Sunday, October 30, 2005

Referenda C and D Stygius reports that, "Here's some actual, first-person reporting on Stygius for once: today I got one of those cringingly bad xenophobe phone calls from John Caldara's Vote No crew. In the automated message, one Kathy Redman (sp?) a 'single working mom' and -- bewilderingly -- 'former crime victim,' tells me that voting Yes on Referenda C&D will reward government for failing to stem the flow of illegal immigration into this country. Then, a man's voice intones that the Refs will 'subsidize lawbreakers' in schools, hospitals, and jails. Hence, vote No. Jails?" Category: Denver November 2005 Election 6:59:26 PM

Mexican Guide To Immigration? Coyote Gulch wonders is this guide to immigration is authentic. Lots of advice for both legal and illegal immigrants from Mexico. Thanks to The Moderate Voice for the link. Salt Lake Tribune: "It would take much more than changing the date to get Idaho to join other western states in a proposal to hold a simultaneous regional presidential primary election on Feb. 5, 2008. Try a price tag of $1.2 million, for starters. And persuading the national Democratic party to allow Idaho members to participate in an open primary. And having to spend another $1.2 million to hold a second primary election three months later for state officeholders. Those are just a few of the reasons why Idaho's top elections official, Secretary of State Ben Ysursa, is hesitant to support the proposal by some western governors to have the region vote for presidential contenders on the same day early in the election year." Thanks to Oval Office 2008 for the link. Oval Office 2008: "First of all, the fact that Democrats have, in the past, not chosen the early front-runner in the nomination, is irrelevant to 2008. Like I said - the 'history is prologue' argument has no logical basis, it just sounds good. Those past front-runners failed to win the nomination for different reasons, not all related to their electability. Cuomo, for example, simply never ran. Secondly, it is as wrong to assume Hillary's chances of winning a general election are zero as it is to assume she is a shoo-in for the nomination. It is not, as Shirley has implied, a case of choosing between Hillary and winning." Oval Office 2008: "...Amongst other difficulties he faced, Frist announced in August that he would support legislation extending federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The announcement was a reversal of Frist's position until then, and caused outcry amongst the social conservative groups that Frist had been courted in advance of 2008. Now, it seems, he needn't have bothered - or, at least, needn't have been so hasty. Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill reports that the vote on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research has been delayed, and now probably won't happen until early next year." Political Wire: "'If the chatter over Sen. George Allen's potential presidential run gets any hotter, we're going to have to dismiss the 2008 GOP primaries and go right to a general election campaign pitting the Virginia lawmaker against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton,' Washington Whispers reports. 'Just last week, the right's leading media voices, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, blew him kisses on the air, and he tops our Whispers poll. What's to like? Republicans say he's most like Bush, right down to the cowboy boots, but enters the race with better conservative credentials--and he's a good fundraiser.' Meanwhile, Republicans think Clinton's chances in the 2008 presidential race are very good. 'While Democrats say she's too polarizing to win, Republicans fear it's hers to lose. A House GOP leader explained it this way: First, she easily wins the states Sen. John Kerry took in 2004. Then all she has to do is pick off one or two politically split states, like Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa, or Florida. Here, she can get some help by choosing a veep from one of those.'" Category: 2008 Presidential Election. 4:17:15 PM

Colorado Software Summit 2005 Coyote Gulch has been banished to management at this late stage of his career. As such there is little time to satisfy the inner geek, pounding code, configuring applications and watching customers use the software he's written. Each fall he ventures up to Keystone for the Colorado Software Summit to hang out with a few movers and shakers and thought leaders in the Java and XML world. If we could identify an overriding theme for this year's summit it would be "loosely coupled" and "POJOs" (plain old Java objects). Of course the BigCos were well represented, especially IBM, but there is a move away from BigCo technology to something simpler, code that is testable, and code shot through with industry standards rather than the "de facto" lockin provided by the vendors. One of the very cool features of the Colorado Software Summit is the absence of vendor sponsors. You're not beaten down by vendor pitches in the technical sessions. Another is the Summit community self-organizing the Q&A and BOFs each evening. Many of the presenters and attendees have returned year after year and know each other and their craft well. When you are putting together your budget for next year's conferences and training please give the Colorado Software Summit consideration. You'll be so tired out and full of new ideas about your software by the end of the week you'll know it was dough well spent. Coyote Gulch says "see you next year" to his new friends from Turkey, Canada, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Mexico, Salt Lake, Virginia, Detroit, Denver, Boulder, Ohio, Wisconsin, Texas and England. John Soyring started off the week with an update on the state of the software industry from his point of view. He emphasized two characteristics of successful people, their knowledge and network. The Summit helps in both areas. IBM sees business working to streamline or optimize processes, seeking to increase worker productivity and improve customer service. The top IT priorities are application integration, building business intelligence, data warehousing and security. Mr. Soyring acknowledges that IT is witnessing the emergent rule by standards, virtualization, Open Source and the increasing trend of commoditization of software. Indeed, some industries are already standardizing business processes. Mr. Soyring listed several differences between SOA (Services Oriented Architecture) and the integration methods of the past, standards, organizational commitment, degree of focus, connections and level of reuse. He listed BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) as and area of tremendous opportunity. It will be used to model both business processes and the interactions of humans with the system. Organizations should be able to plot KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) from BPEL. Coyote Gulch's first session was Matt Raible's talk about the Spring Framework. He introduced Spring by repeating the Grady Booch rule of thumb to "program to interfaces." Spring enables much easier testing by it's use of POJOs. One of the best parts of the Spring framework is the support offered to many of the web frameworks around. Next up was Michael Keith explaining what is coming in EJB 3.0. Developers can expect the new spec to simplify developer programming model, simplify the client programming model, reduce the learning curve for new development and reduce the number of artifacts. In addition EJB 3.0 will introduce the concept of configuration by exception to the spec while preserving backward compatibility. The idea of dependency injection, having the container deal with dependencies, is also new to the spec. This will be accomplished using either XML or annotations. It'll be a new world of POJO entities. Tom Bender finished out Coyote Gulch's afternoon with his session ESB - An Introduction to an Enterprise Work flow Framework. An ESB is lightweight, loosely coupled, event driven, highly distributed construct enabling selective deployment, abstract endpoints, intelligent routing, data transformation, reliable messaging and a multi-protocol message bus, according to Mr. Bender. It enables a better faster lighter Java. It adopts XML as the language of integration. It allows the organization to think and plan in terms of SOA, manage object state consistently, separate processing logic from message routing rules, propagate ESB based on business cases and employ incremental adoption. Tuesday started out with a big bang for the Ol' Coyote. What could be better than a session on Tricks and Tips for Making Your XML Application Go Faster? Neil Graham pointed out that since XML can be an important part of the performance profile of an application, the developer needs to pay attention to the different parsing paradigms. He went on to describe SAX, DOM and pull-parsing and listed a few rules of thumb for choosing a parsing strategy. Next up was part 1 and part 2 of Web Services Advanced Topics: Beyond SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI from Kelvin Lawrence. He went into the WS-I standards. The talk included WS-Security, WS-Reliable Messaging, WS-Transactions, WS-Addressing, WS-Management and BPEL. One attendee broached the subject of intellectual property, notably software patents, permeating the WS-I chain and the worries the Open Source community has around this issue. Mr. Lawrence avoided starting a political discussion by observing that, "Everyone has done the right thing," in developing the spec(s). One of Coyote Gulch's favorite presenters from the past, Noel Bergman, finished out Tuesday with an Introduction to Portlet programming with JSR-168. Noel highlighted the characteristics of a Portal, aggregation and personalization. He reminded us that developers do not own the markup in a portlet and that portlets != servlets. Wednesday morning we started out at Apache Geronimo for Developers from Bruce Snyder. The goal of this Apache Software Foundation project is to develop a high-performance J2EE application server unencumbered by the GPL. Mr. Snyder went through some of the configuration options for the server along with showing the startup and configuration files. We continued on to hear Valerie Pressley discuss Developing a Connector Using Java Connector Architecture. She described the usual required interfaces to write and configuration options (container managed security anyone?). Next up was Mule - A Detailed Look at an Enterprise Service Bus from Tom Bender. He focused on the Open Source project Mule an implementation of an ESB. He described the Mule, "UMO Component." All objects are transformed into UMO components during the life-cycle of the interaction. AJAX was the last topic for the day. The speaker, Paul Fremantle's topic was The AJAX Architecture and Scripting Services with E4X. AJAX allows the developer to refresh part of page using XMLHTTPRequest without a complete roundtrip to the server. It's the technology used in Google Maps. Mr. Fremantle also introduced the E4X (ECMAScript for XML) scripting language. Browser support is lacking (notably IE) so the use of the extension will be limited. It's great now for server side stuff. The demo sort of looked like the old dBase command line as Mr. Fremantle typed in XML and queried it from the command line as well. Thursday morning started out with Simon Phipp's annual keynote. Simon is the Chief Open Source Officer for Sun Microsystems. As such he gets to evangelize to the world and to his employer on the topic. He set the stage for his talk by touring a bit of history, mentioning the artifacts that were part and parcel for a traveller in 1994 (traveller's checks, cash, airline tickets). He went on to state that he carries a credit card for cash now along with a GSM phone that works almost anywhere on the planet and no airline tickets. He also mentioned the "massively connected world" we now live in. Mr. Phipps developed his talk by asking the question, "If we were massively connected then: "Security would no longer concern only boundaries - only your digital identity. "Software would have nowhere and everywhere to run. "Software pricing would no longer track ephemera - value based pricing instead of i.e. CPUs. "Markets would become conversations or narrative engagement - better to hear from engineers rather than managers. "Close-room development would be inefficient - Open Source is improving quality, is written by a community and is not about the dough but is a way of developing software in a connected world." Phipps went on to say that Open Source leverages the network effect. It can only charge for the difference between the commons and your innovation. Chattel becomes a commodity. Simon categorizes Open Source licenses in 3 ways, unrestricted (BSD style - Apache v.2.x), file-based (Mozilla style - CDDL v.1.x) and project-based style (FSF style - GPL v.2.x). BSD style licenses offer the most freedom for the most people but do not protect the commons. FSF style licenses promote constant growth of the commons but limit freedom for develops to use their own innovation however they want. Mozilla style licenses balance both freedoms, commons and individual freedom. Mr. Phipps warns that Open Source is not enough to guarantee freedom for developers. We need open standards also. For Simon: Open Standards + Open Source == Freedom. Off to Dan Bergh Johnsson's presentation on Real Life Automated Tests - A Case Study. Mr. Bergh introduced automated testing in the context of writing the tests after his company was called in to fix code that had been deployed into production. He mentioned that JUnits are not not enough but they're a great start. He talked about Cactus, HTTPUnit and DBUnit. Next we attended Apache Axis2 - The New Generation of Open Source Web Services from Paul Fremantle. The new spec will add WS-Addressing, WS-Reliable Messaging and improve composability, performance and ease of use. The cool thing for the Ol' Coyote is REST support. AXIS2 will wrap REST calls in a SOAP envelope for developers, shielding them from the complexity of the SOAP spec. The last session of the day was Asynchronous Web Services: The Link from JAX-RPC to BPEL from Jon Maron. He pretty much ran through an Oracle demo of building and deploying asynchronous web sevices with JBuilder. He added a nice demo of Oracle's BPEL tools. Friday's session was Comparing Java Web Frameworks: JSF, Struts, Spring, Tapestry and WebWork from Matt Raible. There was a ton of information in the session and Matt showed code examples for each framework. Bottom line, he would choose Webwork or Tapestry along with Spring if given a choice by the PHBs 8:35:43 AM

Israel in 2008 The Middle East and what course the U.S. should take there will be a huge issue in 2008. Of course we have the Bull Moose to stir the pot. He writes, "This past week the militant President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that 'Israel should be wiped off the map.' He was echoing the words of the leader of the Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and these sentiments have been repeated by other leaders of that country over the years." Here's an article from Pew Research Center for the People & the Press detailing huge dissatisfaction amongst voters with both business and government. They write, "Americans express increasingly negative views of a wide range major institutions, reflecting strong discontent with national conditions. Over the past year, ratings have tumbled for the federal government and Congress. And it is not just Washington institutions that are being viewed less positively. Favorable opinions of business corporations are at their lowest point in two decades. In the face of high energy prices, just 20% express positive opinions of oil companies...While public views of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Tom DeLay are deeply partisan, a number of Republicans have maintained a generally favorable reputation across party lines. This is particularly true for Sen. John McCain, who is rated favorably by roughly three-quarters of the Republican, Democratic and independent voters familiar with him. Rudy Giuliani gains equally favorable marks from independents, and is viewed favorably by many more Republicans than is McCain. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also wins positive reviews from virtually all Republicans who offered a rating. Rice also earns favorable ratings from over half (53%) of Democratic voters familiar with her. Among possible Democratic candidates, former Sen. John Edwards has the greatest crossover appeal he is viewed favorably by 85% of Democratic voters who can rate him, 68% of independents, and 48% of Republicans. Sen. Joe Biden is viewed favorably by 42% of Republicans who are familiar with him, but only 56% of Democrats. Fewer than half of registered voters knew Biden well enough to give a rating. By comparison, Sens. Hillary Clinton and John Kerry remain highly polarizing figures. Democratic voters view Kerry favorably by roughly four-to-one, while Republicans view him unfavorably by the same margin and independents are divided (49% favorable, 51% unfavorable among those able to give a rating). Sen. Clinton receives similar ratings, though somewhat higher than Kerry among independents. " Thanks to beSpacific for the link. Category: 2008 Presidential Election 6:28:19 AM

Man-made Flood Good For Grand Canyon? The U.S. Geological Survey is reporting that last year's man-made flood in the Grand Canyon helped in the ways that were predicted, according to USA Today. From the article, "A man-made flood through the Grand Canyon last Thanksgiving shows promise in rebuilding beaches vital to recreation and the ecosystem on the Colorado River, federal scientists said Wednesday. But the river still flushes out more sediment than it adds each year, the U.S. Geological Survey reported in a 220-page study of efforts to manage the canyon. That could lead to drastic measures, such as trucking sand from Lake Powell to remake sandbars downriver for endangered wildlife and increased numbers of river rafters, campers and hikers...Next up: A less intensive test to see if smaller but more frequent releases can build beaches and still accommodate dam needs. Last year's flood was so big - peaking at 18.5 million gallons a second for 2.5 days - that the water had to bypass the dam turbines." Thanks to Howling At A Waning Moon for the link. Category: Colorado Water 6:22:00 AM

Referendums C and D Don't forget to vote Tuesday in Denver. Here's the precinct finder from DenverGov. Here's the link to the Denver Election Commission website. You can also download voting addresses here. Coyote Gulch will announce the Gulchie Awards for this election Tuesday morning. Please keep sending in your suggestions to the judges. Click on the link for the criteria for winning. Former Speaker of the House, Lola Spradley, is urging voters to reject Referendums C and D, in a column in today's Denver Post [October 30, 2005, "Vote down C&D"]. She writes, "It is a tax increase when many families need the money for increased gasoline and utility bills and can use this money better than government. Only government could ask to keep more of your money and tell you it is not a tax increase." Here's the last roundup on Tuesday's election from the Denver Post [October 30, 2005, "Tug of war awaits those still on fence"]. They write, "The drumbeat is mounting. The messages will be heard on doorsteps and radio, on voice mail and street corners: Vote on Tuesday. And more than that, 'Vote our way.' Both sides of the debate over Referendums C and D are mobilizing to make sure their supporters vote before 7 p.m. Tuesday and are trying, if still possible, to win the minds of the undecided. 'This is all a matter of turnout now. If 80 percent of our people come out and 90 percent of theirs do, they win,' Gov. Bill Owens said outside a campaign stop last week." The Denver Post editorial staff asks voters to approve Referendums C and D yet another time [October 30, 2005, "C, D will calm fiscal hurricane"]. They write, "A storm has been brewing in Colorado over the past three years - ever since the 2001-02 recession reduced state revenues by 17 percent. Like other states, we adjusted to the circumstances by cutting services. There simply wasn't enough money to do more. As the economy recovered and revenues returned to regular levels, the other 49 states have been able to rebuild such programs as health care, education, highways and parks. Colorado, however, is stuck in a fiscal twilight zone. Revenues are growing again, but an oddball clause in the 1992 Taxpayer's Bill of Rights forbids a return to normal spending levels. Experts call this 'the ratchet effect,' or simply, 'the glitch.' No other state has anything like it. Referendums C and D on Tuesday's ballot give voters a chance to head off this bizarre - and completely unnecessary - budget crisis. Otherwise, Colorado soon will run short of the funds needed to keep a modern state running - the budget office anticipates a $365 million shortfall next year alone and hundreds of millions more in the years ahead. Residents will feel a painful pinch - funding will be at risk for public education, health and safety programs, roads and bridges, reservoirs and parks. State political leaders foresaw this calamity, and Republicans and Democrats buried the hatchet long enough to craft a solution. This is something of a political miracle, as if they saw a hurricane coming and passed a bill to have it stall harmlessly out at sea." Here's a recap of the Denver Post endorsements. Here's a short article about the effects of TABOR. Both sides in the Referendum C debate agree that TABOR has slowed the growth of government. Fred Brown looks at the political heavyweights that have turned out for the debate over Referedums C and D in his column in today's Denver Post [October 20, 2005, "Heavyweights enter the ring"]. He writes, "There are 'A list' celebrities and 'B list' celebrities, but in Colorado, we've been overrun with 'C and D' celebrities. The nasty battle over the two referendums has embroiled a boatload of boldface names." Category: Denver November 2005 Election 5:13:55 AM

Republicans to lose the House? John Aloysius Farrell thinks that the 2006 election could see much trouble for Repulicans. Here's his article from today's Denver Post [October 30, 2005, "Republican agonistes"]. He writes, "It's a good thing, if you are a Republican, that your annus horribili arrived in 2005. 'If this were October 2006 ... yes, the Republicans would lose their House majority,' says GOP pollster Frank Luntz. The Republican Party's troubles have left next year's mid-term election looking like a donnybrook, with perhaps double the expected number of fiercely contested House races. And while it might take the political equivalent of drawing an inside straight for Democrats to seize control of the Senate, the outside party is raising money by the bucket and beating its foe at candidate recruitment. In state after state, GOP governors, popular state officials and House stars are declining to run for the Senate in 2006, wary of a Democratic wave." While not part of Denver elections (Diana DeGette seems safe), it looks like Bob Beauprez's open seat, Marilyn Musgrave's seat and John Salazar's seat are all going to have strong challengers in 2006 from both parties. That should be fun to watch. Pro-choice Democrats are still trying to recruit a primary opponent for Bill Ritter, according to the Denver Post [October 30, 2005, "Pro-choice Dems seek a candidate"]. From the article, "When Joan Fitz-Gerald announced that she will not run for governor in 2006, she left a well-organized group of powerful political activists deeply disappointed. Sure, the same grizzled old buzzards in the Colorado Democratic Party who underestimated Gail Schoettler in 1998 had spent weeks dissing Fitz-Gerald's chances. Still, the state Senate president was fielding endless calls from savvy, well-heeled Democrats, checkbooks at the ready, saying, 'Run, Joan, run.' It was not to be. Running for governor would be 'a tremendous honor,' Fitz-Gerald said Wednesday, but she felt compelled to finish her term in the Senate. For the pro-choice community, which by most polls represents more than 60 percent of Colorado voters, Fitz-Gerald's announcement was a blow." Category: Denver November 2006 Election 5:07:13 AM

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