Monday, January 21, 2002

Dan has a very cool short summary of the business aspects of web-services. I especially liked the paragraph alerting the reader to the need to keep the data and data descriptions portable enough to move from one vendor to another. Would this not jive with Dave's concerns as well? 7:38:36 PM     SURPRISE SETTLEMENT EVENLY SPLITS MICROSOFT; ONE FIRM TO MAKE SOFTWARE, OTHER TO MAKE PATCHES ..contd. 7:24:51 PM     One of my current obsessions is "Java versus .NET". Since I am in the process of weening myself from Microsoft dev tools, I engaged in some behavior that would formerly have been sacreligious - I trolled the Net for headlines that could be categorized under "MS against the World". Here are a few notes in no particular order: So what does Gosling really think of C#? CMP uses Evans Data statistics: " Developers seem interested in the new Microsoft C#. Although heavy C/C++ users might have been expected to be the most likely to try the new C#, they seem the least interested in it. Heavy Visual Basic users claimed to be more likely to try C# in the coming year. Today, 57.2 percent of the general developer community uses Visual Basic, a slight decrease compared to the March 2000 result of 62 percent. Of those developers who said they use Visual Basic over half of the time, 42.2 percent are "absolutely" or "probably" going to try C# next year. The North American respondents showed a generally positive attitude towards C# among developers. Thirty percent of developers said they are likely to try using Microsoft's new C# in the next year. The positive response was weaker among C/C++ users compared to Visual Basic users. Of those who use C/C++ more than half of the time, 29.9 percent expressed interest in trying C#. Among those who use Java more than half of the time, 23.4 percent said they are likely to try using C#." I think the big news here is the decline of VB compared to the increase in Java usage - hence my dilemma. The same subject is being discussed by ZDNET UK. Do you ever wonder if these links die sooner than later? Information has such a short half-life, yet knowing what transpired in the past can give you a better appreciation of how a current situation may play out. Reminds me of some of Dave's SOAP notes, where he discusses his intent to chronicle events. Change is hard. Personally I don't see many of the 3 Mil. corporate VB developers making a succesful switch to NET. And you know whats even worse? I can imagine that many many web services will be developed in NET by folks who have very little understanding of OO - or good software design. Ain't that going to be a Wiener (just kidden Dave). 4:29:42 PM     The US is a hard place to live. I suppose thinking of Martin Luther King started me down the path of how violent this country is. Of course unless you've lived in a more easy going part of the world you would have no point of reference. Several weeks ago my mother, a sixty-some year old shop keeper in Santa Barbara, was robbed at gun point, and pistol whipped across the chin. In Santa Barbara! This place is so quiet and gentile that they have to import criminals from LA! All joking aside, the "right to bear arms" maybe very useful when your trying to start a revolution but 200 years later I question this right. And the funny thing is that I never had a problem with the gun issue - until it touched the life of my family. Hey Doc - maybe you can take your wife by my mom's store the next time you are near the Arlington. Its right at the corner of Victoria and State Street. She sells high quality ladieswear. (Coats, Jackets etc.)   8:27:29 AM     Happy Birthday Martin! Stevie Wonder's Radio Station has one of the best documentaries of King. Its very thorough and lasts (I think) about 4 hours. Once I got past the narrators infatuation with the sound of his own voice I actually liked the content. It's called "From Atlanta to the Mountain Top", and includes interviews and news excerpts from an amazing array of sources. The show is also streamed across the Net, just look for an icon labeled "listen live" near the top. Speaking of Stevie Wonder's radio station. It is one of the few remaining independent stations in Los Angeles. Doc had a nice interview with Bill Goldsmith of Radio Paradise, and along the same lines Doc quoted some statistics about the number of stations owned in a given market by ClearChannel. I think he said they basically own all of Santa Barbara's radio stations. I believe it. It seems they own most of the stations in Los Angeles as well. That sort of media monopoly is dangerous because you only hear the information and music that they want you to hear. I'm sensitive to that sort of thing because I grew up under a totalitarian regime . As another twist of this story I want to mention that KJLH plays 6 solid hours of Gospel music on Sundays, with very few commercial interruptions. ("Spread the Word" starts at 12:00 Noon).  Now Gospel might not be everbody's cup of tea, but as I understand it, this is another tradition that is slowly being erased by the consolidation of the media markets. Too bad. Personally I get a kick out of some of the performers.  Whats more important, there appears to be a very palatable connection between this show and its listening community. 7:46:46 AM

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