What’s Not Boring? · Cellphones aren’t boring (of all the J2*E’s, I like one with ‘M’ the best). Open Source isn’t boring. Dynamic languages aren’t boring. Web services and SOA aren’t boring, but we may have to destroy that village in order to save it. High-level support for CMT/TLP isn’t boring. Extreme Programming and Agile Development and Test-Driven Development aren’t boring. Ajax isn’t boring. Distributed applications based on RSS/Atom syndication aren’t boring. UBL isn’t boring. Health-care informatics reform isn’t boring. Unified multimodal communication (think voice, chat, email, syndication, video, and whatever comes next) isn’t boring. Distributed identity isn’t boring. The intellectual-property wars aren’t boring.
I was going to use that as a jumping off point for my own “What’s Not Boring” list but Tim covered most everything I’d put on there anyway, so why waste bytes? I did have to look up UBL and thereby discovered it’s the Universal Business Language, an XML standard for specifying business documents. When I left Oracle in 2000, we were working on stuff like that. I’d love to get a look at how much progress has been made both at Oracle and other places in using XML for data exchange and loosely-coupled architectures. Don’t know what CMT/TLP is; a quick search brought me to Country Music Television. I’m thinking that’s not what Tim thinks is not boring.
I completely agree that Java is boring. I like this comparison of C++, Java, Python, and Ruby from a self-proclaimed language agnostic journeyman programmer. The interpreted dynamically typed languages win in his comparison, at least from a standpoint of programmer productivity. At runtime, Java is much faster, obviously. Personally, I’d have a hard time going back to C++ after playing with Python.
And the tech blogger, Tim’s wife, Lauren Wood, also of Sun. Blogs at Anyway. Not only has she chaired the XML Conference from 2001 to 2005, she has a Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics. I bet she has some interesting things to say. [In case you notice this link, Lauren, I’m not stalking you. I’m helping put together BlogHer’s blogroll of women’s technology blogs.]
