Jason on AS6 M1

Want to learn more about the JBoss AS6 M1 release? See Jason's interview at DZone on the subject.

Wikipedia

It's always around this time of the year, usually before xMas, that I make a donation to Wikipedia, as an minimal token of gratitude for a fantastic service.

I'm truly amazed by the wealth of knowledge you can find there, from the origins of PacMan to ancient history to financial matters or other marvels of technology :-)

I could remember myself as a kid, thirsty for knowledge, browsing through my parents encyclopedia in a serial fashion. I must have done this dozens of times.

And now it's so easy to jump from subject to subject, focus in and out, get the big picture, delve into details, fill in the gaps in your understanding of complex issues, get explanations to matters that nobody could bother explain to you before. In many ways Wikipedia makes me feel like a kid again.

Then, you get to read many sides of the same story, which is particularly important when you have to deal with sensitive subjects like Politics and the fact that nations have more or less nurtured their people to a particular version of a story. This could come as a surprise to some and I truly encourage everyone to make his homework first before expressing strong opinions.

As long as Wikipedia stays unbiased and independent, it will remain an indispensable source of information and knowledge. I encourage everyone to help keep it alive!

/Dimitris

JBoss Clustering Technologies

On Wednesday I had the pleasure to present JBoss Clustering technologies (JBossAS/JGroups/Infinispan) to a good number of computer science students at the Technological Educational Institute of Athens, right after a presentation from Xenofon Papadopoulos on the subject of experiences from OLPC deployments.

The main points of my talk:

• The need for clustering and high availability
• What clustering means inside the application server
• The layered approach to implementing the clustering facilities
• JGroups as the base infrastructure for reliable multicasting
• Caches, Data Grids, Clouds and Infinispan
  

The advent of virtualization and cloud computing present an exciting field for clustering and data grid technologies. This should be particularly interesting to computer science students who can learn or help shape the future by using or contributing to popular opensource projects.

A big thanks to Prof. Ifigeneia Founta for hosting the talk.

/Dimitris

JBoss AS 6.0.0 M1 !!!

With the final approval of the spec and the imminent release of Java EE 6, it seems we are in for a fun ride and a new boost to the EE ecosystem. Check out a nice write-up in the following Red Hat announcement.

JBoss/Red Hat has gone a long way helping shape the future of the Java EE platform by leading and contributing to key JSRs (CDI, EJB 3.1, JPA 2, Bean Validation, Servlet 3, etc.), so it is exciting to see all this hard work coming to completion.

The JBoss Application server team couldn't possibly miss the party, so the first Milestone release of JBoss AS 6 has gone out today! This latest community release provides support for certain key technologies that are part of the Java EE 6 spec that you can try out right away, like CDI/Weld, BV and JSF2.

JBoss AS 6.0.0.M1 also provides hooks for a new Embedded prototype that will hopefully ease the testing of your applications, as well as support for mod_cluster, a great replacement for mod_jk for which you can read more in Brian's blog.

More milestones releases will follow, with each one adding more features and getting closer to implementing the EE6 spec. Follow Jason's blog to learn more about our release strategy.

Enough said! Check out the release notes, download JBoss AS 6.0.0.M1, try it out and tell us what you think.

Cheers
/Dimitris

Devoxx - 913

913 ευρώ ήταν τα έξοδα μου για ένα τριήμερο στην Αμβέρσα και αυτό τα περιλάμβανε όλα: αεροπορικά, ταξί/λεωφορεία, φαγητό, ξενοδοχείο, πρόσβαση στο διαδίκτυο και συμμετοχή στο Devoxx.

Μπορώ να γράψω πολλά για τις εντυπώσεις μου από το συνέδριο αλλά σε αυτό που θέλω να επικεντρωθώ είναι το χαρακτηριστικά μικρό ποσό που χρειάζεται κάποιος για να έχει την ευκαιρία να δει και να μιλήσει από κοντά με ομιλητές παγκόσμιας εμβέλειας, να καταλάβει που πάνε τα πράγματα, να μάθει από εμπειρίες άλλων, να συζητήσει για τεχνολογία, να ζήσει το όνειρο έστω και για λίγο.

Στα δύσκολα, σε καιρούς ύφεσης, κόβεις από τα περιττά για να επενδύσεις στα απαραίτητα. Δεν κοιτάς μόνο τα προβλήματά σου, σχεδιάζεις και επενδύεις στο μέλλον σου.

Το λυπηρό στην όλη κατάσταση ήταν ότι μεταξύ 2500 συνέδρων κατάφερα να συναντήσω δύο μόνο άλλους Έλληνες στο συνέδριο, συνήθεις ύποπτοι και οι δύο. Και πιστεύω ότι δεν πρέπει να υπήρχαν άλλοι, γιατί όταν υπάρχουν έρχονται και με βρίσκουν.

Συνολικά λοιπόν 3 άτομα βρέθηκαν να εκπροσωπήσουν την Ελλάδα, μία χώρα με εκατοντάδες Java Developers, επαγγελματίες, decision makers, μαθητές αλλά και πολλές εταιρείες, εκπαιδευτικά ιδρύματα, δημόσιο, κτλ. που δραστηριοποιούνται στον χώρο που αναπτύσουν σε Java ή που χρησιμοποιούν αυτές τις τεχνολογίες.

3 στους 2500, ή 0.12%. Αν υποθέσουμε ότι η Ελλάδα αποτελεί χοντρικά το 2.86% της Ευρωπαϊκής ένωσης (10m στα 350m) αυτό σημαίνει ότι η εκπροσώπησή μας στο συνέδριο ήταν λιγότερο από 1/20 από αυτό που θα έπρεπε να μας αναλογεί.

1/20 είναι το ψηφιακό μέρισμα που διεκδικούμε. Μάλλον τόσο μας αξίζει.

Καληνύχτα και Καλή Τύχη.

/Δημήτρης

Devoxx '09

On the way to Devoxx for some good Java doze. Some JBoss talks I've picked up:

• jBPM in Action and BOF.
  
• JSF2 and Beyond
• Infinispan and the future of data grids
• Hibernate Search
  
• Hibernate BOF

There will be a JBoss booth (as usual), so hope to see you there!

/Dimitris

Open Source, Open Horizons

Just came back from a 2-hour talk at Tech. Edu. Inst. of Athens, department of Informatics.

It was nice to see a full room and meet old friends, exactly 20 years after I first stepped my foot in those buildings.

The talk was called "Open Source, Open Horizons" and showcased the learning and professional opportunities presented to computer science students through the world of opensource development. The argument goes like this:

1. Studying, extending and building upon OpenSource software is the best way to learn, and produce something useful on the way.
   
2. OpenSource software nowadays is everywhere, so the future computer professionals will find it in their path, one way or another.
3. OpenSource software presents a unique opportunity for computer geeks to show to the world what their are capable of and even make a career out of it.

The classroom was packed so the interest is there. But we need to get more academics involved, as they are the ones to drive adoption.

Many thanks to Michalis Grivas and George Meletiou who organized the event.

Cheers
/Dimitris