Month: September 2010

Tonight I “m going back home after attending JavaOne 2010. These are my fresh notes about this event.

If you are reading this, you know something about Java. At the very least you know that this is a case-sensitive programming language and the HelloWorld is not the same as helloworld. If you don “t know this much, consider listening my new audio podcasts “Java for Blondes “.

Attendance

On the same note, Sun “s JavaOne was not the same as Oracle “s javaone. This year it “s a small conference. It felt small. Even though it “s a part of the huge Oracle Open World conference (41 thousand attendees), JavaOne crowd was modest. I don “t have the numbers, but based on my past experience. It seems that only between three and four thousands of Java people are here. At the end of 90th, the peek attendance at JavaOne allegedly was around 15K, and in 2006 – 12K.

Forget about technical session attended by 500+ developers. Most of the auditoriums were for 100 or less attendees. Javaone 2010 had obvious symptoms of men disorder called Shrinkage .

Lawyers

The other thing I miss was the excitement. Didn “t feel it. Oracle is about business. I got a feeling that lawyers run Oracle, not engineers. Just read these evidences I “ve collected during these three days.

1. To get the wi-fi access, you “d have to read and agree to the following statement, rdquo;Use of this Internet connection is intended solely for Oracle OpenWorld, Java One and Oracle Develop attendees. Unauthorized access or use may result in termination of your access, disciplinary action and/or civil or criminal penalties. To the extent permitted by law, your use may be monitored. rdquo; But guess what, Internet connection really worked! Now I know, that the wi-fi issues on other conferences are caused by criminal bastards that are sneaking into the event venues and perform unauthorized access.

2. Every slide deck of the presenters working for Oracle had a slide that started like this “The preceding is intended to outline our general product directions. It is intended for information purposes only… rdquo; Basically they didn “t live me a chance to sue them if the syntax of closures in the project Lambda will change between now and release of Java 8 in 2012.

3. Before the Java keynote on Monday night, the voice have read pretty long message from the lawyers. This message was also conveniently displayed on the screen for deaf people.

4. Oracle employees are trained to say “No comments rdquo; to strangers. First, one of the Oracle people told me this at a party, and then, executive VP of product development has demonstrated this technique when asked about Gosling “s initiatives by Computer World.

Session Scheduling

I don ‘t know if Sun Microsystems made any profit on previous JavaOne ‘s, but for Oracle this conference is clearly business. I “m not even talking about the airline-quality lunches. They wanted to save money on the venue. The rooms for presentations were smaller than needed and people who didn “t pre-registered for the talk routinely were standing in lines hoping to get in. I wouldn “t think it take a rocket scientist to predict that Brian Goetz will easily fill the room. Apparently I was wrong. After waiting in line for 15 minutes into the presentation I gave up.

People who planned the room/talks had no clue who is who in the Java community. Because of this, lots of talks were rescheduled . If you didn “t pre-register, upon arrival you could find out that this session is not here any longer. Where? Sorry apparently it was cancelled. The scheduling and notification systems were poorly done.

One hands-on lab (was there more than one lab?) was rescheduled 20 minutes before it was supposed to start, and two hours later went as an instructor “s demo because of some technical issues. Unpreparedness.

The bright side

I didn “t pay for the conference pass. My kudos to Oracle for giving free passes to all Java Champions from around the world who wanted to come. I also enjoyed preferred seating at the JavaOne, private meeting with Olympic Champion Apolo Ohno, party with JUG leaders, and nice jacket with the JC logo. My special thanks to people at Oracle who are responsible for JUGs and Java Champions programs.

Cinderella

When I was walking to the Hilton hotel to register at JavaOne, I noticed these colorful pavement signs. Did you get the message? I did. Oracle Develop and JavaOne are moving in opposite directions. Yes, JavaOne was Cinderella at Oracle “s ball. But the Cindirella story had a happy end, remember? Pretty soon expect to see an online post addressed to Oracle regarding the future of JavaOne. Something “s gotta give.

A couple of years ago I went with my friends to a regular trip for salmon fishing on the Lake Ontario. The captain who we usually hire said that it was a busy season, people like ourselves were coming non-stop, and he didn ‘t have a day off for 40 consecutive days. He concluded that next week he ‘d to take a couple of days off. When I asked him what he was planning to do, he said, “Not sure…probably will go fishing somewhere. ”

Somewhat similar has happened to me today. After spending a couple of hours writing the next lesson to my new Java tutorial I got tired, and decided to relax and have some fun. During the next half an hour I recorded the first podcast in a new series of audio lessons “Java for blondes “.

After this recording I felt refreshed and relaxed and went back to work.

I got an email from a person claiming that she found my profile on oreilly.com. I ‘m pretty sure that Juliana is a computer literate person, maybe even a geek. Since I can ‘t use her offer (married, two kids), I decided to share Juliana with you. Please read her email, feel free to get in touch with her, and most importantly, remember that the distance and colour (is she Brit?) don ‘t matter.

Please write her an email and say hello from Yakov (trust me, I ‘m not getting any referral fees, just trying to pay back). Below is the original email I got from her – I didn ‘t change a word.

HI

My name is Juliana,i saw your profile today in (oreilly.com) and became intrested in you,i will also like to know you more,and i want you to send an email to my email address so i can give you my picture for you to know whom i am.

Here is my email address (juliana4u_2006@yahoo.com)

I believe we can move from here!

I am waiting for your mail to my email address above..

(Remeber the distance or colour does not matter but love matters alot in life) yours

Juliana

Let “s imagine that Microsoft made a statement that if a Web page was not developed in .Net, Internet Explorer won “t display it? This would make vendors of all other Web browsers very happy, because herds of developers who don “t plan to switch to .Net would start developing for Firefox and Safari. Well, maybe some developers would sucked it up and learned .Net, but this wouldn “t become a trend ndash; most likely the market share of Firefox, Safari and other browsers would start increasing.

This was not obvious for Steve Jobs when earlier this year he announced that iTunes wouldn “t be playing mp3 files that were not created in GarageBand. Oops, sorry, he said that Apple store wouldn “t accept applications that were not created in C-like language or JavaScript.

Six months later, Apple realized that this was announcement was plain stupid and admitted that it was made while smoking pot. Was the decision to ban Flash Player has been also made under the influence? Lame arguments about technical issues of Flash Player may sound reasonable for housewives and farmers from Alabama. “Have you heard that Flash Player can crash your computer? I “m telling you! It was on TV! rdquo;

Adobe “s software has issues, so does Apple “s, and so does anyone else “s. The real reason of this conflict is that both companies are trying to present their software as THE ultimate platform for slave-developers that would help them make money. Both companies don “t give a damn about sticking to open standards ndash; they care about making money, and I don “t see Adobe as a company that “s being bullied by Apple.

On mobile devices Apple doesn “t want any other platform but iOS. Have you noticed that Apple didn “t let hugely popular Java platform on their devices either? The reason is the same ndash; developers can use any platform as long as it “s iOS. But why Oracle doesn “t make a stink about it? Is it because they “re larger than Adobe? Not at all. The difference is that after Sun Microsystems has neglected Java ME for mobile devices and didn “t deliver on JavaFX, Oracle has no platform to offer. If Oracle had just a little shot there they wouldn “t keep it quiet.

Does Oracle care about developers? Not really. Otherwise they wouldn “t sue Google over Java that was supposedly open sourced. They want Google to use Java on Android, but for a fee.

So what us, poor developers should do? What “s THE platform for development? What the next programming language to learn? If you are a professional developer working for money, stay away from development for mobile devices regardless if it “s iOS or Android. There is no money there ndash; people want either free or $.99 applications. If you “re an enthusiast software developer who “s ready to work for food, just pick a programming language you like ndash; Objective-C, ActionScript, Java, or anything else that has an if-statement and have fun. Just don “t take very seriously what big shots from California are trying to sell you.

Update. Two weeks after this blog was published, I ‘ve learned that Google may act like a predator when it comes to dealing with the competition. Just read about the upcoming conflict between Skyhook and Google. They ‘re all the same – cold-blooded serial killers.

I “d like to share with you two Web applications that I enjoy the most. Even though one is from the music industry and the other one is about travel, they have are very similar: very simple and intuitive UI and sophisticated data processing under the hood.

The first one is Pandora Radio. This application allows you to create the radio station based on your personal preferences. Just enter one name of the artist you like and it starts playing song by song bringing artists that play the music similar to your initial selection. While the song is playing, click the up button id you like it and button down if you “re not ndash; this song will be never played again. These simple interactions with the users make this radio to “learn rdquo; your preferences and create the perfect radio for you. Don “t know the name of the artist? Just pick the one of the genre radios (I “m in the mood for reggae at this moment).

The good part is that it “s free if you don “t mind audio commercials. You can buy a song or even a CD by the artist you like either from (integrated!!!) iTunes or from Amazon. While the music is playing, Pandora “s simplistic UI display some facts about the artist or the song lyrics. I love Pandora!

The second app is a new Web application that allows you to book air tickets online. One would think, “Yeah, right! Try to surprise me with yet another Kayak, Expedia or Orbitz. What can someone come up with that these big guys didn “t think of? rdquo;

Ladies and Gents, please welcome, one and only Hipmunk ! Extremely simple and non-cluttered first screen to specify your travel needs. Let me pretend that I haven “t purchase my JavaOne tickets from Newark to San Fran . Entering EWR, SFO, 9/19/10, 9/23/10. That “s it. Here “s what I “ve gotten back:

Is this great or what? On one second screen you see everything you need: dates flights, connections, airlines as a two dimensional matrix. People who travel a lot can immediately appreciate the beauty of this way of presenting the travel information.Note that hipmunks works only with Orbitz at this point, and after selecting the flight check for the best price elsewhere.

Wow, it “s so simple, how come I didn “t think of it this way? I know. How complex is the home page of Google? You “ve got to be very smart to create very simple looking UI. IMO, simple UI with smart programming and super powerful and flexible hidden infrastructure is a trend where entire IT industry is going. The user has to see only a little tip of the iceberg. The less the user sees the better.

Those who know that I make a living developing rich Internet application may be surprised that I “m not pushing for fancy UI tools that allow to animate the UI and “make a web site more engaging rdquo;. But I see no contradiction here ndash; most of our applications that we develop with Flex and Java bring more value to the customers in the processing part without abusing UI.

If you want to continue this conversation in person, you “re welcome to attend our one day public seminar on enterprise development with Flex and Java in New York City next week.