5 years! And over 2,000 posts!

Anyway, I thought that this would be a good time to start--again. I've been slowly (given that Ning takes up 99% of my time -- and a fun 99% it is!) building up a new blog to reboot. For the moment it has a basic template and there won't be much stuff there. I've also decided to keep this blog in place for now. I may add 301s for the feeds soon, but I'm still thinking about the rest.

The new blog is at blog.diegodoval.com. Here is the link to the new Atom feed. Update your bookmarks!

And see you on the other side. :-)

Yup. Go read, and stop wondering what I'm talking about. :)

I've been using GAIM (ok, ok, Pidgin) at home on my PC but the last few days it decided to start crashing when connecting to Yahoo. Great. Back to Trillian, but, oh, wait, even though Trillian tickles me the fact that it looks like an app from 1992 drives me bananas. (Gaim ain't that great either). Is it so hard to spend a bit of time on look and feel? Icons? UI matters!

Anyway. So Russ had mentioned recently I should give jabberd a try, but hey, I'm a Java guy, so off I go and I get Openfire. Simple install: check. Embedded Jetty for built-in web configuration: check. Easy way to add IM gateway: err... slightly convoluted, but yeah. Check.

Now for Spark: still in beta, so expect some clunkiness, but the UI is surprisingly clean, and its Synth L&F implementation (at least that's what I think it's using) is also pretty good. Bonus: it doesn't crash.

An advantage of this setup is that I can connect from anywhere to my account on the Openfire server over a TLS channel (something that you can require) and all my IM connections are encrypted, at least to the server. This means I can use IM from open WiFi hotspots without (much) fear of snooping if it was necessary--something impossible if you're logging in directly to Yahoo, MSN, et. al.

Overall, pretty good! My half-hour of weekly free time is over now though :-), so I'll have to wait until next week to tinker with it more.

Because it's an emulator and not simply a hypervisor, you can run it anywhere in which a Java 5 or higher JVM can run.

Mindblowing.

ps: in the same vein, check out this Browser emulator which simulates the experience of older browsers within your... browser. Right.

That aside, JavaFX strikes me as applets 2.0, or rather Applets Done Right. Or, As Right As Possible, given the JVM requirement. While a lot of people probably worry about performance or UI, I don't (I have a long-standing position on this topic :)). However, I do worry about the Java webstart "requirement". JWS is a topic on which I've written before, and yes, that was a while ago, but JWS is still a bit clunky. And I am not entirely convinced that the way to create "Web 2.0" applications is to jump out of the web browser altogether. :)

Anyway, an interesting thing to watch as it develops.

Martin, Brian and myself will be at JavaOne tomorrow presenting Building a Web Platform: Java Technology at Ning. We'll talk about the evolution of the Ning Platform over the last two and a half years and how Java and some specific design choices let us continually grow and expand the platform, replacing and upgrading infrastructure, without affecting users or developers.

The session is TS-6039, in Esplanade 301, at 4:10 pm, so if you're around come say hello. I'll post the slides after and talk a bit more about that and other interesting things. :)

Two ints and a Float are in a bar. They spot an attractive Double on her own. The first int walks up to her. 'Hey, baby', he says, 'my VM or yours?'. She slaps him and he walks back dejected. The second int walks over. 'Hey, cute-stuff, can I cook your Beans for breakfast?'. After a quick slapping, he too walks back. The Float then ambles over casually. 'Were those two primitive types bothering you?', he remarks. 'Yes. I'm so glad you're here', she says. 'They just had no Class!'

Apropos (?):

Professor Farnsworth: "Let me show you around. That's my lab table and this is my work stool and over there is my intergalactic spaceship. And here is where i keep assorted lengths of wire."
Fry: "Wow, a real live space ship!"
Farnsworth: "I designed it myself. Let me show some of the different lengths of wire I used."

(Did I say Java? Wasn't Ning about PHP? Well, the apps are written in PHP. But there's a ton of Java in there --some really cool stuff-- even if it's not obvious... but that's a topic for another post).

And, hey, if you don't find what you want in there, but you think you want to work with us, send us an email anyway. :)

Many many times I want to quickly send a file to someone for them to look at, and I can never remember the names of the services that let you do this. But there's Ning! :)

So my 1-hour hack for tonight was to create filebox.ning.com, which allows you to upload files and then share the link with others, and it's deleted after a few days. Basically I cloned Brian's filedrop, modified some things in the code, made the uploads private, added messaging, and made it a little easier on the eye. The power of Ning at work. :)

"Java is done for! Ruby will take over! PHP will rule! Perl wins!" ... and so forth. I have seen discussions on this topic for the last few months, so many that I won't even bother linking to them. If you read news, or, work in the tech sector and are, well, alive in any way, you'll know what I'm talking about.

The extreme argument goes like this: Java is becoming irrelevant, soon to be replaced by scripting languages such as Ruby and PHP.

The more measured argument says that Java is no longer on "the leading edge" of languages and has ceded that position to Ruby and PHP and so forth.

The extreme language is of course ridiculous. Java is not going to be "replaced" by Ruby or PHP anymore that Java "replaced" C++ or C in the mid-90's. Will Ruby, PHP, etc, replace Java for lots of tasks, including rapid web app development, prototyping and such? Sure. Is that one language "replacing" another outright? I don't think so.

In my view, Java has evolved into its current position as the new "systems language". Other languages (yes: Ruby, PHP, etc) are taking precedence in the building of new lightweight web apps for various purposes. It's probably fair to say that the leading edge of development exists in these web 2.0-ish style of apps, which puts Java in the backseat a bit in that category.

In other areas, such as advanced IDEs for the language, Java wipes the floor with pretty much any language, which helps for many types of development.

But so what? Each language and tool has its place. Instead of useless pissing contests, we should be focusing on how to make these various languages and tools interoperate and complement each other better.

Update: Python! Damn, I forgot about Python. Blame the lack of sleep or something. The magic trio these days is definitely Python, Ruby, and PHP. Thanks Joe for the reminder! :) And while I'm updating, what is up with reporters comparing Java, or Ruby, PHP, Python, etc, to AJAX? I don't get that at all. Do they not understand that AJAX is a client-side scripting technique?

Acme coffee challenge update: 12 hours, 24 cups. Not bad.

Most X-Windows window manager don't do this (I can't remember if the OS X does it... it very well may in some cases) but Windows is definitely the worst at it. The only message acceptable when stealing focus is an information window for something really important, without buttons for confirmation (otherwise you may click "Ok" and never see it again).

Can you tell that I just triggered something bad in the middle of typing furiously?
</rant>
I feel much better now. Thank you. :)