Java becomes open source with GPL

This news has been rumoured for some time and turned real on 14 Nov 2006. Just a few months ago Sun's CEO Jonathan Schwartz was still criticizing the GPL. So what has changed his and other Sun's managers' mind?

Everyone agrees that Sun cannot turn Java software alone into profit. The ones who gain were and are users/developers like middle ware (application servers) BEA, JBOSS (now RedHat), and the Apache communities. The real value of Java is on the platform, associated infrastructure and enterprise penetration. No matter how people criticize the slowness of Java client, Java is still the first software platform (yes, I know .net is getting stream finally) to make complex software infrastructure with cleaner software syntax and structure / flow design - no pointer manipulation, no subtle logic error.

J2EE have seated well in enterprise. In spite of the steps .Net make, enterprise will still be reluctant to put their mission critical applications on Windows alone (especially when people are still reserved on Microsoft/Novell's deal and the future of Mono under such circumstances).

In order to respond to challenge from scripting languages (especially Perl, Python and Ruby), Sun has hired the project leaders of JRuby (a Ruby implementation in Java) starting from October 2006 so that Ruby scripts can incorporate with other Java libraries and JSP.


It seems that Sun have finally realized that it has to turn around its profit model to cope with declining sales of Solaris/Sparc servers.

Good bye Cobol code? Long live short file path!!!

Recently I have come across some finance applications written in - Cobol.

The vendors will not like to mention directly (why? it is not a shame to write applications in Cobol as long as it works and lives well with other applications and the host operating system!). However, through prompt-up runtime error and installation runtime libraries they reveal themselves.

The real problem is lazy program practice: modern Cobol compilers have allowed more flexible locations for file path. Unfortunately this is not the case for our programs. There are mysterious printing failures. After long time troubleshooting, it comes back to 'printer path too long'!!!

What is happening to their project manager?

New generation of HK IT staff -lack of mentors?

Recently there are opportunities to work with IT staff from Big B and SC bank.

Big B guys are nice but do things without any queries while in doubt and cause me some troubles and annoyance. They are recently lack of staff and sending all their 'Stretch-Wing' trainees to do lesser critical jobs. I have no complains for these SW but their seniors could have given them clearer guidelines.

SC bank people are more confident but in certain situations I have to let them know that they have some wrong diagnosis that I have observed and suggested alternative ways to troubleshoot again.

Both cases point to one common thing - a mentor with experience can make a great difference in front line job.

IE7 download on hold, Firefox 2 unfixed?

There has been reports of incompatibility of IE7 with a certain amount of commercial softwares in use like Hpyerion System 9. So it is better to leave it on hold.

Meanwhile there are also complains about potential un-fixed vulnerabilities in Mozilla Firefox 2.0, so you may want to stick with Firefox 1.5.0.8 for a while.