There is a devilishly difficult pattern question in java architecture which is emerging as new deviceology throws us to the wolves of mobile devices and cloud beastments which is the ubiquitous need for json-able ORMs and AJAX feeders for data. After three years pondering a hand hacked and painful repository pattern using hand squaged DAOs floating over Linq For Buggy Entities 3.5 and Linq for almost fixed Entities 4.0 that can now finally expose a property used in a link rather than force you to use a table trigger - I finally came to explore the tough patterns back in the java world which had gotten somewhat better but not completely.
So the first devil sausage says use the beatiful new JPA plugin which does visualization in Eclipse Juno to blast out your db tables and your entity beans then just slam some JSF and some pretty facets and UI wonders into the front end and blammo beaty and beauty for not much cost and time. To put darning on the socks EclipseLink will now also blast out all the JSON you need over rest for your AJAX calls.
But what if you chose the pure route - ditch the JSF and go straight HTML with Javascript and a boofy subslather like Knockout or Angular. Is this heresy to the java world? Moreover will you lose all the pretties that you get with something like PrimeFAces and other nice beasts?
It's a tough one. More and more JSF client workups seem dated and old. But on the other side if you've GOT the power of JSF why not use it. tough tough.
Things are changing as cloud and mobile demand robust ajax servers and tooling to spin json at a mile a minute. the question is can the developers keep up. You would think that after 100 years of this someone would set up a model centric framework that just blasts out all the rest for you. No not Roo. And not stuff that starts with clunky UML either.
In a way I kinda like the new graphical entity modeler in Eclipse. It's def the way to go. Now if they can just include the JAXB annotation properties and intelligent defaulting so you get BOTH XML, JSON and entities all keyed out right. Still it's miles ahead of Linq and .Net.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
New Book - Foundational Principles of Cognitive Cybernetics
I've been stumbling with this one. It's my first serious book. I want something that will change the world. It's no small task.
What is cognitive cybernetics? And what are foundational principles? It attacks what must be the basis for developing synthetic thought, real thinking intelligent machines.
I got so mad reading Kurzweils childish pathetic attempt to understand all this that I just had to throw my gauntlet down in the ring.
In the meantime, "Poems for College Curmudgeons" will be coming out soon. A more light hearted affair. But this book, this big book sometimes I crumple into a paper ball just thinking of the hugeness and difficulty. I worry it will be a decade to complete but somehow it needs doing now. Onward.
What is cognitive cybernetics? And what are foundational principles? It attacks what must be the basis for developing synthetic thought, real thinking intelligent machines.
I got so mad reading Kurzweils childish pathetic attempt to understand all this that I just had to throw my gauntlet down in the ring.
In the meantime, "Poems for College Curmudgeons" will be coming out soon. A more light hearted affair. But this book, this big book sometimes I crumple into a paper ball just thinking of the hugeness and difficulty. I worry it will be a decade to complete but somehow it needs doing now. Onward.
My first computer....
It's hard to get across to newbies how far we've come. My first computer only had six letters I like to tell people. It looked like this:
OK that's a 6502 mine was a 8008. You'd punch away at that keyboard for hours entering pre-written machine codes. You'd have to calculate the jump offset of your branch or if statements. Can you imagine? Well anyways your reward for two hours of typing in low level codes was a number that looked like your expected result, something like 2718 on your calculation of the e constant. But of course it would say it in hex so it would say A9E. Sometimes it said A8E and you'd spend hours looking for a mistake. That's what computers were. Not video games. Not word processors. Not web browsers. A9E. Think about it.
Often when it said A8E you'd have to get out a soldering iron. Because the boards were early designs to support the processors and get them out for testing, but since so much was in design the boards would have jump wires where they needed a new connection. A lot would come lose or disconnect slightly. Then you'd get a program which said A9E sometimes and A8E sometimes. In the words of Tron you'd "bring out the logic probe" and track it down. Sometimes these connections gave way when it was hotter or more humid. Things we never worry about today. Can you imagine software that worked but not on rainy days? Yep that's the way it was.
We programmed a "star wars" game for our HP41CVs, a RPN programmabe uber calculator the size of a brick.
An MIT student stole mine and I was so pissed about that.
From RSKEY.org - "A stunning calculator even by today's standards, more than 20 years after its introduction, the HP-41C remains one of the best handheld calculating devices ever conceived. The HP-41C line remained in production for over 10 years, practically defining the high-end calculator industry throughout the 1980s. Numerous machines remain in use today, no doubt due in part to versatility offered by the calculator's four expansion ports. The HP-41C has been used in the most exotic places, including the Space Shuttle or the cockpit of the Concorde."
Why was it called the CV? Well because of course it had FIVE TIMES the memory of the 441 byte HP41C. TWO THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED and THIRTY THREE bytes. I mean, can you imagine the luxury of having a thousand bytes to spare? I constantly tell my programmers that I don't want to hear them whine that a 2k memory leak isn't a big deal, that leak was bigger than my whole development platform on the HP 41!
Here is what our first video game looked like: (each line of characters was displayed one at a time, one line per second. The sequence below would take six seconds:
> <
> <
> <
> <
> * <
Now what this was meant to simulate was luke firing his torpedo into the death star. You'd guess the left right position of the tube and enter a number. If you got it right you'd see:
XXXXXXXXXXX
that was a video game from the early eighties geek style. In order to see this game you'd need to load your code up with a strip reader, ten strips about four inches wide and half an inch tall. Having the extra magnetic card reader meant you were cool at a level that granted you immediate VAX access. We were geeks but the word hadn't been invented yet.
A rebuilt HP41cx with a card reader costs over 500 bucks today. That's how much people loved them. Can you imagine writing your senior thesis on a calculator with one line of text at a time?
''The HP-41CX was the same as the HP-41CV but added the Time module (stop watch plus clock with alarms), an Extended Functions / Extended Memory module, a text editor, and some additional functions."
Later the HP 71B came out. While the 41 only had 4k ram cartridges, whopping endlessly huge 32k RAM cartridges could be had for the 71. At the time it seemed like madness, who could possibly write a program that required 32,000 characters?
Later the ill-fated HP 42 would come out with TWO lines of text. TWO! Such luxury after starting with just four letters just a few years prior. This was amazing stuff. Where would it all end we wondered, where would it all end. My best friend fish told me that soon there would be portable calculators with eight lines of text but I told him that wasn't likely. I mean really four lines were more than enough for anyone.
OK that's a 6502 mine was a 8008. You'd punch away at that keyboard for hours entering pre-written machine codes. You'd have to calculate the jump offset of your branch or if statements. Can you imagine? Well anyways your reward for two hours of typing in low level codes was a number that looked like your expected result, something like 2718 on your calculation of the e constant. But of course it would say it in hex so it would say A9E. Sometimes it said A8E and you'd spend hours looking for a mistake. That's what computers were. Not video games. Not word processors. Not web browsers. A9E. Think about it.
Often when it said A8E you'd have to get out a soldering iron. Because the boards were early designs to support the processors and get them out for testing, but since so much was in design the boards would have jump wires where they needed a new connection. A lot would come lose or disconnect slightly. Then you'd get a program which said A9E sometimes and A8E sometimes. In the words of Tron you'd "bring out the logic probe" and track it down. Sometimes these connections gave way when it was hotter or more humid. Things we never worry about today. Can you imagine software that worked but not on rainy days? Yep that's the way it was.
We programmed a "star wars" game for our HP41CVs, a RPN programmabe uber calculator the size of a brick.
An MIT student stole mine and I was so pissed about that.
From RSKEY.org - "A stunning calculator even by today's standards, more than 20 years after its introduction, the HP-41C remains one of the best handheld calculating devices ever conceived. The HP-41C line remained in production for over 10 years, practically defining the high-end calculator industry throughout the 1980s. Numerous machines remain in use today, no doubt due in part to versatility offered by the calculator's four expansion ports. The HP-41C has been used in the most exotic places, including the Space Shuttle or the cockpit of the Concorde."
Why was it called the CV? Well because of course it had FIVE TIMES the memory of the 441 byte HP41C. TWO THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED and THIRTY THREE bytes. I mean, can you imagine the luxury of having a thousand bytes to spare? I constantly tell my programmers that I don't want to hear them whine that a 2k memory leak isn't a big deal, that leak was bigger than my whole development platform on the HP 41!
Here is what our first video game looked like: (each line of characters was displayed one at a time, one line per second. The sequence below would take six seconds:
> <
> <
> <
> <
> * <
Now what this was meant to simulate was luke firing his torpedo into the death star. You'd guess the left right position of the tube and enter a number. If you got it right you'd see:
XXXXXXXXXXX
that was a video game from the early eighties geek style. In order to see this game you'd need to load your code up with a strip reader, ten strips about four inches wide and half an inch tall. Having the extra magnetic card reader meant you were cool at a level that granted you immediate VAX access. We were geeks but the word hadn't been invented yet.
A rebuilt HP41cx with a card reader costs over 500 bucks today. That's how much people loved them. Can you imagine writing your senior thesis on a calculator with one line of text at a time?
''The HP-41CX was the same as the HP-41CV but added the Time module (stop watch plus clock with alarms), an Extended Functions / Extended Memory module, a text editor, and some additional functions."
Later the HP 71B came out. While the 41 only had 4k ram cartridges, whopping endlessly huge 32k RAM cartridges could be had for the 71. At the time it seemed like madness, who could possibly write a program that required 32,000 characters?
The Problem With Dell
I worked at Dell helping them launch a new factory. There are several problems with Dell. Things have come to a head with moves to take the company private, one wonders if to hide falling numbers and revenues.
Dell wants to be the small business one stop. It wants to make the IBM model work. But I'm not so sure IBM makes the IBM model work. And that's on the high end fat profit side.
Dell is moving aggressively into the cloud yet it's offerings aren't so memorable.
Dell is suffering from a lack of innovation in a huge way. I felt so bad for them I wrote Michael who I had met at my tenure there and requested a coffee meeting to discuss some ideas for the company. He declined. A really great new computer and new story that differentiates them would make a big splash.
Instead their old vp from India gutted most of their development team and is now busy doing the same for General Motors after gutting AMD. At Dell Hyderabad huge Eight foot tall pictures of Michael Dell tell the workers sayings about being productive and Dell like.
In the end innovation comes from people in free happy spaces, not death by cube land. For a while they can buy companies, but like trees transplanted, the will refuse to flower in the new soil. It's time for Micheal to wake up and get some real creative juices flowing because if not there's really no way to compete with the juggernaut coming from China and Asia. The margins on the PC business have gotten so small for Dell because there is no value add. Moving into new markets may not be the answer because you can't have a staid company innovate and compete at the level that marks the best and brightest of silicon valley.
Dell wants to be the small business one stop. It wants to make the IBM model work. But I'm not so sure IBM makes the IBM model work. And that's on the high end fat profit side.
Dell is moving aggressively into the cloud yet it's offerings aren't so memorable.
Dell is suffering from a lack of innovation in a huge way. I felt so bad for them I wrote Michael who I had met at my tenure there and requested a coffee meeting to discuss some ideas for the company. He declined. A really great new computer and new story that differentiates them would make a big splash.
Instead their old vp from India gutted most of their development team and is now busy doing the same for General Motors after gutting AMD. At Dell Hyderabad huge Eight foot tall pictures of Michael Dell tell the workers sayings about being productive and Dell like.
In the end innovation comes from people in free happy spaces, not death by cube land. For a while they can buy companies, but like trees transplanted, the will refuse to flower in the new soil. It's time for Micheal to wake up and get some real creative juices flowing because if not there's really no way to compete with the juggernaut coming from China and Asia. The margins on the PC business have gotten so small for Dell because there is no value add. Moving into new markets may not be the answer because you can't have a staid company innovate and compete at the level that marks the best and brightest of silicon valley.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Are They Executives?
OK I've been a Vice president, a CEO, a CTO and similar ilk for countless companies for over a decade. I could refer to myself as "A Software Executive" but other than my resume I don't. My current title on linkedin is "freefloating curmudgeon". But more and more I see people who work in sales calling themselves executives. I think one of the bachelors on that tv show did this.
I'm sorry but "Ad Executive" does not mean "Executive" that's a misreading of the term which is more along the case of to execute not C-Level person in a company but they misuse it all the same.
Or time and time again I see people who were directors call themselves "executives" and I'm like HUH? No sorry, a director traditionally is NOT an executive.
Then there's the senior consultant at a big company who describes their title as " Senior Consultant (VP)". Uhm no! NO! you aren't a VP because if you WERE a VP your title would be "Vice President of Senior Consulting".
This weird title inflation has to stop. What also has to stop is schmucks at Amazon belittle-ING people who ARE and WERE executives as somehow being nowhere people for a director role. Give me a break. People, get YOUR TITLES RIGHT! Someone who has been a VP and CEO and CTO for ten companies... THAT PERSON IS AN EXECUTIVE AND IS MORE THAN QUALIFIED FOR A DIRECTOR ROLE! GOT IT!
If this keeps up I'll just become an Ad Executive and sell cheesy poofs all day and act all high and mighty. Hey, at least I'll still be an executive. And make more money it seems in our broken collapsed society.
I'm sorry but "Ad Executive" does not mean "Executive" that's a misreading of the term which is more along the case of to execute not C-Level person in a company but they misuse it all the same.
Or time and time again I see people who were directors call themselves "executives" and I'm like HUH? No sorry, a director traditionally is NOT an executive.
Then there's the senior consultant at a big company who describes their title as " Senior Consultant (VP)". Uhm no! NO! you aren't a VP because if you WERE a VP your title would be "Vice President of Senior Consulting".
This weird title inflation has to stop. What also has to stop is schmucks at Amazon belittle-ING people who ARE and WERE executives as somehow being nowhere people for a director role. Give me a break. People, get YOUR TITLES RIGHT! Someone who has been a VP and CEO and CTO for ten companies... THAT PERSON IS AN EXECUTIVE AND IS MORE THAN QUALIFIED FOR A DIRECTOR ROLE! GOT IT!
If this keeps up I'll just become an Ad Executive and sell cheesy poofs all day and act all high and mighty. Hey, at least I'll still be an executive. And make more money it seems in our broken collapsed society.
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