IT

JBoss workflow invading Dublin (Free Community Conference)

Posted on by paulbrowne

I’m not going to explain what workflow is as I’ve probably blogged enough about it already. But the JBoss Workflow (jBPM) guys are coming to Dublin on June 6th. If you’re into workflow (and if you’re doing any sort of software for large business you should be) then this is a do not miss event and we’re privileged to have it in Ireland.

The JBoss workflow guys are dream guests. They just asked for a couple of venue suggestions and they finally went for the Guinness Hopstore where Barcamp ran last year. Next thing we got was an email saying that the JBoss Workflow event was go. So for the benefit of people flying into Dublin, here’s the information we gave on where to stay and things to do if you’re making a weekend of it.

(More information on the event on Tom Baeyens Blog)

Workflow

How to get there

Dublin is pretty well served by direct flights from Europe and the US. Aer Lingus and Ryanair are the two biggest airlines flying into Dublin – but there are plenty more (list at FlightMapping.com).

Things to do

  • Tour of Guinness brewery and visit the Gravity bar (one of the highest in Dublin)
  • Dublin Pub Tour and general social scene (it’s a coincidence that the first 2 items are drink related!)
  • Tour of Scenic Wicklow Mountains and Glendalough
  • Liffey River tour by boat
  • Dublin Bus tour – including it’s Georgian buildings and coastline
  • Newgrange – 2000 years older than the pyramids, in the stunning Boyne valley
  • Windsurfing , Kayaking or Rock climbing in Viking Carlingford Fjord.
  • Trinity College Dublin, 400 years old university , right in the city centre including the 1000 year old ‘Book of Kells’
  • For the more curious , Belfast is 2hrs away by express train in Northern Ireland.
  • Get lost in Phoneix Park, the worlds largest city centre park.

Places to Stay

I don’t tend to say in Dublin hotels too much (!) but the following I know are reasonably good value (and quiet / clean)

  • 3 of the Jury’s Inn (Christchurch is just down the road from the event location, but the IFSC and Parnell Street are also good)
  • Academy hotel is ok, if slightly more expensive , if you’re stuck.
  • If you want an airport location (about 20 mins / 20 Euro Taxi from the city centre) the Premier Inn chain are pretty good.
  • Hotel Isaacs is budget but decent , central and near the main bus / train stations.
  • Morgan hotel is where the presenters were put up for the Dublin Java conference. Central but Slightly more pricey.

For people from the community, there’s also plenty of ‘budget’ backpacker type accommodation.

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Pigeons, Complex Event Processing and how to make millions with JBoss Drools

Posted on by paulbrowne

JBoss have kindly allowed me to write on their Blog about Drools (although I am still waiting for them to come to their senses). The other guys get to talk about Unifying Rules and Processes and Business Rules WebApps. And I get to talk about pigeons. Yep, Pigeons; birds that fly, sometimes useful for carrying messages and have one hidden talent.

Pigeon Photo

A Random Pigeon Photo
During the cold war, the Soviets (allegedly) trained pigeons to inspect ball-bearings on the production line . The Pigeons would sit in comfortable little boxes while the shiny silver ball bearings steamed past on a conveyor belt. If the pigeon spotted any that were defective, they would peck a button and the broken bearing was gone. Since the fall of the Berlin wall, all the pigeons have been gainfully re-employed over at Google.

Thankfully the pigeons didn’t go to work at a Bank in the City (have you ever seen anything with feathers drive a Ferrari?) . While the pigeons would be very good at responding to simple market events events (Market up , sell; Market Down , Buy). more complex analysis escapes them; For example ; if the market is down for the 30 mins, and Shares in Acme corp are down more than 10% than the average ,and I have seen 3 buy orders for that share in the last 60 seconds = I think the market is about to turn = buy shares in Acme corp.

Never mind pigeons; most humans would find that difficult – think about trying to read the stock ticker prices (the ones you see rolling across the screen at MSNBC) for all stocks, while trying to hold the buy and sell information for the last 30 minutes in your head. And do that not only for one , but for the couple of hundred different types of shares in the market. And while keeping an eye on your own trading position so that you’re not exposed to one sector of the market (e.g. keeping enough cash , not too many property or technology shares. No wonder most traders make their millions and burn out before they’re 30 – that sort of Complex Event Processing (CEP) will wear you out.

Most IT applications are like pigeons; they can only handle simple events. Press Button. Do something.

The way to make millions is to design applications that can handle these complex events, and apply sophisticated business rules to the (evolving) situation. And do it quickly enough (milliseconds) to seize the opportunity before somebody else does. A keep on doing it as long as the market is open.

Funnily enough, Complex Event Processing is part of the vision for Drools. With enough support, I’m sure we could convince the guys to stand up at JavaPolis and use a set of Pigeons on his slides. I suppose it’s better than using pictures of lego people to explain how to do projects using Agile.

Irish Java Technologies Conference – Live

Posted on by paulbrowne

I’m dipping in and out of the presentations at the Irish Java Technologies Conference (IJTC Dublin), so I’m not going to get to see the top 10 speakers. I will update this as it goes along, but my notes on the conference so far are ….

  • Bernie Goldbach came all the way from Tipp on the off-chance that he would get 3 minutes with Joel Spoelsky. Given that it’s a 4 and half hour round trip, I’m glad that he got his interview.
  • Joel, as ever, was a very good speaker. His message for software developers; soft rounded corners matter. Think iPhone instead of Samsung brick.
  • David Syer of Interface 21 was talking about what’s next for Spring (2.5 and 3.0). A lot of good stuff coming up; support for the latest Java Enterprise specs, Webflow , OSGi (deploy bundles , not applications), configuration using annotation instead of XML
  • Shaun Smith of Oracle. Covering building JPA Applications (Java and Databases) using Eclipse and Java. Now, I’m not a great fan of Toplink (I prefer Hibernate) , but the open source work including the work on the Eclipse IDE , and it’s support of the JPA (Java Persistence Architecture) standard, and it’s ability to transform Java Ojbects into loads of things (e.g. XML instead of Database Tables) is making me want to take a 2nd look.
  • Caught talking in the Lobby : Shaun of Oracle Toplink and Emmanuel Bernard of Hibernate. I was vaugely disappointed these two didn’t come to blows (being from rival projects). There were actually nice to each other and exchanged business cards. Fascinating conversation though …
  • James Strachan , Iona and Apache, speaking about messaging patterns. He takes the bean soup that is messaging and integrating your applications and makes it seem really simple. He’s also talking about Apache Camel, ActiveMQ and ServiceMix

Other People Blogging about this:

Links to our JBoss jBPM (Workflow/ Business Process Management) presentation slides to follow shortly …

Joel Spolsky is the reason I am a Java Techie. See him in Dublin IJTC Wednesday

Posted on by paulbrowne

Joel Spolsky is flying in to Dublin next Wednesday to give the keynote speech at the Irish Java Technologies Conference. Mark 7.45pm on Nov 7th in your Diaries folks – Jake has the offical announcement and ask him in person for the full story. In case you don’t know who he is, Joel was one of the early Microsoft employees, one of the first bloggers (since 2000) and is an expert on management and Java software development projects based in New York (possibly due to his stock of stories from Israeli Military Service).
Joel Spolsky Image

So how did Joel make me a Java Techie? You know Excel, that Spreadsheet thing you use everyday. Part of the reason it’s so flexible is because of Joel’s work back in the early days at Microsoft- he was program manager for the team at that created Excel Macros, which eventually morphed into Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). A long time ago when I was still a business person I got involved in automating manual tasks using these Microsoft Office tools. From there, every job got more and more techie until it reached the stage where I must blog about Java every day. It’s all Joel’s fault.

Tickets at the door cost €245.Booking here costs €189. Joining the DubJug (Dublin Java Users Group) for free before booking gets you a further discount.

Business advice : Don't be Dustin Hoffman

Posted on by paulbrowne

Do you remember Dustin Hoffman in Rainman? He was an idiot-savant (not the PC Term) that was a genius at Mathematics, but had talent for little else. Too often we’re like that – genius in our own niche (IT, Law, Sales, Marketing, Finance) but useless outside of it.

ShareIT is an attempt to break outside of these niches and share useful knowledge in the small business sector. The slides below are from the first ShareIT event in Cork (held last week), with a follow up event in Dublin (Microsoft Campus) on April 28th.

Jenny Kent How to be an effective communicator – Slides.
Key Point: Plan what you want to say, say it, then listen.
Conor O’Neill Outsourcing – Slides
Key Point: You can outsource (almost) anything , but communicate, communicate, communicate.
Krishna De Marketing Matters for Tech Startups (slides to be released)
Laurence Veale Writing for the web – Slides
Key Point: Keep it simple.
Donagh Kiernan Sales Generation- Slides
Key Point: Everybody sells; work hard to understand what your customer needs.
Richard Hearne Search Engine Optimization – (email Richard for the password to Slides)

(Updated with links to the Dublin Event)

What you do if you weren't doing your current job?

Posted on by paulbrowne

What you do if you weren’t doing your current job? While we all harbour dreams of running a magically profitable coffeeshop, working only 3 hours a day, what would you really do if you wanted a change of career?

If I wasn’t in IT , I’d be in Finance, on the basis of …

  • My original degree is in Business (with French). Somehow I got seduced into IT (you don’t hear that very often).
  • Both Finance and IT require their own set of knowledge and expertise. Once you’ve acquired that expertise, the work can be quite profitable, as not everybody can do it.
  • Both are quite strong employment areas within Ireland, with the IFSC being one of the easiest parts of Dublin to get to from Drogheda (think Trains).

Sadly (but very sanely), neither Finance nor IT is considered ‘sexy’. There again, you can’t have everything. They’re both quite hard to explain to your Mum – as far as she’s concerned , I work ‘in computers’. This is akin to lumping Salesmen , Mechanics, road sweepers and Michael Schumacher in a category ‘something to do with cars’.

However , this lead-in does explain the contents of the ‘what’s Paul Reading?’ list. All links are to Amazon. I’d recommend all the books with the exception of the last one – it was written by a newspaper journalist and the slightly jingoistic style reflects this.

  1. Economist : The City – a guide to London’s Global Financial Centre
  2. Freakonomics
  3. Java security
  4. How the City Really works