Author: Yakov Fain

Yesterday, I spent in Reston, VA attending the EclipseWorld 2007 conference. The event took place in Hyatt hotel located in a nice area with fancy stores. The registration was quick. I got my speaker “s badge and a coupon for $25 bucks to spend in any store or restaurant in Reston Shopping center. Actually, the lunch was served for free by one of the event sponsors (XAware). I wonder if from a marketing point of view it “s a smart move to buy lunch for 800 people just to be able to have a mike and talk about your product in the lunch room while everyone is chewing and digesting. Anyway, than you for the food.

In general, lunch is an important part of any conference. Here “s a suggestion ndash; do not pick a table with the people you know, because lunch is an opportunity to meet new people. Even if you are attending this event with a couple of your colleagues, you should split and take eat at different tables. Did not get it? OK, here “s a little school math. Each table in the dining room has 8 seats. If John, Mary and Sidor from XYZ Software, L.L.C. will seat together, there is a chance to meet 8-3=5 new people (potential clients, useful contacts, smart programmers, whatever). If each of them will sit at a different table, they can meet up to 7*3=21 new people. Got it now? Since I was there alone, I did not have to worry about splitting. One seat at our table was empty for a while. And then Mike Milinkovich, the keynote speaker and the head of Eclipse foundation stops by the table and asks if this seat is not taken ndash; sure, be my guest.

Three chewing movements later we were talking. I introduced myself, he said that my face looked familiar (you bet, it “s all over the Internet), I told him about our company, and Eclipse plugins for Flex that we create, and then gave him my business card with the words that if a Flex related topic will come up, we we “re the right people. Mike is a nice person, I “m sure he did not trashed my business card yet. You may say, “What the big deal, you gave your business card, so what rdquo;. No, kid, it “s a big deal, because you never know what may come out of it. And it “s definitely better than sitting in the closet when no-one knows who you are and what are you up to.

Meeting people is often more important than the stuff you learn in the classrooms. Especially if the presenter is a boring and having-nothing-to-say as the guy that ran a class “How to create Web applications with Eclipse rdquo;. It takes about two minutes to realize that you are picked the wrong class, but it “s too late hellip; but my laptop is already connected to the Internet. No, not through the wireless connection offered by the conference organizers ndash; no one seem to be able to do any work using that connection. My Verizon broadband connection (I have love/hate relations with it), performed better than local wi-fi. The Internet connection speed in the USA is of the stone age quality, but this is another subject altogether.

Then I “ve attended a class on the Web reporting solution for Eclipse called BIRT 2.2. This was a great presentation by Jason Withersby from Actuate. I like BIRT, but is misses one feature that our reporter ClearBI has ndash; the end-users can customize reports (grouping, filters, formatting) without help of IT crew.

I introduced myself to Jason, told him about our Flash Player based solution and gave him my card. He seemed interested.

After lunch, I was running two classes in a row totaling 2.5 hours. In the first part I “ve shown how to facelift your Java-based Web applications using Flex, and in the second part I demoed our Eclipse plugins ndash; Log4FX, Clear Data Builder and ClearBI reporter. This time I showed how our tools can utilize OpenAMF implementation of the fast AMP protocol to work from Flex on the front with POJOs on the back.

A couple of people stopped by after the presentation, asked about our company and professional services in projects that involve Java and Flex. We “ve exchanged business cards.

At the end of the day I went to the exhibition floor ndash; nothing beats free food and beer. Plus, I met in person Maher Masri, the guy behind MyEclipse. They have a new offering called Pulse, which sounds interesting. They “ll demo it to me next week. We “ve talk about some potential business together and exchanged cards.

On the way back to the parking garage, I stopped by at Williams Sonoma and picked a jar of coffee beans and a jar of a quality tea (remember that $25 certificate?).

Let “s talk the debit-credit now. To attend this conference I missed a day of work (lost earnings), have driven about 500 miles, and paid for two tanks of gas and the hotel. This is debit. On the credit side, I “ve got a couple of business cards, two jars of coffee and tea, and some blurry potential of new business in the future.

Was it worthwhile? Yes it was. Do not like these hassles? I hear you. Just get employed by a nice large corporation and you may be better off than me when it ‘s time to retire. But so far, I prefer a more active life, and if one of these networking events will turn into something big, I “ll leave you in the dust. Which way is the right one? I do not know.

Adobe has launched a new Web site: Education Developers Center. This new site should become a one stop shopping point for college professors, full or part-time students, and everyone who is studying or teaching Adobe Flex, AIR and related products.

First, there is a registration link where students and faculty can get their free copy of Flex Builder.

Second, it provides links to various Flex tutorials that will make your immersion into flex as smooth as possible.

Third, it has a motivational article of yours truly, which was written by myself while being in a good mental health. The article was written for free and under no pressure of any kind or form. Why? Because while Flex still has a room for improvement, today it has no competition in the market of rich Internet application development tools. If the balance on this market will change one way or the other, I ‘ll be the first one to admit it. But as of November of 2007 I suggest you to start getting your hands dirty with Flex.

Now students have no excuses like “We do not have money for beer. Ain ‘t gonna buy no Flex Builder “. Now you can have both: the beer (I recommend Leffe Blonde) and Flex Builder. Drink and program responsibly.

Disclaimer for professors. It ‘s not either Flex or Java. It ‘s Flex in addition to Java.

If you ‘d like to speed up your immersion into Flex, you may consider enrolling into Adobe certified public training class that I ‘ll be teaching in New York City on the week of November 25. Students and faculty will get 40% off the tuition.

Your truly (this time wearing a hat of adjunct professor at NYU)

Yakov Fain

Well, I “m losing my passion after about six months of poor service. No, the customer service representative are very polite, but helpless. And the statement that Verizon has 98% coverage of the USA is a joke (I “m still trying to be politically correct).

Connection is very slow, but if I “m lucky to get connection, I “ll be losing it 10 times a day, North Jesrsey and a large area in Pensilvania have lots of dead spots ndash; I see two green bars, but either can “t connect or get 10Kbps. Currently, I “m seeing four bars connection getting the download speed of 300kbps and upload speed of 4 kbps(!?) speed.

Verizon “s connectivity software (VZAccess Manager) often hangs and I need to reboot the computer to reconnect. I “ve seen the same behavior on Vista and on Windows XP as well.

At this point, I “m ready to pay my $175 cancellation fees and sign up with a different service provider, but if there is better wireless provider of so-called broadband Internet access in the greater New York area. I “d appreciate the feedback of people who have are traveling and use the broadband access in this area. You can test your actual connection speed at http://www.speedtest.net .

If you are attending EclipseWorld 2007 conference next week, I ‘d like to invite you to attend my class called “Rapid Application Development of Rich Internet Applications With Eclipse Plugins “.

Eclipse can help tremendously in development of rich Internet applications mdash;especially if you have the right plugins. In the first part of this two-and-a-half hour class we “ll discuss modern techniques and technologies used for development of rich Internet clients. You ‘ll learn how to create a new front end for your JSP or POJO-based server side applications using Eclipse-based Flex Builder.

In Part 2, we “ll work through a live scenario, using several Eclipse plugins to create a rich create-read-update-delete application, where the front end will run in Flash Player, while the back end will use Java to work with the database. All artifacts (Java, XML, ActionScript and more) will be automatically generated, deployed and tested by the Clear Data Builder plug-in. In less than an hour, we “ll develop a typical CRUD business application with rich Web reporting integrated with Java EE and database tiers. Several Eclipse plugins used for reporting, logging, deployment automation and documentation will be included in this application.

Hope to see you in Reston, VA on Wednesday.

If you can ‘t make it to VA, but would like to get a fundamental Flex training and a bunch of productivity plugins, I ‘ll be running a week of Adobe Certified training in New York City right after Thanksgiving.

Can ‘t take time off work and want a cost-effective solution? Enroll into our weekend class in December. We run a holiday special deal in New Jersey.

Java.net ran a poll asking how many people attend local Java Users Group meetings. The poll shows that more than half of Java developers never attend local JUGs. Why? I see two reasons of why you do not attend your local JUG:

1. You are lazy. Yes, that simple.

2. You are doing programming (Java in this case) not because you like it, but just to make a living.

I do not have a problem with people from the second category. Say, you are an artist, musician or are an English literature major. These are all very respected and interesting professions but they can “t pay your bills, so you are a 9-5 programmer, and at 5:01PM you just erase from your memory everything that has happened during the last eight hours, because now you have time to do what you really enjoy.

But just being a lazy coach potato is no excuse. You think, “Job market is good, why bother? rdquo; Enjoy your life hellip;in front of a TV set. Networking with other people? Nay, life is good, the sky is blue and the grass is green.

And then one day the situation changes and these people start looking for a job, just to find out that their skills are rusty. They immediately start complaining about outsourcing and how India is taking their jobs. No my friend, do not blame India. Look in the mirror. By the way, about half of the people who attend our JUG ‘s meetings are originally from India.

Two years ago I started the Princeton JUG and its membership grew from 20 to 200 people. Typically, if a regular member makes a presentation, about 20 people show up. If the presenter is a published author, attendance doubles. Just doubles. We have a great sponsor (thank you, Infragistics!) that gives us a large auditorium, projector, and provides pizza. I always have giveaways for the attendees – free books, t-shirts, software licenses (thank you, various book publishers, Sun Microsystems and JetBrains). But even though more than half of our presenters are published authors and very experienced Java professionals, it “s not easy to impress people living in New Jersey. The only way for me to have a hundred people in the room is to invite Britney Spears, Paris Hilton or the like.

But I don ‘t complain. By attending our JUG meetings I learn something new, and what “s most important, I meet with people of the same caste called Java.

Two full days of hands-on training for $200 is a bargain sponsored by Farata Systems. This training is targeted for people who “d like to get up to speed with Adobe Flex but can “t afford to take time off work. We “ll run this training in New Jersey. Details and registration at this URL.

The number of seats is limited, so early enrollment is suggested. Hope to see you in class.

Remember Sex and the City? Sara Jessica Parker lays on the bed with her Apple laptop typing a column for the next issue of the magazine. This is when I started looking at Apple computers. Actually, let me put it this way, I started looking for a reason to purchase one for myself. I “ve got the money, but I needed a reason. The fact that Mac OS is very similar to Unix does not give me goose bumps. The fish-eye menus can be easily emulated on any Windows PC. Parallels, is a hassle.

I was always afraid of the fact that purchasing MacBook Pro, will start eating my time, which I do not have. I do not enjoy spending days on installing software. The laptop should not be on my way ndash; it has to be convenient an “invisible rdquo;. Need to install new software? OK, I “ve got a minute or two for this, but other than that hellip;just let me do my work.

But still, there is something called peer pressure. I often attend various conferences where these cool-looking presenters use Apple computers. Yes, it “s so cool hellip;Entire world is still in Windows, but they are ahead of this boring crowd with these slick white devices…

Now, the Leopard is out, and many geeks and hackers around the world are screaming that it “s cool. But if you spend a bit more time in the blogosphere, you “ll read about the pain people have to go through to upgrade to Leopard. But the real bummer is that Java 6 is not there. Who should we blame for it? Steve Jobs who openly states that nobody uses Java anymore? There are about 5 million professional Java developers around the world. Can you give them a good reason to buy MacBook Pro? I can “t.

What about the open-sourced Java? Theoretically, this should mean that the geeky Mac population will fix this issue pretty soon, but do not hold your breath. This will be a real litmus test for the Java community to show if open sourcing Java really matters.

So as of today, I “m not going to purchase the MacBook Pro just yet. It “s getting late hellip;let me call Sara and find out if she is flirting with Leopard yet.

I ‘ll be running public Adobe Certified Flex 2 training on November 26-30, 2007 in New York City. Talk to your boss and ask him/her to burn some training cash. You deserve it. Beside, if they won ‘t use this year ‘s training dollars, they ‘ll lose them anyway.

If you are an independent consultant looking to improve your marketability/rates, this class is a way to go. Back in 1998 decided to switch from PowerBuilder to Java, which was a pretty serious move. I ‘ve been working as an independent consultant, picked up a couple of books, did my HelloWorld and a little more. Learning syntax of yet another object-oriented language was not that hard, but I new exactly what I was missing – how these little pieces of information fit together. How one architects a distributed application, how programs that run on different tiers talk to each other, what are these applications server about… Everything was new to me. I was looking for someone who could have presented me with a big picture with gradual immersing into details. So, for $2500 I ‘ve enrolled into BEA WebLogic 5-day class. It was a lot of money, especially when you pay it out of your own pocket. But the instructor was good, and turned out to be a great investment. Java market was hot, and I landed a gig in a new to me language with 20% rate increase.

Today, if you are a Java consultant such as half of the Bangalore citizens, think a couple of steps further. Make a move to a field, which is not crowded. It ‘ll put on your table a nice loaf of multi-grained bread with French butter, a decent slice of wild salmon (farm-raised is for mainframe programmers), a teaspoon of black caviar, buffalo mozzarella with sliced New Jersey tomatoes, grilled rack of New Zeland lamb (please do not use vinegar, just some onion and herb seasonings), and a bottle of Belgium beer (I recommend Leffe Blonde). If you are still not convinced that it ‘s time to enroll into my class, here ‘s another reason: spend a week in Manhattan during the holiday season. Details at http://www.faratasystems.com/?page_id=46

See you in class.

Farata Systems is looking for Adobe Flex developers working on various consulting assignments. Currently we need people working for our clients in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Ideal candidate is a senior Java developer with Flex experience (the more the better). Good communication skills and willingness to travel is a must.

We can work with you either on the corp-to-corp basis, or offer full time employment.

Please send your resume and salary/rate requirements to me personally at yfain at faratasystems dot com.

If you are a senior Java or PowerBuilder developer and are seriously considering making a career change toward developing rich Internet applications with Adobe Flex, get in touch with us. We “ll be offering a mentoring program for selected candidates.

Let ‘s work together.

Yakov Fain

It “s 7PM, and you can hear from your cube that people are still typing. Why they do not go home? Are they forced to stay late? Are they getting paid for these long hours? Why?

First, let “s briefly touch upon the culture of small startups ndash; these people have some “idea “, and who knows may be their little company will become the next Youtube or Facebook. These shops are either self-funded or operate under the scrutiny of VC. So when you hear that a company XYZ received $10M in venture capital funding, this does not mean that anyone in this company became richer. This means that they earned the right to continue working on this idea/product envisioned by the founders of the company. People in startups work long hours, wear multiple hats, and hope that the N options they own (worth nothing today) will turn into a fortune some day. Welcome to California! This is the spirit there. People think options. If I “ll just stay for two years with this company, I might exercise some portion of my options. This is the Silicon Valley “s way of getting good software developers working long hours for sub-standard wages. Let “s leave this group of people alone and wish them good luck. I understand their motives.

Going to the East Coast. Unless you are in Boston, you don “t know much about startups and options, and just work for one of the larger enterprises. There are two major types of employment: you can work as an employee or a contractor .

Let “s take a simple case first ndash; contactors. They work for money. Period. If someone will tell you “I prefer working as a contractor because it gives me more freedom rdquo;, this is BS unless there are some special circumstances (i.e. you “ve enrolled in a PhD program or can work only a small number of hours per week). Since contractors work for money, they like working overtime and they are getting paid for these hours. Some employers try to save a little bit and insert a clause in the contractor agreement stating that a contractor works professional day at so-and-so hourly rate. Some smarty pants from HR came with this idea called “professional day rdquo;, which means that the regular 8-hour day may be occasionally stretched to ten hours . If you “ve signed the contract that pays $80 p/h and on Wednesday need to work for 11 hours, you are getting 8x$80 plus another $80 for the eleventh hour, which is considered overtime.

Contractors have very simple and healthy relations with their clients. You need me for six month? No problem – $80p/h. You need me for two weeks? No problem. $120p/h. Why it “s getting a lot more expensive? Because employers must pay for the convenience of having a skilled worker just when they need him on a very short notice and for a short assignment. You click on the button, and Joe is here. Seasoned employers understand that Joe-the-contractor will have some non-billable time after these two weeks and this higher rate should make up for the lost earnings. Besides, hiring a full time employee is like getting married, the wedding is expensive (you pay the recruiting agency hefty finder “s fees) and a divorce is getting even more expensive. Let “s leave this group alone. I understand their motives.

Moving to the most complex case ndash; full time employees working overtime. Let “s single out the managers ndash; these people are there to make careers, and they have to work long hours. These endless meetings steal their time and they have to stay late to get anything accomplished. Their incompetent higher-ups give them unrealistic deadlines, and, if they are incompetent themselves, they just pass the pressure to their software developers, business analysts and testers, which start staying late once in a while. This is fine as long as it “s happening once in a while. But all of a sudden, you find yourself working 10-12 hours every day without getting paid even for one extra hour. Why people do this?

I see ten reasons:

1. Your technical skills are not up to date and you are afraid to lose this job, especially if you have no discipline in spending. (Why did you purchase that car that you could not afford? Did you really need that apartment in Miami with zero down?)

2. You are promised B-O-N-U-S at the end of the year, and if you won “t be nice, you r B-O-N-U-S will become even smaller. October and November are the most important months for making bonus decisions, so you ‘d better behave. When you get this bonus, do a simple exercise: Add your salary and bonus and divide it by actual number of hours you “ve spent in your cube. You may be surprised!

3. You are a workaholic and just like to work.

4. You have family issues and would rather stay at work than go home.

5. Your company pays for your college, and you have to show your appreciation by working overtime.

6. You are a smart kid, and working overtime gives you a chance to better learn the business you are in and improve your technical skills. You are planning to move soon.

7. Your technical skills are very poor, and staying overtime is the only chance to get even simple assignments done.

8. You or someone in your family have a disease and you need to have good medical insurance and changing jobs is not an option.

9. You need to have daily meetings with your offshore team in India, and because of the time difference you have to start working at five in the morning. Leaving from work earlier than your boss is not an option, so you routinely put extra hours.

10. You are so lazy, that you ‘d rather work overtime doing boring job than pick up your big fat ass, get it to school and study to make yourself more marketable.

So what “s the bottom line: be good at what you are doing, and then you won “t need to say “Yes, Sir rdquo; every time when your manager decides that you are a second-class citizen and your main goal is to support his/her career promotion. If you are good at what you are doing, you are allowed to say “No rdquo; and keep the job. Pretty simple recipe, isn “t it? You “d better put these extra hours taking some extra classes in your local college or self-study. You do not need to change your profession. Do the same thing as other people do, just do it a little better. That “s all folks. The lesson is over.