attractive ways. This articles discusses the TimeLine component – introduced in ADF 11gR1 PS6 (11.1.1.7) in the Spring of 2013.
The TimeLine visualizes events against a time axis. It is as simple as that. More >
ADF: (re-)Introducing Contextual Events in several simple steps
0Communication between taskflows and pages, beans and other components in ADF Faces applications is in many cases ideally implemented using contextual events. These events are published from a producer component – a page, taskflow or associated bean – and made available to all interested parties. Events are handed over by the ADF run time infrastructure to any registered consumer in the current scope. This includes any taskflow or enclosing page which has been configured as such. This publish/subscribe model helps achieve interaction and reuse in a decoupled way. I like the principle. I have applied it on several occasions. And today I needed it again in a WebCenter Portal application with custom ADF 11g components. And once again I could not remember exactly how to implement the contextual events, the publication and subscription. This article therefore is primarily for me – so I can quickly recall how to do this in similar subsequent situations. However, if it is useful to you too, that is even better!
The use case discussed in this article is as follows:
The section in the red rectangle is a taskflow that has been embedded as a region in the page. This taskflow has indicated More >
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