Yakov Fain

After all these rumors on Microsoft buying Adobe, several people asked me what do I think of it,  and, of course the second question was (it’s always on the mind of every professional software developer), “What to learn next?” To be honest with you, this news didn’t get me excited that much. If this will happen, it’ll be definitely more beneficial for Adobe products. With all my respect to Adobe engineers, I believe that Microsoft has a lot more experience in developing and RELEASING software than Adobe.  If this happen, Flash and Silverlight will control most of the video delivery market on the Web, and the weak motivation of turning HTML 5 into a standard will simply vanish. Will Flash and Silverlight merge into a FlashLight? I doubt it. Both of these runtimes can live as good neighbors on every device including iPhones. I still believe that Apple will stop playi... (more)

Secrets Of The Masters: Core Java Job Interview Questions

JDJ's Enterprise Editor, Yakov Fain (pictured) writes: 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. Let me offer you some of the core Java questions that you might expect during the interviews.  For  most questions  I’ve provided only  short  answers to encourage further research.  I have included only  questions for mid (*) and senior level (**) Java developers. These sample questions could also become handy for people who need to interview Java developers (see also ... (more)

What if Microsoft Were to Act Like Apple?

Let’s imagine that Microsoft made a statement that if a Web page was not developed in .Net, Internet Explorer won’t display it? This would make vendors of all other Web browsers very happy, because herds of developers who don’t plan to switch to .Net would start developing for Firefox and Safari.  Well, maybe some developers would sucked it up and learned .Net, but this wouldn’t become a trend – most likely the market share of Firefox, Safari and other browsers would start increasing. This was not obvious for Steve Jobs when earlier this year he announced that iTunes wouldn’t be... (more)

JavaOne May Be Dead

Google has pulled out all 17 of its presentations from the upcoming JavaOne conference in San Francisco. Yes, it's because of that lawsuit. This is what Reuters has to say about it. Unless Oracle and Google will settle on their little issues, JavaOne may be dead. Or to say it properly, JavaOne will fork, bit it'll never be an event that would gather 10,00-12,000 ENTHUSIASTIC Java developers under the same roof. I'm still going there and, on return, will share with you what kind of vibe/energy I've experienced, if any. I know this guy who should consider this as an opportunity and... (more)

Today the Flex Market Is Hot - Will It Last?

I’m finishing the third(!) week of teaching Flex. The first half of June I’ll spend doing some regular consulting work, and then another two weeks of corporate training.  The use of Flex technologies is picking up in the corporate world, but hiring managers are clearly facing challenges caused by the lack of qualified software developers on the market.  Solution? Re-train your own people. Well, it’s not exactly a complete solution, because after a week of training, a senior Java developer becomes a Flex rookie, but at least these people are familiar with business. Finding a qua... (more)