I used my "In the Zone" column this week (attached) to
promote EclipseCon 2006 and announce Joel as a keynote speaker (after
double-checking with Tim). This went out to >10K people on the Javalobby
mailing list. I also put a blurb on http://eclipsezone.com which went to http://planeteclipse.org . Both these sites
get thousands of hits a day. That's about all I can do for
now!
If good graphics become available (hint, hint), I will
put one on both EclipseZone and Javalobby. Ian is already talking to Rick Ross
about sponsorship.
For further promotion, I suggest:
1. Everyone involved in organizing the conference make
frequent blog entries about what they're doing, at least once a week, especially
closer to the conference time. It's a blog, it doesn't have to be deep.
:)
2. Eclipsecon.org should have a prominent list of those
blogs.
3. Closer to time, Javalobby/EclipseZone can host an
online chat with someone involved with EclipseCon. Let me know if you're
interested. It should be someone that would draw general Java users in, not just
Eclipse fans.
4. All EclipseCon organizers who are active on Eclipse
forums should add a link to EclipseCon.org in their
signatures.
5. Anyone involved with EclipseCon is invited to post
things on EclipseZone.com, for example announcements of other speakers,
announcements of sponsors, articles about putting together conferences, tips
& tricks that were learned at the last EclipseCon, etc.. Announcements
should also be sent to news@xxxxxxxxxxx of
course.
6. We should all line up a stable of bloggers, at least
6, who will blog live from EclipseCon2006 during the event like I did last
year. That was very well received.
That's all I can think of right
now.
| Tuesday,
September 27, 2005 |
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| A Developer's Perspective |
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Rick Ross is the
founder of Javalobby. He is a frequent speaker at Java-related
events and a well-known advocate for Java developer
interests.. |
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![Rick Ross, JavaLobby Founder]() JDocs.com: Some
major decisions & request for your input
Of all the neat things we have been fortunate
to create, Matt and I both feel that JDocs.com is the one where we
could and should have gone much further. After careful
consideration we have decided that we have a responsibility to
the Java community to renew our efforts on this project. JDocs
offers too much potential benefit to this community for us to
let it wither on the vine. It deserves to be nurtured, so
thats precisely what were going to do. With your help, we
will lead JDocs out of its slump into a place where it
provides a great and useful service to all Java developers.
Therefore I am pleased to announce that,
effective immediately, we are resuming active maintenance and
development of JDocs.com,
and we will remain committed to keeping it current for the
indefinite future. To get things moving we have already
engaged Gus Garnica, a dedicated and energetic Java developer,
to be the new editor and maintainer of JDocs.com. Gus will get
straight to work addressing the huge backlog of APIs that
members have requested us to add, and he will bring all the
APIs in the JDocs system forward to current revisions.
Once the databases are current we will start
development on some important new features to help JDocs move
to the next level of functionality, prioritizing improvements
according to feedback from community members like you. Also,
Im sure many of you will be happy to hear that we are going
to carefully reconsider what sponsorship model to employ at
JDocs. If we can afford to remove the banner ads completely,
then we will. If not, then well try to minimize the extent to
which they aggravate users. They may be a necessary evil, but
well try to make them only as evil as necessary. If you have
a rich uncle that wants to pay for JDocs maintenance let us
know.
As many of you are aware, there was also some
controversy regarding the inclusion of the Sun Java APIs when
we originally launched JDocs.com last year. Our
focus and interest with JDocs has always been to provide a
useful resource to the developer community, not to cause
controversy. It would be foolish to do the same things we did
last time and expect a different outcome this time, but were
just not sure which of the alternatives to pursue? In this new
effort to get JDocs up and kicking again wed like to ask all
of you to share your insights and help guide us. Were going
to lay out what were thinking and invite you to join the
discussion about how to move ahead effectively.
The fundamental problem is how to address the
centrally important Sun APIs in the JDocs system, key APIs
like the J2SE, J2EE and others which represent core Java
standards. Although JDocs.com already provides one-stop
coverage for well over a hundred APIs beyond those owned by
Sun, the system is clearly most useful if it integrates
support for the Sun APIs as well. Sun has requested that we
not publish documentation for their APIs at JDocs citing legal
restrictions. Instead, they have asked us to link to the
static, non-annotated pages they serve from their own site.
If you feel you can influence someone with
authority inside of Sun to reconsider their requests, then
please feel free to do so. We are asking, however, for such
discussion not to be a part of the community dialogue we wish
to engage, we just want to move JDocs forward.
There are a variety of options to consider, so
this is where your input can help guide us. Here is a list of
four strategies for addressing the Sun API issue in the future
of JDocs:
- Allow Sun to host Sun APIs with JDocs
technology at sun.com
This first possibility may be the clearest
and most positive step for the whole Java community,
although Matt & I have not been able to confirm yet
whether it is something Sun would like to do. We are willing
to consider donating our technology to Sun if they would
like to use it. They would be able to retain the control
they consider necessary to protect Java as they see fit, and
we could integrate their servers with our own to provide
everyone the best possible shared knowledge resource. This
would be a neat possibility, but it requires cooperation
from Sun.
- Provide tools to let all users produce their
own personal databases for Sun APIs
Providing tools to let all users produce
their own personal databases for these Sun APIs is also
workable and realistic, especially in conjunction with an
Eclipse, IntelliJ or NetBeans plugin. Regardless of whether
we can legally serve documentation for Suns APIs, you can
download the source code that produces them and use it
internally according to Suns Document
Redistribution Policy. If we cannot host these APIs for
you, then we could at least provide you with tools that
empower you to serve your own needs. Its really simple; you
just run our tools with the source code shipped in every JDK
as input. Your local copy would be the equivalent of what we
would host online, and it would take less than an hour for
you to produce it.
- Restore some level of functionality for Sun
APIs at JDocs.com
- Remove all Sun APIs completely from JDocs
and move ahead without them
We could, of course, simply restore some
level of functionality for the Sun APIs in the JDocs system,
or we could remove them altogether and move on. Neither of
these is a very attractive possibility, but they also
deserve to be considered. Hopefully somewhere in Options 1
or 2 we can strike a balance that is satisfactory to
everyone, and we think it would be a foolish waste to
exclude Suns APIs from JDocs altogether. We have asked
whether users would be satisfied to have only alternate API
docs from GNU Classpath or Apache Harmony, but few have
considered them sufficient.
So, Im putting the question out to you. What
would you like us to do, and how do you recommend that we
proceed? Please take the time to share
your thoughts with us in this forum discussion, or feel
free to send me email
privately if you prefer. With or without support for Suns
APIs we still believe JDocs.com can provide a rich and useful
service to help Java developers find and share knowledge. We
are committed to bringing the JDocs system current, expanding
its API coverage, and developing new features to make it
better than ever. We look forward to hearing from you and hope
you will enjoy using JDocs.com for a long time to
come.
Until next time,
Rick Ross
rick@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
AIM or
Yahoo Messenger: RickRossJL |
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Matthew Schmidt
is the man behind the scenes at Javalobby. If you have
questions or concerns, feel free to email him at matt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. |
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![Matthew Schmidt, JavaLobby Lead Developer]() Using Java on Your Tivo
Two weeks ago, I received an email from Amazon
telling me that I could get $150 off any Tivo purchase and if
I acted now, I could get another 20% off the 140 GB Tivo
model. What did I do? Of course, I bought that new Tivo! I
have to say that since I bought the Tivo, I have enjoyed
recording nearly all my favorite shows and watching them at my
leisure, fast-forwarding through the commercials. Not to
mention that with the Ethernet adapter plugged in the back of
the Tivo, Im able to copy my recorded shows to my PC or
laptop and watch them on the go a very nice feature and not
yet restricted to certain shows! So far, the whole process has
been fairly enjoyable, and the Tivo interface is one of the
slickest that Ive seen, which, leads me to my next point.
One of the great things that Tivo did was build
their system on the Linux platform, and then work on providing
an SDK that was based on Java for extending that platform. HME is the codename
for the next generation platform for controlling applications
on the Series2 and higher Tivo models. With this SDK, you have
full access to interfacing with the Tivo and with the Tivo
Desktop system and a connection to the internet. At their
SourceForge project, you can check
out a few screenshots of their initial sample apps. I have
to say that as far as eye candy goes, these apps look good.
This brings up some fun and interesting ideas and I was
thinking that maybe we should start an open source project
over at JavaForge to
bring Javalobby to the Tivo. Why get up from your couch when
you can just flip on over to the Javalobby Tivo application
and get your latest taste of Javalobby straight from the couch
with just the remote in your hand? Now, keep in mind I havent
exactly thought this out completely, but I have created a new
project at JavaForge to gather other supporters and to keep
track of some initial ideas. Hop on over to the
shared project info and join the project if you want to
take part.
JavaForge Off To a Roaring First
Week
Last week, Javalobby launched the initial beta of
one of its more ambitious offerings a subversion based
collaboration platform, JavaForge.com. Its now
been a week, and I have to say that I feel its been a
success. In just a few short days, over 100 of you decided you
wanted to take subversion for a spin and are now hosting
projects and a TON of source code has already been checked in.
It constantly amazes me the things you guys come up with and I
love it when I see new projects spring up for new forum
systems, document management webapps, AJAX frameworks, and
Java based file explorers. Its been very exciting watching
the new project creation and user activation emails.
Of course, no beta launch is complete without a
few hiccups. We had a few problems to begin with and weve
hopefully straightened out most of them. You can now create
new projects without problems, the various wiki references
work internally, and were tracking down the minor issues that
some people have reported with anonymous access. Were also
actively looking into how we can improve the loooong project
listing page and make the frontpage of JavaForge more useful
to newcomers.
In addition to the bug reports, two of the
major feature requests that weve had are support for hosted
CVS and mailing list support. Weve actively investigating
support for both of these features and hope to have some
solution in the near future. For mailing list support, I
wanted to pose a question to the readers. JavaForge supports
the ability of receive notifications any time someone creates
a new thread or replies to an existing thread. Because these
notifications contain the full content of the post and a link
back to quickly reply to the thread, Im wondering whether
this might be a nice alternative to the normal mailing list
support that you see. With this method, we could keep
automatic, threaded archives and be able to manage it through
the current JavaForge interface. Id love to get some feedback
from you guys, so please drop me a line.
Finally, I want to thank all of you who have
gone to JavaForge and tried it out and I encourage you to
consider it when youre starting a new open source project.
Were happy to work with you to get your project setup as
quickly and easily as possible (project creation is instant),
and were happy to help you migrate your project from another
service to JavaForge.
Happy coding, and be sure to check out the newest projects at
JavaForge regularly!
Until Next Time,
Matthew Schmidt
matt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Yahoo
IM: mattschmidtjl |
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Ed Burnette is
the editor of the new EclipseZone at Javalobby. He is the
author of several articles and books on Eclipse and the Rich
Client Platform. |
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![Ed Burnette, EclipseZone Editor]() Joel on Eclipse
Im excited to announce
that one of the keynoters at next years EclipseCon will be none
other than Joel
Spolsky. Joel is the author of the famous Joel on Software blog
and founder of Fog Creek
Software. Hes an entertaining speaker and is sure to be a
big draw. Last years conference sold out so register early.
By the way, as I was poking around Joels web
site I noticed his latest project, Fog Creek Copilot. Its a
service that allows people to help their friends, relatives,
and customers fix their computer problems. All you need on
both sides is a Windows machine running a web browser; it
takes care of security, firewalls, etc., with no big install
step or configuration. One of you pays 10 bucks for a 24-hour
pass that can be used to connect to as many computers as you
want. What a neat idea!
What is EclipseCon?
Eclipse is about
community, and that means people getting together, sharing
their experiences, learning from each other, and becoming
experts in their field. EclipseCon is a great
means to this end. Were going to have some big names as
keynoters this year (some talking about Eclipse and some, like
Joel, about technology in general), but the most important
speaker could be
you! EclipseCon 2006 has
a wide variety of ways that you can participate including:
- Tutorial - Four hour presentation
dedicated to learning the intricate details of the topic.
Typically includes a significant hands-on component.
- Long Talk - A one hour (or slightly
less) presentation that goes into detail on a topic.
- Short Talk - A five-ten minute
presentation that covers the highlights of a topic. Short
talks are the EclipseCon version of lightning
talks.
- Poster - Posters are, well, posters.
During the poster reception session, the poster authors
stand by their posters and answer questions.
- Demo - Demos are half-hour
semi-lecture style demonstrations of something interesting
about Eclipse or based on Eclipse.
- Code Camp - An everyone-welcome
session dedicated to helping newcomers work with a
particular project.
- Panel - A one hour session utilizing
four or more panelists talking about, or answering questions
on, a general topic.
Submit
your abstract today. Tutorial submissions are especially
welcome right now because were trying to line up those first.
Upcoming deadlines are:
Tutorial submissions: November 1 st,
2005.
Long talks, short talks, and panels:
November 15 th, 2005.
EclipseCon 2006 will be held March 20-23, 2006
at the Santa
Clara Convention Center.
New at EZ
The list of EZ user forums
linked to Eclipse newsgroups is constantly growing. This week
we added:
See this
link for a list of all Eclipse user forms hosted at
EclipseZone and this
article for reasons why you would want to get your Eclipse
news from the EZ forums.
See also a new interview
with Scott Lewis of the Eclipse Communications Framework
(ECF) project, and an article
by Alex Blewitt on how to use the IAdaptable API. Plus
theres something new almost every day on our Tips & Tricks
forum. Things are really hopping lately!
Cheers,
Ed Burnette
ed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Erik C. Thauvin
maintains a blog ,
as well as one of the web's first and most popular linkblogs, which
he updates daily with the latest Java and technology
news. |
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A recap of some
of the most popular and active Javalobby.org discussions
this week. |
| The Birth and Death of a Language
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When does a language get garbage
collected? This might be more of a philosophical then
technical question but here goes for one version of reality.
Yes, it's about Java... |
| Full Discussion |
Posted By: Mikael
Grev - (92 Replies) |
| Refactoring Java? |
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With the tiger out in the wild for some
time and with all the new features it may be time to ask
yourself if there's something that could have been done better
with your favourite development language |
| Full Discussion |
Posted By: Erik B -
(35 Replies) |
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Technical papers
& research related to Java
development. |
| High-Performance Persistence For Java
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Caché, the post-relational database,
seamlessly combines robust object and relational technologies,
eliminating the need for mapping. Every Caché class can be
automatically projected as Java classes or EJB components with
bean-managed persistence. |
| Download Full White Paper |
Posted by:
InterSystems |
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Product and
service announcements for Java
developers. |
| Ristretto 1.0 Released |
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I
am very proud to announce the 1.0 release of Ristretto, the
low level java mail library. Ristretto supports SMTP, POP3,
IMAP, SSL, SASL and implements all related parsers.
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| Full Announcement & Discussion |
Posted By: Timo
Stich - (0 Replies) |
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Thank you for your continued support of Javalobby. If you prefer not to
receive the Javalobby weekly newsletter, send an e-mail to unsubscribe-jlnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
and please ensure the actual email address to be removed is
present.
Javalobby.org, 113 Legault Drive, Cary NC 27513
USA |
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