My Upcoming Flex Teaching
Engagements By Yakov Fain My partner Victor and I
will be running a series
of intensive 'SYS-CON
Events Flex Developer
Bootcamp' across the
country. First, we ran
such workshop as a part
of the AJAXWorld
Conference & Expo 2007
East last month in New
York City. We've received
a very positiv... Jun. 2, 2007 06:45 PM Reads: 17,952 Replies: 1 |
ClearBI Web Reporter For
Flex and Java
Applications Goes to
Public Beta By Yakov Fain Other than Flash Player,
ClearBI does not require
any additional software
install on the client
side. At the time of this
writing, ClearBI is the
only professional
reporting solution on the
market of rich Internet
applications developed
using Adobe Flex and
Java. ... Jun. 2, 2007 05:00 PM Reads: 15,649 Replies: 2 |
Adobe Gears Toward Google
Gears By Yakov Fain One of the major features
of upcoming Adobe Apollo
is support disconnected
Web applications, and
Adobe's Kevin Lynch
announced that Google
Gears will be available
in Apollo. Adobe Flex
applications already use
the space on the client's
disk for storing
instances o... Jun. 2, 2007 04:00 PM Reads: 17,118 Replies: 2 |
Hackers Are Cowards By Yakov Fain Last month, Estonia
dismantled the monument
to a Soviet
soldier-liberator. Russia
plays an offended party
saying that they
liberated tiny Estonia
from German
Nazis-invaders. The
problem is that Estonia
believes that Russia is
also an invader that
forced them to ... May. 30, 2007 12:00 PM Reads: 10,158 |
Java Tutorial For Kids Is
Available For Free
Download By Yakov Fain A couple of years ago
when my son asked me
about the book on
programming for kids, I
could not find one, and
have written my own
e-book called Java
Programming for Kids,
Parents and Grandparents.
For some reason computer
books targeting teenagers
are very rare. Th... May. 29, 2007 06:15 PM Reads: 17,833 |
Ten Tips on Dealing With
Offshore Software
Developers By Yakov Fain In the perfect world, you
can find local resources
for your project. But in
the USA selecting
programming as a
profession is not as
appealing as it used to
be 10 years ago, and you
may have to hire an
offshore team. This is a
list of tips for a rookie
development ... May. 28, 2007 04:30 PM Reads: 10,325 |
R.I.P. Erik's Java
Linkblog By Yakov Fain  I've been checking Erik's
Thauvin's Java linkblog
frequently - it's been a
credible source of the
useful Java info... This
is just amazing - a man
spent seven years sifting
trough tons of
Java-related articles and
blogs just to give us a
freshly-squeezed
Java-juic... May. 15, 2007 02:45 PM Reads: 9,159 Replies: 1 |
The Most Important Two
Minutes of JavaOne By Yakov Fain This news did not get the
fanfare, but it's a real
gem of JavaOne 2007. It
was presented by Danny
Coward, Java SE Platform
Lead, and you can watch
the video in Danny's blog
. He covers the features
and talks about the
success of Java SE 6,
which is already old
news, but... May. 11, 2007 12:15 PM Reads: 9,983 |
JavaFX Comments on
Comments By Yakov Fain The consumer Java SE is
expected in mid-2008.
This does not sound too
exciting. One very
respected Java person
made a really funny
comment yesterday, If
only we could ask Adobe
and Microsoft to stop
their development for a
year to allow Java to
catch up to the poi... May. 10, 2007 11:45 AM Reads: 11,889 Replies: 1 |
JavaOne Bookshelf By Yakov Fain JavaOne starts next week,
and most of the Java
developers will be
watching closely what's
new and exciting will be
announced in the tried,
true and aging Java. But
my today's column is
about books that will be
sold at JavaOne. Rich
Internet Applications
with Adobe... May. 9, 2007 10:30 PM Reads: 13,245 |
JavaFX Does Not Impress
Anyone By Yakov Fain Why would a Java
programmer go to a
Seafood restaurant? I
would not be surprised if
you'd get this question
during a job interview at
Google or Microsoft. But
my answer is simple: a
Java programmer goes to a
Seafood restaurant to eat
seafood. May. 9, 2007 09:30 PM Reads: 22,297 |
Client-Side Java: Rolling
Out JavaFX at JavaOne By Yakov Fain JavaOne opens today and
it'll be interesting to
hear more about this
renewed interest of Sun
in Java on the client.
While James Gosling and
Rich Green have already
provided some details on
JavaFX May. 9, 2007 05:15 PM Reads: 17,821 Replies: 1 |
Microsoft Hits Hard in
the RIA Space with
SilverLight By Yakov Fain  While Java community is
discussing which language
features to include in
the heavy tank of the
future called Java 7,
their main competitor
provides support to
multiple languages. JVM
is a very powerful but
underutilized machine,
and it's about time to
run more tha... May. 1, 2007 09:15 PM Reads: 12,065 |
Joel Spolsky Will Buy You
a Beer! By Yakov Fain  My favorite blogger Joel
Spolsky by mistake
referred the United
Kingdom as England.
Apparently he felt bad
about it and not only
publicly apologized, but
also offered to buy you a
pint of beer. Joel is
buying on May 19 in
Edinburgh (is this in
England?). As a 100... Apr. 28, 2007 07:00 PM Reads: 9,398 Replies: 1 |
Adobe Flex Goes Open
Source By Yakov Fain Adobe has announced that
a large portion of the
next version of Flex goes
open source under Mozilla
Public License (MPL).
Here's the partial list
of what becomes open:
mxml, compc, and
ActionScript compiler,
command line debugger
FDB, Flex framework and
RPC librar... Apr. 26, 2007 11:45 AM Reads: 18,467 Replies: 1 |
Microsoft Is Not Dead, It
Just Has A Flu By Yakov Fain One of my favorite
bloggers, Paul Graham,
has published an essay
called 'Microsoft is dead
'. He starts, 'A few days
ago I suddenly realized
Microsoft was dead', and
then explains why he
thinks so. I do not think
Microsoft is dead, but... Apr. 21, 2007 07:30 PM Reads: 13,979 Replies: 2 |
What's Cooking Among Good
Lookings? By Yakov Fain Who's better looking?
Flash Player or
Sliverlight? As of today,
98% of the world computer
users know what Flash
Player is and only 2% or
so know what's
Silverlight. But this
will change pretty soon.
Both Flash Player and
Silverlight can read any
plain HTTP feed. F... Apr. 17, 2007 12:45 PM Reads: 14,276 |
Finally, Our New Book
"Adobe Flex & Java" Is
Ready By Yakov Fain  A couple of weeks ago I
stopped by at our
publisher's offices
(SYS-CON Media) and they
showed me our Flex book
with the correct cover,
but all pages were blank.
Yesterday, I've got an
email from them with the
words, 'Yakov your book
is ready, stop by and
pick it u... Apr. 16, 2007 08:00 AM Reads: 36,999 Replies: 3 |
And He Hung Up During
Java Job Interview By Yakov Fain I've got this email from
a strong Java developer I
know for years. He wrote,
'today was the first time
in my life when I hung up
during the phone Java job
interview'. I asked him
why... Mar. 26, 2007 06:15 PM Reads: 17,839 Replies: 9 |
Immersing Into Flex,
Java, AJAX, and Microsoft By Yakov Fain  March 19-21. AJAXWorld
Conference & Expo 2007
East, which has a number
of world class speakers
and I'll turn from an
instructor into a
student. Meeting with so
many smart technologists
in the same place at the
same time is a great way
to learn. During this
confer... Mar. 17, 2007 05:45 PM Reads: 19,038 Replies: 1 |
Tangosol: A Cool Company
with a Rock-Star
President By Yakov Fain Tangosol, a data grid
solutions provider was
evaluated by Gartner as a
distributed computing
vendor, and was included
in the report 'Cool
Vendors in Integrations
and Platforms, 2007'.
Tangosol offers very
interesting distributed
caching solutions for
enterprises t... Mar. 12, 2007 09:00 AM Reads: 13,309 |
RIA With Adobe Flex and
Java Book Errata By Yakov Fain RIA With Adobe Flex and
Java Book Errata Mar. 9, 2007 08:00 AM Reads: 16,556 Replies: 2 |
Let's talk JavaScript By Yakov Fain Writing a book is not an
easy job, and writing a
tutorial on programming
language is even harder.
'The Book of JavaScript'
(No Starch Press) is a
well written tutorial,
with clear and well
explained code samples.
This is a transcript of
Yakov Fain's dialog with
Da... Feb. 27, 2007 08:00 AM Reads: 13,578 |
Event-Driven Programming
in Flex with Custom
Events By Yakov Fain Event-driven programming
model offers an excellent
architecture based on
loosely-coupled
components consuming and
throwing events. In this
tutorial I'll show how to
design component that
communicate with each
other via events. Feb. 26, 2007 10:00 AM Reads: 22,613 Replies: 1 |
Namespaces in Flex and
Soprano By Yakov Fain In XML, namespaces are
used to avoid potential
naming conflicts with
other components having
the same names. Flex
also has namespaces.
Familiarity with Soprano
family is a pre-requisite
for reading this article. Feb. 11, 2007 07:00 PM Reads: 13,750 |
Ruby on Rails Won't Make
It in 2007 and Forget
About AJAX By Yakov Fain Open sourcing Java won't
matter - it's a
non-event. Ruby and Ruby
on Rails won't make it in
2007 either. I still do
not see a compelling
reason to switch. AJAX
hype is stronger than I
thought mainly because of
the life support offered
by frameworks like GWT.
But s... Feb. 8, 2007 08:15 AM Reads: 42,504 Replies: 8 |
Viewpoint: What Do Java
and Zurich Have in
Common? By Yakov Fain The Java metropolis
consists of three
boroughs - the Server
Side (sounds like an
Upper East Side), Mobile,
and UI. The first two
areas seem to be fine.
Working with Java Swing
for desktop applications
is not fun, but if you
have enough time and
money you can creat... Feb. 3, 2007 01:30 PM Reads: 11,813 |
Object-Oriented
Programming in
ActionScript 3 vs Java By Yakov Fain You know the drill: a
language is called
object-oriented if it
supports inheritance,
encapsulation and
polymorphism. And what do
we do with interfaces? Jan. 30, 2007 09:00 AM Reads: 20,803 |
AJAXWorld Is a
"Conference 2.0" Really By Yakov Fain Even though I write for
SYS-CON, I've never
publicly complimented
them. But this time they
really deserve a credit.
SYS-CON will present the
AJAXWorld 2007 Conference
& Expo 2007 East in
March. Usually, attendees
have very limited access
to speakers during
confere... Jan. 10, 2007 11:15 AM Reads: 22,002 Replies: 1 |
A Cup of AJAX? Nay, Just
Regular Java Please By Yakov Fain The idea is noble:
instead of rendering an
entire HTML page on each
little change on the
page, it's much better to
send an asynchronous
request that will get
the data for you and
refresh only the relevant
portion of the screen.
Every author writing on
AJAX is giv... Jan. 9, 2007 12:15 AM Reads: 360,420 Replies: 16 |
AJAX Or Flex? How To
Select an RIA Technology By Yakov Fain If you have extra $379,
read the seven-page
Forrester report on the
subject. If you don't,
read my blogs for free -
I came to the same
conclusion - go with
Flex. Or, you can read
this blog of Ryan Stewart
who read this report.
We've been writing about
this befor... Jan. 7, 2007 05:45 PM Reads: 13,709 Replies: 1 |
Should Java Developers
Learn Flex? By Yakov Fain While the majority of
Java programmers are
still in denial, once in
a while I'm getting
emails or comments on my
blog like this one from
yesterday: Are there any
deployments out there
that use Flex for the RIA
or is this still at the
infancy level? Basically,
this... Jan. 6, 2007 04:15 PM Reads: 13,158 Replies: 6 |
What Questions Should You
Ask During Java Job
Interview? By Yakov Fain Typically, at the end of
job interview the
interviewer asks you, 'Do
you have any questions
for me?'. This is a very
tricky situation - you
may kill the deal by
asking the wrong
questions. I prefer
asking something very
neutral, like 'How many
people work on the ... Jan. 6, 2007 04:15 PM Reads: 13,305 Replies: 1 |
Sending Data From Flex to
a JavaServer Page By Yakov Fain This is a part two of the
prior blog where I
described how to get data
from JSP to Flex. This
time we'll send data from
a Flex application played
by Flash Player to a Java
Server Page. In the next
version of our Flex-JSP
application I'll show you
how to post data fr... Jan. 4, 2007 02:00 PM Reads: 18,196 Replies: 3 |
I Switched to AJAX and Do
Not Regret It By Yakov Fain I believe that
popularity of AJAX
chemicals contributes to
popularity of AJAX as
techniques for
development of Rich
Internet Applications.
These techniques where
known for more than six
years, but only after the
term AJAX was coined, it
took off. Software
devel... Jan. 3, 2007 11:45 AM Reads: 12,948 Replies: 4 |
What Annoys You the Most
Other Than This Blog? By Yakov Fain - peeing in the cup. As a
consultant working for
financial companies, I'm
going through a drug test
third time during the
last 12 months. This
Fedex had special forms
and a list of the closest
labs where I can do
this... Dec. 24, 2006 06:30 PM Reads: 9,468 Replies: 1 |
Our Flex Book Is Written! By Yakov Fain The book 'RIA development
with Adobe Flex and Java'
is written. Check out the
book site. Do you know
why we are smiling?
Because the writing is
over! It took us longer
than planned because we
had to work for a living,
and the time for writing
this book was just stol... Dec. 21, 2006 01:45 AM Reads: 19,614 |
Adobe Flex 2: Advanced
DataGrid By Victor Rasputnis; Yakov Fain; Anatole Tartakovsky  In any GUI tool, one of
the most popular
components is the one
that shows data in a
table format like JTable
in Java or Datawindow in
PowerBuilder. The Adobe
Flex 2 version of such a
component is called
DataGrid. In any UI
framework, the robustness
of such a compo... Dec. 18, 2006 04:00 PM Reads: 57,633 |
Intro to Building and
Deploying Flex
Applications with Ant By Yakov Fain Unless your project is as
simple as HelloWorld
application, compilation
and deployment of this
application has to be
automated. Creating a
build script for any
decent size application
(i.e. hundreds of files
in Flex and server-side
Java) is a project on its
own. J... Dec. 5, 2006 05:00 AM Reads: 17,951 |
JBuilder 2007 - Borland
Must Be Crazy! By Yakov Fain It looks like Borland
could not find a buyer
for their IDE division,
and they've released a
new Eclipse-based version
of Java IDE - JBuilder
2007. They will TRY TO
SELL different version of
this product, and the
Enterprise Edition costs
$1999 (?!). They must be
cr... Dec. 2, 2006 03:15 AM Reads: 19,374 Replies: 18 |
About Newsfeeds / Video Feeds
Yakov Fain is a managing principal of Farata Systems, consulting, training and product company. He has authored several Java books, dozens of technical articles. SYS-CON Books released his latest co-authored book , "Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex and Java: Secrets of the Masters" in Spring 2007. Sun Microsystems has nominated and awarded Yakov with the title Java Champion. He leads the Princeton Java Users Group. Yakov teaches Java and Flex 2 part time at New York University. He is an Adobe Certified Flex Instructor and an Editor-in-Chief of Flex Developers Journal.