Developer Viewpoint

AJAX World - Adobe Flex 4 Is Shaping Up

Thu, 29 May 2008 11:15:00 EDT

Adobe has published their first plan of what should be included in Flex 4 that is scheduled to release next year. Since Flex is an open source product, you have a say in this too. Obviously, there's a hope that upcoming Thermo release will bring together developers and designers. I'm cautiously optimistic here. It's great that a designer's tool will automatically generate MXML. A developer will pick it up and re-factor. But will the tool be smart enough to reverse-engineer the re-factored code and present it back in a visual form to the designer for further work? That is a million dollars question.

A Runtime Integration Approach to Application Development

Fri, 23 May 2008 14:30:00 EDT

This pattern is a hybrid of plug-in and event-driven architecture to integrate individual plug-ins together to come up with the Plug-in Integrator Pattern. This pattern leverages the benefits of both these well-known architectures to provide an optimal solution to build an enterprise-ready rapid application development infrastructure, preferably in Flex, but it might also be implemented in other programming languages such as Java and C#.

Early Notes on GoogleApps

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:15:00 EDT

Now, what Google announced is really exciting! I'm not kidding. It's even better than I hoped. Yes, it's only Python, but IBM's PC-DOS was only BASIC and Pascal when it first came out, and it didn't matter. Yeah, I preferred C, but I coded in Pascal because that's what you had to do to get an app running. What you're going to see here that you've never seen before is shrinkwrap net apps that scale that can be deployed by civillians. That's a mouthful, but that's what's coming. Why? Because here is a standardized platform that can be stamped out in the billions of units. Maybe Google can't do it, but the perception is that they can. Who is willing to stand up and say Google hasn't nailed scaling? What PCs did in the 80s, Google is doing now. PCs took the black magic out of owning a computer.

AJAXWorld and Bear Stearns

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 09:00:00 EDT

This was the first time I've included into the list of the RIA players a little known product called Curl. Even though this language was created in MIT, it's mainly used in Japan. I had a chance to spend an hour with Curl folks today, and it seems that this language may be a good fit for RIA that require solid processing power on the client. I need to spend more time studying this language to form an opinion about this language Curl.

Viewpoint: Is "RIA" a Ploy to Keep Merriam-Webster in Business?

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 03:00:00 EST

Marketing gurus create new terminology like 'RIA' and 'Web 2.0' in order to force people to engage in new conversations without them dragging along their baggage of ingrained prejudices about what something is or is not. They also do it - I am convinced - to make themselves seem smart. But we should not have to keep inventing new words in order to have these new conversations.

JavaFX Is A Too Late Response from Sun for Rich Internet Applications

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:45:00 EST

JavaFX is a little-too-late response from Sun to the rapidly growing community of the languages, tools and techniques for development of the Rich Internet Applications. Fine, let's give JavaFX some time, it's still too young. But what can you expect from a scripting language built on top of Swing libraries? This is already outdated...even before its own release. I hope to see some real competitive sample applications showing the power of JavaFX rather than declarations that it's a Flash or Silverlight killer. This is not even funny.

Un Momento, Por Favor

Sat, 21 Oct 2006 19:15:00 EDT

Your footsteps echo down the unmarked path. Gravel shuffles everywhere as you slow and strafe around the corner of a generic concrete bunker. You reach for the double- barreled shotgun but it's too late. A loud bang rips through the air but it's the soft thud as you hit the ground that confirms your worst fear, you're dead...again. A quick click of the mouse and poof...like magic you're all the way back to your last reached checkpoint.

My Website + Google = My Online Identity

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 12:45:00 EDT

I just got an e-mail from a recruiter of sorts. They want me to do phone Flex/Flash consultation for a 20-40 minute paid phone call. Apparently, Ether (www.ether.com) could make money if they employed some sales teams. It seems all of California is reaching out worldwide, looking for people to come to live and work there. The reason? To be tech lead in their startup and manage contractors and outsourced individuals to make bling and fame in Web Deux Point OMG. If my hunch on what this call is about is correct, this'll be the third startup this month looking for Flexcoder meat.