Isn’t Web Beans not just a little embarrassing, but an extremely painful admission for the Java world? Do not read this as an attack on Web Beans itself, but the implications represented by its mere existence. What problems is it solving? It is a solution for JEE 5’s current complexity, which was (JPA in particular) drastically re-engineered from its previous iteration. So it provides a unification API for existing APIs, which was an abstraction of previous APIs, and so on. Rinse, repeat.

Isn’t this a bit like grasping for straws when the only straws left are the short ones. Arriving far after ‘eeny, meeny, miny, moe’ has already pardoned a few. The community is left to deal with the grand unified results, only to face another abstraction a year later because the current API isn’t ’simple’ enough.

Which reminds me of another nursery rhyme. Even a leather shoe is edible with enough boiling and gravy. But that doesn’t mean you should eat it.

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do.
She gave them some broth without any bread,
Then whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.

Hmmm, interpretation is left as an exercise for the reader.

contekst.org » Blog Archive » Why did Java succeed ?

I have a sneaking suspicion that existing customer sets will not replace Java, there is way too much invested in the language, the libraries, the VM and in J2EE application servers. The change has to come from a new customer set.

Not only new customer sets, but new classes of applications.

Ruby on Rails, in my opinion, is the crowning achievement after nearly a decade of thinking in terms of the Model View Controller design pattern. There is no doubt that smart conventions + ActiveRecord (and other nicities) do, in reality, enable an agile development experience.

However, the real reality is that the M in MVC almost always means relational database without much thought. So much data

I think my list is indicative that I divide my attention too thin:

• Java’s Fear of Commitment
• ObjectGrid v6.1 User Guide
• Grails Object Relational Mapping
• Exhibit Examples from the SMILE project
• World of Resources in Rails
• Planet Venus Code
• Robaccia Code
• PLEAC-Python
• Publishing a blog from a mod_atom store
• Apache DBCP
• The Power of Google Gears
• Plaggar
• Form to GData Spreadsheet
• Python dispatch
• RBatis

While interning at Microsoft during the summer of 2005, I had the opportunity to meet with the team working on the just announced Surface. Its difficult not to get excited about this type of technology. Its pervasive, consuming, and introduces new markets for software.

Surface is a large horizontal display that enables users to interact through touch, natural gestures, and physical objects. This means no “legacy” input devices such as the mouse or keyboard. The press release states that near the end of this year Surface will be in “hotels, retail establishments, restaurants and public entertainment venues.”

So, this tells us that Surface is expensive. Really expensive. Expensive enough that it isn’t being marketed to consumers for the home. It will over time. And it will be a hit. The computer will be social. Imagine playing Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, or (better yet) Ticket to Ride with your family. Or watching the NBA playoffs on the wall while interacting with player stats, chatting with friends, and annotating the last play like the announcers do on your coffee table.

This is the future of UI. And it will be revolutionary. Whether it takes is a matter of cost. From the press release, I see it nothing more than a boutique technology, much like laser disc and touch screen technology 15 to 20 years ago.

Apple has done the same with iPhone. But there has been concern that Apple will not open iPhone up to 3rd party applications. Surface, on the other hand, is what Microsoft does best…a platform. Apple is doing what it does best. A human accessory. iPod, MacBook, iPhone. Apple’s hardware compliment a person’s personality. Microsoft’s hardware, XBOX, tablet, and now Surface, augment a person’s capability.

They say “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” That’s not always true.

In a previous post, Enterprise vs. Consumer: IBM’s false distinction, I layed out the need for IBM to approach software development differently; one that has a renewed focus on the consumer, or end users. At the root of the problem is the hype around Web 2.0, the phenomenon producing countless deployments of consumer-oriented software. What was “Now with SOA” is getting the “Now with Web 2.0″ shiny sticker.

If anything, Web 2.0 software has a social flair that amplifies its usefulness through the voice (and therefore content) of users. Software development frameworks and platforms, upon which much of this Web 2.0 software is built, as well, are evolving. Its not just about agile methodologies, its about agile frameworks. For instance, as application artifacts are created in Rails, test cases are automatically generated as well, encouraging a test driven development from the start.

The adoption of new technologies are taking hold at double, and sometimes triple, previous rates. For instance, in the United States, the diffusion of the automobile from 25% to 75% saturation took roughly 75 years. The telephone, nearly 50 years. Electricity, 25 years. Then an acceleration of technology adoption took place with the radio, television, and VCR taking just over a decade each to achieve this diffusion. Similar trends are currently seen with personal computers, cell phones, and the broadband Internet.

The fact is consumers, and enterprises, are becoming more adept to adopting new technologies. Let’s focus on the enterprise. Several years ago, Nicholas Carr declared that “IT Doesn’t Matter.” Yet in recent surveys, CEOs indicate that there is a renewed focus on innovation. Carr’s IT tends to focus more on the “T” in IT…technology. His technology is one of cost-cutting and efficiency, a commodity. But he makes it very clear that technology plus other factors can differentiate. He speaks truth behind the controversial title. As stated previously, the cycle of technology adoption and emulation by competitors is shrinking.

However, from my perspective, Web 2.0 shows that technology, combined with social factors, can still differentiate. And that is way it will always be…”Technology + {factor}”. The organization that has the most compelling {factor} wins since technology is a commodity.

My previous post is misleading. It falsely indicates that IBM cannot evolve its culture to meet the needs of its customers meeting the expectations of its customer. Whew. That was a mouthful. There are many that get it. And there are some trying to do everything in their power to make the necessary cultural changes.

New tricks are just for kids. This is just the beginning …Technology + {factor}