When
· Naughties
· · 2004
· · · December
· · · · 29 (3 entries)
One IDE to Rule Them All? · Don Box has an interesting set of Predictions for 2005. Every one of them is thought-provoking and well-framed. There is one, though, that I have to push back on: the surface prediction (#2) is that “Sun will embrace Eclipse”. The deeper issue here pops up a sentence later, when Don talks about “unifying on a common tool platform”. Well, as I (and everyone else who attended) learned at the “IDE Shootout” event at the last Java One, the Java IDE landscape is like a messy, vigorous, noisy, public marketplace. Each of the big IDEs is here for the long haul; and it’s not just Eclipse and NetBeans. Don’t forget Emacs, JDeveloper, and the IDE with the most fanatical fans of all, IntelliJ IDEA. Unlike the Windows world, where Visual Studio is all that really matters, what we have here is an ecosystem, a market, a place where competition and evolution happen. There is absolutely zero chance that the Java world will ever “unify on a common tool platform”. Which is A Good Thing.
Jerome Can Go Jump · That would be Jerome Lacoste, who writes “It was fun to see a guy of his age use vi to code some non mainstream language and put some CSS in HTML.”. Well, kiddo, my beard may be mostly white and my head mostly bald, but all ten fingers more or less work. Further, it occurs to me that this is a discipline in which skills are acquired as you go along, and as you go along, year upon year, you get better at it. And as for vi, well y’know, I would have used Emacs, but I didn’t want to scare the kiddies. Here’s how it is: Some people can’t not code, and sometimes the condition is long-lasting. (Actually, Jerome said kind things about my Javapolis talk. Seems like a smart guy, give him another decade or two and we’ll see.)
Lend a Hand · We really all ought to do something to help all those folks around the Indian Ocean who are hurting pretty badly right now. A particularly quick and easy way to do so is via Amazon; I should probably have gone through the Canadian Red Cross, but with these things, quicker is better, so I used Amazon. If you want to be impressed, wait a few seconds and refresh that page and watch the numbers go up. Even better, help make the numbers go up. [Update: I felt a little guilty about ignoring the home side, so I checked out the Canadian Red Cross and it’s real easy to donate there too, and these days, Canuck Bucks go further.]
