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February 2007
February 26, 2007
Sun turns 25
Saturday Sun turned 25 years old. What's the best way to celebrate the event, you are wondering. Sophomoric pranks, perhaps?
Showing appropriate respect for the now-elderly corporation is undoubtedly in order. When Microsoft turned 25, here are some of the impressions with which one veteran observer commemorated the occasion:
Microsoft's PC-era heyday... is over. Microsoft hasn't made good on some of its plans.... ...failure to deliver... has thrown its contracts... into jeopardy. ...the perception that the company is just not as cutting edge as it used to be. Microsoft has lost a lot of its luster.... All the good people are gone.... The exciting stuff is all happening elsewhere.
(Mary Foley, ZDNet News, August 31, 2000)
So maybe Steve Jobs was just wishing Sun a happy birthday when he called Java "a big heavyweight ball and chain that no one is using anymore."
Posted by Mike Swaine at 11:43 AM Permalink
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February 20, 2007
It's about time
Monday morning comes on Tuesday this week. That's logical Monday; actual Monday was President's Day in the United States, an official holiday on which companies honor Presidents Abraham Lincoln and George Washington by freeing all the (wage) slaves for a day and by being temporarily unable to tell a lie (the marketing department gets the day off, too).
For Java developers in the United States, a possibly more significant date is March 11. That's when Daylight Savings Time starts. The significance of this is that the date is inconsistent with rules prior to 2005, and since the JRE stores such rules, apps running on older JREs are likely to report incorrect times starting on March 11.
But the changes are more complicated than that. Apple has had to issue several updates to address DST formula and time zone changes throughout the world.
Posted by Mike Swaine at 01:38 PM Permalink
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February 11, 2007
Sex for Software
It's called forking. It's how programs reproduce and evolve. Look for this to be a very sexy year for Java.
At least that's the view of Elliotte Rusty Harold, who, surveying the coming year in the light of the open-sourcing of Java, cheerily advises us to look for "forks at all levels."
Is the prospect of Java forking just a natural process in the evolution of the language, or is it a cause for alarm? Perhaps there is nothing to worry about. Perhaps it's okay to be afraid. And perhaps even the experts are confused.
I suppose the only safe prediction is, interesting times ahead. Me, I say let the Borgesian adventure begin.
Posted by Mike Swaine at 12:20 PM Permalink
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February 04, 2007
The world, the moon, and the stars
Busy week for Sun, what with Q2 results and that intriguing announcement about partnering with Intel and the other announcement about KKR putting money into Sun.
Jonathan Schwartz parses it all for us at his blog. Executive summary:
1. Freaking over the moon
2. The world just changed
3. One notch above stellar
and no, the KKR investment does not signal a buy-out.
Well that settles it then. KKR is making a small investment and there is no buy-out in the offing.
No matter what KKR says on its corporate Website:
[W]e have maintained a singular focus on the core of our franchise: investing substantial capital to acquire a controlling stake in an industry-leading business....
Posted by Mike Swaine at 04:19 PM Permalink
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