For the Dutch Java user group Peter and I will host a session on what’s new in the latest Eclipse 3.3/Europa release. Our employer has gracefully donated some time in our schedules to the NL-JUG. We are very pleased to get the opportunity to present something interesting and fun to our fellow Java developers.

Last Friday Peter and I started working on the session in earnest. We’ve been brainstorming about the format and content for a while now. But it’s time to turn our ideas into reality. We’ve still got a lot to do, but we’ve divided the work and create content for the whole week. Peter will focus more on Mylyn, I will focus more on Monkey/Dash. The rest of the content has been divided evenly as well. Besides the presentation material we need to generate we also need labs en excersizes. The hardest part will be to come up with something realistic, but small at the same time.

We plan to present an initial draft of our presentation material to our colleagues next week. We’re hard at work making the University Session a success. And for all Java developers reading this… come join us at September 4th. Details are available at the NL-JUG site, (page is in dutch).

If you are a Dutch Java developer, and have never heard of the NL-JUG before. Please take a look into their work. For an annual fee of just thirty Euros you will get free access to all NL-JUG activities, a subscription to the bimonthly Java Magazine and great opportunities to meet like minded developers and build your professional network.

A post a bit out of character for me. But what the heck, it’s my blog right?

Last weekend I went to Sensation White with a few friends. Actually, 2 of I kinda knew beforehand. The rest I met once or twice.

Anyway, it was mind blowing. Too bad a certain person couldn’t be there. But then again I don’t think it would have been her thing anyway. But perhaps it would, because we would be there together. I dunno…

Here are some shots, thanks to Joyce who actually thought about bringing a camera.

Oh, and uhm Erick E. sucked!! I know there are people who will disagree. Post that or other comments if you feel like doing so.

If you happen to have never worked with SubVersion and feel like you would want to play with it a bit?

Well I’d say, download/(compile/)install SubVersion and have your way with it. But what if you just want to fuss around a little bit without the “hassle” of setting up a repository? (Which really isn’t that hard at all, really.)

Well you could set up a dummy sourceforge project, google code project or whatever. But you could also set up a trial account at cvsdude.com.

I tried it myself and in my opinion it’s more involving to set up then do it locally, but then again SubVersion is familiar teritory for me.

Also if you are willing to trust these guys, you could also outsource your repository management to them. A nice web-interface lets you set up things up. One sweet feature is the abbility to configure path based authorization. This is possible on an Apache hosted subversion repository as well. But then you would need someone able with Apache and SubVersion.

Thanks a million Martin. Martin has caused me to do my first list of five blog.

Anyway on to the list:

1. I started with basic too. Well what a surprise. It was on a ZX Spectrum. After that I went on to a 286 and sticked with intel from then on until two years ago. Then I finally made the stupid choice to have a go at an Apple. Now I’m an Apple guy in a Microsoft minded company. Hard times, but why do all my collegues come ganging up on me just to touch my PowerBook? Oh yeah, after Basic I went on to C, C++ and then Java.
2. I have a secret fantasy. I would love to build a full fledged application with a LISP derivative. Scheme would be a good candidate.
3. As stated I like Apple’s. But I hate them too, unless they’re in a pie.
4. My nickname The-DDD which I still use quite often is based on my actions in Quake team Capture the Flag. I kinda died a lot covering the flag runner. See, it was my job to head bud incomming boomstick rounds. Some losers started yelling at me, telling me to “Drop dead, you dork.” Well, you guess what my nick was the next time we owned those guys. Yup you guesed it, The Drop Dead Dork. But that was a bit long. So it was abreviated to The-DDD[RedOmega].
5. Feed me alchohol, you’ll have a laugh.

Next 5 up: Peter, Jasper, Wilfred, Harry and Marieke

Oh, and donate to your local Red Cross while while you’re at it.

Edit: Corrected Harry’s blog link.

Wow, it finally happened. Java is now officially open-source. First of all, I think it’s great to be able to take a peek under the hood of Java.

Now there is a catch though. I’m not entirely sure, but it seems that it is JDK version 8 (!!) which is available under an open-source license. The sources and binaries of JDK 6 and JDK 7 can be downloaded, but they are licensed under the JRL (Java Research License), which has some restrictions.

To check it out, take a look overhere. Note the usage of username “guest”. Personally I have checked out using the command:
svn checkout https://openjdk.dev.java.net/svn/openjdk openjdk --username guest
Yes, that’s without the trunk part. I will perform a chechout of the entire repository, including all branches and tags of the main project, hotspot project and the compiler project. That’s like, everything. After the checkout the source code tree is about 220 MBs in size. That’s a lot of code.

Also note the usage of the GPL with the OpenSDK. Corporations need not worry though, The GPL license has an addendum called the classpath exception, a GNU endorsed mechanism to allow linking of proprietary code to API code.

Anyway: Is open-source java a good thing or a bad thing. There are a number of opinions:

Pro: Open Source Java …

• … will speed up development and feature maturity.
• … will provide developers with the possibility to review the JVM/Compiler code and truly understand it’s workings.
• … will allow the Sun Java release to be integrated with true open-source Linux distributions.

Con: Open Source Java …

• … will become a hindrance because of wild growth of JVM branches.
• … is not needed, we’ve got the JRL license, so we can already review the code.
• …, why join those overzealous fanatics, open-source is a pest that should be exterminated with all available measures. (Erh, right…)

Of-course there are more arguments to be made in favor and against open-source Java. Personally I think it’s great. Fiddling with the code is not something for everybody. I took a stroll through the code the other night and yes it is intimidating, believe me. But because it is such an essential component to any Java runtime and development environment, I do think it is best when you have the source-code available. Also I don’t think there will be any wild fire like scenario with heaps of different Java SDKs available will happen any time soon. I do think certain people and organisations might provide their own extensions, much like J2EE server implementations do. But gross incompatibility, I don’t expect that. See, Sun is still the driving force behind the Java Community Process which defines the standards that a Java implementation has to comply to. So as long as there remains a single entity that defines the shape of Java today and in the future, we will all be all-right.

The week after the performance tuning course has been a busy one. My employer planned a thing called a Java Action Week. A Java Action Week involves pulling back a number of people from our customers to create a focus group to achieve a number of goals in the short time-span of only a week. Last week my name was up, and while it was a busy week, it also was a very refreshing break from the normal course of business. I can’t really go into the details of things, company policy has to be followed on this one. Yeah it did involve something with Java programming.. All in all it was a very productive week.

Besides the regular 40 hour week my M.sc program is taking it’s toll as well. Because I was going to work by car instead of by train the last week I lost about 5 hours of work because of steering a car. But still I had to stay up to speed with the courses I am following. Next to that a friend of mine had a nice surprise in store for me as well. Although my time was very short these last two weeks, her surprise put a smile on my face. Something I really needed because I was starting to feel swamped by all the stuff I still have to do.

I’ve also noted an item in my agenda to compile some nice posts to put up here. But I’m just not getting around to it. So please hang on, there will be some good stuff here in the future.

Last week I installed Scheme on my system. The distribution I chose was Chicken. I’ve wanted to do some stuff with a LISP based language for a while now. Just to see if I can get my head around it.

And while I was at it, I installed Haskell as well. And let me tell you, functional programming, it’s been a while.