Calvin Austin

Calvin Austin's Java Blog What Sun finally did this week by releasing Java under GPL was a historic event. Using the GPL instead of yet another Sun license certainly makes adoption that much easier. But why did it take so long and why the change now? I left Sun in 2004 after 8 ... (more)

Calvin Austin's Blog I've been busy working on our Web 2.0 release so didn't have time to update my laptop until now. I was generally happy with my Ubuntu breezy 64bit install, I had the JDK on there, Java worked in firefox 32bit, I could remotely display my screen to a projector... (more)

From SOA World Conference & Expo 2005 East (April 17, 2005) - This month's Web Services Edge Conference -SOA World Conference & Expo- marks four years since the first detailed W3C note on the Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) and nearly five years since the first public sp... (more)

We all know that there isn't a single language or platform that is totally secure, much in the same way that no matter how well you secure your house, its still possible to leave a door unlocked. However if your house has few locks, open windows and is it a bad neighborhood, shou... (more)

(March 13, 2006) - One of my tasks at Sun was to keep abreast of the technologies in the marketplace that competed with Java. At certain points in the release we would summarize where we were compared to other technologies and, if necessary, focus on areas where we could improve.... (more)

JavaOne News Highlights - Open Source Java So Jonathan has taken stage. The first item he wanted to discuss was Suns Niagara hardware sparc try and buy program so that you can now download free hardware. Next came one of the conference sponsors, Ed Zander with Motorola who picked ... (more)

Java: What's in a NamePosted by calvinaustin on April 28, 2006 at 10:38 AM | Comments (0) I read another blog entry complaining about the Java naming scheme. If that is the biggest issue with Java 5 today then I'm very happy. The complaint is that there are 3 names, Java 5, Java ... (more)

Go Geronimo Go!Posted by calvinaustin on January 09, 2006 at 11:10 AM | Comments (0) Geronimo 1.0 was released last week. Apache Geronimo is a new, open source, J2EE 1.4 certified application server. It is built from many established open source projects, like OpenEJB, Tomcat and... (more)

Many years ago I saved up for a 16K RAM pack for my tiny Sinclair ZX81 computer. I thought, rather naively, that this was going to be the answer to all my memory issues. I would be able to use increasingly complex programs, okay games, and I could program without the restriction ... (more)

This month I wanted to review some of the latest happenings in the JDK 6.0 (Mustang) release. Although we have to wait to see the initial JSR draft, you can download the binaries the engineers are actually working on. Some of the newest features to be added include JSR 223 script... (more)

This year will be the first time in 10 JavaOnes that I haven't been a Sun employee. As I am now fairly local to the show I should be able to attend again this year. I've met many developers from around the world who make the annual trip to San Francisco. Many still see it as the ... (more)

There has been talk recently that Sun is planning to end the use of the J2 platform name and branding scheme. The proposal is that the terms Java Enterprise Edition and Java Standard Edition will replace J2EE and J2SE. If you had the opportunity to read the March edition of JDJ, ... (more)

Last month I took a trip down memory lane, revisiting the history of J2SE. Apart from trying to remember key events, squeezing 10 years of history into one page was a challenge. I had to relegate many significant technologies to a sentence or two and some I didn't cover at all. H... (more)

This year will mark the tenth anniversary of the official launch of Java technology. It seems like only yesterday. No doubt there will be celebrations similar to the five-year anniversary, so I thought I would take this opportunity to step back in time and track Java's course. I... (more)

I recently upgraded my home network to use 802.11g. The prices for routers and PC cards have fallen throughout the year, but unfortunately the support has only marginally improved in that time and, after many re-installs, my network wasn't working. I eventually had to resort to p... (more)

I recently had the opportunity to talk with many Java users about the current release and their general experiences with the platform. One of those developers told me that he didn't use J2SE but his J2EE VM sometimes caused problems. Now most of you know that there is no such th... (more)

I am pleased to announce that the J2SE 5.0 release has gone final and is ready for you to download! The first set of downloads for Windows, Solaris, and Linux are available from the http://java.sun.com/j2se/5.0 Web site. This even includes a 64-bit AMD64 port on Linux for server-... (more)

Some of you may remember a time when the world of multithreaded programming was limited to a small set of C or C++ applications. Often the threads were used sparingly and restricted to a specific task or computation or even operating system. When the Java platform arrived it bro... (more)

You may have heard the news that Sun has opened the doors for its employees to start blogging, including the most famous employee, the COO. Blogging obviously isn't new, and many companies have already gran-ted individual users the opportunity to go ahead. However, the open flood... (more)

I recently enjoyed reading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. In his book, Bill goes back to basics and delves into the history of many things we take as facts. One memorable observation is a reminder that we are all just collections of trillions of atoms assemb... (more)