People and Technology

What’s going on? CIE is talking about cutting services and 400 jobs, yet the private bus operators (like Matthews Coaches) are waiting (since last year) for official permission to run express services down the M1 and through the port tunnel. 

Pump all the money into the banks that you want, behaviour like that isn’t going to get us out of this downturn.

I’ve just tried to make a donation via the SVP website.

Unfortunately the site does not work with non IE Web browsers (such as Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome). That means about 1/4 of the people wishing to donate are being locked out.

Normally at this point I’d rant about whatever corporate decision maker let this one through. But I’m just sad - a deserving charity, always stretched for cash,  is 25% down due to some simple (JavaScript) errors.

I’ve emailed the address given, but I’m likely to viewed as some random web lunatic (and maybe that’s not far from the truth). So what can I do to help? All suggestions welcome.

Update: I got a fairly quick email back from SVP acknowledging the problem - better than many commercial organisations in that regard. But the question remains - how can somebody with technical skills volunteer to help a charity without coming across as a nutcase?

Update 2: A further update from SVP within 10 days - test the site again - appears to work normally.

Just watching the X-Factor (long story) and it hit me - the solution for Irish Democracy (or at least getting people to vote) is to merge it with the TV Show.

• Even if the vote doesn’t go the way of the experts, the Judges get to save one option for the next week.
• We get to vote every week on more or less the same topic.
• People pay to cast their vote by premium text line, SMS or Website. 

The X-Factor is incredibly popular in the UK , so there must be something to it. What do you think - Is fact stranger than fiction?

Web 2.0 is great - it allows users to get involved on your website.

Allthetopbananas.com shows not how to do it. Just be lazy and not bother to tell your website that Cork is not near Drogheda (for our non-Irish-based readers, they’re at opposite ends of the country, about a 4-5hr commute!).

Why should I bother to report to you that ‘Cork is not Drogheda’ if you haven’t done your basic research and looked at the map? Save your ‘wisdom of crowds’ stuff for items that you can’t find anywhere else.

Update: It looks like 862,415 Irish people (53% of the electorate) don’t read this blog and voted no. Note to self: must increase blog readership. Looks like we’re all going to find out what the consequence (big or small) of a No vote is.

I don’t normally talk about politics on this blog, but this one is important , so excuse me if I make a rare exception. For readers from outside of Ireland, we’re the only country that is holding a referendum vote on the Lisbon treaty next Thursday (12th), which changes how the European Union (EU) is going to go about it’s internal business.

Like a lot of Irish people I was initally going to vote ‘No‘, partly because of unhappiness with the current political and economic outlook. Also partly by the poor ‘Yes’ campaign - loads of posters with policiticans faces, but no reasons why I should cast my vote in favour.

There’s been no official explanation of the (incomprehensible) treaty text. But the guide on RTE’s website shows the treaty changes and gives clear explanations as to what the changes mean.

Why I’ve changed my mind to vote yes. And not because of the patronising ‘jobs jobs jobs’ or ‘laughing stock of Europe’ arguments. (For the record , I find the no campaigns scaremongering about neutrality / taxes / take-away-our-babies equally offensive). Here’s why

• Europe has been good for Ireland - and not just the free roads. A large part of the peace process happened because the EU removed the differences between Ireland and Britain. I remember stopping at the customs post on the (single lane) main road between Dundalk and Newry. Very different now , with the M1 Motorway crossing what was previously ‘bandit country’.
• Europe has been good to me personally. I’ve been able to work (visa free) in 3 other European countries. It’s allowed me to study (with the host government paying the fees) in two more. Very different from the alternative of being an undocumented worker in the US.
• This is not a ‘free’ protest vote. There are consequences to voting no (maybe big, maybe small, nobody can guess at this stage). We’re not teenagers any more; it’s a big decision and should be treated as such.
• Without Europe, we’re more or less just a region of the UK. Before we signed up to EMU (the prequel to the Euro) in the 70’s the Irish pound was tied one-to-one to UK sterling. All economic decisions were effectively made in London. We may have only a small voice at the big European table, but it’s better that what we had previously - no voice at all.

I still think there is a lot that could be better with the EU - despite the increase in the powers of the European Parliament, the EU isn’t (yet) democratic enough. It’s far from perfect. It’s messy. But that’s life, and previous generations of Irish people would love to have a choice like this.

But what pushed me over the edge to vote yes is the Spoofers guide to the Lisbon treaty. Read it. Then decide.

Lots of things going on behind the scenes at FirstPartners. One of which is the Spring Framework training course that we’re giving on Wed 30th May in Bewley’s Hotel, Ballsbridge, Dublin. Interested in going? - you can book here (via Trigraph). Can’t make it? We’ll probably do a follow up.

What are you missing? Apart from the crash test dummies (below), there’s loads of lego blocks, Swiss mountains, trains crashing through walls and a Kangaroo. (Spring, Geddit?). You might even learn something about Java along the way.

Agile Projects using the Spring Framework
Executive Briefing
Delivery: Public or In-house
Course Length: 0.5 days. Optional mentoring / follow up session if required by Client
Course Approach: Lecture, discussions
Level: Beginner / Intermediate

Course Description:

Spring, with good reason, is the most actively used framework in the Enterprise Java world today. The half- day briefing shows the problems that Spring can solve for your projects, core Spring concepts such as Inversion of Control and integration with existing Enterprise Java technologies for database access, messaging and web deployment. The briefing also shows how to use Spring to make your projects more agile, improving quality and reducing deployment time.

Course Objectives:

• Following completion of this course, students will be able to:
• Understand why Enterprise Java is the mostly widely used corporate technology, and how Spring both simplifies and improves this technology.
• Understand core Spring concepts such as Inversion of Control (IOC), configuration , deployment and testing.
• Describe how to integrate Spring with Enterprise Technologies such as Databases, Messaging and Web 2 frameworks.
• Understand how Spring can make your projects more agile and the benefits it brings to your organization
• Map out a plan of how to introduce the Spring framework to existing systems.

Course Syllabus:

Section 1: The Problems That Spring Solves

• Introduction
• Who are you? Who are we?
• What is Spring?
• What is (Enterprise) Java?
• The problems with Enterprise Java
• Why Enterprise Java is costing you money.
• The Deployment Scale
• Java Classes and Objects
• Just enough XML to get by
• Core Spring - Inversion of Control pattern
• Spring Configuration and my First Spring App
• Deployment via Web, Enterprise Java and Command line
• Spring on other platforms (.Net , Ruby and Groovy)
• Alternatives to Spring
• Spring and Java 5 – easier development
• Starting out – just a little Spring in your Step.

Section 2: Core Spring and Enterprise Spring Integration

• Spring Web Framework (MVC)
• Spring Web with Struts , JSF , XSLT , Tiles and GWT (Google Web Toolkit)
• Spring and Ajax in Web 2 Applications.
• Spring Webflow
• Spring and Databases (Hibernate and JDBC)
• Spring and Messaging (MQ and JMS)
• Spring Remoting and Web Services
• Aspect Orientated Programming (AOP)
• Transactions in Spring
• Appfuse – ready to roll Spring projects with Maven
• Administration of your Application using Spring and JMX
• Scheduling using Spring and Quartz
• Spring and Acegi Security

Section 3: Practical Spring - make your project more Agile

• The problems with IT Projects
• What is Agile
• Spectrum of Agility
• How Spring makes your project more agile (and your customer happy)
• Key Agile Practices
• Unit Testing with Spring
• Integration Testing
• Mock Objects
• Spring IDE
• Spring and Business Rules
• Spring and Workflow
• Alternative Spring configuration.
• Extending Spring to meet you (obscure) needs.
• What’s new in Spring 2.5 (and coming up for Spring 3)

Audience:

• Managers and Project Managers wishing to understand the benefits of adding Spring to their projects.
• Software developers needing an introduction to Java and the Spring Framework and integration with key Enterprise technologies.
• Support, Database , Web Designers and other IT professionals needing to interface with Spring and Enterprise Java systems.
• .Net developers wishing to understand the concepts behind the Spring.Net framework.

Related Courses:
Enterprise Java (Trigraph) and Agile Project Management (Trigraph)

Prerequisites:
Some high level exposure to the Java, .Net or other Object Orientated language would be beneficial but
not necessary.

No apologies for over simplifying this :

1. If you’re in business you need computer systems to support your team. Systems to find previous dealings with a customer, systems to allow your team to work together, systems to stop people finding out things that they shouldn’t.
2. Once your business passes the 100 employee mark and is heading for ‘Enterprise’ scale, chances are you need custom software written just for you, in addition to he ’shrink wrap’ stuff you’ve been able to get away with until now.
3. Most custom Enterprise software is written in (or uses a large element of) Enterprise Java.
4. Enterprise Java is hard to get started with - it’s a big and complex framework because it solves big and complex problems. The Spring framework makes it easy.

OK, so we’re Spring nuts. But nuts only because it’s solved problems for FirstPartners over the last 4 years. What we like:

• Spring allows you to use just enough Enterprise Java to solve your problem
• Spring complements Enterprise Java, not replaces it.
• Spring gives you a gentle slope to using Enterprise technologies.
• Spring works well with Java, Oracle, .Net , (J)Ruby and pretty much any mainstream technology - including most of the widespread Java Frameworks like Struts and Hibernate.

So you wait ages for one Spring Event in Ireland, then two come along at once. We’ve written about Rod Johnson speaking in Dublin on Tue March 11th. Now there is a full day Spring Event in Belfast the day before (March 10th). And it’s sponsored by Momentum NI, so it’s free. And the Hilton Hotel is right beside Belfast Central train station, so it’s easy to get to from Dublin.

The full agenda is here (more details below), but given the importance of Spring to the Enterprise world, and the fact that the top four Spring guys are speaking, we reckon that it the Enterprise event of the year. The booking form is here.

Spring Ireland 2008

Start: 10th March 08:30 End: 10th March 17:30
Hilton Belfast, 4 Lanyon Place, Belfast (Beside Central Train station) SpringSource is proud to announce Spring Ireland 2008. Join us for a free one-day conference with presentations from the SpringSource team including a keynote from Rod Johnson.

Keynote: Spring into the Future - Rod Johnson

The Spring Framework began in 2002 with Rod’s best-selling Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development; one of the most influential books ever published on J2EE, Rod is recognised as one of the world’s leading authorities on Java and J2EE development.With the rapid expansion of SpringSource and move to new corporate HQ in Silicon Valley, this is a rare UK opportunity to hear Rod provide his views and explore the future of J2EE application development.

What’s New in Spring 2.5 - Sam Brannen

Sam is a lead architect at SpringSource and one of the most experienced developers within the organisation.This session provides delegates with an overview of the new features available in Spring 2.5. Specifically, highlighting the simplified and extensible configuration support provided via configuration annotations and new XML configuration namespaces, new Java 6 support, updates to Spring AOP, improved JDBC and JPA support, annotation-driven web MVC controllers, the new annotation-based TestContext framework for unit and integration tests and more!

SpringSource Professional Services – Greg Southey

Greg has built SpringSource’s UK Professional Services organisation into the leading Spring consultancy business in the world.

This is a brief resume of some of the 97 major projects completed by the UK Professional Services team in 2007. Delegates will hear about the business drivers behind some major development projects, the business issues faced and how they were resolved in partnership with the client.

Spring as a Full Stack Web Framework - David Syer

As Principal Consultant at SpringSource, Dave leads the way in the understanding of satisfying business requirements using the Spring Portfolio. His easy manner cloaks a prodigious knowledge of application development.

This session explores the “full stack” web framework trend and answers the question: how does Spring stack up? This session defines what a full-stack web framework is, then provides a fair technical comparison between a Spring-centric web development stack and the alternatives. Delegates will head about the feature-set of modern “full stack” web frameworks, and what Spring has that differentiates itself from the pack.

Spring in Ireland – Ian Graham

Ian Graham, Momentum, will explore the use of Spring in Ireland and introduce case studies from companies who are using the Spring family of products.

Round Table Discussion - Rod Johnson, Rob Harrop, Dave Syer, Sam Brannen & Greg Southey

Your chance to ask Rod and his team anything that’s on your mind regarding Spring!

At what other awards could you mingle with the Oscar nominees before the event? See them preparing the acceptance speeches, display their pre-show nerves and ask them for tips on the secret of their success? At the Irish Blog Awards - Business Blogger Meetup next Saturday March 1st , of course.

Details : The blog awards kick off at 7.30pm. So lets do it one hour earlier at 6.30pm. Same venue , Alexander Hotel, has a nice big foyer area. There’s no food at the awards themselves , but the hotel does a waiter service in the lobby if you’re just up ‘from the country’. Just look out for me (I’ve been told I look like my photo on the top right. Which is not a good thing) , or any of the nominees (although I suspect Rowan and Michele aren’t as cartoonish in real life).

You don’t have to be a nominee to come along. Just come along and talk about what has worked for you as a Business Blogger.

Update: I would put good money on Kieran from Ice Cream Ireland turning up in full ice-cream-man gear. Click here to encourage him. It does solve the problem of ‘you-dont-really-look-like-your-photo’.

Did we mention that FirstPartners is sponsoring the Best Business Blog award? As a taster, here are the profiles of the 13 people short listed for the award. Who will we be giving the prize to? Come along on the 1st of March , Alexander Hotel, Dublin to find out.

		Brightspark Consulting Brightspark is a Dublin web design and internet marketing agency, run by Maryrose Lyons who has been blogging since 2003. So she probably knows what she is talking about. Maryrose doesn’t pull her punches (read her blog to find out who she called ‘a shambles’) and is recommended to people dipping their toes in the world of business blogging.
		Bubble Brothers The tagline to this blog pretty much sums it up : ‘Wine, Champagne , more’. These Cork Wine Merchants ooze sophistication, even when they branch out from wine to talk about pancakes, pizza and the Bridgestone pick of 2008. All on the one page. They’ll even sell you some of their stuff if you ask nicely.
		Pat Phelan Cork Based Giant Killer Pat Phelan is out to slay the telecoms monsters. Watch a blow by blow account on the roam4free blog. You’ll never look at your mobile phone bill in the same way again.
		Keith Bohanna Keith’s main job is as part of the Irish Internet Association and creative camp Kilkenny. Or maybe it’s as part of a startup , DB Twang, a site for Guitar enthusiasts Kilkenny Creative Camp. Or maybe it’s teaching other business people to blog. Whichever subject is, Keith covers them well on his site.
		Ice Cream Ireland Ice Cream. In a blog. From Kerry cows. What more do you need to know?
		BH Consulting Blog Brian Honan , one of Ireland’s top Security Consultants , will have you paranoid after reading his blog. And while everybody else except you gets hit by virus, phishing attempts and emails that knock over your PC, you’ll be glad that you listened to him.
		The Blacknight Blog Michele Neylon has been a supporter of the blogging community, since well , before they were called blogs. Michele runs Blacknight hosting based in Carlow. The Blacknight example shows how a company in a ‘commodity’ industry (web hosting) can stand out by showing a human face on their blog(s). At the very least , it shows faith in their quality of service.
		O’Conall Street Conall manages to make business and politics mix. A man who has journeyed from Dublin to Belfast via Spain, the SDLP and the Good Friday Agreement , he is currently head of PR Company Weber Shandwick in Northern Ireland. He’s also a Man United fan, but everybody has to have at least one flaw.
		McGarr Solicitors McGarr solicitors are the first point of call for bloggers in legal distress. The site is very much legal people who blog, rather than just bloggers with a passing interest in the law. The blog provides a lot of useful advice in areas such as Personal Injury, (accidents at work particularly) , Environmental , Planning and Employment Law. And they do the bread and butter buying and selling your house as well. .
		Interactions Annette Clancy is an organisational consultant, coach and psychotherapist. An unusal combination perhaps, but she helps people overcome their ’stuckness’ and solve business problems. The blog isn’t afraid to venture into uncharted areas such as the role of emotion in the work place.
		Worldwide Cycles One of europes few specialist bike stores run by people who are still competing regularly. Barry, based in Tipperary, explains what those infestations of cyclists are actually doing on our roads. And what cyclists get up to with cans of Lynx. It will make 4×4 drivers think twice before overtaking with only inches to spare.
		Fortify Your Oasis Thinking of changing your job? Read this blog first. Rowan explains how to give your life direction, how to pick , then land the job that fits in with this. And shows you how to preform a graceful exit from the role your are currently in and hate. And he’s written a book about it, showing that bloggers can do ‘real’ writing as well.
		Frank Fullard Mayo based Frank talks about entrepreneurs and the businesses they start. And he’s not afraid to think small, taking a different view from many of the ‘we’re a startup, we’re going to take over the world’ blogs that are out there.

How do you follow up the Dublin Java Conference? 20 International Presentations, hundreds of attendees and the best speaker night out that I’ve been to in a while.

With the Dublin Java Pub Quiz of course (more info).

Tue 15th Jan, 7.30pm, Duke Pub , Duke Street , Dublin (Just off Grafton Street, round corner from M&S).

Over the last 6 months, I know of 5 top Java guys who have either left , or seriously planning to leave, Ireland. I’m not happy about this.

Surprised?

You’d think that I’d be delighted that the idea of the all the competition leaving. Reality is that all us IT Consultants live in an ecosystem: if companies don’t have a pool of talent available they will find somewhere or some other way of doing it.

All of the 5 guys have very different reasons for going (and they are guys, just to confirm the stereotype). All are going for very positive reasons. They want to go to the UK, USA, France and further afield. Some are going on spec, some have work with top companies lined up. There is a mix of nationalities, but all have been in Ireland for three years or more. These aren’t people who came to Ireland for a working holiday or are leaving do the ‘Big OE’ in New Zealand. They’re also people Ireland can ill-afford to lose.

The common thread in all the stories was that the Irish Property Market; It’s great to have an itch to travel, but you’re never going to leave unless somebody gives you a push. High rents and impossible property prices gave these guys (at least some) of that push.

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:

• Luan O’Carroll , who put a lot of work into making the conference happen.
• The O’Reilly GMT announcement of the Irish Java Conference.
• The Aquarium blogging about the conference “around the corner”.
• Web2Ireland.
• Bill de hOra, who has a good blogpost about the conference.

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

Not (too blatant) a plug for the Irish Java Technologies Conference (IJTC). Although if you’re around Dublin on the 7th / 8th / 9th November I’m told you’re more than welcome to drop in. This post is more a quick review of the people who are speaking. It’s also an invitation to check out their websites and see if any of the technologies they are promoting could be of use to your project.

Here are the top 10 projects that I’m looking forward to checking out.

10) Java and Microsoft SQL Server : It’s still a brave Microsoft person that comes to a Java conference. Shows MS recognition a substantial amount of Java deployments persist their Data to a SQL- Server database.

9) Eclipse STP (and SOA) - Service Orientated Architecture is the buzzword of the year. If anybody can put substance behind the hype , it’s the guys From Iona.

Eclipse JPA and Dali. Hibernate pushed Object Relational Mapping (ORM) to be the standard approach to database access. The manager of the ‘other’ ORM Project (Oracle Toplink) should give a interesting coverage of the tooling developments.

7) Apache Geronimo - by Jeff Genender from Apache Foundation. So long the ‘other’ Open source application server, this is now becoming credible in commercial deployments.
6) Java Update - Simon has been working as a lead Java consultant for Sun Microsystems. He’ll be talking about Java Standard Edition 6 and Java Mobile Edition. But what I’m really interested in is Java Enterprise Edition 5, Scripting, Java Realtime and Java FX.

5) If scripting is your thing fellow Onjava Blogger Dejan Bosanac is also speaking on this subject. He’s talking about Scripting within the JVM, which will be one of the hot topics for 2008.

4) iPhone v JMME - I don’t get the buzz around Mobile (give it another 18 months , we’ll all be running Java Application Servers on the mobile). But many people are interested in it - this talk is how to make you Mobile Java apps as slick as those in the iPhone.

3) JBoss Drools Engine (Drools) - I’ve blogged (a little bit) about Drools before. I’ve also been fortunate enough to hear Mark Proctor speak and you will come out an convinced that the natural home for Business Logic is in the Rule engine.

2) JPA and Hibernate - There is a very strong possibility that Emmanuel Bernard will be returning to Dublin to talk about the Hibernate project that he leads. Having seen his recent talk, and given the level of interest in Hibernate, I expect a strong turnout for this one.

1) Spring 2.5 - Spring has been around for more than 5 years and is making serious inroads in the the Enterprise Java community. Sam Brannen (from Interface21) will give details on the latest on the major update to Spring (2.5) as well as what is planned for the future.

Disclaimer: I’ll be talking about Java Workflow (based on on JBoss jBPM). But compared to these guys, I’m way down on the Z-List of presenters.

Other People Blogging about this:

• Jakub Korab, one of the conference Organisers
• Luan O’Carroll - another conference Organiser
• Web 2 Ireland
• The SPOT Blog.
• Tom Raftery
• Clare Dillon, Microsoft
• Dejan Bosanc’s Personal Blog
• Dr Root
• The Spring Framework Blog

If David McWilliams can take credit for the phrase ‘Celtic Tiger’, can I be first to use the phrase ‘Post Tiger Ireland‘? Looking 5 years out, whether or not the Irish property market has a hard or soft landing, Ireland is going to be a very different place.

We were looking at buying a car in Smiths Ford Garage in Drogheda. The Sales guy (very personable but old school salesman) knew that we were coming in. The car we looked at had a flat tire. In Tiger Ireland , this wouldn’t have mattered - he could shift his quota of cars in the first week of the month. In Post Tiger Ireland (TM), cars are still going to sell , but the salesman is going to have to work for his money - doing the basics like fix the tires and clean the car properly.

So, anybody want to put money on the following not happening over the next 5 years?

1. Not a national disater:
   We’ll have a hard / soft / gentle as a feather (delete as appropriate) landing in the housing market. This will be talked about as a ‘national disaster’. It won’t be - the non construction 73% of the economy will continue along, maybe a little bit more cautiously, but it will carry on.
   -
2. We’ll find a way to ‘blame the Brits’
   (and everybody else) but unlike the last 800 years, we messed this one upselves. Don’t expect this to stop an unwanted increase in nastiness towards anybody looking non-Irish. The majority of the bullies will be those who left education early to take advantage of the construction boom and are now left high and dry. Sales of Harp Lager to increase?
   -
3. There will be an increase in the politics of envy.
   Before we were living the Irish Dream - everybody could make it big. Now, expect punative (an ineffectual) tax proposals on property developers , complaints (but nothing done) about high public sector wages and pensions and demands from the ‘losers’ to be compensated (reform of stamp duty anyone?).
   -
4. Ireland will become (even) more like Britain
   A mature but growing , first world economy. Yes, they’re our closest neighbour (geographically and culturally) , we support their football clubs and spend money in their chain stores. Expect the politics to become more similar - the key debate will be around improving the quality of public services (Health, Roads, Schools, Policing).
   -
5. At least one major multinational will pull out with job losses in the thousands.
   There will be demands for government to ‘do something’ (the time for action will be 5 years too late). Away from the headlines, Irish Startups (in knowledge sectors such as IT , Financial Services and Pharmaceuticals) will create jobs, but in smaller companies.
   -
6. Ireland will grow older.
   The average age of the Irish population will grow older as the baby boom passes. It’s possible that we could have too many schools in 15 years time - at least until the current babies have kids of their own. Another Irish Property Bubble in 2027?
   -
7. The ‘New Irish’ will draw more talent into the Irish Economy.
   Many ‘New Irish’ (choose this weeks PC term) are here to stay for the same reason that many Irish people still live in England and the US. Would you take your 5 year old daughter back to school in Poland if she only spoke English? ; Migrants tend to follow where friends and family have gone before. This will give the Ireland a boost as we get the cream of overseas talent, even when other EU desinations become available. Expect more Paul McGraths on the Irish Football team.
   -
8. Suburbs are the new Ghettos.
   Carbon taxes and higher fuel costs are here to stay. Traffic jams in Dublin are going to get even worse (think pre-congestion charge London). Doing an expensive 2 hr commute will become less and less attractive, especially when house prices fall. Poorly built boomtime housing will decay quickly when not maintained leading to a vicious circle of decline when those that can afford to get out, will.
   -
9. IT will be the major growth factor in the Irish Economy.
   Despite all the buzz around Green, Space and Nano technologies, few of these are ready for widespread commercialisiation. Not only will IT be the direct engine of growth, but it will enable growth in other industries (e.g. Irish Business using Skype videoconferences to offer Financial Services to the City of London).
   -
10. Something will happen that we can’t predict.
    In the 60’s , few foresaw the viciousness of the troubles. In the early 90’s , few predicted the robustness of the Celtic Tiger. What does this decade hold? A 9-11 with Irish linked perpetrator’s? Large scale social unrest caused by the Euro-straightjacket? Miracle cures for obesity, cancer and smoking? I have no idea.
    -

There are some of these predictions (especially number 2) that I don’t like. What do you think?`]

More Blog Posts from Paul

Recently had to pop over to London to do some work for a ‘well known’ UK client. More details (maybe) later.

Dublin Airport is a mess. It’s more like Ellis Island, even at 5am in the morning - a seething mass of humanity trying to leave Ireland. At least it was better than the last time, with 100’s of school kids going out on ski trips. Did I smell that bad when I was a teenager?

It’s going to get worse before it gets better, as the Terminal (’due 2009′) is bound to get delivered late, overbudget , if it ever gets delivered at all. Here’s how to fix the mess in the meantime, and save billions.

• The Aer Lingus Web Check In is excellent, and free. It means you get to the Airport , and walk straight into the (one) security queue, no messing about. Suggestion: Make everybody check in online for free. We know you can use the web - it’s how you bought your tickets.
• Now that the half the check in desks are no longer needed, clear the floor space so that you no longer have to fight your way to the security queue.
• Share check in desks. Other airports do it. It means that all Desks have a short queue, rather than the Ryanair queue snaking around the building.
• Move all the Restaurants to airside (i.e. after security). Nobody goes to the airport as a ‘day out’ anymore. Change the restaurants so that they can be used only be people that have gone through security. This is half done already - all it would mean is moving the glass partition wall on the top floor of the aiport.
• Get rid of a few shops and make more space for Security. Security is slow, as you often have to wait for people to put on their shoes, belts , coats etc on. If there was more space, these could move aside and let more passengers be screened by the same number of security personnel. If I want shopping , I’ll go to Dundrum.
• Let people pay for FastTrack Security. No, its not fair, but neither is life. Let people with more money than time ‘buy’ a fast track security pass (e.g. as part of buying your ticket online). Use this money to open a new ‘priority’ security gate. The profits could go to having more security people on the existing gates.
• Stop fast-tracking Z-List celebrities. I know of one family (who child was about to explode with a full nappy) only get taken to the head of the security queue because they were behind a minor actor who was (once) on Coronation Street. How does this help the Irish Economy?

A lot of these things are simple. Even the more complicated things could be sorted out with a couple of meetings and a couple of million thrown to whoever complains. Far cheaper than the cost (and delay to the Economy) of a new Terminal.

Lead developer from JBoss, coming to Dublin to talk about Hibernate on 15th October. What else could you be doing that evening? Full details on Developers.ie.

What is Hibernate? Java programs are like Lego blocks - very 3D with bumps on them to connect together. Database tables to store data are like flat sheets of paper. Hibernate is a bridge between these two very different worlds. In technical terms, it’s called Object-Relational-Mapping (ORM).

Why is it important? Hibernate is the defacto standard in the Java World, and has had huge influence on the most recent version of the EJB spec. There’s a .Net version and even competitors (such as Toplink from Oracle) are moving to the Hibernate way of doing things.

We’re big fans of Sugar CRM, and have recommended it to clients in the past. It does Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - basically the numbers you have in your mobile, but at a corporate rather than an individual level. We proposed integrating it with a (Java Based) billing system - we didn’t want to have to build (yet another) contact management system, as the value add was integration. Getting PHP (the web scripting language that Sugar is written in) to work with Java is getting easier but not straightforward. But hey, that’s what we do.

So it in Friday’s Irish Times Business section (main part), I was surprised to see Sugar advertising for people for their Dublin European HQ (I obviously missed this press release back in March announcing the opening). The ad in the main part says ‘look at page 19 of the jobs section’. Page 19 exists, but no Sugar CRM ad. Strange.

Michele (him of Blacknight) talks a lot about Sugar CRM, from the hosting point of view.

Update: Link to the Sugar CRM Careers page (includes CRM Jobs in Dublin)

Lets see if this Facebook thing can be better than LinkedIn for networking and getting new business.

As an experiment, we’ve just opened a Dublin IT Contractors Group on Facebook. No matter what the Technology is that you use, you’re welcome to come along and take part.

Update: FirstPort has more information on the Dublin Java Conference.

From Jake, organiser of the Dublin Java User Group.

Subject: Conference Announcement - Call for Speakers

From: Jakub Korab Date: August 15, 2007 06:41 AM R

I am happy to announce what I hope will be the first in a series of major Java events here in Dublin. In conjunction with IrishDev the Dublin JUG will be hosting the Irish Java Technologies Conference in early November. This 2-3 day event aims to bring together the big names in Java right here in Dublin.

We are currently in the process of organizing speakers for the event. If you have any suggestions of technologies/topics that you would like to hear discussed, particular speakers you would like to hear, or would like to present on a topic, please email myself or .

Jake Dublin

JUG Organizer

More details on Jake’s Blog.

No , nothing to do with recent financial turmoil in the IFSC , but the Vikings have arrived back in Dublin.

More info on the route they took is here.

It’s strange having (by accident) seen the same ship before it left Denmark - that’s a 2 hour Direct flight, can’t imagine how long it took to sail it across the North Sea and around Scotland down to Dublin. I’m just glad we took the plane. This is the original - good condition considering it’s almost a thousand years old.