Author: Yakov Fain

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.

I just finished tech editing of the article by Franz Garsombke on large scale refactoring with Spring and Hibernate.

I read/edit lots of technical articles, but I really enjoyed reading this one. It has a clear and concise coverage of what you can do with a poorly designed J2EE system.

This article will be printed in October’s issue of JDJ. Do not miss it! Franz is the man!

Yakov Fain

http://www.weekendwithexperts.com

Recently I ran into the annotation of the Forrester’s report on J2EE and .NET adoption in the industry. I did not purchase the entire report, but the annotation starts as follows:

“ The overall adoption trends for Java/J2EE
and Microsoft .NET are stable. Aggregating data from all sizes of businesses,
.NET’s use for mission-critical applications is higher than Java’s. Most of
.NET’s comparative strength is in small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) and
small enterprises; adoption of .NET and Java is effectively the same for
medium-size and large enterprises.”

I guess, Forrester uses some surveys to write such papers, but based on my personal experience in the financial
industry, J2EE is more widely used for mission-critical applications. What’s your personal experience in other
verticals?

In September, I start my Java class for kids in New Jersey, USA. The minimum age is 12 years old . Here’s my last year’s article on teaching kids programming and the class program is over here .

You do not like outsourcing? Beware! Kids are coming 🙂

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