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MySQL and Java – two birds with one stone

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JavaThe old phrase “killing two birds with one stone” – yeah it sounds impossible when you think about it realistically – ka-bing, ka-bing, there they go. But Oracle may succeed in killing off both Java and MySQL after its acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Or at least sidelining both into stagnation in favor of big-ticket licensed Oracle products.

In 1999 to 2001 I was responsible for purchasing Oracle licenses for a large organization with large plans. We paid hundreds of thousands of dollars (US) for initial and continuing licenses on Oracle database software. The stuff was industrial-strength. But since then I’ve used (the free) MySQL dozens of times for small-to-medium size sites. And several systems I’ve used or designed have been Java-based as well. The availability of these free tools is critical to the existence of millions of web sites around the world. [Read more…]

Doodling – or is it Visual Mapping?

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Jay Cross in 2009Jay Cross writes about developing a reputation as the guy who was doodling in business school classes.

But what Jay shows as examples might not all be doodles. Meaning aimless drawing. Yes, Jay may have been doodling much of the time, but there’s often more to it than that. And it can be extremely useful as well. [Read more…]

Did PHP kill the Java radio star?

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JavaPHPResponding to Infoworld Did PHP kill the Java radio star?

Zend’s CEO, Andi Gutmans, claims that PHP is disrupting Java. Meaning that PHP has gotten a significant toehold and is dislodging Java from its position as the granddaddy of server-side web applications frameworks[1]. I take the word disrupting in its modern sense of disruptive technology – a technology that significantly differs from the standard paradigm and whose effect would have been hard to predict, based on the “rules” of the standard paradigm.

I am a long-time Java-user (9 years) and I agree that PHP is a real contender in the web applications sphere… and would like to make some additional observations. [Read more…]

Null pointer at Starbucks

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Null pointer error at StarbucksApproaching the cash register at Starbucks I noticed this perhaps puzzling message on the little LCD display. It has nothing to do with the economic meltdown, or the amount of cash in the cash drawer, but instead reflects a programming error!

Generally a register displays a short greeting on its display when it is “off” like Come back soon (or at Squaw Valley Winter’s here). In this case the string of characters that usually contains the greeting was probably missing, and the software, encountering the situation, displays the message “null” meaning null pointer error. Made me laugh out loud, and I’d guess that nobody else who saw the message that day had the slightest idea that this little word represented one of the oldest programming mistakes in the book.

Essential Strategies for Eventually Launching a Site

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Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 BlogI was reading Dion Hinchcliff’s “50 Essential Strategies for Creating a Successful Web 2.0 Product” (you should go read it when you have more time) and I’ve cherry-picked the points that ring true for me. His points are good and very interesting, but some are real gems of wisdom[1]. And I’ll add some of my own observations to this article. I’ll limit mine to 10 and if you’re ambitious you can read the 50 in his blog. One of the overarching principles is that, as he says, “The Web Community Gets Smarter Every Time It Builds A Product” – which I will exend to add that we marketers and developers are constantly learning, and the more we involve people early in our development processes, and the more closely we listen to them, the faster and better our development cycles will be.
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