Related link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_numbers

Jack Kilby died, and with him a great legacy. He “invented” the integrated circuit (actually he gets credit along with Robert Noyce). Read on for more about Jack Kilby contribution and what computing would look like without him…

I fully expect someone to tell me that a Pentium 4 implemented using ENIAC technology would be much, much larger.

Related link: http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/19164714?source=Evening%20Standard

You can read “World’s biggest hacker held” at This is London. By biggest, I take it they don’t mean weight, height, or girth. Read more below the fold…

Doesn’t “Worlds Biggest Hacker” make you think of some 2-ton recluse?

Related link: http://www.apple.com/webobjects/specs.html

Ok, this is NOT going to be another “Mac-tel” post, I promise. This week has been tough (and it’s only Tuesday as I write this!); us Mac developers have had ups, we’ve had downs, we’ve probably had nausea with the constant “do we care, should we care” concerning Apple and Intel’s now-formal relationship - it’s been an interesting ride so far.

But I’ve probably had a bit more fun than most. I chose this week to begin to learn about WebObjects. I know, any Mac Enterprise developer worth his salt has already hit on WebObjects being the amazing tool that it undoubtedly is. Even in my short time playing with it, it’s knocked me sideways with how intuitively easy it is to get a nice web-based application up and running. WebObjects is full of all those “wow, that’s how it should be done” features - but this posting is not about those.

So I’ll get to my point. I looked at WebObjects before today, at version 5.2.x and saw:

• Standards Compliance
• Platform Independence - you can develop and run on Windows and Mac, you can even deploy to Solaris officially
• Killer Tools for everything from a vanilla Web Application through to a Java Client Application using Java Webstart

but now I see for WebObjects 5.3:

• “Mac OS X” Standards Compliance - ok, we can still play with web services
• “Mac OS X” development tools only
It “might” deploy to other platforms …. but we’re not going to make a big song and dance about it

What happened to “development on Mac and Windows”. Worse still, there is uncertainty that you can even deploy on any other platform than OS X. Seriously, I’ve got help with me on my project but I’m lucky enough to be one of the few who have a Mac; now I can’t recommend WebObjects to my Windows buddies (yep, Mac people do have those), I have to shrug and say things like “yeah, WebObjects is great - but you’d all have to use macs …”. Believe me, I’d love them all to be using Macs, but that just isn’t going to happen.

If the XCode only WebObjects is now the only WebObjects development environment then I am going to severely struggle to justify its adoption, especially with the uncertainty as to whether even the deployment of WebObjects-based application will be ok on other platforms.

So what now? Is this “just a glitch” and are Apple just moving slower with the Windows development support, or is this it for real. As an optimistic WebObjects new adopter I’d like to think there was still hope, but the realist in me is saying no. My hope, although waning, is that the helpful tools people out there in the open source community will be able to fill the WebObjects on Windows gap. For that, time will tell.

It’s a shame, it really is, if there is no longer support for WebObjects development (or potentially deployment) on other platforms. Before I stop my moaning I’d just like to say one more thing: Apple, I’ve been a Mac developer for going on 10 years and, even though I was a newbie to WebObjects, just 3 days ago looked like a killer tool for my web-based development needs. I know I was late to the party but I’m now truly sad to say that it’s looking like I’ll have to go somewhere else.

Anyone else upset by the apparent path that WebObjects is now taking? Anyone know something I don’t about Apple’s strategy for WebObjects?

Related link: http://www.agiledeveloper.com/download.aspx

Generics was introduced in Java 5. The intent of Generics is make your Java code type-safer. While Java is a strongly typed language, it lacks type-safety when it comes to using collections. Do generics deliver what they promised?
I have been giving a talk entitled “Good, bad and ugly of Java Generics.” The feedback from this talk encouraged me to write about Generics to reach a broader audience than those I get to meet in person. You can read about it at
http://www.agiledeveloper.com/articles/GenericsInJavaPartI.pdf
http://www.agiledeveloper.com/articles/GenericsInJavaPartII.pdf
http://www.agiledeveloper.com/articles/GenericsInJavaPartIII.pdf

What are your thoughts on generics in Java?

Related link: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kdresner/2004aamas/

This isn’t about computing as much as it is about cars. When I moved away from NY a few years back, one of the reasons was that I actually missed being able to drive around in a little upholstered living room on four wheels. That being said, I grew up with repeats of the Jetsons, and I’m ready for a future where fallable humans aren’t piloting 3 tons of metal on a daily basis. I just don’t trust us.

I stumbled upon this site a while back, and it has an interesting applet that simulates a new agent-based approach to managing traffic intersections. Check it out, you’ll lose at least 10 minutes to this applet: Multiagent Traffic Management:
A Reservation-Based Intersection Control Mechanism.

Play with that applet enough and you’ll realize that the future of intersections doesn’t include waiting for a light to change. It does include autonomous agents automatically reserving a time-slice of an intersection…..and, from what I can see, the intelligent future is full of terrifying near misses as tanker trucks wiz by my little semi-autonomous Toyota Camry “agent”.

This won’t happen in my lifetime, but after spending some time in Chicago traffic jams (13 miles in 100 minutes!), I have to say that the only way we’re going to get ourselves out of urban traffic hell is through some sort of automated intelligent “routing” solution. From the looks of it it’ll improve efficiency across the board; less time spent waiting for traffic and less fuel used idling at red lights. Sure there are huge obstacles to implementing something like this, but with a reliable, ubiquitous local wireless network technology and a set of standards, this could one day (2050) happen.

…BUT, I surely wouldn’t want to be a beta tester. :-) The question it doesn’t answer is how would one merge onto a road with a constant flow of traffic? The only way this technology would be practical is if I could also have my car autonomously merge onto a street with constant traffic.

Not sure if this would work? Not sure if you want to trust your life to your car?