Jun 29

JavaOne: The Network Is The Conference

Tech No Comments »

I think that the title for JavaOne should be:

The Network Is The Conference

It would fit in nicely with Sun’s other “Network” taglines, and networking is what JavaOne is all about.

Jun 29

Good news for Groovy: Session Full

Groovy, Tech No Comments »

James was worried that the Groovy session would be packed today, especially as it was mentioned in a keynote :)

I popped over to the session and was faced with:

Session Full

This is great news for Groovy, and shows that people are interested in different languages and approaches, even at JavaOne.

Jun 29

Spring support in Geronimo

Tech 3 Comments »

There was an EJB 3 talk at the “licensee” day, which happens before JavaOne starts for everyone else.

As EJB 3 was discussed, some of the Geronimo team had their laptops out and were coding away. Were they working on getting code ready to preview EJB 3? No. They were adding support for Spring into the Geronimo core.

When you package components, you will be able to put a file, called something like spring.xml in META-INF. Geronimo will grok this, and be able to startup a Spring ApplicationContext and wrap the components and Spring container itself behind GBeans.

This becomes cool as Geronimo is supporting all of the J2EE specs. So, for example, now you will be able to hot deploy your Spring container/application. All of the management and deployment APIs are there for you. You will be able to access things via JMX if you want to.

I really like the path that Geronimo seems to be taking. They don’t say “we will only support [technology x]“. They support the various APIs, and we can make the choice. If you want to use JDO, go for it. If you want to use EJB 3, go for it. If you want to use Hibernate, etc etc.

Geronimo is going to give us freedom. I can’t wait.

Jun 28

Random quotes from the keynote

Tech No Comments »

Below are some random quotes from the Sun guys this morning.

You have to love marketing…. some are telling ;)

“The Network is Growing”

“Java is all around”

“The Java economy is a fly wheel”

“Tiger is here”

“We are a hardware company”

“Is a Java developer a resource or an asset

Jun 28

Deja Vu JavaOne Keynote?

Tech No Comments »

It’s all about ringtones again?

I was a little bit dissapointed with the keynote this morning. There were some good comments and claims, but it smelt like the same keynote from last year.

As developers Sun seems to think we should all move to J2ME and write games and such :)

Or, we become “corporate developers” and use the FREE Java Studio Creator…. well not quite free. You have to join the Sun Developer Network for 100 bucs (cheaper if you are at the conference at $50).

I want to hear more about why as an enterprise Java developer I should be excited! What is the cool technology!

So, although there were some good things….. I wanted more from Sun.

Jun 25

Thought I saw Cedric say “EJB 3 is broken” :)

EJB, Java, Tech 1 Comment »

As my RSS reader was showing me incoming entries, I got confused and thought I saw:

Cedric Beust – EJB 3.0 is broken

Actually it was a merged viewing of two entries in a row:

Cedric Beust – EJB 3.0 at JavaOne
Cedric Beust – JavaOne’s scheduling is broken

:)

Jun 25

New AOP article on JBossAOP: Rope isn’t always a bad thing.

AOP, Tech 2 Comments »

There is YA-AOP article, this time using JBossAOP for examples.

I really liked Andy O’s thoughts:

He just says the wordy equivalent of “rope is dangerous because it can form a noose and hang you”, but doesn’t tell us “it can also tie ships to harbor, tires to trees for kids to swing on, anchor kites to those flying them, etc.”

I agree. Rope isn’t always a bad thing. Just make sure you use the correct rope. Don’t tie your shoes with shipping rope, and don’t tie your ships with shoestring.

Jun 25

Interview with the Pragmatic Programmers

Tech No Comments »

O’Reilly has just published an interview with The Pragmatic Programmers.

They chat about a variety of topics, from publishing to making the software world a better place.

ORN: Ward Cunningham once told me “With better IDEs, static languages such as Java are almost as easy to program in as dynamic languages.” You’re both fans of the Ruby language, especially when compared to more static languages. Do you think that the potential shift to writing business applications in slightly more dynamic languages such as Java and C# (slightly in the sense that they’re still rather static, dynamic in the sense that they handle memory management for you and have improved reflection and introspection) is good for programmer productivity and ease, or do those languages not go far enough? If not, how much further should they go?

Andy: I don’t think they go far enough. Memory management, for instance, is a great convenience; it wasn’t that long ago when we had to use program overlays by hand in order to fit a large program into 64K of RAM or so. So while we’ve made some good advances, many popular languages and environments still inadvertently encourage tight coupling and rigid code, and we need to get beyond that.

Dave: Let me take that further. Java and C# are not really dynamic in any meaningful way. Memory management is a small part of the picture, but the real gains in these more dynamic languages come from different areas, particularly from a flexible type model and from the ability to metaprogram.

Ultimately, it comes down to ease of expression. If I can express myself in code at a level closer to the problem domain, then I’m going to be more effective, and my code is likely to be easier to maintain and extend. Paul Graham makes a big deal out of the way Lisp helped him while building the software that became Yahoo Stores, and he’s right. These languages, applied properly, are a strategic advantage. I know some companies are using them with great success. And you know — they’re keeping quiet about it.

I always love hearing their practical, frank, tone :)

Jun 25

The Brits like to kick a man when he is down…

Personal No Comments »

We love villains and heroes… and they are often the same person, separated by events and time.

beckss.jpg

However, the ref was awful…. and it makes sense when you see this…

blind-ref.jpg

Jun 25

JetBrains is an ancient cult? :)

Tech 1 Comment »

I laughed at the “JetBrains Fabrique” inscription where each word is centrosymmetrical.

This is discussed in the Dan Brown pop novel Angels and Demons (the pre-quel to The DaVinci Code) where they talk about the ancient arch-enemy of the Vatican… the Illuminati.

I prefer being a member of the “JetBrains” :)