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Monthly Archives: October 2016

A Brief History of Java and Vampires

31 Oct

Episode 42

As you may have noticed, my focus in this blog is shifting away from Java itself to more general topics related to software development, despite having “Java” word in the blog name. Well, two months ago I even changed the name from JEE to Java, because I felt JEE was too specific. Let’s get back to roots and explore a bit of history of the Java platform.

As a Halloween guest stars, the article will feature the story of creatures of the darkness, as portrayed in role-playing game Vampire the Masquerade. Lets look at their hierarchy, from oldest to youngest.

Antediluvians4262393-dracula-untold-master-vampire

Said to be vampires of incalculable power, each of whom survived the Biblical Deluge. Considered to be the founders of the thirteen clans and members of the third generation.

1990 – In December, Patrick Naughton starts the Stealth Project which will later become what we now know as Java. The aim is to create a platform that will speed up software development and render C++ language and its tools obsolete.

1991 – The Green Project is the new name of the platform, James Gosling and Mike Sheridan are also on the team, which now consist of 13 people in total. Gosling starts the work on the core platform language, then called the Oak.

1992 – First internal demonstration of the platform. Duke, the future Java mascot makes first appearance. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on October 31, 2016 in Misc, Technology

 

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Pay your debts

27 Oct

Episode 41

I’ve seen recently a nice movie based on actual events – the Deepwater Horizon. Aside from being well made and entertaining, the movie had an additional value to me. It was a story of what happens to a project with insufficient tests and short sighted management putting pressure to release unfinished product with monstrous technical debt. It blows up in huge ball of fire.

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Technical debt

Ward Cunningham coined the term technical debt while working on financial software. The idea is, that when developing software, you can often go in two directions. You can spend more time and implement the new functionality cleanly, soundly and with respect to existing architecture. If the functionality does not Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on October 27, 2016 in Agile, Clean Code, Technology

 

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Building Microservices

20 Oct

Episode 40

I haven’t written anything in Books category this year, so it’s time to fix this. I have found Building Microservices by Sam Newman when browsing shelf of mini library next to the kitchen in our office, while waiting for my coffee. What caught my attention was a new and shiny book among bunch of uhm… mature ones. Besides, amongst all that noise regarding microservices in the industry, I thought it’s good to read some damn book instead of watching random talks from people shouting, “hey we did microservices in our company too, we are so cool and trendy!”. I like books, I’m old school.

Premise

lrgQuoting the book cover itself:

“Distributed systems have become more fine-grained in the past 10 years, shifting from code-heavy monolithic applications to smaller, self-contained microservices. But developing these systems brings its own set of headaches. With lots of examples and practical advice, this book takes a holistic view of the topics that system architects and administrators must consider when building, managing, and evolving microservice architectures”

Yes, we can hear that everywhere now. You might have an idea that everyone has migrated to microservices or is in the process of it, but it’s bullshit. Most systems I’ve seen recently are nowhere near that, and it doesn’t seem to change anytime soon.  So perhaps it’s good to rant about this on and on, but also investigate the topic a bit further that “hey we have to do this, everyone is doing it, let’s do this!”. There are pros, there are cons and there are Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on October 20, 2016 in Books, Technology

 

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Zawiercie Oct 2016

13 Oct

Episode 39

First thing that comes to mind, if you are not my coworker, is probably “What the hell is Zawiercie?”. I hasten to explain, Zawiercie is a city in southern Poland, and recently a place of integration trip of my company. How is it related to Java or software development you may ask? Well, the blog is about software and peopleware, and there was a lot of people from software house there.

Off we go

It was actually first time I’ve been on event of this type that spanned more than one evening. Three groups of buses started at different hours from our three offices: Wrocław, Rzeszów and Gdańsk in order to meet in the same place at roughly the same time. It felt a bit like going back to school days. People are trying to seize the rear of the bus, since it’s the place where cool folks sit. Teachers (uhm… I mean HR people) are in the front to lead and watch the driver. And pretend nothing wrong is happening in the back. I thought I will do some reading, but later I went to the back of the bus and first thing I heard was: “Hey, you seem to be too sober. We need to fix that right away, sit down”.

off-we-go

After arrival we met at the grill hall to eat something and Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on October 13, 2016 in News

 

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Software Talks Wrocław and Gdańsk Sep 2016

06 Oct

Episode 38

pgs-software-talks

Software Talks is an event hosted by my company, PGS Software, in three cities in Poland where we got our offices: Wrocław, Gdańsk and Rzeszów. The idea is to meet, share knowledge, talk about various aspect of software development and IT in general, drink beer, eat pizza and have fun. I’ll tell you the story of how that happened this time. And the story of my first truly public talk.

Behind the scenes

I joined the company just two months ago, and few days later I’ve read an email from HR addressed to Java team asking if anyone wants to be the PGS speaker at Software Talks. I thought “what the hell” and responded. Apparently I was the only one to do so, thus I became the first speaker. The other guy turned out to be guest star Piotr Konieczny,  founder of Niebezpiecznik.pl, well known (think 100 000 FB followers) Polish website / company with web security content and Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on October 6, 2016 in News

 

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