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 Simon Morris's Blog
Watched Pots and JavaFXPosted by javakiddy on August 28, 2008 at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)In recent weeks I've been immersed in the strange and exciting world of the JavaFX Preview release. Some might say up to my neck, although sometimes it's felt more like drowning. JavaFX makes a lot of previously very complex graphics tasks now very simple. At the same time it makes a lot of previously very simple tasks now frustratingly hard! Of course, this is merely preview release one — another update is apparently scheduled for this November, so perhaps some headaches will be addressed by then. Here's hoping! But for now here's some random gripes, observations (and a little bit of interesting source code) relating to the current release. When Buzzwords Go BadPosted by javakiddy on July 31, 2008 at 03:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)I always assumed the word "jargon" was a reasonably recent addition to the English languages, but a quick glance at the OED gives examples of its use dating back as far as Chaucer. It would seem that man has been uttering "... unintelligible or meaningless talk or writing; nonsense, gibberish" for centuries! Or perhaps that should be "...conversing by means of symbols otherwise meaningless; a cipher, or other system of characters or signs having an arbitrary meaning" ? Gibberish, or just a cipher? The dual meaning perhaps reflects the inclusive/exclusive nature of jargon — if you're part of the 'in group' jargon is useful shorthand, but to outsiders that same jargon is unintelligible and meaningless. If "jargon" is centuries old, I wonder how old is the practice of using it to confuse and bedazzle? The OED's earliest source for "management speak" ("[...]being obfuscatory, needlessly complex, or empty of useful meaning.") only dates back to a 1986 Sunday Times article, yet I suspect the practice is far far older. The problem is no sooner has a new term entered the lexicon than someone, somewhere, will start to abuse it for whatever reason. The unfortunate popularisation of term "web" in place of "internet" was likely due to the ignorance of many politicians, journalists and other commentators during the early years of the fledling technology. However, years later the wholesale abuse of the (far too sexy for its own good) phrase "Web 2.0" was more down to 'marketing' than anything else. This is precisely what has happened to "RIA", Rich Internet Application, a piece of jargon now so diluted through multiple interpretation that it doesn't really mean anything any more — at least, so say the members of the Java Posse in their 24th July podcast. Is RIA meaningless? And if so, is it worth replacing it with a new term? Flogging a Dead HorsePosted by javakiddy on June 30, 2008 at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)Today is apparently Bill Gates' first day away from Microsoft. As he leaves, some have suggested Microsoft's star is now in the descent, as Google's star climbs ever higher. Is this really the case, is Google destined to become the next Microsoft? When a company attains a certain dominance in the market, isn't it hard to unseat them? After all, they can afford to hire all the best people! Cast your mind back to IBM's nervous toe-dipping when it came to the fledgling micro computer market in the Seventies, or Microsoft's initial head-in-the-sand attitude towards the internet in the Nineties — being big doesn't always make you right. Indeed the larger the organisation, the better it gets at sustaining incorrect assumptions in the face of mounting contradictory evidence. (One wonders, for example, whether a concept like transubstantiation could ever have survived in a religion with only a handful of members?) There's safety in numbers, for sure, but only by way of passing the buck for a bad idea. Shared responsibility can often mean no responsibility at all. In the right environment bad memes can survive unchallenged, and humans seem particularly good at creating those environments. We believe because the people around us believe, not because we have given an idea careful contemplation or scrutiny. What's important is that the group has clear goals; how well those goals stand up to reality is of secondary concern. As the song says: "any dream will do!"  |
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September 2008
Search this blog:CategoriesCommunityCommunity: JavaDesktop Community: Mobile & Embedded Deployment Games J2ME J2SE Programming Security Swing Web Applications Archives
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Simon Morris started coding professionally back when 1 MB of RAM was considered decadent. He eked a living writing games for a while, before winding up scribbling R+D code at a top UK university. In early 1996 he discovered Java, drawn immediately to its latent potential - which, he reckons, it still hasn't even begun to tap. He now owns a laptop with more than 1 Mb of RAM (but doesn't like to boast about it).
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