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| A Developer's Perspective |
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Rick Ross is the founder of Javalobby. He is a frequent speaker at Java-related events and a well-known advocate for Java developer interests.. |
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Follow up to our “Report from Redmond ”
I’d like to thank all of you who gave your attention and feedback to our report on the trip we recently took to Microsoft. If you haven’t heard or read the report you can still access it here, and we have also made a PDF version available for those who prefer that to our web-based audiovisual presentation. Some of you seem to have inferred from this report that Matt and I have become much more positive about Microsoft, but that is not the case. Having honestly and accurately conveyed our impressions about Microsoft’s formidable achievements and their pleasant, enthusiastic team does not mean we’re urging you to jump ship to .NET.
On the contrary, in the “Challenges” slide of the report we clearly state, “They are not suddenly going to become something other than a massively dominant platform provider, and many of the problems that divide them from acceptance by Java developers are never going to change.” I encourage those of you who feel we painted too rosy a picture to consider this fundamental statement and its far-reaching implications. Microsoft made no promises to change their behavior, no promises to try harder to serve the needs of Java developers, no promises to do anything at all very much differently than they do it now. The tiger has not lost its stripes, and those who imagine we were so naïve to believe it could or would obviously don’t know us very well.
There is, however, no continuing reason for Java developers to consider themselves in a pitted battle against Microsoft. Competition does not mean war, and it would be ignorant for us to react with hatred to everything that emerges from Redmond simply by virtue of its association with Microsoft. Let’s be simultaneously smarter and friendlier than that. Certainly we can allow Microsoft the opportunity to show what it is willing to do for us, and we can treat our developer peers in the Microsoft world with respect and decency, can’t we? That doesn’t mean we’re not going to compete like crazy for the best opportunities, but we can still be cordial and open-minded even while we compete. I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably have to say it again: it’s just as easy to be kind as it is to be nasty. Far too many of us default to the latter where Microsoft is concerned.
If you think we were too positive about Microsoft or too soft on them, then I encourage you to listen to the report again. The tone may be friendly, but there’s no attempt to dodge or sugar coat the facts. If Microsoft cares to have better relations with the Java developer community, then it will need to do a lot more than host a pleasant dog-and-pony show. I genuinely respect their effort to initiate dialogue, but actions will have to follow or the whole thing will have been of little consequence.
OpenOffice and Java – What a curfuffle!
What a disappointment to hear all the hue & cry over the fact that OpenOffice 2.0 beta requires a Java runtime for many of its new features. You’d think this was a violation of all that is good and true, a major attack on freedom. I have no clue what people imagined would happen, but it’s certainly no surprise to me that the largely Sun-funded OpenOffice is going to use Java for new features. Ironically people are supposedly arguing against the use of Java in OpenOffice because it works against the project’s goal of being cross-platform. Yes, you read that right, these people are saying that using Java works against cross-platform goals because FreeBSD and GNU/Linux for the PowerPC have no official version of Java. Further, they are alleging that using Java hurts the project’s credibility. I’m going to quote Dr. Janet Newman again, with a new expression I just learned, “What a curfuffle!” Sometimes I really feel the FOSS mavens take it too far. Instead of allowing OpenOffice to rely on Java, many of them would prefer to see it ship with features disabled. I know they feel important principles are at stake, but they have lost me on this one. Java is free and freely available, and the complaints simply sound shrill to me.
“Expert Presentations” now working on Linux
One of the most popular features at Javalobby has been our series of "expert presentations" which use Flash to deliver synchronized PowerPoint slides, demos and recorded audio over the web. Although we expected these to work correctly on all platforms where a compliant Flash player is installed, the embarrassing truth is that they have failed on Linux Firefox and Mozilla since the beginning. On Friday we finally identified the problem in the third-party vendor's code and have patched it to make these presentations work successfully on Linux Firefox and Mozilla. Although only a small percentage of the total audience uses these browsers, we absolutely do not wish for them to be excluded by stupid software limitations.
Here's the list of EPS presentations we have fixed:
We’re really sorry this didn’t work for all Linux users from day one, and that it took so long to find and fix the problem. We really do try to make sure Javalobby is freely accessible to everyone.
Until next time,
Rick Ross
rick@javalobby.org
AIM or Yahoo Messenger: RickRossJL
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Matthew Schmidt
is the man behind the scenes at Javalobby. If you have questions
or concerns, feel free to email him at matt@javalobby.org. |
John Carmack on J2ME
This morning, Javalobby editor Sebastian posted an interesting article about DOOM creator, John Carmack, breaking into the world of J2ME. It seems that Mr. Carmack has taken a fairly balanced look at J2ME game development and the use of the cell phone network for next generation gaming. In his blog posting, he mentions that one of the things he really likes about Java is the fact that it's easy to get started with the platform and quickly get something drawn on the screen (akin to the old Apple IIs). He also mentions that all the documentation for doing J2ME and Java development is mostly freely available on the web and that the latest NetBeans with the Mobility pack generally gets the job done. I saw a demo of the mobility pack at JavaPolis in December, and although I'm not a J2ME developer, it seems like the pre-processing of the mobility pack can help ease the "write once, rewrite everywhere" syndrome that plagues J2ME development.
Unfortunately, he also mentions some of the downsides to using Java on mobile devices. Primarily, J2ME can be SLOW! Apparently, the JIT compilers haven't made the transition from the desktop to the cell phone, so J2ME hasn't picked up the speed enhancements that our normal Java applications have. John also blames some of the speed problems on the range checking that comes standard in the Java platform. I guess the price of security is that you have to get creative when writing games for resource constrained platforms. His other complaint has to do with the syndromeI mentioned earlier that plagues J2ME. There are so many different types of cell phone units, each running different OSs and different hardware that in many cases J2ME (especially for game development) just doesn't work properly. Hopefully, with some of the new JSRs surrounding this area, developers won't need to "rewrite everywhere", but just "write sometimes".
JMS with Spring
Lately, I've been working a good deal with Spring's JMSTemplate and ActiveMQ, and I'm having some serious problems. In the system, messages can come in from the queue at any time, so we sit and poll the queue for new messages every few seconds. This works great for a while, but eventually we stop receiving messages. There are no disconnection messages from either side, and messages appear to be sent from Spring to the queue, but no-one wants to receive them during the next polling. In addition, the task that is running the polling continues to run.
So, my question is two-fold. First, is it possible to do asynchronous message listening from inside Spring? Something like a JMS message listener where I can implement onMessage and have new messages in the queue sent to the bean automatically. Second, has anyone ever experienced a problem with the JMS template silently losing its connection to the JMS server? Any help on either of these issues would be a big help, so please drop me a line if you know of the solutions.
Make your Tivo Jump through Hoops
This morning, I noticed a link to an article about getting started with the new Tivo SDK. The Tivo is one of those things that I've always wanted, but eventually convince myself that I don't really have a need for. The article at DevX explaining how to write your first applications for the Tivo almost tipped me to impulse buy one this morning after I finished reading the article. As I may have mentioned before, the entire Tivo SDK is written in Java and includes some sample applications to get you started. Apparently, you can even upload new libraries that you'll need to run your application (SOAP for example). With all the potential that exists with the new SDK, has anyone actually done anything interesting with it? Tell Javalobby about it, who knows, maybe you'll entice me to actually purchase one this time!
Javalobby Fixes Some UI Bugs
As most of you know, a website revamp is never complete. Since we unveiled the new design for Javalobby there have been a few lingering problems with our CSS and a few of our features, especially concerning the use of Flash. This week we are happy to report that two of the major problems (EPS on Linux and menus hiding behind Flash ads) have been resolved. These two issues have been chronic problems for us and have prevented a large and important piece of our audience (Linux) from fully enjoying Javalobby. The menu problem has also been irritating, as it prevented anyone from fully navigating the site when there was a flash ad. If there are any further problems in these two areas, please email us and let us know.
Until Next Time,
Matthew Schmidt
matt@javalobby.org
Yahoo IM: mattschmidtjl
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Erik C. Thauvin maintains a blog
, as well as one of the web's first and most popular linkblogs, which he updates daily with the latest Java and technology news. |
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A recap of
some of the most popular and active Javalobby.org
discussions this week. |
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const rejected by Sun
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The RFE to add const to the Java language has been rejected. The vote count was up at 787 so this is quite a bold move by Sun. At least we know where we stand now though.
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Full Discussion
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Posted By: Stephen Colebourne - (71 Replies)
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Survey: My Attitude Towards Microsoft Is...
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Continuing last week's theme, our new survey queries how Javalobby member attitudes towards Microsoft today compare to 2 years ago. Cast your vote in the survey at the right of the Javalobby frontpage.
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Full Discussion
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Posted By: Matthew Schmidt - (29 Replies)
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Shared Hosting: Where's Java?
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I've been looking for a shared hosting account that supports server side Java. I'm actually somewhat dissapointed how hard it still is to find providers today, let alone good, competitive offers.
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Full Discussion
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Posted By: Sebastian Ferreyra - (28 Replies)
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Technical papers & research related to Java development. |
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Get the Right Back-End for Your Front-End!
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Caché, the post-relational database, seamlessly combines robust object and relational technologies, eliminating the need for mapping. Every Caché class can be automatically projected as Java classes or EJB components with bean-managed persistence.
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Download Full White Paper
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Posted by: InterSystems
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Product and
service announcements for Java developers. |
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Perspective
