Home for a few days and off to JavaOne
late tonight. The
Tech Days,
in Yokama and Shanghai went quite well...one of the better events, I'd
say, despite the fact that our usual production crew did not produce
these. Normally we have a production crew that is mixed U.S. and U.K.
But this time the local Sun offices took responsibility for event production,
hiring local production staff for all the behind the scenes work. Sure,
there were glitches -- our usual production crew has been working Tech Days
events since at least 1998, so they have some idea as to the tone and timing
of the events. But given that it was the first time in each city for the
respective crews, it went very well.
Liz and I are driving to S.F. for JavaOne. We haven't been to San Francisco
together since before we were married; the one trip we did take to the
bay area then was quite romantic, so we're both looking forward to this trip.
JavaOne won't be as packed this year as it has been in recent years.
The economy is one reason. I think Java maturity is another. Java is no
longer the new thing - it's well entrenched in large corporations now as
well as university curriculum and research efforts. If anything, Java
is now mainstream. XML is the newest thing, which isn't really a programming
language. Java bindings with XML is probably the single most active
aspect of the Java community these days...which seems to make sense.
Although sometimes I'm not certain that XML really deserves as much
investment as it seems to be receiving...all in the name of interoperability.
Frankly, I don't see Micro$oft suddenly becoming all that agreeable when it
comes to community standards. Call me cynical, but I think Bill G. has
something up his sleeve when it comes to SOAP/XML and all the noise
around Web Services. Does anyone really think Gates would think twice
about leading a red herring industry fiasco if he thought the ensuing economic
malaise would only strengthen and extend his monopoly? Especially in light
of the current federal regime's noticable hands-off M$ stance, it seems
to me that Gates would take great joy in subverting standards' processes,
perhaps even poisoning the whole idea of community-driven standards for
years to come. If Web Services fails, after all the investments, and
only M$ is left with sufficient resources to aid struggling firms
to recover, Gates is then left with the entire bag of chips. A
"See, I told you community standards don't work" rhetoric from Gates
is not unimaginable. And with Bush, Hollings and Trent Lott in his
bi-partisan back pocket, Gates would get little resistance from other
Washington power centers.
The iMac G4 my wife bought for my birthday finally arrived...well worth
the wait, I must say. It has to be the coolest system I've ever touched.
And there's BSD Unix under the OSX hood too...being able to bring up
a trusty command-line interface with all the tried and true Unix
utilities, in addition to what has to be the sexiest GUI in the known
universe, is user interface heaven. To hell with Wintel. Apple rules!
I now have a cock-pit arrangement with my iMac on one side, my
goold old SPARC/Solaris system in the middle and my Wintel laptop
for when I have to use something from the dark side. Oh, and there's
the Linux laptop that drives the printer for me....plus the older
Wintel laptop for guests...plus my wife has two Apples in her studio,
not to mention all the other gear. Geez...maybe we should get a life. :)
Then again, San Francisco sounds pretty good...
If
there's hope for humanity it's in software