Last time, we discussed the buzz about Ruby on Rails. Here we’ll take a look at how Java rose to dominance in the programming world and what mistakes were made that have left the door wide open for Ruby on Rails to eat its lunch. Plus, we’ll have a little bit more good humored fun with Bruce Tate.

As my previous post pointed out, there are at least 4 things needed for a product to be successful. A strong story, timing, going viral, and being authentic.

On May 23, 1995 Sun formally announced Java to the entire world at SunWorld ’95 and Netscape followed up on the same day with the announcement that it will license Java for use in the Netscape brower’s.

The rapid success of Java following the announcement had a lot to do with the strong story that Sun told potential Java programmers.

• The promise of simplicity: Similar syntax to C and C++ without the hassle of pointers and memory management.
• “Write Once, Run Anywhere”: Maintain one code base, and count on it to run correctly on any platform that had a JVM.

Sun found a distinct “edge” by going in this direction. Edge’s typically lead to viruses, and with the emergence of the internet, the timing was perfect. C and C++ were not ready to deliver web application as simply as Sun had promised with Java.

So where did things go wrong?

The story turned out to not be authentic. Java is difficult. Books like “Better, Faster, Lighter Java”, and “Bitter EJB’s” point out this fact very well. The API is bloated, and the learning curve just to keep up with the language is very steep.

One of the biggest mistakes that Sun has made, however; is not listening and reacting to their users, another way of losing authenticity. The Java community is vast, and vocal. Web-sites such as The Server Side, IBM DeveloperWorks, Apache Jakarta, and various individual blogs such as Matt Raible’s, and Rick Hightower’s aggressively discuss Java technology. Warts and all.

Instead of tapping into these resources Sun has chosen the Not Invented Here mind set. In other words, Sun rewrites every widely used open source project before they include similar functionality into the SDK.

Here are two examples. JUnit (assertions) and Log4J (java.logging). Furthermore, Sun has sided with tool vendors instead of programmers. The initial JSF release was targeted at vendor, not developers by design! Had they targeted the true needs of the web development community perhaps JavaBlogs would not be flooded with programmers trying out Ruby on Rails?

These policies have led to even more confusing API’s and a divided developer community. The consequences of those decision is what’s being seen daily on JavaBlogs. Java is losing their sneezers.

From Idea Virus, by Seth Godin:

“Sneezers are at the core of any ideavirus. Sneezers are the ones who when they tell ten or twenty or 100 people—people believe them.”

Bruce Eckel notes the “Departure of the hyper-enthusiasts“. Couple that with former die hard Java Developers now touting the possibilites of Rails. Here are a few recent stories of this in action:

• Thoughtworks Wins Big Contract with Rails
• Stuart Halloway discussing how Rails helps his consultancy get business

If Sun had been authentic with their promise of simplicity, and tended to the fan base, books like “Faster, Lighter, Better Java” and “Bitter EJB’s” would never have existed. Bruce Tate would never have had a reason to make these points. When books like these start popping up it is a good indicator that something is amiss in a products plan.

Next time we’ll look at how two independent projects, Spring and Hibernate went viral and completely out did Sun at their own game.

Here are some Amazon.com links to some of the books referenced while creating this article. They are all great reads. As usual, all revenue from these links go to charity:

A few days ago, Bruce Tate wrote about the popularity of Ruby on Rails in a post he called, “Popular vs. Great“. In this excellent post, Bruce tries to break perceptions behind framework adoption, and helps provide road signs to look for to see if one framework will “cross the chasm”.

However, I think that Bruce has missed a crucial point. The story that each framework is trying to tell is more important than the framework itself. If you take a look at Ruby on Rails, it is selling a story about productivity. Check out their quotes page to see this in action:

“Ruby on Rails is a breakthrough in lowering the barriers of entry to programming. Powerful web applications that formerly might have taken weeks or months
to develop can be produced in a matter of days.”
-Tim O’Reilly, Founder of O’Reilly Media

“What sets this framework apart from all of the others is the preference for convention over configuration making applications easier to develop and understand.”
-Sam Ruby, ASF board of directors

These are just 2 examples of many choice quotes from industry leaders furthering the productivity story.

The story does not stop there. One of the first video’s showing the power of Rails was a 15 minute demo showing how to created a fully functional blog application. 15 minutes, and 58 lines of code! This is quite a powerful story, and the Rails site tells it wonderfully.

But this is just one quarter of the equation. Not only must the story be powerful, it must be viral. It must spread as quickly as possible to as many people as possible to really take off. David Geary noted the infection in effect in his blog when he posted on a Rails/AJAX demonstration that he gave:

My third demo put Rails’ Active Record through it’s paces. I made half a dozen live code changes, adding columns to tables, changing the schema, doing a 1 to many relationship, etc., and after each code change, I refreshed the browser. Five or six live code changes in rapid-fire succession followed by browser refreshes that accurately reflected the database changes. Near the end of that demo, I looked into the audience and saw something that I’d never seen at a NFJS symposium: a woman sitting at a table near the front of the room was looking at me with her mouth wide open and the most incredulous look on her face. It was almost like I could read her mind: “This can’t be real!”, she must’ve been thinking. I pointed at her and said “That’s pretty amazing, huh?” She nodded a reply, but the look of astonishment never left her face.

The third requirement is Timing. One could grossly over-generalize the current IT maket as one that runs lean. Not a lot of help and a lot of work to do to “increase share-holder value”. In this kind of atmosphere, the story of applications that can be written 10x’s faster is very appealing. It’s almost as if the audience was waiting for someone to come along and tell this story!

Finally, to round out our discussion well look at authenticity. That’s right, the story must be authentic to be successful. The Rails site makes it easy to believe this story with all of the quotes and videos, and a listing of applications currently running on rails. There is also a weblog, wiki, IRC channel (#rubyonrails channel on irc.freenode.net), and mailing list to make the Rails story authentic to others by helping adopters of the language not fail.

So there you have it: strong story, timing, going viral, and being authentic. I truly believe that if you are missing just one of these factors, having the greatest framework or in general any product, will not help you.

This has just been a brief discussion on some very complex marketing topics. For more (better) information, I highly recomment the following books by Seth Godin, who goes into these topics in much more detail:

In my next post we’ll take a look at some of the other frameworks that Bruce mentioned: Spring, Hibernate, Rife, EJB 2.0/3.0 and see where some of them hit the mark, while others bombed badly.

For those of you into some indie fiction this is an excellent collection of short stories from new and yet to be discovered authors. From the Amazon.com site:

Have you ever wondered if a small child could really teach a man to live? And what does baseball have to do with war and death? These and many more questions that you never thought you would ask, are now answered in a new book of short stories. Emerging Voices is collection of tales by previously unpublished writers as well as a few published ones as well. This collection of short fiction will make you laugh and tear your heart out at the same time. I bet you can’t put it down.

My father has a story in this anthology, so I’m a bit biased. However, the collection is great, and well worth your purchase. This is also the first time that I’ve used my Amazon.com referal account. As a general policy I’ll only plug items that I either own or have used, and oh yeah, all proceeds from my Amazon.com account will go straight to the American Red Cross.

Caught this one on Coudal today. The Everything I Have Ever Poster is a poster of objects that you scratch off to change the items color from grey to orange. Allowing you to customize the poster to your own experiences. Simply awsome.

This season a national debate has raged on whether or not “Happy Holiday’s” or “Merry Christmas” is more PC, appropriate, or less offensive. Take your pick. At first, I was going to avoid chiming in on this particular topic, but after reading this post, I’ve finally hit my tipping point.

From everything2.com:

It is important to understand that some Jews actually get pissed when you wish them a Merry Christmas; that node actually touches on some of the things I’m going to go over, but not all. The defense of “Happy Holidays” is usually quite simple: it’s easier to say and more politically correct in case you so happen to be speaking to somebody who doesn’t celebrate Christmas. But I think there are more and better defenses.

Personally, I’ve grown weary of the PC movement. It seems that people are looking for more and more reasons to get pissed off at each other as opposed to finding a common middle ground of respect as “I think” was orginally intended.

If someone stops you on the street to say Merry Christmas, and isn’t looking to sell you something or mug you, isn’t that a good thing? The worst thing that they are doing is trying to spread a little Christmas joy and cheer. By digging in to that statement and finding some reason to take offense, not only are you defeating the purpose of the “Holiday Season”, you are choosing a pretty miserable way to live.

Even with that said, let’s play along a bit. What happens if you throw up the rose-tinted “Politically Correct Blinders”, and apply them to Christmas? What can we do at Christmas with this demented mind set?

Christmas Tree’s? Wait, gotta get rid of those. The “C” word.
Christmas Stockings? Sorry, gone too.
Cookies for Santa? Not healthy.
Gift Giving? The have’s putting down the have-not’s.
Holiday Wreaths? Well, they were originally a pagan tradition, so those are probably bad.
Christmas Candy? Out on 2 counts… The “C” word, and the commercialization of Christmas through the sale of candy targeted at Christmas.
Christmas Cards? Nope, sorry Hallmark… See Christmas candy.
Christmas Dinner? Well, since turkey and ham are pretty common, I’d say they are out too… Cruelty to animals.
Snow Angels? Sorry, too Christian…
Snowmen? Well, this could potentially be offensive as well… unless your snowman is accompanied by a snowwoman. Doh, that does not fix it, because why do we have to have a man and a woman, right? Alright, create two snow men… but wait, the government does not recoginize 2 snowmen as being a couple, nor do some religions… Trouble again!

What are we to do? Cancel Christmas! After all, isnt the celebration of the Birth of Jesus Christ against the 1st Amendment?

1st Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Had enough of this garbage yet? Me too.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

I have never seen a more horrible act of selfishness in my life. It was simply awful. It’s the kind of thing that you watch and just feel ill. The booing that insued was well earned by Randall.

During the final board room, Trump made it clear that both players, Rebecca and Randall were superstars. And in all fairness they were. Both were excellent players. In the end Trump choose Randall to be his “Apprentice”.

He then asked Randall what he thought about giving Rachel a job as well. Randall replied, “This is the apprentice, not the apprenti.” Thus closing the door on a possible win-win for everyone.

It was a poor move for the uber-educated winner. Instead of going out on a positive note, he tainted his win and created mixed/ill feeling towards himself. Dumb move smart guy.

It was even more suprising that Trump simply went along with this… I was half expecting him to fire Randall for such a poor answer and give Rebecca the job. Oh well, I guess I dont think like “The Donald”…

The BileBlog is a java tech site created by the infamous Hani Suleiman. He pulls out his “book of filth and leudness” and rips away at what he happens to disagree with. This is all well and good, I’ve been known to go off at times, but the tone lately has gotten out of hand. In his latest car wreck of an installment Hanni takes some hard shots at the Web 2.0 camp.

“Web TwoPointSchmoe If there’s one thing a time machine would come handy for right about now, it’d be to go back and stab Tim FuckFace O’Reilly with sufficient vigour and zest to prevent the calamity that is the web 2.0 buzzword. “

This is typical fare for Hani’s site. Reading his “work” is is like rubbernecking on the freeway. Slow down for the carnage, realize that you have better things that you should be doing, and move on. However, this post, like his more recent have been lacking in any kind of reasonable content what so ever. Facts are rare, and supported opinions are few and far between. It seems like Hani has become a 12 year old that says the “f-word” because it makes the big people look over at him.

Normally, this is not the kind of site I’d talk about here, however, Hanni’s status has changed. He is now on the JCP. The Sun Microsystem’s controlled board that guides the future of Java technology. What kind of leadership can we expect from this guy. His usual rant is only that… A rant. He rarely, if ever, provides any kind of solution to the “fads” that happen to have caught him on a “no-medication-day”. Any fool can stand around and complain. It takes no talent to tear down others and their efforts. Perhaps that’s why he does it?

I’m really starting to feel sorry for this guy. Each post has to be more over the top than the next. More crude, more blatant. Otherwise it just the same old flagorance with a new target. Kind of like the monkeys in the zoo… Yeah, I laugh a bit when they throw their pooh at the visitors. However, after a minute it becomes clear that this is the most intelligent thing that they can do and it gets sad… really fast. When they resort to vigorously grabbing at their genitals and yelling like crazy, like Hani has, it’s simply time to move on…

Hani, not only have you JUMPED THE SHARK, you’ve taken it out to a cheap dinner, and knocked it up…

Lots of people are buffing their crystal balls (the 10 year old in me is laughing hysterically) and making their web predictions for next year. Here’s a quick round up of the one’s I’ve enjoyed with some of my with a payoff at the end.

Cameron Moll provides his hit list. And actually while you are on the site take a look around. His design and web articles are excellent. The Full-Time Freelancing: 10 Things Learned in 180 Days is exceptional. And his series on creating That Wicked Worn Look is spot on. Overall his ball rubbing has led to some insightful predictions. His thoughts on mobile technology cover a little blogged area.

37Signals has their post on the future. Here’s a sample of the discussion:

I predict 2006 will be yet another year of a lot of crappy corporate web sites oblivious to usability and accessibility issues and full cross browser support along with an overuse and abuse of Flash, Ajax and the like…though, yes, we’ll still have plenty of drop shadows.

Finally, Andy Budd predicts a standards centric year. Filled with gum drops, web 2.0 buzz, and Ruby on Rails all the way home…

(**Editor Note: Damn Christmas Music Playing in the Background**)

So what do my balls tell me? I think 2006 with be the year of the BETA. Tons of web startups that live in the blissful state of perpetual testing. Huge buttons begging to be pressed. Fonts so damn big you’ll need 2 monitors to read, and wait… come in real close… AJAX!!!

To be a bit more scientific I asked my magic 8 ball, “Will 2006 be the year of web2.0?”. To which it replied:

“Thank you trying the magic 8 ball. We are currently taking email address for beta testing. If you’d like to get in on the beta once we release the final magic 8 ball please fill in you email address in the rediculously large entry box below.”

It should be a fun year!

As the title suggests, I’m agrivated with my online banking software. 37Signals did a great job of improving online banking interfaces, so I won’t go into that nightmare, however, there are two features that are sorely missing from the online banking applications that I’ve used in the past.

Goal Tracking and Tagging.

I want my online bank software to answer 2 questions. Where am I? Where do I want to be? Google Adsense allows me to set goals for this blog site quickly and easily. It then tells me whethere or not the goals for my site are being met. Doesn’t it make sense for banks to offer this as well? People would spend more time on their banks site, and would build a stronger relationship with their bank. If I’ve invested time in setting things up, I’m not going to up and go to another bank over 1/10th of a percent in interest…

Plus, they could add links to information about getting my goals on track. For example, if I’m not building up the retirement saving that I’ve specified in a goal, they could have a link appear that leads me to a phone number of the banks financial planner. Perhaps I’d end up with a Money Market Account, or an IRA. More business for them! It seems like the banks are throwing away a great opportunity to work with their clients.

Also, why the hell can’t I tag transactions in my online banking application? Currently, I simply get a list of debits and credits to my checking and savings account. If I could tag each transaction as “Gas”, “Food”, “Impulsive Purchase”, “Getting out of trouble with my wife“, etc… I would be able to group them by category and get a total spent within each. It would not be too a far a stretch from that point to get a graph of where all the money is going and coming from…

Two simple features like these would eleminate my need to use financial tracking software such as Quicken or MS Money. At least in my case, a small/easy to implement feature would remove complicated applications from my life… BANKS, ARE YOU LISTENING?

A few weeks back I posted a rather harsh criticism of Jason Fried, of 37 Signals fame, on this site. I’ve thought about it a bit, and after watching some of the latest posts on his SVN blog, and their comments, I’ve decided that I was wrong to fire away at him. This post of his titled “Simple means launching something” completely changed my mind about him. It’s brilliant. Simple advice with a strong call to action.

For those that are replying, “I can’t do that with my clients…” Try applying some thought to this idea. Pretend you have a client project with 10 features. 5 of the features are fully spec’d and ready to go. The remaining 5 are under heavy debate and are stalling everything. Go back to your desk, crank out the 5 you know are solid and show the client. Tell them that you’d like to get this out in the open to “test the waters”. Be creative. While you are negotiating the last 5 features you will probably get feed back from your users and end op focusing on things that are not even on your feature list…

It drives me insane when people do not take ideas and try to internalize them. (Fit them to their own situation **REQUIRES THINKING**) . It’s a good idea that more of us should be trying to use.

So, apologies to Jason Fried. Keep on keepin man.

–Ryan