When the sun rises again from the south east, the winter has come. A year goes by. Hang Seng Index has dropped from 27,460.17 (on 19 Nov 2007) to 12,915.89 (on 18 Nov 2008). This is another world.
I had the opportunity to attend JManc again this year—and once more, it was fabulous. The sessions were organic, deeply technical, and full of insights shared by developers across different domains. Here's my wrap-up from the day, highlighting a few memorable sessions and conversations. 1 Tony Wilson, Manchester 30 Years of Java — Jim Gough’s Retrospective Jim Gough delivered a fantastic keynote on the evolution of Java over three decades. As a Java Champion, his perspective mixed historical insight with a touch of humor and lived experience. Here are some of the milestones he covered: Applets & Early UI: Java’s original fame came from applets—tiny applications that ran inside web browsers. AWT & Swing: Early GUI development in Java involved the AWT toolkit, later replaced by the more versatile Swing. JavaFX: The modern Java UI framework that succeeded Swing. It was eventually removed from the JDK and spun out as an open-source project. While less commonly used in modern ...
I attended the talk called "Shape The Future with Lloyds". It was exciting to see a legacy bank break out of its monolithic shell and dive into Digital Transformation. The Lloyds Bank team shared insights into their journey of innovation; their commitment and the challenges faced in reshaping such a large institution. It was a great reminder of how iterative progress drives change across any industry. A special thanks to David Underwood for not only posting this event but also for sharing his experience in making daily multiple deployments possible; a true marker of transformation in action!
Before the Internet is popular, we used to making friends around the world via some PenPal programs. When we were children, we paid a PenPal organization for its administration fee and then started our exchange of letters in our unrecognized English with counterparts in the other side of the world. Behind pieces of letter sheet, there were friendship, curiosity and fun. We can no longer find such feeling via emails or instant messengers that are supposed to replace letters. The speed of the interaction is rapid and they can carry images, audios and videos. However, the key of PenPal is not information exchange but soul exchange. Can we retrieve such feeling in the world of Web 2.0? Yes, we can do it through Bookcrossing. Bookcrossing is an activity of leaving a book in a public area to be picked up and read by others who will do so then. With the power of Web 2.0, such personal and free activities can be traced and coordinated by an online database and a website. Bookcrossing.com (URL:...
Comments