2007 Predictions

I promised last week to post some predictions for 2007.

Here goes . . .

1. Even the day coders will run screaming from WS-*. The battle is won; we night coders killed it because we didn't want to be controlled by vendor-pires and it is fundamentally flawed technology. Sadly, even though I believe that it is dead, it will take 2 more years before the industry echo chamber comes to terms with it. Software vendors who are heavily invested in WS-* will spend 2007 doing two things: one last gasp at making WS-* happen and quietly writing their Plan B MRDs.
2. REST usage will increase in lieu of WS-*, but it won't unseat messaging and other middleware.
3. People will settle down a tad about Ajax. It's great and all, but I've been seeing more and more botched impls. Like just about everything, its just a tool not a dogma.
4. XML will finally be considered one tool in the tool chest just like every other technology. Development teams will only use XML where it actually adds value and not force it into places where it does not belong.
5. The virtualization march will continue.
6. Distributed Cache and JavaSpace usage will accelerate as more people grok the power of this architecture style.
7. Apache River will breathe new life into Jini/JavaSpaces. Both will see lots of new interest and implementations. 2007 will be a "rebuilding year" (as they say in sports) - 2008 will be the big year for a Jini/JavaSpaces come back. Someone from Sun will formally apologize to all the people maimed by J2EE in 2009 and acknowledge that they should have marketed Jini as a service technology from the beginning (ok just kidding that isn't going to happen).
8. The Open Source patent war will begin in earnest.
9. Community Source Software will slowly start to take off in industry verticals as more executives grok the possibilities and come to terms with the fact that they are already sharing industry vertical software with their competitors; they just don't have access or any control of the source code. Look for a success or two in 2007 which will set the stage for a pandemic by 2009.
10. Even more smart people will start blogs or at least start reading blogs which result in even more transparency and open collaboration between software vendors, customers, and consultants and ultimately better software, more innovation, and less waste.

Alright, that is all I have . . . mostly just a bunch of blather, sorry. I am very excited about 2007. Should be an exciting year to say the least.

VMWare for OS X

The virtualization march continues . . .

VMWare has an OS X beta.

Saw this on Matt Raible's blog.

Little Jars of Formaldehyde

So we were talking at work today about virtualization and clouds of computing and clouds of data (like Amazon/Google style).

I mentioned the other day the whole envelope thing. Like how in the future perhaps applications will just be deployed with everything they need wrapped around them (OS). You just deploy them to your cloud of computers. They can be x86, RISC, whatever you like. The OS can be whatever you like.

Patrick Logan called these applications from the future "little jars of formaldehyde".

How great is that!?

If he made that up, wow.

This would solve all sorts of problems. ALL SORTS OF AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL PROBLEMS!!!

Sure it might bring a few along with it, but SO WHAT!?

Virtualized Ubuntu

So that was the easiest thing I have ever done.

I settled in to beat my laptop into submission to run Ubunto on Vmware this morning. I figured it would take all sorts of angst.

"It just worked."

This is my first blog post from this environment.

My last workstation Linux install was not so kind. I ran Gentoo. It took 10 days. It really wasn't Gentoo's fault though. I had a very new laptop that had some very new hardware. I did like Gentoo lots. I remember begging X to work. Finally I found some guy on the Gentoo forums (fantastic) that had my same rig and had a x config that had the magic bits.

I'll let you know how the virtualized Ubuntu works.

Perhaps I'll start pronouncing "Ubuntu" correctly now ... nah it is just too much fun for me to pronounce it my own way: "UM-BOOOONtooo".

25-SEP-06 - Updated with proper spelling of "Ubuntu" - man I can't spell or say it!! I'm stupid stupid STUPID!

Virtualization Aha!

We had a visitor from our Belfast, Ireland office yesterday named Iwan. We took him out for a beer after work and discussed all sorts of things.

One topic was virtualization. Among other things, Iwan is involved in infrastructure - he commented that for several years he has had to tell development teams "no" when they asked for a server because they already had too many under utilized machines and were running short of space and $$. But sharing environments comes with all sorts of truly awful wasted energy in coexistence.

He said that virtualization has allowed him to say "yes" to all sorts of requests.

We talked about shipping applications with the OS included in an "envelope". That basically just turns everything upside down.

I don't have a lot of experience with virtualization although people on my team do. I've followed the blog discussions and excitement around virtualization and agreed in general that it is a good. I just didn't feel any excitement about it personally.

I don't know what was said in our conversation last night that pushed me over the edge to have the "aha" moment, but I had one. "Aha!" moments are great. I've been having more then my fair share of them lately. We are living in truly amazing times.

I look forward to future beers (both virtual and real) with my new friend Iwan.