Michael O'Connell is the founding Editor-in-chief and editorial director of IBM's developerWorks site, which launched in 1999. Before joining developerWorks, he served as founding Editor-in-chief of IDG's JavaWorld and a founding editor of SunWorld Online -- two of the industry's first successful Web-based technology magazines. He's been a computer journalist since 1991.

Ask your questions for Grady Booch, Danny Sabbah

This week I'm continuing to focus on questions for Steve Mills, and also particularly looking for questions for both IBM fellow Grady Booch and Rational Software GM Danny Sabbah. Please share your questions for Steve, Grady, and Danny!

Categories : [   booch  |  interviews  |  podcasts  |  rsdc  |  sabbah  ]

May 09 2008, 03:00:07 AM EDT Permalink

Post your questions for: Steve Mills (dW interviews at RSDC)

This week I'm focusing on gathering questions for Steve Mills. Many of you already know Steve runs IBM's Software Group -- he's the Senior Vice President and Group Executive of IBM Software Group. What you may not realize is that he is the leader of the world's largest software development organization, with some 24,000 developers, widely distributed across the globe. Sounds like someone worth talking to, eh? We plan to do just that, and we want to ask him the best of your questions. Have any? Please post your questions for Steve Mills here -- simply follow this link to the related dW forum thread (and perhaps read the questions others have posted), then click on "Reply to this thread" (upper left of page) to submit your own question(s). I'll ask as many of your good questions as I can when I talk to him at RSDC.

Also, if you haven't already heard it, check out our new developerWorks podcast about RSDC, in which dW's own Scott Laningham interviews Scott Hebner, Rational VP of Marketing and Strategy, for a quick preview of this year's conference. After listening and hearing more about this year's highlights (including big keynotes from folks like Steve Mills, Danny Sabbah and Grady Booch, guest speaker William Shatner, comedian Mitch Fatel, and Grammy-winning rock band The Wallflowers ... more than 300 technical sessions ... hands-on technical workshops ... complimentary IBM certification classes ... technology demonstrations ...) I'll bet you'll want to register now -- and see these execs (as well as many technical experts, and peers) in person.

Categories : [   ibmrsdc08  |  interviews  |  mills  |  podcasts  |  rsdc  ]

Apr 24 2008, 04:58:54 PM EDT Permalink

dW fosters enhancements for you, IBM

Out of the box, this community area enables better transparency about the evolution of Rational products, what's coming next and current priorities, and also will help us more quickly identify and address product enhancements that you and your peers submit.

The developerWorks team was pleased to be able to help when Rational came to us with this request, recognizing the experience and expertise dW has in building community and our being the primary IBM place for developers and IT professionals. I view this as a strong example of how the developerWorks community works well: Members learning the latest about key products and technologies, while at the same time sharing input and requests that enhance the products that the community uses, giving IBM (and each other) another way to listen to and better understand and respond to the community and your wants and needs. We hope to extend and improve upon this model in the coming months.

Categories : [   community  |  rational  |  rfe  ]

Apr 08 2008, 05:33:26 PM EDT Permalink

developerWorks home page enhancement now live

Give it a try, and share your feedback.

Update 1 (1:20 p.m. EST): Seems a bit of a performance issue with the script on our server so for now we may back out this update. Stay tuned.

Update 2 (5:15 p.m. EST): A nit was fixed and seems things are better, so (for now at least) we're retaining the mouseover treatment. We welcome and appreciate your input.

Categories : [   design  |  dw-news  ]

Feb 27 2008, 05:22:40 PM EST Permalink

Jazz.net now open to all; Team Concert Express; Bluegrass too!

Also of particular interest in the Computerworld article are the two concluding paragraphs:

IBM on Monday also announced that the second beta version of the first Jazz-based product -- called IBM Rational Team Concert Express -- is now available. The product, expected to be generally available later this year, is aimed at helping small and midsize development teams improve productivity through collaboration, IBM said. It includes Web dashboards to help users see real-time status data including the status of work items and project health.

Finally, IBM announced that IBM Research is working on a new projects called Bluegrass, which is aimed at using virtual worlds such as Second Life to help software developers work and brainstorm with one another using interactive visual representations of ideas, data from the Web and Jazz-based sources.

Check out the complete article for more details, including perspective from Scott Hebner, IBM Rational VP of marketing and strategy, about how IBM will "build our products in a completely transparent and collaborative fashion with our customers."

Update: I just found this press release about today's news, which provides even more details.

Categories : [   bluegrass  |  jazz  |  rational  ]

Jan 14 2008, 10:13:57 AM EST Permalink

Open Source News: Red Hat CEO Szulik stepping down

I applaud Matthew's passion and success leading Red Hat and helping champion open source and Linux over the past decade. I also applaud his dedication to his family, which led to his transition. As reported by CNet, Matthew explains, "For the last nine months, I've struggled with health issues in my family. ... This job requires a 7x24, 110 percent commitment." Ultimately, Matthew prioritized his family -- a decision I appreciate all the more as my wife and I prepare for the birth of our first child. I wish him and his family the best.

Here's wishing everyone more time to share with their loved ones. Especially over the holidays, but also year-round. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year, everyone.

Categories : [   news  |  open-source  ]

Dec 21 2007, 04:21:02 PM EST Permalink

Finding code is now easier than ever

I expect many of you will find this enhancement of developerWorks most useful. The indexed code includes:

• code from more than 1,400 articles (and we plan to expand code search to our full collection of articles)
• more than 33,000 individual source code files
• more than 4.6 million lines of code
• code for more than 35 programming languages, including C, XML, Java, ADA, C++, JavaScript, Perl, C#, Cobol, Ruby, Fortran and many others.

For more info, see Scott Laningham's blog -- which links to our related dW podcast discussions about Krugle code search on developerWorks -- and see also the related page with details regarding developerWorks source code on Koders.com.

Bottom line: You'll now find developerWorks code via your searches whether you use Koders or Krugle. And if you want to search developerWorks code specifically, you can easily do so on the developerWorks site: Simply use the standard dW search and then, on the results page, click on "Sample Code results (hosted by Krugle)." Alternatively, you can bookmark this example results page (in which I searched for "open"and found 4440 matching files) and modify the search term there.

Happy code searching.

Categories : [   code  |  search  ]

Oct 16 2007, 03:52:24 PM EDT Permalink

developerWorks celebrates 8th birthday today

Today developerWorks celebrates its 8th birthday!

We formally launched on Sept. 28, 1999 (after a few months as a public beta site). Eight years later, the fundamental developerWorks mission remains the same: To serve the wants and needs of developers and technical professionals. Our unwavering focus on this goal has helped grow the IBM developer community, which now boasts more than 5.7 million members. It has led to numerous awards, including the elite Jolt Hall of Fame award we received earlier this year. And it has helped us continue to distinguish ourselves from other vendor-sponsored developer sites, with our focus extending beyond our own company's products and services to include content and resources dedicated to open standards and product- and platform-independent content. (For more historical context, see this JavaWorld article and the related IBM press release.)

As we celebrate eight years, I'm sure some of you in the dW community have been with us for quite a while, drawn by our longstanding focus on open, cross-platform technologies such as Java and Linux and XML; some of you have certainly turned to dW for our content and resources (including trial software and other downloads) related to the wide array of products and related technologies offered by IBM brands such as Information Management (DB2), Lotus, Rational, WebSphere. Others have joined the dW community more recently, perhaps as we've added new content and resources on important topics such things as Web 2.0, mashups, and Ajax, for example. And some of you may have discovered dW only very recently, perhaps coming to us through our ever-expanding set of community resources, such as spaces, wikis, podcasts, and blogs -- or even via long-valued discussion forums, our various RSS and Atom feeds, or our new collection of syndication "gizmos."

Whatever your reason, whatever your path, we're glad you've found us. And to help us celebrate our birthday, we welcome your personal story: What brought you to developerWorks, and when? What do you value about developerWorks? Let us know -- simply post a brief comment to this blog entry.

P.S. Today I coincidentally learned that developerWorks' birthday falls on the same date as the birthday of Confucius. As one source notes:

In Taiwan, [Confucius] is honored on the anniversary of his birth - September 28th. His birthday is a legal holiday in Taiwan. It is referred to as Teacher's Day since Confucius is considered the greatest teacher in Chinese history.

Like Confucius, dW strives to teach (though I suppose Confucius did not focus particularly on IT professionals). I'm happy to see dW share a birthday with such a respected teacher. Who knows? Perhaps in a few thousand years, developerWorks' birthday will become an official holiday among IT companies, just as Confucius's birthday is a legal holiday in Taiwan. ;-)

Categories : [   anniversary  |  birthday  ]

Sep 28 2007, 08:15:58 PM EDT Permalink

dW wins Jolt Hall of Fame award; Booch, Ambler, dW authors also honored

Last week at the 17th Annual Jolt Product Excellence Awards (dubbed "the Oscars of our industry") ceremony at the SD West conference in Silicon Valley, IBM developerWorks received what many agree is the software development industry’s highest honor for a product or resource: The Jolt Hall of Fame award. Here are a couple of trophy photos (courtesy dW open source editor Mark Cappel):

The “Hall of Fame inductees are consistent winners, whose high quality has been proven and maintained over time,” the Jolt awards site notes. Only one inductee is recognized with this award each year. This year the judges unanimously selected developerWorks, specifically praising our rich collection of quality how-to articles and tutorials.

Jolt awards ceremony host Craig Newmark (of Craigslist) introduced the award:

The Hall of Fame always generates lively discussion amongst the judges ... but this year, there was a quiet consensus. It was pretty unanimous that it was time to induct this giant into the JOLT Hall of Fame. This year’s winner is a treasure trove of IT-related topics and technologies and often has better technical articles than commercial publications and in many instances, is one of the few places anything is available. This year’s inductee is: IBM developerWorks.

I was thrilled to be at the awards ceremony in person to receive the award. (Don't let the serious expression fool you.)

In my brief moment on stage, I thanked the judges and thanked CMP Technology (which runs SD West, a.k.a. the "Software Development West 2007 Conference and Expo," and publishes Dr. Dobb's Journal). I then congratulated the editors and broader team at developerWorks who all play key roles in our success, and the many authors -- both inside and outside IBM -- who share their technical expertise in our thousands of how-to articles and tutorials.

I also thanked the leadership at IBM for embracing and supporting what is an unorthodox vision and strategy for a vendor site, one that I’ve championed since coming from JavaWorld at IDG in 1999 to become founding editor-in-chief of developerWorks: Prioritize the wants and needs of the developers. That is, focus not simply on company messages, or promotion of company products, but more broadly on any information and resources that are critical to developers.

Looking back, I’m impressed by how far we’ve come and how much we’ve grown in the last seven or so years. In 1999 we had about a half dozen zones (sections of the site that in many ways each resemble a stand-alone online magazine). The press release announcing developerWorks and the related article about dW's launch that appeared in CNN describe our focus on providing “product- and platform-independent information” and our “rich blend of tools, code, tips, news, tutorials, and how-to articles, all based on cross-platform technologies and strategies.” Those statements, as well as our open, cross-platform, standards-based focus, remain true today –- but we’ve expanded considerably.

We now host three times as many zones, covering a wide array of open technologies as well as IBM products. We now offer four region-specific, localized sites (dW China, dW Japan, dW Korea, dW Russia), in addition to our global site based in the U.S. We offer an ever-growing array of community-driven resources, greatly expanding our discussion forums and adding more resources, including blogs, podcasts, and our recently announced community-oriented developerWorks exchange. (dW will offer more on the community/Web 2.0 front in the coming weeks, too. Stay tuned.) And dW is not an online-only entity; we offer a rich set of tech briefings as well as other events and offline resources. The result: In our short history, developerWorks has grown into a community of (at last count) 5.7 million registered developers.

The bottom line: This simple strategy we embraced in 1999 has worked amazingly well and resonated with developers -- including many who, at least at first, did not (or as my bosses may say, "did not yet") have interest in IBM products or services. I thank then-director Gina Poole and manager Dirk Nicol for believing in and strongly supporting this enlightened vision, and the continued support from our current management, including Scott Bosworth and Kathy Mandelstein, as well as the continued support of our stakeholders and executives throughout IBM, including Steve Mills and Sam Palmisano. As evidenced by this Hall of Fame honor, the strategy continues to serve us well.

Equally important is the talented staff at developerWorks. Without their dedication and hard work, even the best strategy would fail. Kudos to each and every member of the dW team for your contributions to our success. This award honors you.

And most importantly, I thank the developer community that has come to rely on developerWorks as a trusted resource, and whose members (I hope) occasionally tell their colleagues about the great stuff we offer. We exist to serve you. And we encourage you to participate: Post to our discussion forums. Read and comment on our blogs and articles. Rate our content. Subscribe to our newsletters. Use our Atom and RSS feeds. Download our trial software and technologies. Use the many services and alpha technologies offered by our sister site, alphaWorks. Attend our tech briefings. Suggest content ideas or articles (including content you may write) to the dW editors. Or, if you like, just add your comments here.

In any case, thanks for your continued participation in the developerWorks community. We hope the next seven years are as rewarding as the last seven, and hope you'll join us on the journey forward.

More awards!
dW and IBM also enjoyed other big honors at the Jolt awards event. The photo below reflects three IBM awards. Shown here are (clockwise from the top) award recipients IBM Fellow Grady Booch, who won the exclusive Dr. Dobb's "Excellence in Programming Award" (pictured in the poster); yours truly, dW EIC Michael O'Connell, holding the developerWorks Jolt Hall of Fame Award; and book author and IBM Rational Practice Leader Scott W. Ambler, holding his Jolt Productivity Award for the technical book Refactoring Databases he co-authored with Pramod J. Sadalage.

Congrats to Grady and Scott!

Two frequent developerWorks authors (but not IBM employees) also were among the co-authors of the technical book that won the Jolt Product Excellence award. Congratulations to dW contributors Brett McLaughlin and Gary Pollice, who (along with David West) co-wrote the winning title, Head First Object-Oriented Analysis & Design. And congrats to all of the Jolt winners.

Update, 3 Apr 2007: Today Scott Laningham, dW podcasts host and editor, led a lively discussion about the history and significance of the Jolt awards with Rosalyn Lum, who manages the Jolt awards; Larry O'Brien, veteran Jolt awards judge who helped launch the awards in 1990; and myself. Listen to the chat -- or read the transcript -- for more insight and perspective on the awards. (You can also read about the very first Jolt awards.)

Categories : [   dw-awards  |  dw-news  |  jolt  |  sdwest  ]

Mar 27 2007, 03:41:58 PM EDT Permalink

Remembering Heidi Carson

Our good friend and colleague, Heidi Carson, was lost while scuba diving last week in the Caribbean. Heidi has been an integral part of developerWorks since its earliest days, most recently overseeing the editorial content on our Wireless and Web development zones. Heidi was adventurous, engaging, and extremely talented -- and we will miss her enormously. Our thoughts are with her family and all those close to her.

Heidi and I got to know each other before the birth of developerWorks, when we were both working at IDG in San Francisco in the 1990s. About five years ago, when she was living in Berlin, I visited her and explored Germany. This week I was compelled to dig up a couple of photos from that trip. One is in the garden of the Hotel Elephant (notice the elephant growing in the background) in Weimar; the other is in the city center of Berlin.

Last fall Heidi shared with me some photos of her too-recent wedding. One of those photos really stood out to me as capturing her beauty and her joyful presence:

Heidi always knew how to enjoy life, and I was honored to have known her and to share some time with her.

I miss you, Heidi -- both professionally and personally. Professionally, you've been a longtime champion of dW's focus on open and cross-platform environments, and you've played a key role in our success. (As one dW colleague put it, you helped dW "create a powerful Web presence, closely watched by competitors.") Your recent work as editor of the Web development zone, with its emphasis on today's popular Web 2.0 technologies, has been a particularly significant contribution, and both the dW team and dW visitors will miss you as we continue to grow that zone. Personally, I, as well as many colleagues and friends, will miss your wit and warm smile, your calming presence and your genuine, generous nature. (As one friend put it, with your "iridescent smile," you "brightened every room.") But I also know that you live on. I know that the foundation you helped build with dW will continue to serve the dW community for years to come. And I know that your spirit, and your wonderful example of living a happy and full life, live on with me, and with many others. I wish you eternal happiness.

Categories : [   Heidi  ]

Mar 06 2007, 04:55:24 PM EST Permalink

IBM enhances open source support for partners

IBM wants to encourage more of its business partners to use its open-source, low-end application server and free entry-level database by giving those companies access to IBM sales, marketing and technical expertise at no charge.

Partners who use IBM's WebSphere Application Server Community Edition (WAS CE) or the vendor's DB2 Express-C database will be able to directly tap IBM staff for advice on integration, scalability, testing, and support issues and won't have to pay for the privilege, IBM said Wednesday.

Such IBM feedback should help business partners bring their software based on WAS CE or DB2 Express-C more quickly to market, according to Rado Nikolov, director of strategy and emerging business, independent software vendor (ISV) and developer relations at IBM. The company will also help some partners create more buzz for their products in different geographies through free ongoing telemarketing campaigns and discounted advertising. Partners can also call on IBM sales staff for assistance in closing deals, he said.

• See the formal announcement
• Visit the Initiative for Business Partners using open source
• Download and learn more about IBM's free data server -- DB2 Express-C
• Download and learn more about IBM's free app server -- WebSphere Application Server Community Edition
• Read related news articles:
  • "IBM aims to boost partners' open-source use" (InfoWorld)
  • "IBM Offers Free Marketing, Support To Woo Partners Eyeing Open Source" (CRN)
  • "IBM dishes out open source resources to partners" (eChannelLine)

Personally, I am always happy to see IBM extend its open source efforts, and boosting support of partners in this fashion should certainly fuel broader adoption of open source solutions.

And speaking of open source solutions, have you heard about the new IBM "Open Client Solution" as an "alternative to vendor lock-in" and to "improve interoperability and provide more choice to run different vendors' products that work together"? Now we're talkin'! See a related CNet News.com article and the IBM press release.

Categories : [   open  |  open-source  |  partner  |  support  ]

Feb 13 2007, 04:50:09 PM EST Permalink

Top dW content of 2006

One good measure of which content resonated is that which garnered the most attention in terms of click-throughs from our email newsletter. dW newsletter editor John Swanson kindly -- and very quickly -- tallied the numbers for 2006. (Thanks, John!)

In chronological order, here are dW's top 10 items of 2006, based on newsletter-driven traffic:

• "Generate PDF files from Java applications dynamically" (Open Source zone, Jan. 24)
• "Explore the new features of Eclipse V3.1" (Open Source zone, Feb. 21)
• "DB2 and open source: Put yourself on the map with Google Maps API, DB2/Informix, and PHP on Linux" (Information Management zone, March 2)
• "Two tools bring Ajax to Eclipse's Ajax Toolkit Framework" (Open Source zone, May 9)
• "Considering Ajax, Part 1: Cutting through the hype" (Web Development zone, May 9)
• "Developing PHP the Ajax way, Part 1: Getting started" (Open Source zone, May 30)
• "Ajax for Java developers: Exploring the Google Web toolkit" (Java technology zone, June 27)
• "UNIX tips and tricks for a new user, Part 2: The vi text editor" (AIX and UNIX zone, Nov. 7)
• "Discover the Ajax Toolkit Framework for Eclipse" (Open Source zone, Nov. 29)
• "Kick-start your Java apps" (Multiple zones; updated throughout 2006)

Bonus -- 2 runners-up for an even dozen:

• "Mastering Ajax, Part 4: Exploiting DOM for Web response"
• "Mastering Ajax, Part 5: Manipulate the DOM"
  (Note that the Mastering Ajax series started in December 2005 with Part 1, which was written by bestselling author and veteran programmer Brett McLaughlin. This series has been among our most popular and highest rated, garnering thosands of positive reader ratings and commments.)

What do you deem the best of dW in 2006? Your top items from your favorite dW zone? Your favorite tutorials? Top podcast or blog? Best discussion forum? Top series of articles, or column? Comment here with your own best-of lists.

Categories : [   best  |  content  ]

Jan 16 2007, 02:38:52 PM EST Permalink

Reminder: Booch Live Chat about Caspian is today (transcript to follow)

If you're reading this after the live developerWorks chat ends, don't fret: You can read the transcript (which will be posted shortly after the live event).

Categories : [   caspian  |  eclipse  |  rational  |  soa  ]

Dec 07 2006, 02:47:39 PM EST Permalink

Eclipse-based "Caspian" products launch from Rational

Of particular note: These products are based on Eclipse 3.2. The fact that IBM used Eclipse as the foundation for its key set of developer products speaks strongly to its commitment to the Eclipse platform. Also of interest are the comments from my colleague Simon Johnston, who's already mentioned the launch in his blog today, and noted also that thanks in part to Simon's own efforts, "IBM [now] has a single method for the development of SOA solutions, whether you buy that method for your own use or you contract with IBM services; you the customer get the value of the combined experience of IBM's product and services communities."

Across developerWorks we've published a number of new resources related to the new V7 products:

• Listen to a developerWorks interview podcast in which Rational VPs Jamie Thomas, Lee Nackman, and Scott Hebner give an overview of V7 of the IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform Desktop products, talk about the evolutionary changes in IT and in business that have been the impetus for V7, and more.


• Join Grady Booch for a live chat. Grady will answer your questions about the V7 Rational tools release


• Download all of the latest V7 desktop product trials


• Read the latest Caspian-related articles on developerWorks:
  • JSF and Ajax: Web 2.0 application made easy with Rational Application Developer V7
  • Working with J2C Ant Scripts in Rational Application Developer V7
  • What's new in IBM Rational Software Architect V7
  • What's new in IBM Rational Application Developer V7
  • What's new in IBM Rational Software Modeler V7
  • Introduction to IBM Rational Functional Tester V7

Check out the new resources, and in particular the free V7 desktop trial software (Application Developer, Software Architect, Systems Developer, Software Modeler, Functional Tester, Manual Tester), and let us know what you think.


Categories : [   caspian  |  eclipse  |  rational  |  soa  ]

Dec 05 2006, 04:55:08 PM EST Permalink

Celebrating five years of Eclipse

Over the last five years, we've seen Eclipse evolve from a platform for application development tools to a universal integration platform for building and deploying software worldwide, with IBM driving much of the progress. ...

Since this day in 2001, when IBM made available the source code for the Eclipse platform under an open source license at eclipse.org, Eclipse has grown to include 66 open source projects and is the basis for more than 1,300 products. According to IDC, Eclipse is the market leading Java IDE with 2.27 million users worldwide, which demonstrates a remarkable level of support for open source innovation and collaboration. The initial eclipse.org consortium grew quickly from an 8-member group including IBM and Rational Software, to today's 152-member-strong Eclipse Foundation. Java Development Tools (Java IDE) with its incremental compiler, the Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) and the Eclipse platform as a more general Rich Client Platform (RCP) are among the many innovations made possible by Eclipse.

Within SWG, Eclipse has been adopted as the open source development platform across all our brands, and today more than 100 IBM products [including Lotus Sametime 7.5, WebSphere Portal 6.0, the upcoming IBM Lotus Notes "Hannover" release, to name a few] are based on Eclipse.

(Thanks, Danny, for your permission to excerpt from your email.)

Indeed, Eclipse has had a tremendous impact in five short years. And developerWorks has been covering it all along, through for example the Eclipse section of the dW Open Source zone.

For more perspective, listen to my comments about the Eclipse anniversary in today's new "This week on developerWorks" podcast. Also worth a listen (and providing much useful context and details) are our earlier dW podcasts with John Kellerman about Eclipse.

Many people will be attending the Eclipse parties being held around the world today. If you miss the parties, you can sign the birthday card and read about the anniversary at the eclipse.org site.



Categories : [   eclipse  ]

Nov 07 2006, 04:45:11 PM EST Permalink