Month: March 2014

Submitted a proposal to IoT track at Cloud Expo New York

Published on by Yakov FainLeave a comment

In June a large expo and a conference Cloud Computing comes back Javits Center in Manhattan. This year it includes a new track Internet of Things, which promises to be “The Next Big Thing”. In our company we have enough of early adopters of anything related to software development, and we’d like to present what we can do in this field. Here’s the proposal I just submitted to the IoT Expo:

ABSTRACT

Case Study. IoT In The Field Force Automation

From software development perspective IoT is about programming “things”, about connecting them with each other or integrating them with existing applications. This case study will show you how small IoT-enabled devices from multiple manufacturers can be integrated into workflow of an enterprise application. This is a practical demo of building a framework and components in HTML/Java/Mobile technologies to serve as a platform that can integrate new devices as they become available on the market.

BIO

Yakov Fain is a co-founder of two software companies: Farata Systems and SuranceBay. He authored several technical books and lots of articles on software development. Yakov is Java Champion. He leads Princeton Java Users Group. Two of Yakov’s books will go in print this year: “Enterprise Web Development” (O’Reilly) and “Java For Kids” (No Starch Press).

Keeping my fingers crossed…

Get professionally trained in understanding Russians

Published on by Yakov Fain7 Comments

After the Berlin Wall collapsed, the world population started to see Russians up close and personal. The world got to learn that Russians are not always walking with balalaika and vodka while being chained to a bear. European cities are filled with Russian-speaking tourists. They look normal. Ignore the small group of them dancing on the restaurant tables after a day of skiing in Courchevel. Russian export oil, weapons, and computer programmers. Americans and Russians became really good friends in Space exploration (where else?).

After 20 years of personal contacts lots of Westerners are still having troubles understanding the Russian Soul. Do you know why they are not smiling? Trying to figure out what Mr. Putin really means speaking while talking about Ukraine? Can’t figure out how on Earth a brigade of unarmed Ukrainian Soldiers can come up with an idea of marching toward Russian military pointing AK-47 at them? Spending $51B on Olympics to improve the image of Russia followed by the immediate invasion of Ukraine to seriously damage the above doesn’t make any sense to you? Russians programmers work for/with you and “trying to do better” get carried away and miss deadlines?

I got good news for you! Enroll into Coursera’s free trainig “Understanding Russians“. Spend 9 week working hard for 4-6 hours a day, and you may get a chance to understand Boris and Natasha. Does it worth the efforts?

Software Development Today and 20 Years Ago

Published on by Yakov Fain5 Comments

I enjoy the process of developing software, which includes many various activities. But learning and teaching new software are the two activities I enjoy the most. During my 30-year career I’ve been working as an independent contractor, taught countless training classes, prepared and read hundred of resumes, co-founded a couple of startups. You might be thinking that now a grouchy old programmer will start complaining that young software developers don’t know how to program? Don’t be. It’s all the way around.

The skills required today for getting a Software Developer job are different than in the nineties. I’m not even talking about programming languages that were popular then and now. The mere number of different languages, tools, frameworks, and platforms that must be present on a resume today is piling up. It’s more difficult to become a competitive software developer in the USA today than it was 20 years ago.

Back then, to get a job you’d need to know a programming language to develop UI and SQL for data persistence. Knowing stored procedures for a popular RDBMS like Oracle, Sybase, or MS SQL Server would help. This is it. The resume having Visual Basic plus MS SQL Server or PowerBuilder and Oracle would easily get you a job. Of course, you’d need to know them well. If you knew Unix shell programming (OMG!), you’d be getting several job offers in a heart beat.

Mid nineties. Do you know how to handle a Click Event on a button in Visual Basic and how to write an SQL statement that would find duplicates in a database table? You’re hired!

In the second part of the nineties people who knew how to spell COBOL and CICS – would be getting multiple offers because of that Y2K FUD.

The year 2000. The world survived the Y2K craze. Legions of musicians, cab drivers and civil engineers became software developers, and most of them were able to retain their well paying jobs. You know Java and EJB? Really? How much do you want to make an hour? $100. You got it.

Knowing HTML or JavaScript was not an asset – easy peasy and not serious.

The year 2014. Unless you have ten different technologies on your resume, do not even submit it to us. Got 9? Are you just out of college or something?

If you want to stay in business of software development, you need to continue studying. Non stop. Lots of different tools, frameworks, languages. I’ll give you an example. Take a look at the program of our 10-week online training “Modern Web Development for Java Developers”. It’s a very intensive training with lots of self studying. Just check the time lines of the first two lessons. It’s a lot to master even for programmers who already have working knowledge of Java.

Here’s a fragment from an email I’ve received from an programmer with 20 years experience who enrolled in one of there trainings:

“I signed up for your Web Development for Java developers course. Looking at the outline. Should attendees do some preparations like install any software and play with it? The other day I went to an HTML5 meetup and was shocked – for more than an hour people were downloading and installing some software – Git, Node JS, Karma, Grunt, Bower. I got overwhelmed and left.”

I feel your pain, buddy. I really do. Got to stay in good shape to compete with the young generation. These kids were born with smart phones in their hands and Facebook in their brains. They easily multi-task. They absorb new materials like sponges. You got years of industry experience behind your belt? This is nice, but they need people who feel comfortable programming for the Bring-Your-Own-Device world. It’s time to replace your Windows XP desktop with several modern devices and get back to school. Otherwise become a manager. Well, you need to get back to school in this case too.