Cast your mind back to the year 2000. Microsoft has just announced its .NET Framework, complete with a new language called C# - that was in July, at the Orlando Professional Developers Conference.

How can we build perfect web Grid?

Sun has now decided to cease funding for the SwingX project altogether, as announced via a post to SwingLabs' forum by Jeanette Winzenburg . This has angered many in the Swing development community where there is a growing view that the core Swing APIs are being relegated to a supporting GUI library for the newer JavaFX technology

I’ve seen many newcomers to Java language has been discussing this topic with themselves when they are given training in HTML and web design.For many of those folks, JavaScript is the another name for a nightmare. Few tips from my side for those people.

In order to modularize JDK 7 in the next year or so, and in order better to inform the work of JSR 294, Sun will shortly propose to create Project Jigsaw within the OpenJDK Community. This effort will, of necessity, create a simple, low-level module system whose design will be focused narrowly upon the goal of modularizing the JDK. This module system will be available for developers to use in their own code, and will be fully supported by Sun, but it will not be an official part of the Java SE 7 Platform Specification and might not be supported by other SE 7 implementations. If and when a future version of the Java SE Platform includes a specific module system then Sun will provide a means to migrate Jigsaw modules up to that standard. In the meantime we’ll actively seek ways in which to interoperate with other module systems, and in particular with OSGi.

The idea of network attached shared memory makes me want to re-think the whole scheme of data persistence. I'm tired of blindly using a RDBMS when another option could be much better.

Grails 1.1 beta 1 is out, and the release notes give a nice snapshot of some of the sweet new features coming.

The JCP has long come under fire for the insularity and high fees associated with its process. In this report from a QCon panel on open standards development, new executive committee member Rod Johnson explains why he decided to join the organization he once "likened to a commissar in Soviet Russia." Other panelists quoted include Bill Venners, Cay Horstmann, and Michael Van Riper.

We all know that source control, effective build scripts and continuous integration (CI) are all vital to a successful project at work. However, what about personal projects? I'm looking to find out what others are doing for personal development. What are your thoughts?

How can approach help a programmer to create better design and code? 13 rules of the pragmatic approach.

Downtime, stupid UI mistakes, miscues on communication, bad product launches... they happen to the best of us. Literally. Over the past year, many of the top websites in the world have committed serious development no-no's. It's almost comforting to know that the best development teams in the world aren't perfect either.

A thought-provoking approach to the issue of software quality. Can we really improve code quality by following all sorts of formulas? This post argues that the answer is no.

There’s nothing like the right link at the right time. Remy Rakic (Twitter alias lqd) has left a link to the apparent release jars of JavaFX Desktop 1.0 in the comments on the previous entry. So i’ve decided to see whether there is anything new in the JMC department since the last time i’ve looked at it.

I bet you could point to the weakest software developer in your department with little hesitation. But if I asked you to identify your criteria, it's unlikely that "metrics" would play any part in that judgment.

So you are a web designer and you like your work. You have the drive to improve yourself so you do some reading about web design. You find out there are blind people surfing the web and after the initial giggle you start to realize this is actually serious business. You continue reading about screen reader software and html source order. After a while you are hooked and want to put these things in practice. But then what ...

The reasons for that I believe are manifold but boil down to 1) Gain user feedback 2) Release early to gain "mindshare" and/or get first to market. 3) Your QA process or team isn't that great (or your unwilling to spend money on them) and you'd rather have users do your testing for you. 4) You need to gain the confidence of your customers / investors in what you're building.

Within Project Management we use a lot of metrics. The metrics will provide some relatively objective "description" on how the project is doing. They are the Project Managers' seismometer, they record if your project world is rocking, and how hard. Traditionally our metrics are focused on time and money. But how about that all important resource, the developer?

I implemented my pet project in both GWT-Ext (GWT 1.4.6 and GWT-Ext 0.9.3 in December 2007) and ZK (ZK 3.5.1 with ZK Studio 0.9.0 in November 2008) and compared the Source Line of Code (SLOC) counts using Code Count tool.

There are so many undiscovered web services we have not heard of, so i decided to make a list of all the services i think are worth trying out. [they are categorized] I have not used all of these, even though i have tried some so let me know what you think of these in your comments and if you have any that i have missed please mention those too.

Passing arguments by reference won't improve performance. Plus, it makes code harder to understand. Please don't do it!

Although this book is already 20 years old, surprisingly the design advices and observations still hold true for software UI today....

In the past, I have not been shy about sharing my opinion that the impending death of PHP 4 would have wreaked all sorts of havoc over the PHP world. I am glad to say that I've been wrong—dead wrong, in fact—and that I have never been as happy to be so far off the mark before.

Succinct wisdom for Java EE architect Adam Bien.

One of the biggest mistakes of today's fledgling MySQL programmers is their field type definitions, also known as data type or column type. Many are too quick to set up their tables, flying through the different options without giving it much thought. The time you spend setting up your tables will save you from many headaches later on down the road.

The open-source business model that relies solely on support and service revenue streams is failing to meet the expectations of investors