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Even sunlight has its limits.

Well of course ... you've never heard of the dark bulb?

Here's one reference and then here's the first part of another here

Bah!! I can't find the original article, the only online reference I can find to it is this:
1989/10 Reprinted in "The Best of "The Journal of Irreproducible Results" ISBN 0-89480-595-9, (ed. Dr. George H. Scherr), James L. DeLucas, "Definition of a Darkbulb"

But I've actually got an old copy of JIR right here -- let me hold it up to the CRT and you can read it for yourself.

I won't speculate on what RIM are doing behind closed doors but I suggest you read up on IcedRobot, announced this week by a handful of IcedTea/OpenJDK enthusiasts. Mario Torre specifically mentions replacing Dalvik with OpenJDK's Hotspot VM, targetting QNX and, yes, decompiling Dalvik to standard JVM bytecode.
Java SE is heavier than Java ME but for the current generation of 800+Mhz CPUs, it's less of a burden. Of course the Java ME APIs would need to be emulated for 'legacy' blackberry apps but if the QNX-based Blackberry OS represents a paradigm shift, legacy support mightn't be such a priority.

Netbeans developers claim that fowl play is at the heart of the latest Eclipse GUI code and existing steps in that direction may have been responsible for Eclipse's legendary slowness. The developers' claims stem from their exploratory search of the donated code, where a new GUI code a class called "Beak" was found to contain methods such as doPeck(), doSquark(), doScratch(). Further suspicions were raised when an existing Eclipse non-GUI class called Headless was found to be extending Thread class while overriding the run() method.

Apache foundation members were heard murmuring that these revelations should be no surprise given the way the Eclipse Foundation members voted in the recent JCP vote.

Is there a chance they'd try to monetize the J2EE/JEE container market (hey, they're holding the still-warm corpse of BEA) by being deliberately opaque with their JEE specifications?

It's Oracle, of course they will.

Or at least, trying to extort or marginalize free/libre implementations as much as possible?

Well, following a link that another poster so graciously provided, it would seem that:

To be honest, I'm surprised that the TCK license for Java SE 7 still contains any pretence that it can be implemented in open source by anyone other than Oracle. At least the restrictions are clear (and I suspect, but cannot prove, that very similar restrictions were offered for Java SE 5 in the Sun/Oracle vs Harmony dispute).

.
Earlier up in the page, he says:

The definition of a "product" contains what looks like an unusual part (highlighted). It appears that a "product" must meet three criteria beyond the basic ones:

        * "have a principal purpose which is substantially different from a stand-alone implementation of that specification"
        * "represent a significant functional and value enhancement over any stand-alone implementation of that specification"
        * "not be marketed as a technology which replaces or substitutes for a stand-alone implementation of that specification"

I believe that Apache Harmony would fail all three of these tests (were the project to try and implement this JSR, which they probably won't). Since a "stand-alone implementation" would be OpenJDK/OracleJDK, the principal purpose of Harmony is clearly the same (not substantially different), Harmony does not offer significant functional enhancement, and Harmony would be marketed as a replacement for OpenJDK/OracleJDK.

So, what I read is that Oracle basically wouldn't allow anybody else to make a JVM if its sole purpose is to be a replacement for the Oracle one.

So, yes, I think everything you ask is likely true.

a good explanation at Stephen Colebourne's blog

Yes, the announcement that IBM joined OpenJDK development really meant that IBM left Apache Harmony.

it can be done, just a bit more complicated: http://www.jroller.com/nwinkler/entry/amarok_and_the_airport_express

For those wondering why the merger wasn't simply rubber stamped, it has to do with the licensing of Java:

http://www.jroller.com/scolebourne/entry/no_java_7_us_doj

From what I read, it wasn't a *huge* deal, but enough of a concern that the DoJ had to work with Oracle instead of simply approving the merger right away.

The EU probably has similar concerns.

Where does it say on the page that ARM is accepted (I've no doubt that it was submitted)? I don't see it on the tentative list of changes here, and it's not in top 3 in the poll.

Last thing I heard on the subject was Mark Reinhold's update on the status of Java 7 dating back to December last year - and it doesn't list ARM. But I must admit that it may well be outdated (since the project you've linked to came later), so what's the current definite status, and where to keep track of it?

Even in a recession some companies build custom in-house applications for legitimate reasons(eg drug development pipelines at life sciences companies, which I'm currently working on).

For custom web apps, especially apps that need to provide desktop-like functionality in a browser, you should consider SmartGWT.

Google Code project:

          http://code.google.com/p/smartgwt/

SmartGWT is:

1) LGPL, so free for use inside closed-source, commercial applications

2) Ajax-based, so you're not buying into a proprietary platform like Silverlight or Flex

3) based on Google Web Toolkit, so you write your applications in Java in a model similar to Java Swing. You can use your existing skills and existing people instead of trying to hire Flex or Ajax experts, who are hard to find even in this recession

4) really suited to enterprise apps, eg, it's not just pretty widgets that leave all the data handling up to you. The concept of CRUD operations on data is deeply built into it the framework, so master-detail, many-to-many assignment, and similar recurring interactions from enterprise applications are really easy:

          http://www.jroller.com/sjivan/entry/smartgwt_1_0_released

5) commercially supported (by Isomorphic Software) if you need a throat to choke, or want the enterprise version some day (additional tools, pre-built Hibernate integration, etc)

Demos:

          http://www.smartclient.com/smartgwt/showcase/

Just because you release one product as open source doesn't mean that you have to release all you works or future versions under the same license. Just as long as you don't mislead anyone about old and new license terms and do not try to harass developers who have forked off your old version and are possibly duplicating your closed source extensions.

Ahem, hey stupid Exactly how much has the SErvlet spec changed in the past 4 years for APache Tomcat to worry about increasing numbers? Not very much when compared to the specs for other parts of j2ee that govern app servers like Glassfish, JBoss, and Geronimo..Just look at the massive code changes from jboss 4 to jboss 5 that has new OSGI kernel.. Once ag9in flawed conclusions and flawed research.. Ask an expert once in a while you might get the real scoop.. Fred Grott Mobile Expert http://www.jroller.com/shareme

Folks I already covered this.. Dalvik is an emulator VM as on OHA devices the esmertec JVM is deployed which as a Sun IP license held by esmertec. Google can get around Sun's IP as long as it does not claim the Dalvik emulator VM is not java or the java platform. Although, yo9u have to consider it a major goof on Google's part as esmertec does in fact have a JVM emulator and there also exists emulators that are full foss such as microemulator. Major goof in having th issue muddied as there is no conflict with Sun IP as long as Google does not claim that Dalvik is java and most j2m MIDP emulator interfaces have been open source by Sun as in UEI for example. When you want answers as a mobile expert Fred Grott Mobile expert http://www.jroller.com/shareme

its called reverse MVNO. The open Handset Alliance Mobile Operator partners will be operating or servicing that spectrum that Google will bi don as a Google MVNO in reverse with the Google Brand name.. Sometimes it does help to ask a mobile expert.. Fred Grott Mobile Expert http://www.jroller.com/shareme

These seem appropriate

http://www.monolithic.com/pres/tree_swing/treeswin g.jpg

http://www.jroller.com/resources/behrangsa/softwar e-project.jpg

I suppose that could be true, but I usually take the words at their face value.

http://jroller.com/page/fate?entry=why_i_hate_tomc at

When I go to that page the sidebar overlaps the text of the article. It kinda puts me off that a rant about "good code" is hosted on a page with terrible web design.

Some of the Tomcat code is used by instructors as "how not to program". Tomcat works (I use it in production), but it isn't pretty, nice or elegant code:

http://jroller.com/page/fate?entry=why_i_hate_tomc at

I have no business plan, or enough information to even know the potential of the market I'm targeting. All I know is that the products available now suck, and not just a little. So my question is, what should be my first step to starting a startup at this point? What do I need before I can approach investors?

I would say that you need several things: some fundamental business know-how, some idea of what business model you might adopt for your business, and some contacts that can help out. You can gain these things in a variety of ways.

Regarding basic business know-how:

You could take classes in the basics of management, micro-economics, macro-enonomics, business finance, etc. at a local community college or something. You could self educate yourself by just doing a lot of reading; taking the appraoch I've dubbed the used bookstore MBA, etc.

Regarding business model:

Google and blogs are your friend here, as well as books about existing open-source companies and startups. Google for
Open Source Business Models and just start reading. Read Under The Radar, Under The Radar, Art of the Start and High Tech Startup among others.

Regarding contacts:

See if you have any friends or acquaintances that run their own business (it doesn't have to be tech related). Ask them to meet you for lunch
to sit and just chat about business. Ask them for advice, tips, other contacts, etc. Find out if your area has any sort of business networking group, a "leads group," etc. If so, join and attend meetings. Meet people, talk to them, throw ideas around, ask interesting people out to lunch, etc. Attend local users groups meetings, LUGs, JUGs, etc. Not all of the attendees will be (just) techies: some will be entrepreneurs, managers, etc. that could be potential partners, future employees, etc. Attend and get to know people. Chat, schmooze and take notes. Ask interesting people out to lunch. Lather, rinse, repeat. Read The Little Black Book of Connections and similiar books.

If you do enough of this, you will eventually reach a point where you have some solid ideas about what to do, and more specific questions to ask. Once you reach that point, you can start digging deeper with help from your new-found connections and other resources.

Can we declare war against an intangible target?

No.

War on Terror is hardly a war in the definition of the word. War on Drugs is the same way.

Yes.

Who and what are we at war with right now?

Nobody and Nothing. Congress has not issued a declaration of war since WWII. The "war on terror" is just
a marketing gimmick used to keep the people afraid and give the govt. more control. It might be enlightening
to examine what Hermann Göring had to say on the subject.

Afghanistan? Didn't we win and pull most of our troops to Iraq?
Iraq? I thought Bush declared "Mission Accomplished"

We are at war with Eastasia, Eurasia is our Ally.
We are at war with Eurasia, Eastasia is our Ally.

I (like you) assume they believe that labeling thier enemy fascists will help misdirect the publics attention from there fascist behavior.

You nailed it. See the Huey Long quote in this blog post.

Just read here, here and here.

I've also addressed this issue before.

I can't go so far as to claim that the United States has become totally Fascist (yet), but I stand by my claim that the neo-con ideology is
moving us in the direction of fascism. I'll even go so far as to say that "Neo-Con" is just a euphemism for "Fascist."

This has already been covered in the bileblog

The moral is to only flush iPod Shuffles down airplane toilets:

http://www.jroller.com/page/cpurdy?entry=my_first_ mac_and_how

http://www.jroller.com/page/roblambert?entry=why_d o_we_have_caps

There's a good list of RoR tutorials here.

Java history was made today!

Today Java overtook C++ as the language with most projects on SourceForge! Here is the current list for languages with more than 1000 projects:

1. Java (16738 projects)
2. C++ (16731 projects)
3. C (15934 projects)
4. PHP (12175 projects)
5. Perl (6209 projects)
6. Python (4542 projects)

"Patents are designed to incent innovation. They may in fact discourage it."
The same can be said about F/OSS. Read: How to make the F/O$$ bubble burst?
Buttom line: everything that starts off as a good idea can turn bad.
Still, this overview of the patent problem is a good read. Thanks jambarama!

I love when people try and use server applications to prove that Java is useful. Yeah, when you can throw as much server hardware as you need at a problem, you can get Java to work. But just because Java works when you shove enough server power under it doesn't quite make it a lean, agile platform. There are successful web applications written in Visual Basic, after all.

In terms of client side applications there's; Azureus, LimeWire, Eclipse, Netbeans, Intellij IDEA, Yahoo Site Builder, ZipCreator, Summit Groupware, jEdit, SmartCVS, NeoOffice etc. etc.

Let's see, Azureus, which is well known for massive CPU and RAM usage, LimeWire, which as I recall is slow and buggy, Eclispe, which is slow and flakey, Netbeans, which flat-out sucks...

It's interesting you should mention jEdit. You might want to read the developer's blog where he explains why Java sucks ass, and why he'll never touch Java ever again.

The simple reality is that Java isn't used for anything useful, or any place where a simpler language couldn't have been used to create a faster, more scalable, dynamic solution. The people claiming otherwise are deluding themselves.

You've pretty much described the current state of things.

1 - Blogging tools get a little easier

It hasn't been hard for a long time. Anyone can go to blogger.com and get a blog in like (*snap*) that.

2 - Multimedia blogging gets a little easier, but won't get heavily adopted for a long time

There are already various Video Blogging services, some with their own "easy to use" software. The problem is that it's all DULL. I'm mean, mind-numbingly-boring type dull. At least when people write, many try to apply some of the lessons they learned in school. But as this fellow demonstrates, many of the video bloggers just talk into the camera rather than developing a scripted session. ("Here [Uhh] I'm trying the [Uhh] JNode graphics. It doesn't [Uhh] look like it [Uhh] works. [Uhh] Here's a [Uhh] screenshot from their [Uhh] website.")

3 - Many many many more people blog

I honestly wish that many of them would go away or make them private. The world does not need to hear what your dog did today.

4 - Mainstream backlash from all the BS out there

There's plenty of that. :-)

Just read the general comments in any forum and you'll note a lot of hostility toward bloggers. I use my blog as a method for publishing articles, but that doesn't stop people from dissing it before they bother reading.

5 - Really good tools finally crop up to make finding what you're interested in easier (Technorati but 200 times better)

blogsearch.google.com

Granted, Technorati is likely to get you more results. However, much of Technorati's results are link-fest garbage or one-line, throw-away "journals".

6 - Many of the worst blogs die away as the good reading tools (and people using them) ignore them

Like Google Search does. ;-)

7 - If you're not one of the top 100 blogs of these tools you're basically ignored, disgruntling a LOT of people

I don't know about top 100. For example, I just did a blog search to see if I could find anyone who's gotten a free Niagara server from Sun yet. The results were very informative. (Lots of people applied, but no one has yet reported getting one. Hmmm.)

8 - A few thousand great blogs stay up for years, many consolidating, and any of the rest come and go quickly

As it already is. :-)

Maven has come quite a ways in the past year as well. If you're looking to ditch your overly complicated ant build scripts for organized simplicity with reports, take a gander:
http://maven.apache.org/
I'll go out on a limb and say it will be more important than eclipse in 2 years.

That is definitely going out on a limb

I don't see how anybody could disagree with the fact that these features enhance a user's experience on the web, and they would simply not be possible without AJAX or some other still undiscovered technology.

My problem isn't so much with the label "Web 2.0" (although I do think it's pretty vacuous), but AJAX is a brutal, nasty hack. Worse, it's a brutal, nasty hack layered on top of even more brutal hacks. Consider this: TCP, the protocol that HTTP is built on, is a connection-oriented protocol so it's inherently stateful. HTTP is a stateless protocol, built on top of a stateful protocol. We then turn around and layer statefulness back on top of HTTP using hacks like cookies and URL re-writing. And we only need AJAX because we don't have a persistent connection to the server so we can constantly update the server with info and receive notifications of changes to the underlying model. Uuuggghhh.

But for more of my rant on this subject, see: my blog.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. Napoleon Bonaparte

And then there is "Marshall's Axiom": :

Never ascribe to incompetence that which can adequately be explained by laziness.

Which I think is an even better explanation for how the WMF vulnerability came about.

The people who complain that an article is a 'slashad', quite frankly, need to put up or shut up. If they have better news to share, then share it.

Yeah, we've tried that. The really interesting stories get rejected. A good example is this Virgina Tech HPC Challenge, which I submitted to Slashdot shortly after it was announced. Now if you want to talk about "News for Nerds" how much
more appropriate can you get than an HPC programming contest, which is awarding multiple $1000.00 and $500.00 cash prizes?

I believe that E-bay's "developer contest" made it to the /. front-page, but this didn't. What? Is it bigger news because E-Bay is a commercial company? Which is "nerdier" some crap using E-Bay's web-services API, or real low-level programming using parallel algorithms on parallel machines or beowulf clusters?

And that's just one example, I know of plenty others that I've submitted, and judging by the comments, plenty of other people have had the same problem.

Which is one more argument for asking Slashdot to give us access to the "pending stories" queue. I bet there are some real gems that get rejected.

Java, on the other hand, is inherently more Linux-friendly due to its intentional cross-platform nature, but at the same time it doesn't really seem to be inspiring the same kind of developer enthusiasm as Mono.

I'm not entirely sure how you measure enthusiasm, but:

http://www.jroller.com/page/matsh?entry=java_histo ry_was_made_today

"Today Java overtook C++ as the language with most projects on SourceForge".

and

www.dice.com (jobs)

Java: 13,000
C#: 3900
mono: 9

Does a few people being very enthusiastic outweigh thousands being slighly enthusiastic?

or is this sort of statement just wishful thinking?

>> There are some really nice APIs out there for computational work.

Yep, except all the code looks like:

        BigDecimal balance1 = new BigDecimal("123.45"),
                              balance2 = new BigDecimal("678.90"),
                              rate = new BigDecimal("0.05"),
                              xfer = new BigDecimal("99.99");
        balance1 = balance1.multiply(BigDecimal.valueOf(1).add(rate)) .subtract(xfer);
        balance2 = balance2.multiply(BigDecimal.valueOf(1).add(rate)) .add(xfer);
        if (balance1.compareTo(BigDecimal.valueOf(0)) < 0) {
                throw new InsufficientBalanceException();
        }

Instead of:

        decimal balance1 = 123.45, balance2 = 678.90, rate = 0.05, xfer = 99.99;
        balance1 = balance1 * (1 + rate) - xfer;
        balance2 = balance2 * (1 + rate) + xfer;
        if (balance1 < 0) {
                throw new InsufficientBalanceException();
        }

Examples thanks to /dev/null

Java is far from dead. In fact it recently overtook C++ on sourceforge for the number of projects in development. See here...http://www.jroller.com/page/matsh?entry=jav a_history_was_made_today.

Try comparing LAMP to LAMJ. Use Linux because it the best for servers. Use Apache to server up the static content because it's the best at that. Use MySQL as the database. Then, really, the only thing to compare is Java vs. PHP and that really just depends on your project.

Some things are pre-build in PHP and so easy to use that it makes no sense to take the time redo the work in Java. A great example of that is phpBB http://www.phpbb.com/ . I wouldn't dream of rewriting a BB when it only takes an hour (maybe two) to install phpBB but I will spend the time to make a Java program that uses the same database as phpBB to create a customizable RSS feed based off of personal encrypted tokens that pulls only the thread that person wants from those boards. So, there you have it! JLAMP!

The main difference between the two is this...

• Java
  
• Dependable and proven
• Compiled (so it runs faster than PHP which is interpereted for server side programming)
• More extensive and versitile libraries
• Better programming environments
• Multi-threaded to better handle heavy loads
• Better pay in the market place so keep those skills up!

• PHP
• The latest Fad in server side technology (ah, I can here the flaming now, but you can't deny the truth)
• More community support
• Slightly easier language to learn
• Easier environment to setup and install to
• More pre-written solutions that you can plug in less than an hour

The main thing is to get the job done quickly, done well, and be easily maintainable. That might just mean mixing technologies. I am a huge fan of Java (except for applets, whoever uses applets should be shot) but only an idiot would not use all the tools at hand.

Somebody should break this news to Hani.

(It's not going to be me.)

Oh yes... Something good can come of it...

Feeling now empowered with a sense of ownership, code gurus everywhere (but mostly at fortune 500 companies) will actually improve the code, make java smaller, faster, and more easily deployable. Then they will really recommend it instead of pointing to http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html, and the adoption rate will increase even more.

Then, of course, the Sun version will become obsolete (too slow, too buggy, etc) and everybody will use GNUJava and the world will be a Much Happier Place.

Of course, at that point, a plethora of existing software will start getting into the language. Java will support XML-RPC, REST, and SOAP out-of-the-box. It will support a whole bunch of things that now Sun won't put in.

But best of all, the bugs will be cleaned out. Slava Pestov, the lead developer on jEdit (http://www.jedit.org/, which I use daily as my primary editor), will be able to write applications without feeling like this: http://www.jroller.com/page/slava?entry=java_1_5_w indow_focus.

You don't have to take my word for it. Just find out what real java programmers are saying. Also, take a look at http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/beyondjava/.

Sun is not currently able to maintain the level of language development to compete against python, ruby, smalltalk and a veritable army of smaller, nimbler tools. Java is fast becoming the COBOL of the internet age: yes, lots of companies use it for mission critical stuff, but newer technologies have gobbled up the geeks. It's only a matter of time before it's obsolete. See http://paulgraham.com/pypar.html.

I am not against Java. I am against Java staying the way it is today. I want java to grow. The hacker community at large will do a better job than Sun Microsystems. Period. Besides, Sun is going down. Larger companies have completely disappeared. I just went to their web site, priced a workstation, and priced an equivalent workstation at hp.com for $1K less. You tell me. They will probably remain at about 1/3 of their size today as a provider of high-end hardware. Like Cray.

http://www.jroller.com/page/matsh?entry=java_histo ry_was_made_today

Now Java is a total winner today on OSTG. Check this day

It's used by JRoller, the most popular Java Blogging site on the net.

And I think all of it's users agree that it's not that great. It's one of the weaker Blog products on the market, unfortunately (spoken as user myself). There are some pretty astonishingly bad bugs in it's handling of spam and comment authentication, eg.

There is an attempt at a jargon-free explanation here.

This blog post has a nice graph showing the "eBay buys Skype" buzz spike.

Maven has serious issues as eloquently explained by Hani. Be sure to check out his newest article on mergere, the company that attempts to support maven.

Maven has serious issues as eloquently explained by Hani. Be sure to check out his newest article on mergere, the company that attempts to support maven.

Yeah, neither does this guy:

http://www.jroller.com/page/fate/

I was beginning to doubt that Harmony would ever get out of the starting gate, but with IBM cracking the whip, maybe they have a chance.

There has been some backlash over the way the Harmony project is being managed, some of it kinder than others.

Personally, I agree with Charles Miller - start the project with some working code. down the road, you may have to refactor, but that's a part of software development.

My advice to everyone who wants dynamic websites is to use PostgreSQL for the database, it supports more of the SQL standard. But don't use JSP, use Ruby and Rails.

There are many reasons why I would give this advice:

• Java is not Free as in Freedom. This might not matter to some, but it does matter to me.
• Web applications in Java require complex application servers like Tomcat or JBoss to run.
• There are half a billion different web, database, and other "frameworks" out there for Java, and they nearly all incompatible with each other. You'll spend a week figuring out how to publish a SOAP call using JAX-RPC, for example. Spring, Hibernate, EJB, Tapestry, Torque, Struts... so many crappy ways to do the same thing!
• Java forces you to love duplicating things you've expressed in code in myriad XML configuration files.
• Jerks like this.

I always think of Java as more of a distraction for CS students and developers who like to secure their jobs behind layers of complexity and expensive purchases of commercial software ("we paid thousands for this, now we have to use it!"). This probably accounts for the success of Java in the corporate world.

Huge, enterprise applications can be written in any language; hell, Yahoo! runs on PHP for god's sake, as does Lufthansa's ticketing system. Languages are languages. What makes a "real" one in your eyes? The only thing you should be concerned about is code quality. Whether a language is interpreted or byte-compiled really means nothing.

Someone did in a way.