Articles, notes and random thoughts on Software Development and Technology
O’Reilly have an in depth article on their site by David Flannagan, author of the Java in a Nutshell books now in 5th edition to cover Java 1.5 language changes, on the use of Generics.
I’ve always found the Nutshell books to be an excellent desktop reference, plus the introductory chapters give a very concise overview of the language features in Java. Click here for more details on Java in A Nutshell:
In a desperate attempt to increase enduser awareness of the new features in the next upcoming (and overly delayed) Windows release, Microsoft has recruited a team of non-MS employees to spread the marketing word on behalf of Microsoft.
This is a strange attempt to increase consumer awareness, but one that just might work: seed the community with people with inside knowledge to start discussions and speculation about upcoming features, and hype up the product. I’m sure this has been done before many times with different media types, but it’s the first time I’ve heard it being done with bloggers.
Although not new technology, this type of client/server type realtime interaction with the user via the browser is picking up interest again, as a means to offer a more ‘compelling user experience’ to the user.
This is interesting because I worked on a project in 1998 where we evaluated the use and prototyped AJAX type functionality for a browser-based application, but dismissed the approach as trying to hard to replicate traditional client/server type functionality in the browser. Strange how things come around back into fashion again…
Google Suggest is the best example I’ve seen recently using this approach – take a look at http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en
News.com have some preview images of a Longhorn demo to the press. Doesn’t look that spectacular or eye catching, but visual improvements are promised, such as translucent windows, and document icons that show a preview of the content of the actual document or file.