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Friday, March 28, 2008 - Posts
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Quick note before I head off to the conference center to do the Scala talk: Darryl Taft covers the "Why the Next Five Years..." keynote from TSSJS . Thanks, Darryl. Update: Just noticed that Darryl also covered Brian's and my "SOAP and REST" talk , as well. Enterprise consulting, mentoring or instruction. Java, C++, .NET or XML services. 1-day or multi-day workshops available. Contact me for details . Read More...
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I hate Las Vegas. I'm here for TheServerSide Java Symposium 2008, which has been held here in Vegas for the past (umm... three? four? five?) years, and every time I come here I'm reminded why I really don't like Vegas. It's loud, both in auditory volume and visual noise, it's boisterous bordering on raunchy, the locals are almost always soured by their near-constant exposure to tourists, the tourists are... well, they're American tourists and that says a lot right there, and there's no way to escape it. Ugh. Fortunately for me, the hotels have conveniently painted a nice blue sky on the roof (in the Venetian, where the conference is held) so I don't have to go outside to see if it's sunny, they provided a nice winding river of bright neon blue water/Windex to have our leisurely cafe lunch next to, and no fake recreation of Venice would be complete without fake gondolas poled by fake gondoleers singing to tourists on the fake Windex river that's all of about two minutes in ride length before they have to do a U-turn and pole back the other way. Wow, it's all so magical. About the only thing that makes Vegas palatable is some of the shows you can catch here, like one of Cirque du Soleil's six (!) different presentations going on here. But, of course, you must be careful when you buy tickets, or the guy at the concierge desk will start finding tickets for you, only to discover later that he thought you said "Tah", meaning "Tom Jones", when you said , "Ka", the Cirque du Soleil show, because my California accent is too thick to be understood. I hate Las Vegas. The upshot is that when I'm here for this show, I get to hang out with some cool people, NFJS speaker alum and otherwise. Brian Sletten and I did a tag-team talk on SOAP and REST that was billed to be controversial but probably disappointed the crowd in that we didn't (a) throw any punches at one another, (b) didn't really proclaim a "victor" between the two, and (c) laid down some basic rules for when to look to a RESTful approach and when to take advantage of the existing SOAP-based infrastructure that is currently SOAP's greatest strength. Note to those who didn't attend the session: you didn't hear me say it, so I'll repeat it: I hate WSDL almost as much as I hate Las Vegas. Ask me why sometime, or if I get enough of a critical mass of questions, I'll blog it. If you've seen me do talks on Web Services, though, you've probably heard the rant: WSDL creates tightly-coupled endpoints precisely where loose Read More...
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Apparently, I'm drawing enough of an audience through this blog that various folks have started to send me press releases and notifications and requests for... well, I dunno exactly, but I'm assuming some blogging love of some kind. I'm always a little leery about that particular subject, because it always has this dangerous potential to turn the blog into a less-credible marketing device, but people at conferences have suggested that they really are interested in what I think about various products and tools, so perhaps it's time to amend my stance on this. With that in mind, if you are a vendor and have a product that you'd like me to take a look at and (possibly) offer up a review here, here's the basic rules: No guarantees. Sending me something will in no way guarantee that I will review your product, for several reasons, two of which being (a) I get really busy sometimes, and (b) I may have no interest whatsoever in your product and I refuse to pretend to do so. (Readers can usually tell when the reviewer isn't all that excited about the subject, I've found.) If you're not going to send me a "real" version (meaning not the time-locked or feature-crippled demo), don't bother. I have no idea when I will get around to a review, and I have no desire to review something that isn't "the real deal". I will in turn promise that the licensed version you send me (if necessary) will not be used for any purpose other than my own research and exploration (signing contract if necessary to give you that "fresh-from-the-lawyer's-office" warm and fuzzy feeling). I say what I think, pro and con. I will not edit my review to suit your marketing purpose, and if you ask me to do so I will simply note in the review that you have asked me to do so. I retain full editorial control over what I say about your product. Having established #1, I will try to be as fair as I can about your product, and point out things that I liked and things that I didn't. (Of course, if I hated it from top to bottom, I may end up with the only positive thing being "It didn't set the atmosphere on fire when I started the app", but hey, that's something positive, right?) Also in the spirit of #1, if you send me mail answering questions or complaints in my review, I will of course amend the review with your comments. You are always welcome to post comments to the blog entry itself, too. Unless you insult my grandmother, then I will have to get all DELETE-key on you. The reason I'm posting this here is Read More...
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For those who were skimming my blog looking for the notification that the Lang.NET 2008 Symposium videos were back online, look no further . Enterprise consulting, mentoring or instruction. Java, C++, .NET or XML services. 1-day or multi-day workshops available. Contact me for details . Read More...
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