I enjoyed this post about a scenario where code goes through an evolution based on different types of developers discovering it in succession and applying their own ‘style and wisdom’ to it. The post itself was creative and interesting, but the coolest thing about it are the comments, in my opinion. People are getting downright crazy about it. It just shows how literal, logical, and nutty we software developers really are. To each his/her own!
One of the cool things about the new job I will _officially_ be starting in November is that we are going to look to use open source tools first. The biggest choice we have to make on that front is which open source application server to use. We have the go ahead to get an environment setup and in-use for some pilot applications that are less mission-critical than most of the apps we have on our primary WebSphere servers. Now comes the time we need to decide which open source application server(s) we will use. Read more…
I have accepted a position at a company in Dayton. The position is with a company that I have been working for as a consultant off and on (mostly on) for the last three years. I will be a ‘Technical Architect’ in the ‘Enterprise Solutions’ group at WinWholesale. I am very excited about this new opportunity. In my new position I will be the technical leader of the group that is dealing with newer technologies. We will be making use of open source technologies where they make sense and employing an agile software development methodology. One of the most important things to me is Read more…
I’ve been ‘LinkedIn’ for several months now. I’ve made contacts with enough of my current and past colleagues to feel like its useful. I’ve also gotten several serious employment inquiries. I am a firm believer in the whole ‘web networking’ thing. When you replace the ‘web’ with ‘social’ in that statement is where I get a little sketchy – at least when talking about professional relationships.
There are blog posts out the wazoo talking about FaceBook burying sites like myspace and LinkedIn. I am certainly not bashing FaceBook because I’m not much of a user – it seems like it has a nicely designed web interface and certainly is getting a lot of pub so they must be doing something right. I just don’t get the hype from the perspective of saying it will ‘replace’ sites like LinkedIn. When I created my FaceBook account and started trying to connect to contacts I felt like I was in a dating service. Maybe its more of a general issue with society, but the pictures of people are almost always in a party mode and most of the people seem to me to be in more of a ‘social mood’ in their profiles and comments. Maybe I’m just turning into an old guy, but it just seems like the purpose is different, whether the creators intended it to be different or not. Maybe the new wave is to totally mashup your personal and professional life. I’m not sure I’m down with that though… that’ll take some getting used to.
So, again I’m not saying use LinkedIn over Facebook. I’m looking for someone to convince me that I should invest the time into FaceBook for professional endeavors. So… let me have it.
If you’re one of the 142 people who have visited my site since its inception last month then you’ve probably noticed that I have changed the theme often. I was trying to find what would fit the times and what I liked at the same time. I spent at least 4 hours on each one that I tried – making a logo, customizing the colors, fonts, etc. This is my latest attempt, and for now I’m happy with it. I went with the web 2.0 look which from what I understand is bright colors, big fonts, big graphics (just my RSS buttons), but nothing too flashy. Read more…
I’m a member of the Miami University (Ohio) Computer and Information Technology Advisory Council. Basically, we’re a group of people who work in the IT industry that Miami U visits with at least twice a year to discuss curricula, industry trends, and other related IT issues that may help them increase enrollment, teach more relevant information, and better prepare students for a career in IT.
We had our Spring meeting today and it was pretty enlightening. Basically, the regional campuses are considering having a Bachelor’s degree program for CIT. That would mean that you wouldn’t have to transfer to the Oxford campus to ‘finish’ your 4 yr degree. I would have done it if they would have had it way back then. Another thing that was evident, and even mentioned by Marik Dollar (The Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science) was that computer science and IT degree enrollments around the nation were falling very rapidly. He mentioned some statistics that I found very interesting. Read more…
Well, the post on javalobby created quite a stir. There are stirs all the time and I usually don’t even bother opining about them, but as you can see from my previous post this time I did.
Two major ideas prevail in the post responses. The first is the argument about actually adding new things to the language and the other, more prevalent conversation, is arguing about the merits of closures, properties, generics, etc.
I like the arguments. There are some really smart people (in the academic sense, at least) mixing it up. I think its all good.
The only thing I don’t like about where the thread headed was that, to me, Yakov Fain’s original post was pretty straight forward – leave java where it is. I just do not agree with that. The language is not perfect and if things are added right (not that I have the answer) they wont affect backwards compatibility. Quoted from his post:
Is Java the primary language that pays my bills today? Yes it is. Are there other languages/technologies I work with? Yes, there are. Do I want to see new language constructs in Java? No, I do not. People propose adding closures to the language. There are some attempts to introduce data binding to Java Beans. I do not think you can teach an old dog new tricks. If you remember, Java has been created as a simple version of C++. Let’s keep it as simple as possible.
There’s no inferring of anything there Read more…
There was a posting on Javalobby today that interested me. It was basically in response to a post by Yakov Fain, a well known java ‘opinionist’ (my term), where he basically said he didnt want anything new in the Java Language. At a very high level I understood where he was coming from, but in practicality it was something that bugged me… and I lost any interest I may have had (and it wasn’t much – I’m not big on technology evangelists for more reasons than one. Thats another post for another day, though) in anything he had to say. Anyways, this posting on javalobby was right on. I remember when Java was the new thing… every new thought was a breakthrough. Read more…
So why do I blog? Well, a few weeks ago I heard a guy in a podcast or something, can’t remember exactly, say something along the lines of “With the way information is flowing today, and what KIDS just know about the internet and online identities, if you’re in a tech field and you don’t have an online identity in 2010 then you will be at a disadvantage to those who do.” I can’t remember the details because at the moment I giggled about it. A few days later, during my daughters 3rd birthday party at my house, I walked into my office and found my wife trying to help my nephew upload a picture she had just taken of him into his myspace page. We fiddled around with it for a bit and finally got it done. I was somewhat taken by the fact that he’s 12 years old and was talking about this friends page and that friends page, how cool they were, and how many people visited them. I decided that the guy I had heard was probably right. I wish I would have paid more attention to who he was. I do remember that he had started and sold 4 or 5 companies that were on the edge of technology – basically the commentator was saying he had a knack for seeing things coming and being right about them. Read more…
You’d think the hard part of having a blog is coming up with content… and you’d be correct. I have yet to put more than a few minutes of thought into any of my posts. I’m just trying to build the site for now. One of the hardest parts for me has been designing this thing. There are hundreds of themes for a wordpress blog, but I didnt find one where I thought “Yep, thats the one”. Instead, I took the one I liked most and I’ve modified it to what you see here today (note the date of the post… who knows what it will look like tomorrow). Anyways, I’ve spent more time futzing with the look and feel than I have with the content – as if you couldnt tell by the stupidity involved in my posts. At least I hope you thought that… I’m a reasonably intelligent guy. 
