Category: Archive

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 🙂

Photo Album

A French translation of my e-book “Java for Kids, Parents and Grandparents ” is ready (see http://www.smartdataprocessing.com/java4kids.htm ).

Also, I just received a Hebrew translation of a sample chapter. Nataly Shnaidman from Jerusalem police did the job. I wish I could read it :). If you understand Hebrew, please send me some feedback about the quality of translatoin.

Yakov

http://www.weekendwithexperts.com