Oracle and Sun - anything bad from aquisition?

Since April 20, 2009, when Oracle announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Sun Microsystems (Sun), there was a lot of different stories and predictions.
One of the latest lists of frequently asked questions is published at oracle web site.
Recently, on one Oracle training, I had asked one of the Oracle guys (actually, this Polish engineer was one of the BEA engineers, which is also part of Oracle corporation), does he know how this acquisition could impact on java developers. He said, hardware is the key for Oracle, that would be the main focus by Oracle at the moment, but since BEA was largely involved in Java growth, and Sun is there mainly as license owner, we could expect only something better lately.

To be honest, I am little bit afraid that Oracle would make some versions of 'commercial' JVM and similar stuff. I hope it would not be so commercialized in a way that would limit the freedom for all, as its now, and that you wouldn't be able to make anything serious without buying commercial version of jdk:) I really hope, it would not be like this blogger says: marriage of heaven and hell:)

See overview and current list of benefits, by Oracle statement.

At the short, you can read about:
- Delivering increased investment and innovation in Java
- Delivering increased value to customers through superior and synergistic hardware and software engineering
- What are Oracle’s plans for SPARC?
- What are Oracle’s plans for Solaris?
- What are Oracle’s plans for Linux?
- What are Oracle’s plans for storage?
- What are Oracle’s plans for networking?
- Is there a Sun Oracle Database Machine?
- What are Oracle’s plans for MySQL?
- What are Oracle’s plans for NetBeans?
- What is Oracle’s plan for OpenOffice?

IntelliJ IDEA Goes Free and Open Source

In my blog history you can find a short story about IntelliJ IDEA, and my opinion about this cool product, but I could not believe that it would get so far. Few days ago, in my inbox settled one beautiful email with wonderful news:)

Roman Strobl, well known technology evangelist wrote to the java group about JetBrains announcement that IntelliJ IDEA goes to open source:)

Here is more details from this beautiful mail:
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JetBrains is pleased to announce its next step in supporting the open source community. Starting with the upcoming version 9.0, IntelliJ IDEA will be offered in two editions: Community Edition - free and open-source, and Ultimate Edition, which until today has been referred to simply as IntelliJ IDEA.

Developers can download the *Community Edition* for free, check out its sources, build it and contribute to it. Community Edition has all the crown jewels of IntelliJ IDEA: various refactorings and code inspections, coding assistance, debugging, TestNG and JUnit testing; CVS, Subversion and Git support, as well as Ant and Maven build integration. Community Edition is the perfect choice for those working on pure Java/Groovy applications or doing Swing development.

To learn more and download the Public Preview, please visit this page: http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/nextversion/free_java_ide.html.

Ultimate Edition extends Community Edition by providing support for many web frameworks, additional languages and technologies and introduces many deployment options.

To review the detailed list of new features of IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate 9, and to download the Preview build, please visit http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/nextversion/index.html.

You can read about the differences between the Community Edition and the Ultimate Edition at http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/nextversion/editions_comparison_matrix.html.

We are also launching a new open source site: http://www.jetbrains.org. Visit this site, join the community, share your ideas and contribute!

DebConf11 bid for Banja Luka, Bosnia

Things are getting better and better in this preparations for bid.
The leader of the group which organizes this bosnian application for DebConf11 met with some important people in Banja Luka, and Bosnia&Herzegovina, and the best of all: he got their full support for such event.

It would be really great to have this conference in Bosnia, doesn't matter which city, just to have it here, as near as possible.

Full story: http://foolcontrol.org/?p=748

Go Banja Luka, go Sarajevo, we need such conferences:)

DebConf11 bid for Sarajevo, Bosnia

Yeah, a big break with a blog, but there is something urgent to announce, what is important for all linux users / fans in my country.
Bosnian Linux User Group bids for organization of DebConf 11. Currently, Bosnian and German teams are in the competition.
Even Germany has a lot of users, developers and Debian communities, I think Bosnia deserves a chance to show what have to offer for such events. I'm sure, that team which is involved in this is capable for organizing such conference.
Since every Java developer meets every day with linux, and since Debian is one of the best distribution, it would be a great pleasure to have something like debconf in Sarajevo, Bosnia.
If you think that you can help this courageous Bosnian team to win a bid, please contact them.

http://lists.debconf.net/mailman/listin … f11-bosnia

Wiki
http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf11/Bosnia

Blog post:
http://foolcontrol.org/?p=623

Video High quality- 475mb
http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/ … r_city.ogv

Video Low quality- 84mb
http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/ … r_city.ogv

All the best guys!

A journey through The Medieval Bosnia

Just few pics how I spending some of the weekends in Bosnia, when its a nice weather ofcourse:) We are going all around old necropolis where you can find tombstones, which are here individually called 'stecak'. Usually you can find our necropolis on the mountains and hills, which makes your journey unforgettable.
More about Medieval Bosnia.
One of the nearest locations to Sarajevo is about 40 minutes from town center, on Bjelasnica mountain http://www.panoramio.com/photo/15165675.

Google App Engine - Java Support

It's a very nice feeling when you are an Java Developer and when you see that one of the most powerful companies in the world, as Google is, supports java language in its new technologies, tools and toys:)
Besides Android, Google mobile platform based on Java, now there is a reach opportunity for Java programmers in the service-based cloud computing, which Google introduces through his Google App Engine. Primary, Google App Engine was supported with API in Python and Java support for this engine is in developing stage.

In the short, Java programmers have opportunity to be more focused on the programming. Server hosting and such kind of the support can be left to Google professionals. Of course, in this stage I can see it more as something for personal projects, and testing, I'm not so sure this can be used in commercial purpose for now. But it's definitely good for public organizations and other companies and individuals which just want to have simple and quick java supported site.

A very nice presentation of Google App Engine with Java:


More about it, how to configure and use (there is also Eclipse plugin)

How to Stay Technically Ahead ?

One of my favorite java oriented technical site gives short article about what mostly concern, or should concern java software engineers, or any other programmer. How to go on with all these frameworks and technologies?

In the short, given advices we should or we could try to do.
- Subscribe to a technical mail post or RSS feed
- Don’t get stuck into too much reading
- Have timeouts with colleagues to discuss technical ideas
- Join a User Group (e.g. JUG)
- Establish a strong understanding of the common technologies
- Work on or start and open source project

Read more at java.dzone.com