SoftwareShift

Groovy

Recently, I've been in need of a scripting language. I have a customer who has a process that first requires a text file clean up. So, I have been uploading the file to my development linux box and running a perl script on it. To shorten the process, I have been thinking about installing perl on my local machine (Obviously it's not running linux. I, unfortunately, need a few non-linux apps), but I've been reluctant to do it. Perl is great but I hate writing it. So, I've been looking around very passively for something that I could run locally and could be written as quickly as script in Perl. I considered jython and jruby but, Groovy really piqued my interest.

Groovy is a simplified java scripting language. It appears to have a significant following. Two books have been published on the topic and there are plug-ins for various IDE's. The primary benefit of Groovy is the ability to quickly write and execute code that can leverage the J2SE libraries. This is compared to writing and compiling a java application, which, in most cases, is probably more time consuming.

Groovy - An agile dynamic language for the Java Platform - codehaus.org

Your Way to Groovy - developer.com

What Groovy Can Do For You - developer.com

Joost

I read about this company in this month's Wired magazine. Essentially, the company is developing a p2p tv streaming application. My first reaction was: "nothing new here, just a napster (file trading application) for tv programs." But, it's much slicker than that. It combines the distributed user model of p2p with the distributed file model of bittorrent. The advantage here is that the users watching a program also stream the program to other users by uploading parts in 10 second increments. So with enough users and a solid directory server, there is no need for server farm to do any streaming. The users do it for you. No bandwidth bills.

Absolutely genius...

Joost - joost.com

Why Joost Is Good for TV - wired.com

Joost - wikipedia.org

Web Applications and Startups

Here are a few posts for those interested in technology startups. The first is from one of my favorite blogs: How to change the world. It's Guy Kawasaki's blog. For those that don't know who he is, Mr. Kawasaki is a managing director at the Garage Technology Ventures, a VC firm in San Francisco. The post discusses ways to hinder market adoption of a web application. Some points are good and some I'm not too sure about, but it's worth reading.

The Top Ten Stupid Ways to Hinder Market Adoption - blog.guykawasaki.com

The next one is for a new book from 37Signals about their take on successful web applications. 37Signals developed the Ruby on Rails framework. I haven't read the book yet, but it's definitely the next one on the list.

Getting Real is the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophies of 37signals - gettingreal.37signals.com

The last is a good article on web startups. Lots of good points.

6 Startup Lessons For The Year 2007 - readwriteweb.com

Future of Operating Systems

The most popular topic going around in the last few weeks is the state of the operating system. Much of this has been fueled by Vista's release and its perceived benefit. I think MS came up short here and people are now asking: "Is the monolithic OS still necessary?"

The answer to that is yes and no. Yes, because some of us still need to do offline computing and no because sometimes we don't. For some computer users both on the business and home sides, the PC becomes useless without an internet connection. Interestingly, I think there is a general desire to return to the client/server architecture that dominated the 80's but I don't feel that technology is there yet. Offloading computing to remote servers is still not easy and OS style user functionality hasn't been completely replicated in the web browser yet. There are things like grid computing, and ajax but the former is still hard to access for the average user and ajax is, at best, a band-aid.

So, I think there will be a continued push to remote web resources but there will still be PC's for a little while longer. I predict:

- Web OS's will continue to get more slick but will hit a wall with ajax. This will force a new technology to emerge. - Thin clients will begin to appear. Think flash memory, stripped down linux OS, a web-browser and wifi. - Bundled (PC-like) web services will be offered to businesses. Google will probably be first here followed by MS. The winner here will tie their services with the ISP's. Phone, Internet, Email, IM, and an office suite, online disk space, for one monthly fee. - PC applications will seamlessly beginning to integrate online data. The line between what is on your pc and what is stored on the net will blur. - Java, C#, and lightweight frameworks will continue as they have been. A shift in dominance will emerge by the language that fixes the web browser. We are still passing around text and relying on cross browser javascript for client side rendering. - Open Standards will be pushed to help address the previous point. - A potential unknown here is the effect of TV. An OS that that integrates TV/cable will be a serious contender. I wonder if this is google's plan.

2007-09 is going to be interesting...

GoogleOS Scenarios - readwriteweb via slashdot

Vista the End of An Era? - timesonline via slashdot

Whither Operating Systems? - Dr. Dobbs

Vista Followup Already in the Works - yahoo via slashdot

Google Apps to Become Paid Service - businessweek via slashdot

Amazon Cloud Computing goes beta - cbronline

S3 Meets R3 - Dr. Dobbs

The "Webification" of the Desktop: What Are the Implications for Web 2.0 and AJAX? - ajaxworld

MySQL IPO

Here's one that may have slipped under your radar. MySQL is planning to go public. Specifically, Marten Mickos wants to be able to go public by the end of this year. This is a definitely a milestone for the company and for open source in general.

Unfortunately, for MySQL, the motivation for the IPO is probably to provide a return to the VC's rather than a need for an influx capital to grow. Mickos' even states that they have only burned through half of the raised VC investments. Personally, I would like them to gain more inroads against oracle and MS before going public. MySQL is a great product but I don't believe that they are at the tipping point of becoming the 3rd and equal player in the enterprise database arena.

BTW, read the slashdot commentary. Mickos posted a comment.

MySQL prepares for IPO and reveals Oracle endorsement - businessreviewonline.com via slashdot

MySQL set to join the open source IPO club - businessreviewonline.com