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Getting underway
Posted by arnold on May 16, 2006 at 11:24 AM PDT Nice music. No network. Blog as if there was one...
Every year they don't start this on time, and every year I show up on time
anyway. Every year they do something interesting with the music. Sometimes
more interesting than music, but this year definitely not. World fusion (isn't
all music these days?).
Ah, the lights dim, time (one assumes) to see the promo intro.
Yup, promo intro. Theme this time: Cute. Oh, actually it's real people
doing real things, no doubt all enabled by Java, though Bozo alone knows how.
But it's cute, real people.
And now, John Gage -- back again! He always makes this thing work. He
does look older. Of course, I don't... He keeps the edge off the thing
becoming boring, that edge that something exciting is still going on. In the
first days it was obvious. Now you have to work at it, but it's there. And
John brings it out.
Ah! Jini! He mentioned the get-together last night. Subversive guy.
I understand what they're trying to do with the mandatory schedule builder
thing, but I only plan some sessions. I often figure out on the moment which
one I'm going to. I wonder how that will work given that I "must" use Schedule
Builder.
"Beautiful systems" says Grady Booch. Good for him. Software done right
includes aesthetics, not just for the pleasure of it, but because
well-engineered systems are beautiful and poorly engineered systems are ugly. I've said so myself
CEO Schwartz.
"Free Niagara" box. Go to the sun web site. He says.
Shilling for the Java Community Process individual membership. They'd
better be shifting how it works -- the overall board has been
owned by companies, not individuals. So we can all join and vote and talk, but
unless they have changed things, the final decision is in the hands of the board.
(If the network was working in here I could find this out before posting, hint,
hint.)
Zander's back on stage for a change. Still has a good suntan...
Ah, the first of the pseudo-conversations. "So, what's going on at
Motorola?" This was not (I'm sure you'll be shocked) a surprise question.
Call me a cynic...
The Dukies look nice this year.
Canonical: Linux on Niagara sounds nice. Ubuntu on servers sounds nice.
Marc Fleury: JBoss joining NetBeans. Need a company behind any
successful open source software? People see what they want to see.
Rich Green, back at Sun.
"Open Source Java?" asks Jonathan of Rich... Hand wave, hand wave, mumble
mumble.. "I will go figure that out: It isn't a question of 'Whether' but a
question of 'How'." (Will D.C. climb back on that bronco?)
Handoff of the show itself to Rich? Interesting...
Get the Java EE new standard team up on stage. And who is it? Why, it's
a group of individuals -- who represent companies. More cynicism, I know, but
if individuals are so important, where are the individual developers on this
team?
Now the VP of Java. Handoff again. Tag team shows lose focus, but it's
hard to put in everything that needs to be here (not to mention everyone with
pull who wants to be there).
Ah, here come the canned demos. More canned dialog too, I'm sure.
(Canned demos are inevitable because who wants to be the demo that doesn't
work? Canned conversation is, too, but it's more wince-worthy.)
GlassFish seems very interesting. All open source. Have to try this
puppy out.
The problem with all these demos is that you don't know what's canned and
what's actually easy for me. The Ajax stuff, for example -- how much work was
it hooking it up to google maps? Is that programmed in, or did they set that
up in advance, but I'd have to do it myself? And so on. Clarity about this is
really helpful, but it's really rare. I honestly have very little idea what work these
tools would save me because I can't tell the two apart.
Uh, .Net/JavaEE interoperability in partnership with MicroSoft? What
nefarious plot is this? ;-) Tango is a cute project name -- too cute, really,
but at least it's not boring.
OK, I'm already bored with the name "Tango". I take it back.
OK, the rose in the teeth -- a couple points for the Tom Lehrer reference.
Nobody around me even knows the name of this next project on display. They lost folks --
too many things one after the other, especially that aren't that far apart in the
application area.
Oh boy, graphical programming. Works in the small, fails in the large,
always has. People keep repeating the same attractive errors. Insurance
there is a notion of an "attractive nuisance", something that entices people to
do something that is bad for them. Maybe we need to have a
list of known software attractive nuisances.
BEPL Engine, that's what the project is.
Battery running low, damn. I'll blame it on them for starting late and
running late. Must be their fault...
"OpenJava EE". I guess you gotta have a new name or marketing hasn't done
its job.
John Gage back, finally.
Now to find juice and network! And see if I can sneak into a session unscheduled! I've left bail money with a friend...
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