Having used Solaris and Oracle products in an Enterprise environment, I can’t say that I am surprised. When the rumors of Oracle’s purchase of Sun, I realized Java was dead. “The End of Innovation” should have been the headline.
Why?
Sun was bleeding money, badly. They had lost focus and drive. A hardware company that also does operating systems and supports an open source development platform? WTF? (Almost sounds like Microsoft, but in reverse). I digress. Sun needed a buyer. The existing model wasn’t working. If it had, they wouldn’t have been bought out. Right? Right.
Oracle has NEVER been an open company. Big Larry learned early that once you’ve got their data, no company is interested in moving to a new platform. A decade ago Microsoft’s SQL Server wasn’t as stable as Oracle. It couldn’t scale up “enough” to handle the data load. Oracle had a better product. (The religious zealots enter stage left.) A different kind of deal with the devil was the only real option for some organizations.
So here we are. The Open Source movement has suffered a huge set back. It may not be noticeable today, but I believe we are swinging the pendulum in the other direction. And I thought SCO’s legal actions were distasteful.
The King is dead.
Long live the King.
I’m back at “the worlds largest chip maker” working on the same team as before. Same project. Same desk.
As usual, my team lead was on vacation for my first day. This has become a trend. The last time I started the contract, it was just before Christmas.
I was asked to fix a problem on my first day, before I even had access to TFS. “Ready to jump back in the fire?” “Sure.” “Can you take a look at this… and figure it out before noon?” “Yup. I’ll take a look…”
And I figured it out. The XML files are not backwards compatible. Quick chat with the user and we were back in business. My boss even noticed the quick resolution. Always a plus.
Some days it is really good to go back and do it all over again.
Attend the Portland Visual Studio 2010 Community Launch tonight…
The first 200 people in the door will receive free, preauthorized access
for Microsoft® WebsiteSpark™ which includes Visual Studio 2010 Professional
and other valuable developer resources!
RSVP now!
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“A well-trained man knows how to answer questions, they reasoned; an educated man knows what questions are worth asking.”
E. Digby Baltzell
From a NY Times Op/Ed piece: The ‘Learning Knights’ of Bell Telephone
Yesterday, ScottGu blogged about new VS 2010 Productivity Power Tool Extensions. Having wholly bought into the power of the Extension Manager, I think this add-on is another must-have for VS 2010.
If you already know you want it, you can download the extension here.
Enjoy!
PS: Don’t forget to RSVP for the Portland Visual Studio 2010 Community Launch event at Fiserv on June 17th. The first 200 people in the door will receive free, preauthorized access for Microsoft WebSpark. More info at the PADNUG website. Here is the link to RSVP directly.
Sometimes you just have to acknowledge things are not going to work out for whatever reason. Then move on.
I logged out at 15:15 yesterday afternoon. Gathered my stuff and did just that.
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… is not something I’m known for. Being an introvert, I’d rather avoid the uncomfortable dialog. If I can’t avoid it, I want to end it as quickly as possible. My “normal” method is to lay out my argument as logically as possible. If that doesn’t work, I go for the throat and attack the inner most issue at hand. Pulling out the nasty gore and exposing it to daylight, so we can address the core problem and move on as quickly as possible.
So…
I am struggling with my current client. The lead is… um challenging. Let me give you a bit of background.
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I’ve been having issues upgrading VS2008 ASP.Net MVC1 projects to VS2010 ASP.Net MVC2. In short, it doesn’t work so great. OK. It’s really lame. There are two problems to address. The VS2010 solution file uses a different format plus we’re upgrading library references in the background. There’s more to it than that but you get the idea.
I had been creating a new project and sliding things over, but that sucks. So… I get lazy and work on my older projects in VS2008 and the newer ones in VS2010. Like I said, lame.
Basically, I ignore the issue.
(time passes)
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Looking back at a couple of my syntax highlighting attempts I realized the best solution needed a little attention.
So… I dove back into the PHP code looking for the problem. I found 2 bad path references buried in some JavaScript code. Fixing those issues, fixed the syntax highlighting across the board.
Yeah!
Now I can keep up with the cool kids. 
Or not!
I saw this tonight as I was plowing through my email… Which Language?
Why was I “plowing through” my email? I’ve been in Maui for the last week. I know, rough life. Work hard. Play hard. Then take vacations to recharge. Or something like that.
I never knew I could surf. The woman and I signed up for stand-up paddle surfing lessons at Maui Wave Riders (Lahaina). After doing that for over an hour of SUP, our guide, Sonny B., took us to a spot with better waves to try our hands at regular surfing. I asked a couple questions. “So I put one foot here and the other there?” (Like on a skateboard.) “Yup. Get on your board.” Then he yelled “Paddle!” It took me a couple seconds to realize that I was moving fast enough to get up. I was up, then wondering what came next. I had enough time to look around and shrug at my wife before I dropped back into the water. I rode my second wave all the way to the shore. Hmm… I kind of liked that. It fits in with all of the other gravity sports I like or used to like as a kid. Kinda like skateboarding but not. I may have to do that again and again and again… Ya know. Just to make sure I’m doing it right.
I start a new project on Tuesday. I’ll be converting a bunch of mainframe/COBOL reports into ASP.Net/C# 3.5 reports. The project sounds interesting. I get to do some architecture work and help a company built up the organizational knowledge of the .Net framework. There’s alot of head-down coding work to be done in addition to the other more esoteric stuff. I’m really craving some head-down coding.
Hopefully, my sunburn will have faded a bit and the jetlag will have passed as well. I hate flying. I always feel like dookey when I arrive at my destination. It doesn’t matter if it is a quick hop to Vegas or a long haul to Europe. I always feel crappy when I get there. Some kind of spiritual dislocation or something. I have to sleep before my soul catches up to me… Or something like that.
On that note, I’m going to bed.
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It looks like I’ll be going back into the field when I return from vacation. Honestly, I’ve run out of tasks to keep me busy at the office and I don’t like make-work tasks. I don’t mind handing them out to other people 
, but I hate coming up with things for myself. I don’t create from scratch. I solve problems. Present me with a problem and I’ll find a solution. That isn’t the same things as someone who can come up with problems we didn’t realize we had and find new solutions. I’m not the pie-in-the-sky idea man. I’m more of the grimy fix-it dude.
Anyway, I like books. I love books. This can be a problem. 1) I almost always have one, possibly two, maybe even three reference books in my laptop bag. Carrying around these books gets very heavy. Hard on my body when they are strapped to my back. Hard on my gear. 2) The woman poo-poos my reference book collection. I have a large rolling cart jamb-packed full of books in the office closet. I removed the bar for clothes and rolled in my cart. 3) Airlines charge by the pound. If I don’t take 3 or 4 big books with me, our travel gear would be considerably lighter. 4) Ad-nausuem.
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