Block Dude Evolved

My son's first foray into programming started a few years ago playing ROBLOX; a virtual playworld where kids can create and customize the look and behavior of their own online worlds. I wrote a couple of posts including "Professor ROBLOX: Class In Session" covering how ROBLOX is actually shaping the lives of future programmers since kids use the Lua scripting language to customize the behavior of their worlds.

My son moved on past Lua and taught himself TI Assembly Programming and Visual C++. His goal: create games for the TI-84 graphing calculator so he and his middle-school friends could play games rather than pay attention in math class. :-)

With the rise of the Apple iPod Touch and iPhone, he has launched headfirst into Objective-C and delivered "Block Dude Evolved", a recreation of the all-time classic TI calculator game called "Block Dude".


Block Dude Evolved is a puzzle game. The goal is to move your little man across obstacles and out the exit door on the level. The challenge is that you need to pick up and move blocks to help you climb over obstacles that are between you and the door. You can only step up one block at a time, so if you are facing a wall two blocks high, then you need to grab a movable block and plop it down so you can climb up. The first level is pretty simple, but the levels increase in difficulty after that.

The controls of Block Dude Evolved are pretty simple. To move the little man left or right, you just tap those sides of the screen. To climb up a block, just tap the upper portion of the screen. If you are standing next to a block that can be picked up, just tap the block and you will lift it above your head. Then you simply move to where you want to be and tap the spot where you want to drop the block. If you want to exit out of the game, just tap two fingers at the same time.

Block Dude Evolved has a Settings dialog that enables you to customize the look:


For example, you can choose the Future look:


Or the Revamped look:


Anyhow, if you have an Apple iPod Touch or iPhone and yearn for the days of classic brain-puzzle games, then I recommend you give Block Dude Evolved a try.

Job Trends: Spring, WebSphere, WebLogic - what a difference a year makes!

Last year I wrote "Job Trends: Tomcat, Spring, Weblogic, JBoss, EJB" where I discussed the trend towards "Lean Software" and the role that Spring plays in this important movement.

A lot has happened over the past year. CIO's have identified Virtualization and Cloud computing as their top two strategic technologies for 2010. Lean Software has become even more of a Business Technology Imperative than it was a year ago. And, the job market over the past year has been challenging at best.

With that as a backdrop, let's see what the job market looks like for Spring Java developer skills versus the other industry heavyweights.

The chart nicely illustrates that Spring Java developer skills (green line) have been on an inexorable path upwards for the past 5 years. WebSphere Java developer skills (blue line) are next and have been on a downward path for the past year and a half. WebLogic Java developer skills (orange line) round out the chart and have been relatively flat over the past few years.

Conclusions?
Companies continue to value lightweight application infrastructure skills (i.e. Spring) since this provides them a way to create applications more quickly and therefore be more competitive. More speculatively, I believe that Virtualization and Cloud computing initiatives are accelerating this trend since these initiatives are forcing enterprises to take a hard look at how they are building and deploying applications...and to take measures (and hire talent) that dramatically simplify the process.

Since I work at the SpringSource division of VMware, I have a keen interest in the health and vibrancy of the Spring community. I'm happy to see that even in a tough job market, the demand for Spring Java developer skills continues to grow.


Credits: I used Indeed.com to generate the chart above. Indeed.com searches millions of jobs from thousands of job sites and provides a neat service that lets you see job trends for whatever search criteria you may have. My criteria was Java Developers that have Spring, WebSphere, or WebLogic skills. Click here to go to Indeed.com to see the latest view of my chart above.

I LIKE PI(E)

Things that make you go hmmmmm....I never realized that when looked at it in the mirror, 3.14 can be both mathematical and delicious:



MMMMM.....PUMPKIN.....PIE.....

SpringSource + VMware: My VMworld 2009 Interview

I had the chance to sit down with John Troyer to discuss SpringSource, VMware, cloud computing, and breaking down the barriers between Development and Operations...live (at the time) on the show floor at VMworld 2009.

VMware Fanboy

After arriving at SFO airport earlier this week, I just had to stop and snap the photo below:


The placement and timing of the ad was special since 1) I'm excited to be joining VMware as part of the SpringSource acquisition, and 2) I flew in to SFO in order to attend VMworld 2009 (the event was ginormously huge with lots of great sessions, excited attendees, and impressive partners).

I've been a fanboy of VMware for years: I've been an avid and happy user of VMware's products, and earlier this year I declared VMware the "Virtualization Big Dog" as part of my "Big Dog" series of posts.

In that post I compared VMware with Microsoft, Citrix, and Red Hat, and I concluded by saying "As long as VMware stays focused on creating great solutions to customer problems and honestly assesses the threats posed by the other market players, they should be able to retain their market leadership status for many years to come."

I love working for companies that provide REAL VALUE to customers, and I look forward to joining VMware as soon as the deal closes and extending its market leadership from virtualization to the cloud and beyond.

Multiple Languages, Multiple Platforms: Choice Is A Good Thing

Over the past decade or so, the Microsoft vs. Java landscape has been summed up as follows:

• Microsoft: Multiple languages, single platform.
• Java: Single language, multiple platforms.

In "Java yields to other languages on the Java Virtual Machine" Paul Krill from InfoWorld covers the fact that Java is no longer the only language in town when it comes to creating applications that run on the Java Virtual Machine.

Languages such as Groovy, JRuby, and Scala are just a handful of languages beyond Java available for the JVM.

The fact is that over the past few years the landscape has changed to be:

• Microsoft: Multiple languages, single platform.
• Java: Multiple languages, multiple platforms.

Why is offering a choice of languages important? Neil McAllister provides some good reasons in "We need more polyglot programmers". The emergence of other languages targeting the proven and scalable Java platform is a good thing for the Java market. It will help keep the Java platform vibrant and expand its market reach.

Neil makes the point that Groovy "offers a Java-like syntax but is actually a dynamic language, similar to Perl, Python, and Ruby. It gives developers the safety and stability of the Java runtime but frees them from the often-restrictive Java syntax.".

All of these points factored into why SpringSource added Groovy and Grails into our portfolio of product offerings.

Bottom-line: Choice of language and platform is a good thing...for developers, customers, software vendors, and the market in general.

Harry Kalas - Outta Here!

Philadelphia paid tribute today to Harry Kalas, the voice of the Philadelphia Phillies. Kalas passed away earlier this week and the fans filled Citizens Bank Park to pay their respects and to hear Harry Kalas' close friends and colleagues share their thoughts and feelings.

I think Mike Schmidt summed it up the best in his eulogy when he said that Harry Kalas' life was "bountiful".

I think we should all strive to lead "bountiful" lives.

While I've never met Harry Kalas, he has been a part of my life for many years. Thinking of him reminds me of my father who taught me to love baseball and the Phillies. My dad was my little league coach, and he came to watch me play baseball through high school, college, and even into my 30's when I played over-30 baseball with some of my old high school buddies.

I visited my dad's grave today to spend some time reminiscing with him about the great calls that Harry Kalas made over his broadcasting career, including:

"Long drive! It is....outta here!
Home run...Michael Jack Schmidt!"

We definitely heard that call many, many times.

Unfortunately my dad passed away before hearing one of Harry's best:

"The 0 - 2 pitch...swing and a miss...struck eem out!
The Philadelphia Phillies are 2008 World Champions of Baseball!!"

So long Harry. We'll miss you.
And if you get a chance, please say hi to my dad for me.

For those who weren't Phillies fans or for those who want to reminisce along with me, here's a handful of Harry's best calls:


And here's a nice tribute to Harry Kalas by Comcast: