Goodbye 2006, Welcome 2007

Last day of 2006 and a lot got accomplished, either directly or indirectly,
during the year:

• Web Services Interoperability
  Technology (WSIT) is making interoperability between Java- and .NET
  3.0-based Web services a reality. A stable version of WSIT is available via GlassFish
  and a nightly version can be downloaded here.
  Two milestones were released with an astounding
  success at different plug-fests.
• Java API for XML Web Services 2.1
  (JSR 224) was approved
  by the JCP. The WS-Addressing,
  initially supported through JSR
  261, was then subsumed
  within JSR 224.
• jMaki beta 2, an Ajax
  framework that provides a light weight framework for creating JavaScript
  centric Ajax-enabled web applications using Java, PHP and Phobos,
  was released
  recently.
• NetBeans went through a year of multiple
  releases and awards (NetBeans
  5.0, 5.5 Beta,
  6.0 Milestone 5,
  JDJ Editors Choice Award
  and many other achievements).
• Java SE 6 was released earlier
  this month. Easy
  to use Web services APIs and Scripting
  support in Java applications are my two most favorite features. Check Danny's
  blog for top
  10 new features in JavaSE 6 to upgrade.
• GlassFish
  v2 Milestone 3 was released earlier this month and well on it's way to
  become the most feature
  rich, easy
  to use and highly
  performant open source App server, ever.

On a personal front ...

• I made my first
  JavaOne keynote appearance showing WSIT and Windows Communication
  Foundation interoperability. 
• I ran almost 850 miles in the year, completed
  my first marathon and looking
  forward to next one.
• I bought
  a new Nikon D80 and plan to improve my photographic skills.
• And last but not the least, "I" won the Time
  person of the year award - 2006. Wikipedia,
  MySpace, YouTube
  and many others belongs to a breed of "social experiment"
  technologies that is changing the way people are interacting with each
  other. Here is a small table that shows the number of blog entries I posted
  during the past two years on my two blogs:
  

  	2005	2006
  blogs.sun.com/arungupta	24	95 (including this)
  weblogs.java.net/blog/arungupta	46	61 (including this)
  Total	70	156

  The number of entries I posted doubled over the past year, the strength
  of GlassFish, WSIT,
  JAX-WS and NetBeans
  community increased tremendously, helped
  one another for nothing, and building open
  source software is that's what this "social experiment" is all
  about. This is what is "founding and framing the digital
  democracy".

This is by no means an exhaustive list of accomplishments either by Sun
Microsystems or any other group within Sun. This is only an attempt to
capture how and where I spent my time last year. There are still miles to go and
a lot to be done. Today is the last day of 2006 and I'm ready for 2007.

Welcome 2007 and a very happy new year!!!

_{Technorati: HappyNewYear
2006 2007
WSIT GlassFish
Marathon
Ajax JAX-WS
NetBeans}