Masood Mortazavi's Blog

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The Conference around the Corner

For those living in the Silicon Valley and working on software for the Web, one of the best technology conferences of the year will arrive literally around the corner: MySQL Conference & Expo, April 14 to 17, 2008, here in Santa Clara California. 

Derby and Java ME

Where was I?

FLOSS on PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL and License Fees

Very similar performance at a fraction of the cost!

(Licensing fees ==> Oracle on HP: $80,000. PostgreSQL on SunFire: $0.)

jMaki

Project jMaki mixes and matches just about everything in Web 2.0 sight.

My highlight of this year's O'Reilly's OSCon was when Arun Gupta (and here) gave me a 15 minute tutorial on jMaki at one of the Sun booths. It was great to have such a wonderful, succinct and intelligent tutorial from Arun, with whom I worked at Java Software many years ago. Thanks Arun (and keep running :-) !

To learn more, you can take this course or check out Greg Murray's blog. (I believe Greg invented jMaki to outdo the scratch and scrounge bubbling in the midst of Web 2.0, Ajax and Javascript libraries.)

Logistics for Soccer {Football} on JavaOne Friday

Here are some final details.

1. We assume you have some degree of fitness to join this impromptu, unofficial and friendly soccer {football} game.
2. We'll meet on Friday at 5:15 pm in front of Cafe Museo of SF MOMA. (For a map, see here.) That's right across from Moscone Center on Third Street, between Howard and Mission.
3. We will wait until about 5:30 pm to collect people but cannot wait much longer due to the traffic. Be there no later than 5:20 pm if you want to ensure yourself a ride. Otherwise, we might run out of space or you might have to take public transportation to the field. See below for more.
4. Come prepared with your equipment -- shoes, shorts, etc. We will change when we get to the Marina Greens / Fort Mason area.
5. We should have transportation for about 10 paople, including myself and Francois. We will take you there and after the game return you to the San Francisco downtown area.
6. Since this is during high-traffic time in San Francisco, we should be able to start our game no later than 6:30 pm. Given the daylight situation, we should be able to play for at least 90 minutes or so. To set up the field, I will bring cones. I will also bring a couple of balls for warm-up and for the game.
7. In case you want to talk about this, you can call me at 408.421.4093 or send me instant messages on yahoo (m1mortazavi) or meet me at JavaOne. I'll be at JavaOne myself tomorrow between around 10:30 and 1:15 am. If you want to contact me, come to the pavilion floor or to the .org Zone. Leave a comment and let me know when you're going to be there. (I've grown a goatie so I don't quite look like my picture here.)
8. In case you miss us at our departure and want to join us on your own, try the following instructions:
   1. See here for maps of the Muni system. The best map is the PDF one which you can zoom to get the detail you want.
   2. Our destination, the field, is near Fort Mason, roughly at the end of Muni line #2.) ...
   3. Again, taking a ride with us will be faster than taking the Muni ... You can send me IM at m1mortazavi AT yahoo DOT com.

Bike to JavaOne 2007

Sun is continuing to promote Eco Responsibility at JavaOne and will be hosting our second-annual Bike to JavaOne for all partners, employees and conference attendees next week. To help Sun make JavaOne a "greener" event, you are encouraged to bike or take public transportation to the conference.

To make things easier, Sun has again partnered with the San Francisco Bike Coalition to offer a free "Bike Valet" services. The "Bike Valet" service will be available Monday through Thursday from 8:00 am - 7:00 pm and Friday from 8:00 am - 1:00 pm in front of the Moscone Center South Hall.

So, please tell your conference-going friends, post a quick note on your blog and bike to JavaOne.

Previously posted: If you're interested in playing soccer just after the closure of JavaOne 2007, see here.

You can find more about the greening of JavaOne here.

Bike to JavaOne 2007

Sun is continuing to promote Eco Responsibility at JavaOne and will be hosting our second-annual Bike to JavaOne for all partners, employees and conference attendees next week. To help Sun make JavaOne a "greener" event, you are encouraged to bike or take public transportation to the conference.

To make things easier, Sun has again partnered with the San Francisco Bike Coalition to offer a free "Bike Valet" services. The "Bike Valet" service will be available Monday through Thursday from 8:00 am - 7:00 pm and Friday from 8:00 am - 1:00 pm in front of the Moscone Center South Hall.

So, please tell your conference-going friends, post a quick note on your blog and bike to JavaOne.

Previously posted: If you're interested in playing soccer just after the closure of JavaOne 2007, see here.

You can find more about the greening of JavaOne here.

Soccer after JavaOne, near the Golden Gate Bridge?

Fort Mason: Directions

If you're interested in a game of soccer {football} after JavaOne, before you go home, we can repeat what we did last year, perhaps with more players ...

Note that this is NOT an official JavaOne or Sun event.

It is just a bunch of people deflating after the conference, playing soccer {football}. So, bring your own soccer or sports gear, change of clothes, health insurance, etc.

If you're interested, find a way to indicate your interest, a blog, a comment here or some other way. If there is enough interest, I can bring the cones and the balls for you!

We will probably leave at around 5:30 pm on Friday, May 11, from SF MOMA across from Mascone Center. I expect we can start the game at around 7:00 pm. We'll probably play in the same location, at the Chrissy Fields near Fort Mason.

During JavaOne, you might be able to find me in the pavilion. I'll be either at the Java DB pod or at the .orgZone most of Tuesday, and some of Thursday. Feel free to send me e-mail at Mortazavi at Tmail . Com. Alternatively, you can send me SMS at 408 421 4093 ...

This is a self-organized thing ... I've made no field reservation ... If there are too many people, we need to find a routing mechanism :-)

A More Open Java Community

Expect to find yourself in a more open Java community soon.

Mark Reinhold and Simon Phipps have written about the significance of new steps Sun has taken to create even a more open Java community.

Sun engineers already participate in various open source activities, from Apache (witness the Beta release of Derby 10.2) to Open Solaris.

So, now, java.net collaboration environment will host the open JDK community, and "Java ME code (CDC and CLDC) will also be open source around the end of the year," says Phipps.

Off To The Races

Earlier today, I had a chance to talk to Sun Distinguished Engineer Greg Bollella while we both gleefully watched the 2006 Slot Car Race in action. Greg, who has been behind Real Tim Java for the past 10 years, graciously shared some insights about the race and how participants were doing. If you want to participate and if you want to learn more about Real Time Java and mechatronic control through first-hand experience, you can check out Slot Car Programming Challenge or even better, just walk over to the area near the entrance of the JavaOne 2006 Pavilion and talk to Greg himself. James Gosling has also written a blog about it.

Remember - Confucius said something to this effect: What you read about, you forget. What you see, you remember. What you do, you learn.

The best way to get engaged and going in the race is just show up at the entrance area of the JavaOne 2006 Pavilion — "Half of life is showing up," said the sage of Manhatan. To make your showing up even more useful, review the information regarding how to participate in the race.

Folks, this is really not that hard. The programming tools and platform are available on machines near the race tracks, and you still have time to participate, meet Greg in person instead of just reading about him, and write a bit of code to drive a slot car on a relatively challenging track.

The control mechanisms are simple. Greg has made it really easy for those who want to focus only on the control aspects.

A map of the track is available, sensors are evenly spaced along the tracks, and you're allowed pretty much as many experimental runs with your code as you like and as you update the code. Greg seems to be right there almost throughout the hours of the show to give you some encouragement and advice.

Digital real-time control was never meant to be easy in practice. That's why for hundreds of years people have relied on dynamic (read physical) control of mechanical objects. The case in point is the steam engine and its pressure control mechanisms. However, participating in this little game, you can get your hands into the mud of digital control and start shaping it to win a race!

I should end this by saying that RTSJ has attracted the attention of many others in a wide range of industries from manufacturing to telecommunications.

Last summer, while visiting the R&D centers of some of Sun's best mobile communications partners in Europe, I noticed a real interest in RTSJ, in particular in the mixed programming model. Most telecom (mobile or otherwise) service apps are composed of parts that are hard real-time, other parts that are soft real-time, and some other parts that are just good with basic best-effort.

RTSJ tells you how to mix these programming paradigms in a rational and useful manner.

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