Month: September 2005

Recently I had to prepare a presentation on Java Annotations and went right to the source: Sun’s documentation.

I was able to find only these two pages on annotation. To say the least, such poor explanation of a new language feature is not sufficient for the vast majority of Java developers.

But things get much worse if you’ll try to understand what is the “Annotation processing tool”. Just open Sun’s

“Getting Started with APT”. It starts as follows (remember, this is a Getting Started manual):

“The command-line utility apt, annotation processing tool, finds and executes annotation processors based

on the annotations present in the set of specified source files being examined. The annotation processors

use a set of reflective APIs and supporting infrastructure to perform their processing of program annotations (JSR 175).”

I have a feeling the manager of the technical writer who wrote this piece of crap gave him the following assignment:

“You know Joe, I do not like apt, and it was a bad decision to even include this tool in J2SE 5.0.

Write the Getting Started manual on apt, but make sure that people will hate this tool and will never use it”…

After writing this manual Joe got unusually large bonus.

I admire Sun’s Java evangelists traveling around the globe explaining the new language

features, but why their documentation is sub-standard? They just do not want to invest into this area knowing

that there are millions of Java enthusiasts (I’m being one of them) who will write about each

and every feature of the language anyway.

Meanwhile, I was able to prepare a presentation and some simple and practical samples that will help

my students in understanding of this nice feature. One day I’ll write an article on annotations.

I won’t sit by the phone waiting for a phone call from Sun, but I’ll keep writing about this

language… until a better one is created.

I’ll start teaching my Saturday Java class for beginners at NYU on October 8

If you live in the area and know nothing about Java, come on in!

If someone would ask me what’s the coolest application I’ve seen in years,

I’d say Google Earth. With this program I was able to see my backyard from the sattelite and trace my recent trip to Europe. It’s a desktop application and it’s free. If you did not try it yet, do it now: it’ll make your day.

But I was even more amazed by reading this article.

I’m looking for blood donors for my friend, a cancer patient . If you live/work in Manhattan and do not mind donating blood, please help . As a token of appreciation, I’ll sign and send you my book “The Java Tutorial for the Real World “.

You can contact me at yakovfain@sys-con.com

This week, one of my online articles (Core Java Interview questions) will set my personal record: 100 000 reads. Thank you, than you, thank you 🙂

If this would be an LP, say in UK, I’d have a right to say that this was a golden album. By Canadian standards this would be a platinum one, but by US standards, I’d need to have 500K to qualify for the gold.

I’m wondering, if there is a similar award in India? Based on the feedbacks to that article, most of the online readers live there.

If this article, has helped you in job search, please put one dollar (rupee, ruble, euro, etc.) in an envelope and mail it to Sys-Con publications, Attn. to Yakov. They are honest people and will pass all the envelopes to me. In a couple of months, I’ll write a comment to this post disclosing how many envelopes I’ve received and what was inside.

In the best case scenario, I’d get the following: 80000 rupees, 10000 dollars, 5000 euros, 2000 pounds, 2000 yuans, 500 rubles, 200 grivnas and 300 bills of other currencies.

And in the real-wolrd scenario, I’m expecting to receive not more than one or two dollars 🙂

An update: after 8 months of the original publication date of this blog the read counter has reached 260,000, and I have not received even one dollar. I’ll keep checking my mail box though…

I ran into a report showing that in the USA salaries in software development are on the rise comparing to 2001.

Hopefully this will increase enrollment in schools offering CS/IS majors. Based on my experience, the salaries are higher than four years ago, but consultant’s rates are lower than back then.

Is your salary/rate higher than four years ago? Let’s have a mini poll. Just add a comment to this post with something like this:

Java developer, full time +5%

or

Oracle DBA, consultant, -10%

Thanks,

Yakov Fain

http://www.weekendwithexperts.com

There was another gas price jump yesterday. In New Jersey, the regular gas costs over
three dollars a gallon. This is not funny anymore. Yesterday there were huge lines at those stations that were
slow in increasing their prices.

This morning my wife started fueling at $3.17 and by the time her tank was full, they’ve increased the price to $3.35. I am not kidding! She had to fight with the owner to get a
refund.

If you can’t telecommute, you’re screwed. Car pools will become popular again, bus/plain tickets will double and what about salaries? We’ll see… Small
businesses might stop their operation soon: fill up the tank of your van twice
a week and you’re out of $200.

Now there will be an extra step in filling you tank. First
go online and do your shopping. For example: http://www.newyorkgasprices.com/
, http://www.newjerseygasprices.com/ , http://www.californiagasprices.com/
, etc.

Hey Google folks, I’ve got an idea. Improve your satellite Google Maps application to give us a chance to zoom into a price tag of
the closest gas station.