The real power of open source

I have a couple of open source projects to run but I had not spent too much time on them this year. And nobody noticed - until today. This guy spent a couple of hours bringing one of my projects to the NetBeans 6.0.

Wow, that is the real power of open source! Thank you, Ramon.

I've got the best present for the year that ends!

If the problem cannot be solved...

Steve Chase, president of Intel Russia, believes global leaders are increasingly turning to Russia with the most complex problems: “The policy we have at Intel is simple. If we can, we commit difficult problems to engineers in the USA. If the task is very labor-intensive, we assign it to the Indian specialists. If the problem cannot be solved, we offer it to the Russians.”

Skills, Local Growth Shift IT - Russian IT Sector Experiencing Upturn

Made in Canada - 100% unknown fiber

The Extinction of Programmers?

Hans-Eric's The Extinction of Programmers revived the programmer's folklore:

Dev: I need a database!
PC: Here it is.
... 3 days passed ...
Dev: BUT I WANT IT TO BE WORKING!!!
PC: ???

In support of Java 6 for Mac OS X

13949712720901ForOSX

Apple: We can speak about the weather :-)

One would have two guys on stage: Apple and Linux/Unix.


Linux: Hi Apple!

Apple: Hi Linux!

Linux: Nice day isn't it?

Apple: Can't tell, I am under NDA.

Linux: But you can see the Sun is shining.

Apple: Shht. That's a secret. I have been told not to speak about this.

Linux: Talk about the weather?

Apple: Weather? What weather?

Linux, pointing to the sky, with a puzzled look...

Apple: You know Linux, why don't you sign this paper and we'll be able to talk about this.

Linux: (reads the paper) I commit not to speak about open things, and do everything in secret?

Apple: then you'll be part of our club.

Linux: And what advantage do I get?

Apple: Things are easier inside this club!

Linux: How?

Apple: We can speak about the weather :-)

Taken from this message. Thanks Henry.

What's new in Leopard from Java developer's PoV

Apple is going to release another cat - Leopard, aka Mac OS X 10.5 - to the wild tomorrow. Are there any news for Java developers?

According to some sources we will see good old Java 1.4.2 and 1.5.0 with latter as default. There is no sign of the latest Java 6 while almost a year passed since its release for other platforms.

It would be interesting to know what happened to "The ultimate platform for developing and deploying cross-platform Java applications" promise?

PS: Was it the reason James Gosling gave up on Mac OS X in favor of Solaris?

Going back 15 years - James Gosling makes a demo of *7

The video

India will be everywhere ?!

This should have happened earlier or later - the Indian IT services companies began to look at US market for an acquisitions. The "invasion" seems to be unavoidable. They will eat much larger piece of pie despite of below average quality. Will something left for other countries?

Safari 3 Public Beta - now on Windows, too

Steve Jobs announced the immediate availability of the Safari 3 browser public beta during his keynote which opened WWDC this week. The Wow! thing in the announcement is the list of platforms new browser will run on - it includes Windows XP & Windows Vista. While the market share of the Safari is tiny when compared with mainstream browsers the support of the Safari become more and more reasonable since the number of Mac users grows.

This announcement gives me one more reason to develop on Windows - unfortunately...

Hoare - The Emperor's Old Clothes

The Emperor's Old Clothes by C. A. R. Hoare
What was wrong with ALGOL and how those mistakes has been planned to avoid in ADA. But that plan failed - at least at the time original paper has been published.

An interesting quote:

And so, the best of my advice to the originators and designers of ADA has been ignored. In this last resort, I appeal to you, representatives of the programming profession in the United States, and citizens concerned with the welfare and safety of your own country and of mankind: Do not allow this language in its present state to be used in applications where reliability is critical, i.e., nuclear power stations, cruise missiles, early warning systems, anti-ballistic missile defense systems. The next rocket to go astray as a result of a programming language error may not be an exploratory space rocket on a harmless trip to Venus: It may be a nuclear warhead exploding over one of our own cities. An unreliable programming language generating unreliable programs constitutes a far greater risk to our environment and to our society than unsafe cars, toxic pesticides, or accidents at nuclear power stations. Be vigilant to reduce that risk, not to increase it.

JavaOne 2007 slides available online

JavaOne 2007 slides

Java finally becoming what it was intended to be from the very beginning

Java finally becoming what it was intended to be from the very beginning. Just look at the announcements made and products presented during JavaOne 2007:

• JavaFX
• Blue-ray Disk with Java (BDJ, 6 titles released already, including Spiderman 3)
• JavaTV
• cellular phones with Java SE software stacks

Check the history of Java, look for *7 device description especially. It took almost 16 years from the idea to an implementation but those years worth it. Moreover who would imagine back in 1991 that all software will be available as open source?

Congratulations to Sun Microsystems and their partners!

New York at first glance

I've been to New York on my way back home from Java One 2007 conference. I have been able to visit only two places on Manhattan - the Ground Zero...
... and the Times Square.


What can I say? Awful subway, Kyiv subway is much cleaner and more aesthetically appealing. Manhattan is a huge stone well...

I don't like the city.

Java One 2007 Friday - The Toy Show Webcast

The Toy Show Webcast is available.

Java One 2007 Friday - The Toy Show

The last general session of the conference is The Toy Show. I urge you to view the webcast - it's an awesome demonstration of what's possible with Real-Time Java!

Unfortunately the webcast is not available at the moment. :(

Java One 2007 Friday - Conference wrapup

The conference concludes today. It's time to go sightseeing and shopping. :) The last session ends at 5:10 PM though...

Java One 2007 - Java technology libre panel

The representatives of four projects who explore the space of Java VM and class library implementation talked about the changes which are inevitable after the Sun has "freed" the Java.

Panelists:

• Geir Magnusson, Jr. (Chairman of the Apache Harmony PMC)
• Mark Reinhold (Chief Engineer, Java SE, Sun Microsystems)
• Dalibor Topic (Kaffe Virtual Machine community leader)
• Tom Tromey (Lead developer GCJ, Red Hat)
• Mark Wielaard (Maintainer of GNU/Classpath, FSF)
  

It has been noted that in spite of the same license as the Linux use the possibility of Java fragmenting is low since there is an API specification which drives the efforts. The desire for compatibility (even on a bug compatibility level) is high. The panelists expressed an opinion that the diversity of compatible but different implementations is good for a Java community since it will allow to accommodate the needs of different categories of end-users and customers. Moreover, it allows different development groups optimize for a specific problem they are going to solve, be it a specific hardware to run the system or a research project.

Java One 2007 Materials

The Java One 2007 materials will be available for non-attendees in two weeks after the conference.

Java One 2007 Wednesday - the JUG leaders meeting with Sun Technology Outreach

I've attended the JUG leaders meeting with Sun Technology Outreach. It was really interesting to listen to the other JUG leaders. It looks like the main recommendation to keep the JUG live and healthy is to meet frequently. ;-)