Articles by Yakov Fain

LiveCycle ES 8.2 is a solid platform for business process management

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:33:00 EDT

I'd like to share with you my experience of working with LiveCycle ES 8.2. This strong player in the BPM space version has been released in July of 2008.

The Topic of Flex Frameworks Is Getting Hot

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 09:00:00 EDT

I recently gave a presentation on Flex frameworks at the New York Flex Users Group. More than 50 people showed up, which proves that this is an important topic. By the end of the presentation the temperature in the room had increased because an innocent talk had turned into a heated discussion.

iPhone 3G: Friday Is The Day

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:45:00 EDT

Friday is a big day for people having urge to get a hold of the new iPhone 3G. 8AM. Sharp. Apple stores open their doors and those who didn't mind waiting in line for a couple of days (in Hawaii people formed lines 6 days ago) will get this baby.

Food Dial, a Facebook RIA Application Written in Flex

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:45:00 EDT

Food Dial is not just a book of recipes. Here's the big idea - you came back home, tired and hungry. Start the Food Dial application and open the fridge. Here's the red pepper. Turn the dial with food categories...

Integration Between Flex and AJAX Made Easy

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:00:00 EDT

Flex is a great way to introduce rich Internet applications to your enterprise. However, in the real world, you often have to do it gradually. Most business units of any enterprise that are sold on RIA would prefer adding Flex-based components to their old but working Web 1.0 applications one at a time. With DreamFace-Fx, it's a trivial process.

Polyglot Programmers Minus SQL

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:30:00 EDT

In the mid nineties, IT job market was good. PowerBuilder or Visual Basic plus SQL would get you employed in no time. Good old client/server days. Two programming languages was all you need. When multi-tier architecture became hot and J2EE came into picture, all of a sudden you'd have to learn a lot more languages and technologies, for example, Java, SQL, HTML, JavaScript, XML, JSP, EJB, JMS etc. Surprisingly,the young generation doesn't mind being polyglot programmers as long as the set does not include SQL. The popularity of this language is comparable with the popularity of Latin and Esperanto in the real world. Why?

Free Guest Pass to SOA World Conference in New York City

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:45:00 EDT

I'll be speaking at the SOA World Conference in NYC this Monday on using rich Internet applications as service consumers in SOA architecture. As the conference faculty member, I can invite a small number of people to attend it for free (Golden Pass). If you'd like to use this offer, just use the coupon code 'speakerguestVIP' (it's case sensitive) on the following registration page. If you have any RIA-related questions, just stop by at the FARATA Systems booth outside the keynote hall. and let's talk. I'll be wearing jeans and black t-shirt with white lettering FARATA.

Secrets Of The Masters: Core Java Job Interview Questions

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:00:00 EDT

If you are planning to hit the job market, you may need to refresh some of the Java basic terms and techniques to prepare yourself for a technical interview. JDJ Enterprise Editor Yakov Fain here offers thirty of the core Java questions that you might expect during the interviews, 20 for mid-level developers and the final ten for senior-level developers. Why not try them and see how well you do?

Flex Is Strong Because of Java

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 06:00:00 EDT

I received an email stating that AOL finally abandoned the ugly Java applet that was used in the ICQ2Go, the Web version of the hugely popular (about 30M users) instant messaging system. The person who sent me this email also wrote, 'IMO this was the last popular Java applet. Now the king is dead.'

iPhone 3G - The Best Apple Keynote Ever

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:00:00 EDT

Keynotes are often boring, but watching today's keynote from WWDC conference was just great. I do not want to repeat the facts about iPhone 3G. Needless to say that I'll buy a couple of them this summer. I do not want to bore you with the facts about the countless possibilities that open iPhone SDK brings to the table. Just watch the keynote.

Fresh Notes After Taking the Flex Certification Exam

Fri, 30 May 2008 23:45:00 EDT

Yesterday I realized that Friday's calendar was wide open, so I decided to take the Adobe Flex 2 Developer Exam. I knew plenty of other ways to kill a Friday, but I had to take this exam. I had no choice.

AJAX World - Adobe Flex 4 Is Shaping Up

Thu, 29 May 2008 11:15:00 EDT

Adobe has published their first plan of what should be included in Flex 4 that is scheduled to release next year. Since Flex is an open source product, you have a say in this too. Obviously, there's a hope that upcoming Thermo release will bring together developers and designers. I'm cautiously optimistic here. It's great that a designer's tool will automatically generate MXML. A developer will pick it up and re-factor. But will the tool be smart enough to reverse-engineer the re-factored code and present it back in a visual form to the designer for further work? That is a million dollars question.

Clear Data Builder 3.0 is Free Now

Thu, 29 May 2008 11:15:00 EDT

The popular code generator Clear Data Builder will become available free of charge. Originally, Clear Data Builder was released as a command-line open source code generator a.k.a. DaoFlex. We've submitted it to Adobe Flex component exchange about two years ago, and it quickly became one of the most downloadable components.

AJAX World - Two Great PDF Creators

Wed, 28 May 2008 22:15:00 EDT

I like reading stuff in pdf format. But it's even better if you can easily create pdf files. By easily I mean a button click. Literally.Since I have Adobe Acrobat, my Microsoft Word and PowerPoint just have an extra menu to create it. But it's kinda boring. Let me share with you a couple of better ways.

Great Indian Developer Summit

Tue, 27 May 2008 14:00:00 EDT

I spent last week in India attending the Great Developer Indian Summit (GDIS) that took place in Bangalore, in the Institute of Science, one of the most prestigious graduate schools in the country.

AJAX World - Cooking CRUD with Flex and BlazeDS

Mon, 19 May 2008 15:00:00 EDT

In today's cooking class you'll add to your cookbook a delicious recipe. It's quick and won't cost you a dime. I'm sure you've been in one of these situations when you have unexpected guests arriving in 20 minutes and need to make a good impression. Let's create an application that will auto-generate a Flex-Tomcat-BlazeDS-DB2 application.

Flex 4: My Wish List

Wed, 07 May 2008 07:00:00 EDT

Flex 2 was released in the Summer of 2006 and it was a mini-revolution in the RIA space. Almost nobody knew about Flex 1.5, but now almost everyone has at least heard about this software. Flex 3 was released in early 2008. It has a number of useful new features, but it was not a major release. In my opinion, a more modest 2.5 would suffice. We are expecting more now. Flex 4 will come out to the world next year and while the Flex team has announced a number of very interesting syntax improvements, I'd love to see more fundamental improvements in this great RIA tool.

Additions to My Computer Book Shelf

Fri, 02 May 2008 10:15:00 EDT

Many young programmers don't read books anymore. They google. They argue, 'When I need to find a solution it's just a click away. Why bother purchasing books that are outdated by the time of printing? Real programmers learn by doing - trial and errors'. I do not agree with this.

Forrester Turns Its Back On AJAX

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:30:00 EDT

I know, it's not nice and I should behave as if it's not that important to me, but I can't. During the last two and a half years I've been writing, openly speaking, whistle-blowing, and whispering that AJAX is a wrong way to go for developing rich Internet application. But 99% of the software developers were singing hosannas to AJAX. Forrester was selling this 7-page report for $379, while I've written dozens of pages for free. But who am I! Forrester said that AJAX does your body good. The author of that report has published yet another article explaining when it makes sense to use AJAX. But it seems that Forrester is turning 180 degrees now.

Sara Jessica Parker Should Upgrade To Leopard

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:45:00 EDT

The real bummer is that Java 6 is not there. Who should we blame for it? Steve Jobs who openly states that nobody uses Java anymore? There are about 5 million professional Java developers around the world. Can you give them a good reason to buy MacBook Pro? I can't.

Responding to the "Adobe Flex Shortcomings" Java Blog

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:15:00 EDT

Vectors supporting types are the part of next release - and are billed more of performance/coding help then language enhancement. Most of the Java 5 constructs are not really applicable to ActionScript 3 - for fair comparison you need to use Java 7/8 with dynamic scripting language support - and then the way you speak that language changes. Compare how enum support evolved in Java over the years - starting with patterns - and you would think of language as of evolving environment. I was coming to Java in '97 from C++ and I thought of it as a very poor language. 10 years made it almost tolerable - but I still miss ability to redefine operators - does it really matter to anyone who never did it in first place?

AJAXWorld and Bear Stearns

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 09:00:00 EDT

This was the first time I've included into the list of the RIA players a little known product called Curl. Even though this language was created in MIT, it's mainly used in Japan. I had a chance to spend an hour with Curl folks today, and it seems that this language may be a good fit for RIA that require solid processing power on the client. I need to spend more time studying this language to form an opinion about this language Curl.

New Major Release of Flex Is Due This Summer

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:00:00 EDT

This caught me by surprise. Isn't it a bit too soon? One of the most interesting features of this Flex release is configurable modules. This new release also features lots of new controls. I like the grooved panels. The Web site to promote the new Flex is done in Flex too (finally!).

Do We Need to Teach Designers Programming?

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:30:00 EDT

Fast-spreading rich Internet applications require new skills for development of what was known as boring-looking enterprise applications. In the past, development of the user interface was done by software developers to the best of their design abilities. A couple of buttons here, a grid there, gray background. Their users were happy because they did not see any better. This is about to change...

The Next Big RIA Service: Sprout

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:15:00 EDT

These days RIA tools are created mainly to two groups of people: Web Developers and UI Designers. The second group is represented by creative people who can design screens but are not programmers. Big guys are trying to come with tools that would bring together these two groups of people who currently live in different planets. But there is another group of people that need these tools.

When Will Sun Microsystems Start Competing in the RIA Space?

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:45:00 EDT

Sun Microsystems is a very respectful company, with strong engineering spirit and talented software developers on staff. Sun Microsystems was the company behind the very first technology to support rich Internet applications. Yes, I'm talking about Java applets that were introduced in 1995. The same setup as we see today in the RIA world: a JVM, that is a Web browser plugin and compiled byte code that offers rich UI. But after that, in my opinion, Sun's Java decision makers made a couple of serious mistakes:

Notes from Adobe conference for educators

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:00:00 EST

These are the notes from Adobe Education Designer and Developer Conference that Adobe put together for people who are teaching Adobe software at various universities around the country.

RIA Development Update: Flex 3, Air 1.0 and BlazeDS Released

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 10:00:00 EST

Eighteen months ago Flex 2 was released, which literally changed the way people think of rich Internet applications. Since then lots of things have happened in the Flex community. In 2007 Adobe announced that Flex will go open source, and now it has happened. All ActionScript 3 and Java code including Flex compilers and debugger (FDB) are going open source. And let?s not forget about the number of other open source products released by Adobe during the same period of time.

RIA - AJAX Developers Always Openly State that AJAX is Difficult

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:00:00 EST

If you are starting a new AJAX project, I highly recommend that you watch the video of a presentation made by an expert AJAX developer Joseph Smarr from Plaxo. Joseph is very experienced AJAX developer, and if after watching this presentation you don't get goose bumps, go ahead and start your next RIA project with AJAX.

Watching Java presentations with AJAX, Flex, AIR and JavaFX

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:00:00 EST

Parleys.com is a great Web site with lots of recoded videos of technical presentations on a wide variety of Java-related topics. While the original version of Parleys has been created in AJAX, more advanced Flex and AIR versions are now available too. I had a chance to chat with a man behind this project.

Car Manufacturers Go with Adobe Flex RIA

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:15:00 EST

OK, car manufactures go Flex. Will they lose or gain customers because of that? Car manufacturers want to have fancy consumer sites. It's a world of RIA, and having interactive Web sites should bring more people to car dealerships. But poorly performing Web site can turn into lost revenues.

Flex Is All About Event-Driven Development

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:45:00 EST

This is the first in a series of articles that will cover best practices of Flex development using the code of the soon-to-be-released open source class library theriabook. These components were developed by Flex and Java architects from Farata Systems. Over the past couple of years we've been successfully using various coding techniques and custom components that turned the application development in Flex into a RAD project.

Rich Internet Applications - State of the Union

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 11:15:00 EST

We are entering an era of Rich Internet Applications (RIA), and many enterprise development managers are facing the dilemma - which way to go - remain with tried and true Java or .NET technologies or less known (as yet) yet AJAX, Flex, OpenLaszlo...

An Alternative To Flex Builder Is Coming: JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 08:30:00 EST

One of the best Java IDEs on the market may become a valid Flex Builder alternative later this year. I can make a wild guess that I'll be seriously considering switching to IntelliJIDEA 8.0 by the end of 2008 unless Adobe will make some major investments in Flex Builder.

Flex Bugs Déjà Vu; Memories of Java's Bug Parade

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:45:00 EST

Flex is an open source product, which means that you can fix the bugs on your own. This may fork out the product, but that's another story altogether. On the other hand, developers can vote for the bugs so the Flex team can fix them. I remain cautiously optimistic that Flex team will be more responsive than their Java colleagues. Time will tell.

AMF 3 Specification Is Published

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:30:00 EST

Action Message Format (AMF) is a protocol that is used to serialize the data coming into Flash Player or going out to other programming environments that need to communicate with Flash Player. Say, if you create in Java an instance of the class MyOrder, this instance can be converted into a string of bytes, sent over the wire to Flash Player and then recreated there as an instance of the ActionScript object. The rules of how to do this are defined by a communication protocol, such as AMF.

Where To Find Senior Flex Developers?

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:30:00 EST

The Adobe Flex enterprise market picks up really fast, and it's obvious that the need for Flex developers will only get bigger and bigger. The question is what kind of Flex developers are in huge demand. I'll share with you the experience of our company, but first, let's look at the diagram from the popular job aggregator.

Flex 3, AIR, BlazeDS: Less Than One Moon

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:45:00 EST

Unless your Flex 2 project has to go to production this month, switch to Flex 3. Now. Flex 3 final Beta days are almost over and it brings you lots of goodies. If you are still thinking of using AJAX or JSF for your data intensive business application, just stop it, will you! Just take care of your business with Flex 3, AIR, and BlazeDS.

Does Adobe's Promotion of Flex Put Flash Programmers at a Disadvantage?

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:00:00 EST

I ran into an interesting blog written by a Flash programmer who feels that Adobe's promotion of Flex puts him and other Flash programmers at a disadvantage. And he knows how to resist!

AJAX Reporting Challenges & Solutions with Adobe Flex

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 07:30:00 EST

Creating reporting applications in AJAX is often more challenging than developing data entry CRUD applications. Reporters usually need to process lots of data, preferably on the client side to minimize the amount of information that goes through the wire. Reporters need to know how to apply formulas, group the data, and calculate totals and subtotals. Add to the mix a requirement to give the end user an ability to customize the look and feel of the report, and you're facing a serious project.