The Architect of C#

Anders Hejlsberg, the architect of C#, granted a rare interview (part 1), (part 2), that was posted at OnDotNet. C# is now roughly 5-years old and is the foundation for the Microsoft .NET framework. Hejlsberg makes some interesting points about the future of C#, Java and programming.

The significance of Anders Hejlsberg is that he is also the architect of Borland Delphi. He was instrumental in getting that project implemented while working for Borland. Given these credentials, C# as a language is well thought out for a complex framework. C# looks a lot like Java based on what I've seen.

I have to contemplate the evolution of languages where more complexity vs. simplicity seems to be the front-lines today. The advent of Ruby on Rails and AJAX will have a large impact on future directions of languages. The 'dynamic' languages appear to fit the need for faster, agile, and cleaner development.

Apache MyFaces 1.1.1

Java Server Faces (JSF) has been at its 1.0 state since 2004. I am surprised that the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has made extremely quick progress with its MyFaces project. They just released MyFaces 1.1.1 yesterday, 10/27/2005.

I checked out JSF last year when Java Studio Creator (JSC) first came out and due to other reasons did not have the time to really do a lot of research with it. For some reason, today I was looking around the web and decided to do some reading about MyFaces. Well, I went to the "Getting Started" page and spent about an hour reading these documents. MyFaces 1.1.1 is quite impressive.

I think I am going to have to get into MyFaces technology in 2006 since it embraces the open source theory. Sun's JSF is great however, when they released Java Studio Creator (JSC), it was somewhat crippled and not quite as open as I would have liked. It did not have as much database connectivity to make it practical. Additionally, Sun started charging $99 to continue using JSC. At least that was the last I recall. I have not really used it much this year. I just sort of lost interest. I am sure it is evolving further.

Here are some reviews of JSC 2004Q2 release, "First Look: Sun Java Studio Creator (Early Access)", "Sun Java Studio Creator Early Access Release".

Now back to MyFaces. Is there an Eclipse plug-in for MyFaces? I haven't seen one yet. I am sure this is under heavy research in the open source community. Now that would be nice since I do most of my Java development within Eclipse. If someone builds a very nice integrated Eclipse plug-in for MyFaces, then I am quite sure it will take off as an MVC framework within the Java community. Struts is nice, however, it is not component-based development which JSF and MyFaces has been built to solve. I am still looking for the Delphi of web development.

In the summer of 2004, I predicted that JSF would be much farther ahead than it is today in Oct2005. I was definitely wrong on that one. What I did not anticipate was an ASF project, MyFaces, making as much progress as it has in such a short period of time.

Open source Java/XML content management systems

I have been researching open source Java Content Management Systems (CMS) for quite a while and this week just started dabbling with Apache Lenya which is based on Apache Cocoon. Initially I was primarily interested in Lenya which is a 100% Java software. The more I learned about the underlying Cocoon technology I was just blown away. Apache Cocoon is a web development framework built around the concepts of separation of concerns and component-based web development. It sort of acts like "web glue" based on XML, XSL, and XSLT. Cocoon concepts are not for the faint at heart as the Lenya developers mention in their documentation.

Lenya has some nice built-in WYSIWIG editors. The best ones that Lenya uses are Kupu, and BitFlux Editor (BXE). There are a few more editors built-in for editing raw HTML and forms.

Some other open source CMS software I was looking at was OpenCMS which is database driven designed for MySQL or Oracle. This one is another 100% Java software looks quite impressive. I have yet to evaluate OpenCMS. The documentation is decent. It is backed by a private company, Alkacon Software. There are some licensing concerns with OpenCMS.

Lenya is currently at version 1.2.4 and version 1.4 is under heavy development according to their website. There are still some rough edges in Lenya which are being addressed. Using Lenya 1.2.4 today requires that you are comfortable with XML and understand some of the Cocoon concepts.

I plan to continue evaluating and researching Apache Lenya and Cocoon. As all the other Apache Software Foundation projects have evolved, I have faith the ASF will get it right and make Lenya/Cocoon quite an impressive product in version 1.4 and beyond.

OpenOffice 2.0 is released!

If you are not already a user of OpenOffice.org you should be. I have been using this open source software since the 1990s when it was owned by a German company, StarOffice, and developed for OS/2. Yeah, I was a serious OS/2 user in the 1990s also. OpenOffice.org 1.1 was the version that solved most of the compatibility problems with Microsoft Office file formats for me. I have been using OpenOffice 1.1 interchangeably with MS Office files with relatively few issues.

OpenOffice 2.0 now adds a desktop SQL database, HSQLDB, and which is a 100% Java database engine. I have used HSQLDB in Java projects and it is pretty decent. I have not tried OpenOffice 2.0 while it was in beta. Now that the official release it out, I intend to upgrade and start working with the new and improved software.

From what I understand, OASIS OpenDocument is now the XML file format that is used by OpenOffice. This is a move to an open format so that file format lock-in (i.e. MS-Office) does not continue to plague the computer world in the future.

Technologies To Watch, Beyond Java

This year has been full of change and new technologies in the Java universe. Here's a good article by Bruce Tate, "Technologies to Watch: A Look at Four That May Challenge Java’s Development Dominance", that mentions Ruby quite a bit. I've expressed my interest in Ruby in this weblog and it appears that many others within the Java community have similar viewpoints. Within the last few years I thought .NET would be taking off however, with the advent of Ruby on Rails and how 'clean and intuitive' it is as an object-oriented programming language, it looks like the currents may be changing in the next few years. I plan to get into Ruby this winter and most definitely in 2006.

Ruby plug-in for Eclipse, RDT

Looks like IBM is researching Ruby and Eclipse. At IBM developerWorks, I found this article (published 10/11/2005) about the Ruby Development Tools (RDT) plug-in for Eclipse, "Using the Ruby Development Tools plug-in for Eclipse". Looks like they are making a lot of progress with the RDT plug-in. The target audience for RDT is Java developers who are interested in what Ruby has to offer.

Open Source Databases, Sun and PostgreSQL

These past few years I've been doing quite a bit of research with open source technologies. In the database arena, I've looked at MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird, HSQLDB, MaxDB, Cloudscape and a few others. After having researched, experimented, tested, reviewed licensing terms and implement proof of concept projects using various databases I have a decent viewpoint about which ones will work in our environment.

Sun's announcements ("Sun Eyes PostgreSQL", "Sun's software chief eyes databases") concerning the costs of Oracle, SQL Server, etc... discusses that they are looking at open source database PostgreSQL because of its performance, features and its BSD license. MySQL with its dual-license has a few cost issues as an open source database for use in a in-house or customer proprietary applications. If your project funds allow it, then MySQL is an excellent choice. If you have a constrained financial IT budget, then MySQL may not be the right open source database choice due to licensing costs.

As a side note, while talking to my doctor earlier this year I was asked about open source databases. He said his medical group was researching new software solutions and asked me how MySQL compared to Microsoft SQL Server and why it was so much cheaper. In a nutshell, I explained to him that you have to pay for the 'brand name' when getting Microsoft and will probably have to cough up even more money paying someone to support it. He confirmed that with the MySQL solution, the support and everything from the solution provider was included. Without getting into details, he said the MySQL solution amounted to somthing like one tenth (1/10) the cost of the Microsoft solution which did not include any type of support. A large part of the costs for the Microsoft SQL Server solution was for licensing. Just recently, I found out that they decided to go with the MySQL solution. I hope that my opinion influenced his medical group's decision to go with the open source solution. This in the long-run I hope keeps my medical costs lower.

Local.google.com is latest AJAX stuff

I just read this post on Slashdot about how "Google Maps Graduates". You've got to see this for yourself. I just tried it at local.google.com and typed in 'pizza ' and it displays all locations in a Google map and addresses of all local Pizza shops within seconds. Pretty impressive stuff. This is one of those "no way it could be that fast of web application" that just blows you away the first time you see it with your own eyes.

Open Source Security Tools Going Closed Source

This buzz is all over the net, Nessus 3.0 to abandon GPL license and "Nessus security tool closes its source". CheckPoint is acquiring SourceFire (developer of Snort). Is this a trend ofr open source software or is it just the dizzying pace of acquisitions in the past few years. Anyway, read about it for yourself in these articles.

Asymmetrical warfare, Google vs. Microsoft

Google and Microsoft are in each other's sites competively today. Google's approach is asymmetrical while Microsoft style has always been defining a linear battlefield. Here's a decent article, "Tech Giants Square Off", referring to these tech giants eventually competing head to head. In the coming years we'll see this unfold as the PC vs. the Web where Microsoft represents the PC and Google represents the Web. I put my vote in for Google. Time will tell.

Ruby on Rails and future Web 2.0 development

While researching emerging web development technologies this past few years, Ruby on Rails, is one of those technologies that just rose to the top. From what I've read, it's proponents say it delivers on a RAD for the web. Where PHP/Perl/Phython represent 'quick and dirty', Java represents 'slow and clean', Ruby on Rails is touted as the 'quick and clean' method of web development. I haven't had the time to devote to Ruby yet, however, I plan to get involved in this emerging technology within the next year.

Ruby was inspired by Eiffel and Ada and designed as a simplified object-oriented scripting language. The creator of Ruby is Yukihiro Matsumoto, a.k.a Matz matz@netlab.jp who developed the Ruby because everything else available was getting more and more complex. Matz has created a new object-oriented scripting language based on a Japanese 'pursuit of simplicity' cultural influence. In that sense, Ruby is sort of a Zen like technology.

Rails is a full-stack, open-source web framework in Ruby for writing real-world applications with joy and less code than most frameworks spend doing XML sit-ups. Rails was developed evangelized by David Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals. A Ruby on Rails example of their products is Backpack which is an extremely intuitive web applications based on Ruby on Rails.

For the Web 2.0, Ruby's philosophy of simplicity and Ruby on Rails matches the characteristics of future web software development, simpler, faster, richer and more robust.