There is a number of developers that know some programming language, but adding Java and Java EE (formerly J2EE) to their resumes could increase their chances to find a better paid jobs. For example, I ‘m dealing with lots of Adobe Flex developers, and about half of them have no or little understanding of what ‘s going on the Java servers, which “somehow ” respond to the requests of the well done rich Flex UI. There are legions of low-paid Web developers who know PHP and nothing else.

If only they knew Java…But they often just can ‘t get off billing to learn Java. Besides, what does it mean to learn Java? Learning the syntax of the language? There ‘s no demand for people who just know the syntax of Java, or as a matter of fact any other language. So what to learn? The Java ecosystem is huge – there are lots of technologies and frameworks. People get scared. People don ‘t want to boil the ocean.

Employers are looking for people for solid understanding of Java and Java EE technologies. So if you are looking for the guidance and are motivated, enroll in my online training class that I ‘ll be teaching starting from March 8. The classes will take place on Tuesdays and Fridays from Noon to 2:30PM New York time (GMT-5). Resident of the Eastern states of the USA can take a long lunch twice a week and attend these classes without leaving their offices. For people who live in Europe, India, or Middle East this is an evening training (sorry Australia, Japan, and China). You ‘ll be surprised, but not every person who lives in India knows Java yet.

It doesn “t matter in which country you live now, as long as you have stable Internet connection (e.g. watch American youtube videos without pauses), you may benefit from this training.

You “ll hear my voice and see my computer screen. You ‘ll be using the fresh Java Tutorial that I wrote for Wiley. You “ll be able to ask questions and do the homework. Visit this Web page for the program description and registration.

Interested? Then enroll in this class and get in charge of your career.

Java.net published a well-written article by Markus Karg titled “Release late, release rarely “. The author doesn “t like that the quality of the software goes down the drain. He blames outsourcing and suggests hiring a small group of well-paid experts, which would be placed in a quiet room and once a year they would release quality software.

I also like quality software, but don “t agree with most of the author “s conclusions and recommendations.

First, I “d like to make a statement that proliferation of free and open source software is one of the main reasons of the low-quality software. The premise that the software has to be free means that there is no funding for these expert developers working hard in a sound-cancelling place. In reality, a number of contributors work on pieces of software whenever they have a minute after spending most of the day earning a living. What quality can you demand from them?

Of course, one may say that some projects started from donation of a large code base of a professionally written software (e.g. IBM/Eclipse). There are companies like SpringSource that charge you an arm and a leg for other professional services so they can fund R amp;D of open source framework. Can they afford rare and quality releases? I doubt it. Everyone has to survive in a very competitive world and pushing the software out the door asap is a way to show that the product is alive and being worked on.

Let “s take the big guys. The last major release of Java is four years old. How good it is for the quality and the reputation of the product called Java? It “s bad.

It took Adobe 2 years to release version 4 of their flagship RIA framework called Flex. Was this beneficial for the quality of the product? Not at all. It still has bugs and Adobe engineers were able to complete transition to the new Spark architecture of only 20 out of 50 UI components. During the same period of time Microsoft released versions 2, 3,and 4 of Silverlight – direct competitor of Flex, which seriously improved their positioning in the RIA space.

Markus Karg suggests to release late and rarely assuming that a small of smart guys know exactly what the customer needs. I don “t believe this is the case. IMO, it “s much more beneficial for the quality of the product to release a product that has some bugs and 90% of the planned functionality so the users can play with it sooner shaping out the final features of the product.

Then, the author explains why many companies produce crappy software: “The reason is simple and let ‘s tell it clearly: Off-Shoring. ” I can “t agree with this conclusion either. I keep insisting that the reason of failing off-shore projects is the legion of mediocre American enterprise project managers that run these projects. They don “t have balls to fire ballast offshore workers and keep dragging the project along extending the lifespan of low-quality applications by applying sort of chemo-therapy and radiation.

Mr. Karg believes that American and German engineers would produce quality software, while we “re getting “pure crap from Bangalore rdquo;. If you get crap from Bangalore, you deserve to get crap from Bangalore. I don “t know about Germans, but let me say loud and clear: “American engineers are not smarter than the Indian ones rdquo;. They happened to live in better and more creative environment, that “s all. I “ve been working with lots of great Indian engineers here in the USA. The quality of the Indian engineers who spent 3-4 years in the USA is substantially higher than of their peers who work from India.

The ecosystem makes a huge difference. Attend Google, Oracle, Adobe, Microsoft conferences ndash; you “ll meet brilliant engineers of Indian descent. Important: they all live and work in the USA for years. No, it “s not about food. Indians continue eating curry and don “t like hamburgers and the yellow liquid called Bud Light.

In addition to consulting business, our company develops open source software. I “m always fighting for fast releases otherwise we “d never release anything useful. We “d be just enjoying the process of developing software. Sure, it “s our baby. Let “s add the feature #273 and then hellip;No, wouldn “t be nice to squeeze #274, 275, 276, and 277 into 1.0?

Some Flex developers like using frameworks. One of the popular ones is Mate. After about 4 years of development it reached the version hellip; 0.9. I “m not even talking about the quality here ndash; most of the enterprises simply won “t accept the project that was not officially released!

Anyway, I don “t agree with rare releases. The bird should leave the nest as soon as possible. So release fast and then fix the bugs and adjust the product based on the user “s feedback.

NDA stands for non-disclosure agreement. Each year I sign at least a dozen of them with various perspective clients – they want to make sure that our company won “t disclose any confidential information that “s contained in their project documentation. This is perfectly understandable, and I usually sign such NDA “s after a quick read.

If an NDA comes from a startup that needs help in implementing some great idea, they simply want to make sure that the world won “t know about it sooner than it “s ready. No problems here. But I “m checking if NDA contains the red flags in the non-compete clause.

Sometimes, we do a contract training for large organizations through a third-party training companies, which want to make sure that if they introduced our firm to the client we won “t offer to them training services directly. This is also fine as long as it has the proper wording. Imagine if the client of this third-party trainer is a global bank with 200,000 employees. I “d never sign an NDA if it would prohibit me conducting direct training to the entire bank. Only if this particular bank “s department will need more training classes, I “ll agree to go through the third-party firm that introduced us to this department. Rephrasing of such a non-compete clause takes a little bit of time, but I don “t remember a case when we couldn “t reach an agreement here.

But recently, we were given an NDA that we simple can “t sign and the other party is using it to maintain its monopoly in the certain sector of the insurance business. Let me tell you the story.

About 18 months ago, we “ve created a startup with the goal to create software for automation of some business processes of the insurance agencies – these firms serve as a liaison between the independent agents that sell you insurance policies and large insurance carriers. To be more specific, we “ve automated the process of licensing and contracting of independent producers.

There was a large software firm that literally held the monopoly in this field. After 12 months of development we started selling our product, and our customers are extremely happy. These people were not spoiled by a variety of choices, which are typically available in large businesses. Today, we have a number of customers that are gladly using our services in the licensing and contracting area, but there is a need of integration of our piece of data with office automation functionality, that is offered by another monopolist firm, let “s call them XYZ.

Our clients asked us to integrate our licensing and contracting with their office automation, and we “ve contacted XYZ asking for the API to provide proper feed to/from their data. The XYZ firm responded that to get their API we “d need to sign their NDA. Unfortunately, this NDA had a clause that explicitly stated that if they “ll disclose the integration API our firm won “t be allowed to develop any competing software. Ever.

We “ve rejected signing the NDA with this clause, and XYZ is not willing to remove it. It “s an interesting technique to maintain the monopoly. Many insurance agencies use services of XYZ and would greatly benefit if our system would be integrated with them too. But XYZ would do anything to remain the sole service provider in this area. NDA to the rescue! Will it help them? I doubt it.

One blogger wrote the following, “The startup time (on my crappy laptop) of the latest JBoss application server is only 28 seconds rdquo;. I “m not going to talk about JBoss here though. I didn “t like “on my crappy laptop rdquo; part. I don “t know personally the guy who wrote this statement, but he “s a book author and a speaker at the software conferences. Why he has to work on a crappy laptop? Is being poor an attribute of our trade?

Recently, I “ve been watching online a video interview given by another senior software developer / business owner. He was talking about geek topics, but I was looking at his ripped sleeve of the sweatshirt hellip; No, it was not ripped on purpose like these Jesus Jeans. It was old, and the threads (on fabric) got weak references, if you know what I mean hellip; Why he didn “t care about his look? Cause geeks shouldn “t care?

In late nineties, I was working as a freelancer developing. My client was a small company, and this lady, the co-owner of the company (and a seasoned software developer) made a statement, “All people who drive Lexuses are assholes rdquo;. She said it casually during lunch. Why? I didn “t ask. I was a well-trained contractor. The customer is always right. This was the time when I bought my first Lexus. I didn “t drive it to work though. It was for my wife, who “s also a software developer. She was working for a large corporation. I asked her to park this car on a large distance from her colleagues who “ve driven beaten up Toyota “s and pickup trucks. I asked her to play by the rules.

Interestingly enough, this lady, the company owner, didn “t pay my last invoice ($11K) ndash; they declared bankruptcy and there was nothing I could do about it other than making this lousy statement 12 years after: “People who don “t pay their contractors for the work well done are assholes! rdquo;

Why American lawyers and medical doctors drive expensive cars? They want to show they “re successful and have large clientele. Why software developers drive 5-year old Toyotas and Hondas? Because they want to show they “re smart ndash; why paying money for the new car if an old one doesn “t need anything but oil change?

If this is the case, why do you expect a nice annual salary raise or bonus? Your boss looks at the clothes you wear and at the car you drive hellip; Subconsciously he assumes that a $2000 bonus will last you for a long time.

Ten years ago I was working on a project for a financial company. This young girl, a software developer, shared with me her little secret, “I never purchase clothes at K-Mart. I go to Wallmart cause it “s cheaper there. rdquo; At the same time she was shopping for the house in the $700K price range. Why neglect the presentation layer? Why invest only in the back end that no one sees?

My fellow American programmers! There are only a couple of days left till we call 2010 a history. From the bottom of my heart, I wish you a successful and prosperous 2011. But please hellip; get a new car. Come to work early and park it right by the “Employee of the month rdquo; spot. Get a new pair of pants and a dozen of shirts. Get a new laptop. A MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM will do it, and don “t tell me that Dell of comparable configuration costs half price. Geeks can “t work on crappy laptops. Professional must play on Stradivari instruments. Let “s show THEM that we need better salaries and bonuses cause we know how to spend money too!

Happy New Year!

Today Russian Prime Minister Putin ordered all federal workers and all governing structures to start moving to Linux and open source software . Someone has convinced Putin that using Linux and open source software saves money. On the long run it may, but for the next several years it “ll carry huge price tag. But this is the least of my concerns.

I really enjoy the fact that it “s up to the Prime Minister what Operational System to use. I guess, if Putin didn “t sign this degree, Russia would continue suffer from Microsoft slavery and oppression.

What would be the next logical move by Mr. Putin? I guess he should consider signing the bill dictating to use certain design patterns in software development. For example, every software developer must use Model-View-Controller. But since Russia doesn “t like mimicking western ways of doing things, MVC must be implemented in one tier. As a matter of fact, Mr. Putin is a great example of MVC in a single body. Software developers who won “t obey the MVC law, will be subject to mandatory Dependency Injection that will be administered in special medical facilities.

My only hope is that conversion of top country leaders into sysadmins is not contagious and President Obama won “t pick it up from them. Otherwise, I “ll have reformat my MacBook Pro and hire Russian hackers to install GNU/Linux there.

Back in the nineties, I was helping Russian immigrants living in the greater New York area to acquire the right skills and become software developers. Majority of the immigrants had Bachelor or Masters degrees in disciplines not related to IT. But high motivation to get an interesting and well-paid job did miracles. People were able to make serious turns in their careers and most of them survived economic crisis and still remain productive members of the American IT workforce.

Back in the nineties there where no reliable means for reaching the audience remotely. People would need to show up in the class. Things changed, and the live online training became a reality. I “ve been successfully teaching online classes in English reaching people from all over the world.

You may say, “Why bother with Russians? ” There are couple of reasons. First, I want to try to see if it “s possible to do business with those Eastern Europeans republics that used to be a part of the Soviet Union. I “m not talking about buying their services – our company already successfully outsources substantial of software development there. I want to sell them our services. Instead of sending the money out I want to bring the money in. Second, during this training I hope to find some talented programmers who might help in one of our future projects on the contracting basis.

The outsourcing model is overly expensive for American enterprises, but it works for a small company like ours. The reason is simple ndash; we pick every worker carefully and don “t keep any ballast. After interviewing lots and lots of job applicants from Eastern Europe, I can attest that most of the people who are on the freelance market lack skills required for the needs of our enterprises. I see an abundance of sysadmins and PHP programmers, which we don “t need.

We need people with solid J2EE (a.k.a. Java EE) background and Adobe Flex skills. Such people are hard to come by in that part of the world. But there is a certain amount of motivated people who are willing to get trained.

Starting from March 7 I “ll be teaching online master class on Java Programming for Russian-speaking people. It doesn “t matter in which country you live now, as long as you can understand conversational Russian language and read in English, you may benefit from this training. The 2.5-hour long lessons will take place on Mondays and Thursdays starting from around noon New York Time (GMT-5 or 20:00 in Moscow.

You “ll hear my voice and see my computer screen. You ‘ll be using the fresh Java Tutorial that I wrote for Wiley. You “ll be able to ask questions and do the homework. Visit this Web page for the program description and registration. You can also listen to the audio podcast, where I described this training (in Russian).

Interested? Then enroll in this class and get in charge of your career.

Update. The first Java class has been filled really fast and I opened enrollment to the second one .

Earlier this year a new conference for Flash/Flex developers has been born. The father of this event is Elad Elrom, but it “s not clear who “s the mother. Actually, in the software world people are accustomed to single parents ndash; Father of Java, Father of AJAX, Father of Ruby on Rails et al. Are you aware of any Mother of a software product? I ‘m not.

The first Flash And The City (#FATC) conference attracted about 300 people, and I hope the next year “s version of this event will bring even more enthusiasts. While presenting at FATC in 2010, and realized that this was an event for different crowd ndash; flashers overweighed flexers. Still, I liked this local for me event and have submitted a talk proposal for the next year. Below is the text of my proposal (word for word):

Session Name

Java For Blondes

Session Description

In Java community, Flashers are considered second league. While Java developers build highly-available scalable multi-threaded systems for Wall Street, Flashers are fooling around with animations, effects and bending pixels. This is a four-hour hands on workshop. The first part will be spent explaining basics of Java development. In the second part, attendees will develop Flex/BlazeDS/Java/DBMS application, which is their to keep. There is a limited number of seats for brunettes too.

After pressing the button Submit, I twitted about my “Java for Blondes rdquo; proposal. The reaction was pretty interesting. Here “s my twitter chat with several people:

Someone: Change your submission title

Me: Why?

Someone:It might be considered as sexist, unless I missing the meaning

Me: In my title blondes are not necessarily women. There “s always a risk, but I prefer to take it ☺

Someone:I think that title does run that risk, but on the other hand, you can never be sure you won “t offend someone

Someone:Not sexist, but definitely casting out people by hair color

Someone: May not specifically stated, but unfortunately I can see it interfered. Wouldn “t gamble. Plenty of titles.

Pretty interesting dialog, isn “t it? The corporate culture in the USA teaches us to be careful – someone may not like the wording or even get offended hellip; Than how would you explain why people purchase the books titled “iPhone For Dummies rdquo; or “The Complete Idiot “s Guide to Microsoft Windows 7 rdquo;? Are only dummies and idiots buy them?

I didn “t change the title. And guess what, my “Java for Blondes rdquo; workshop has been approved…but with a twist. I was asked to condense it into a one hour session. Won ‘t work…You can do only so much with the blondes. Will try to find another conference interested in hosting such a workshop. I promise that every blonde that will enter my room will be released four hour later in a good mood, with smiles on his/her face, and armed with the knowledge of what Flex/Java applications are about. From zero to hero in 4 hours. Do you have any doubts I can pull it off? I don “t.

This morning I went to Amazon Web site to order the book “The good man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ rdquo;. The book is available in paperback ($10.17), in hardcover ($16.32) and in Kindle edition ($8.74). Recently I got the Kindle as a gift so started thinking if I should get the electronic version of the book.

Kindle is nice but what if want to give this book to read to a couple of other people? With the paper version I can do it, but with the electronic version I can “t. The setup is still more complicated that with a regular book. Using the software engineering terms, the e-book needs a runtime environment. The printed book can be compared to a .exe file that you can run on any Windows computer, while the e-book is like a server-side program deployed in some container, which has to be up an running.

A printed book is self-sufficient ndash; start reading anywhere in a second. You can spill beer on it and continue reading. You can drop it in the sand while laying on a beach. You can sit on it. You can tear a page or two out in case of emergency.

On the other hand, with Kindle you can magnify the text eliminating the need to use reading glasses . Kindle is compact and you can have lots of books in one slim device. But to me Kindle is not an exiting device. It does the job well, but it “s not a fetish device. None of the existing e-readers makes my heart beat faster.

I took this photo in suburban bus driving to Manhattan. This girl is clearly a reader. She even bought a portable flashlight eliminating the dependency on these ceiling-mounted dull little bulbs that may or may not work. She has to be able to read no matter what! But there are not many people who are willing to carry and operate expensive (more or less) electronic devices.

To be widely adopted by masses, E-readers must be comparable in price with the paperbacks. There should be disposable E-readers. I should be able to give an e-book with a device to anyone without worrying that she may forget to return it to me. Like disposable cigarette lighter. In the past, people would recharge these lighters with liquid gas. Who does it these days? They are so cheap hellip; These ebooks must become dramatically cheaper.

The E-readers have to agree on some interchangeable data format to enable a Kindle owner to exchange files with Nook, eReader et al. And this should be easy enough so even computer illiterate people could do it. The intellectual property laws should allow and promote e-book exchange between e-readers. I “m not breaking any laws by borrowing a book from someone. The same practice has to be established in the e-Book world.

The latest Barnes and Noble “s Nook supports colors for $250. Thank you very much, but I “d rather get a tablet PC for this much. I believe I still have the Sony e-Book reader laying in some drawer for a couple of years. Should I go and try to find it? Nay hellip;

This morning I went to Amazon Web site to order the book “The good man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ rdquo;. The book is available in paperback ($10.17), in hardcover ($16.32) and in Kindle edition ($8.74). Recently I got the Kindle as a gift so started thinking if I should get the electronic version of the book.

Kindle is nice but what if want to give this book to read to a couple of other people? With the paper version I can do it, but with the electronic version I can “t. The setup is still more complicated that with a regular book. Using the software engineering terms, the e-book needs a runtime environment. The printed book can be compared to a .exe file that you can run on any Windows computer, while the e-book is like a server-side program deployed in some container, which has to be up an running.

A printed book is self-sufficient ndash; start reading anywhere in a second. You can spill beer on it and continue reading. You can drop it in the sand while laying on a beach. You can sit on it. You can tear a page or two out in case of emergency.

On the other hand, with Kindle you can magnify the text eliminating the need to use reading glasses . Kindle is compact and you can have lots of books in one slim device. But to me Kindle is not an exiting device. It does the job well, but it “s not a fetish device. None of the existing e-readers makes my heart beat faster.

I took this photo in suburban bus driving to Manhattan. This girl is clearly a reader. She even bought a portable flashlight eliminating the dependency on these ceiling-mounted dull little bulbs that may or may not work. She has to be able to read no matter what! But there are not many people who are willing to carry and operate expensive (more or less) electronic devices.

To be widely adopted by masses, E-readers must be comparable in price with the paperbacks. There should be disposable E-readers. I should be able to give an e-book with a device to anyone without worrying that she may forget to return it to me. Like disposable cigarette lighter. In the past, people would recharge these lighters with liquid gas. Who does it these days? They are so cheap hellip; These ebooks must become dramatically cheaper.

The E-readers have to agree on some interchangeable data format to enable a Kindle owner to exchange files with Nook, eReader et al. And this should be easy enough so even computer illiterate people could do it. The intellectual property laws should allow and promote e-book exchange between e-readers. I “m not breaking any laws by borrowing a book from someone. The same practice has to be established in the e-Book world.

The latest Barnes and Noble “s Nook supports colors for $250. Thank you very much, but I “d rather get a tablet PC for this much. I believe I still have the Sony e-Book reader laying in some drawer for a couple of years. Should I go and try to find it? Nay hellip;