2008-05-24

JavaOne 2008 slides available online

JavaOne 2008 slides

There are more goodies available:

  • JavaOne Hands-On Labs materials
  • Sun Tech Days Hands-On Labs materials

Check the last year page for even more interesting things to download!

2008-04-06

Pictures from Sun Tech Days 2008

Asking questions on Swing Application Framework.


Answering questions on Spring, Hibernate, and NetBeans.

2008-02-02

Moving to Linux - two years later... already moved!

To make a long story short - I've moved to Kubuntu 7.10 entirely. Linux is the primary OS on my home PC for 3 months already.

And it has tools for backing up the contact list of my phone!

2007-12-31

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!

2007-12-30

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

2007-11-11

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: ???

2007-10-28

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.

2007-10-13

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?

2007-08-15

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?

2007-06-11

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...

2007-05-29

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.

2007-05-20

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!

2007-05-15

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.

2007-05-11

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. :(