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Ken Arnold

Ken Arnold is an object oriented and distributed system design addict. He is a programmer and author who helped create Jini, JavaSpaces, Curses, and Rogue.

 

Weblogs

JCP Wants You, Sort Of, It Thinks...
The Java Community Process -- they want you, but it seems like they still don't quite know what to do with you.

As I briefly mentioned in a previous blog, the JCP people want you to sign up as...

A Second Language for the JVM!!
Graham Hamilton today said that with Visual Basic, we now have a second language for the JVM!
Getting underway

Nice music. No network. Blog as if there was one...

Every year they don't start this on time, and every year I show up on time anyway. Every year they do something interesting with the...

Harmony
I've been waiting all conference to see something that can be exciting about the future of Java itself, not just for individual subparts of the Java community. So now I've found something. Apache...
Names matter

A clue for the folks who run this conference: When I run into someone I've met at last year's JavaOne, what's the first thing I want from the conference badge? Let me give you a hint: it isn't to...

Miss Manners at JavaOne
On behalf of a friend: When you leave a BOF early, can you please close the door quietly? It seems basic courtesy to those left behind. As a counter-courtesy, maybe speakers at BOFs where there is...
Generics Considered Harmful
I don't know how to ease into this gently. So I'll just spit it out.

Generics are a mistake.

This is not a problem based on technical disagreements. It's a fundamental language design...

Oh no, not again
So we begin again. Another JavaOne.

The place has certainly calmed down. Which is to be expected. The first JavaOne was at the rush of the .com boom. Everything was new, everyone was doing...

Unicode marches on
I'm working on the 4th edition of The Java Programming Language, and everyone of course has heard of the major new features. One of the odd little corners, though, is that Unicode has now...
Ludicrous as a Balm for Patent Idiocy
Pamela Jones's GrokLaw website has kindly noticed my suggestion...
Self-enforcing Patent Sanity

There are many suggestions for fixing the patent system, from abolishing it to radical surgery. Many of these are praiseworthy in design, but most suffer from a severe problem -- You can't get...

Patentably idiotic

The Kodak v. Sun suit has gone against Sun. This is hard evidence that the software patent system is...

Knowing What's Where

So far today the most interesting talk I've been to is the one

Community Session Tonight

Tonight we'll get a look at several of the communities. Don't miss it. Jini, JXTA, Java Community Process, and java.net will all have a chance to give a whirlwind presentation (and prizes), and...

The Unexpected Newborn Adult

JavaOne is next week. Of course you know that.

The folks who do Java stuff out in the world have ranged from intrigued to fanatic about Jini and JavaSpaces, but those who set the schedule...

The Sum of Ant

In a previous blog on today.java.net I said some fairly strong things about ant, and I think I ought to say something more, both good and bad....

Napkin as Reality

My latest hack is a "Napkin" Look and Feel for Swing. I'm up to alpha 4 with it -- it still does some very weird things. The Swing LAF lets many...

Culture clash on the platform

Joel Spolsky, of "Joel on Software" fame has posted a new essay called "...

Office design patterns
Joel Spolsky ("Joel on Software") built his company offices designed for actual programmers and their teams. A radical notion, really. Here's one sample: Put lots of outlets in each office at...
Duncan Davidson is being kind...
Duncan reports that I gently and kindly harangued him at MacHack about ant. I'm not so sure I was all that gentle, but I hope I was kind. It's interesting that after we talked, he said "You've got...
MacHack

I'm getting ready to give my keynote at MacHack. At midnight. That's the kind of conference this is -- the opening keynote is at midnight. I am assured that...

JiniFest

Last night was JiniFest, which was a blast. JiniFest is what the Jini community does at JavaOne to have folks show what they're doing with Jini. Some are community projects led by interested...

No longer waiting for Gosling

Okay, James breaks the spell, as always: Someone who isn't a major Sun partner gets up on the stage....

Three someones.

But don't do this to us next time. So much stuff up front...

Continuing to wait for Gosling...

I will never understand why marketing people haven't learned how to talk to geeks after the decades since computer conferences have been going on. Scripted pseudo-conversations, for...

Waiting for Gosling...

Okay, they found a funny engineer. How likely was that?

The announcement of HP's agreement to put Java on all their Windows boxes is both cool and nearly predictable. Disk space is free...

And the message is...

How many guest speakers from how many big companies do we get? A lot of what's been exciting in the past were talks from companies we've never heard of doing things we've never thought of. This...

And they're off!

This is getting ridiculous, although in a vaguely amusing way. Instead of merely reserving seats at the keynote for the alumni, today they hold the new folks behind ropes until the alums have...

Insomnia is highly underrated...
Try to check everything out. Sleep is optional. This is JavaOne, after all.

No, really, try it. I admit that, since the first JavaOne, the meeting has become less of a whirlwind, more...