Sad but true: I'm not a Java programmer now

I really forgot when I last code using Java....
My company SurroundApps Inc Ltd. is now completely involved with MS counter part of Java i.e. MS Dot.Net. All of its running and future products are dot.net based and as the technical leader (obtained that position in course of time) of SurroundApps Inc Ltd I have no option to even explore with new Java tech terms... :( Intially tried to maintain at least the intial knowledge-base with help of a few forums and groups, but time not stands by me.

Instead, I'm now doing more managerial tasks than development as part of my current job responsibilities and also technically guiding my team mates with technical guidance in dot.net technologies....

Sad but true : I'm not a java programmer now.....

Two important discovery

At last I've found the community of BoW (Best of World) java programmers where technology borns in the incubator :)
Yes I've found Java Community Process (JCP)

What a lovely place!!! I'm really pleased... :-)

As a part of JSR-38 implementation in JCP I've discovered another interesting opensource cross platform installer creation tool named JIFI: An Open Installation Toolkit. I think this will be much much better than the buggy Installshield Universal as this is born from JCP. :-)

Some worthy blog and articles abt design

While searching for good articles abt design patterns, found the excellent article of Eamonn McManus on his Dr. Dichotomy's Development Diary, Java API Design Guidelines. The summery of this artcle says :

I recently attended an excellent talk at JavaPolis, Elliotte Rusty Harold's XOM Design
Principles. Although the talk is nominally about XOM (an API for XML
documentation manipulation), in fact more than half of it is about API design
principles in general. This is a curiously neglected subject. There are tons of
books and articles about how to design and write good Java code, but
surprisingly little about the specific topic of API design. Yet with the
proliferation of new Java APIs, whether through JSRs or through Open Source
projects, this is an increasingly important subject.
I've been closely
involved with the evolution of the JMX
API for over five years and have learnt a great deal about what works and
what doesn't during that time. During the talk, I had the odd experience of
continually wanting to cheer as Elliotte made point after point that I hugely
agreed with.
I'm going to try to summarize here what I see as being the key
points from this talk, from my own experience, and from a couple of other
sources:
An excellent tutorial on netbeans.org, How to Design a
(module) API.
A related NetBeans BOF at JavaOne 2005 by Tim Boudreau and Jaroslav
Tulach, entitled How to
write APIs that will stand the test of time.
Of course, Josh Bloch's Effective Java book.

Also find a wonderful discussion on the the difference betn concept of Design Pattern and Framework at Design Pattern Vs Framework

I am hoping this articles will help me in future in many ways as well as the readers of this post who might have interest on various design issues to improve their programming capabilities.

Changed status to Occational Blogger

I am finding blogging is important enough to keep me in schedule but can't manage time to write blog each day for daily activities. So, I've changed my status to Occational Blogger from Java Lover's Blog.

It doesn't mean that I am not a Java Lover now, but I think the new Status will be more appropriate to describe my current view about blogging.

Reading abt various OO design patterns for few days, but didn't find anything new till now. I am suprisingly finding that I've used almost all these design patterns in my various work, but didn't know that these startegies has names... :-) And also this is the fact what each author of design pattern books and articles mension in their starting notes abt design patterns. Thanx for their modesty..... :-)

A very bzy day

Released the final version of a cross platform java application installer for one of our client's software. This installer was fully developed in Installshield Universal.

Started working on the upgrade installer for same installer.

I think I should generalize the custom product action to add multiple files into a single product action. But as the process is not well documented, I had to reverse engineer the code of installshield provided class library to get some sample. Thanx again to kpdus for his wonderfull JAva Decompiler Jad

I hope I can grasp the technique that Installshield kept hidden in this kind of product/wizard actions by tomorrow... :-)

Also had to go through some RnD for an Microsoft Exchange Server Extension project, though i hate this kind of project :-(

But, this is the real fact of professional life.... :-( :-)

Though I've posted a mail about my will to extend the Java Thread Migration project to JPGroup, I didn't get any responses.... And also didn't able to manage some time for this project. :-(

A nice meeting in Somewherein.....

Today I had a very nice meeting (actually an interview from their side) in somewherein...

Actually, they were looking for a J2EE expert, but I was not.... :-) I knew that I won't get that post there and I was also not thinking to switch my current job at SurroundApps as I was very much concirned about my capability and experience in J2EE, but I didn't want to miss the chance to meet with two of my very favourite JPGroup member : Hasin Bro and Hasan Bro... :-)

Nice meeting you brothers... :-)

Started blogging...

To track my regular activities I've started blogging....

All gredits and thanx going to Arild and Hasan of Somewherein..... to inspire me to start blogging.