In both Ruby and DITA, domain specific languages make elegance possible. More importantly, each is producing an ecosystem of domain specific languages (aka "power tools") that is making it more powerful as time goes on.

Today I released a testing tool written in Scala, which can be used to test Scala or Java code. It is intended primarily as a tool for testing Scala code, but can also be used as a low-risk way to get started programming in Scala, by writing tests in Scala for production code written in Java.

Many people have written that generics in Java are too complicated, this blog examines a simplification — the elimination of wildcards.

Developer productivity is as much a factor of productive frameworks as it is of language capabilities. Is there anything in Java that limits framework architects in their quest to design more productive APIs and frameworks? How do language features impact framework design?

I caught up with Mr. Carney last week and quizzed him on mobile development issues, as seen from the Symbian perspective.

You can learn a lot from observing little kids: Avoid the people your dog dislikes; chasing the cat is more fun than catching it; and ALWAYS look between the bread before you bite the sandwich. This last, in a nutshell, is why Symbian C++ developers need emulators.

This sounds bad, but it needs to happen if Java is to ultimately stay in the mainstream. That is, if feature accretion hasn't already irreparably damaged the language.

The Closure proposal from Neal Gafter et al. introduces something that is like an object, a closure, but not quite. To enable interoperation with normal objects a form of autoboxing is used, this autoboxing has two forms, normal closure conversion and restricted closure conversion. This blog examines an alternative.

In November, I gave the commencement address for Neumont University, a school in Salt Lake City dedicated to teaching computer science where my coauthor lectures. This is that speech.

For starters, two stipulations: One from me, one from Voltaire. Me: "I love Eclipse." Voltaire: "There can be no disagreement in matters of taste." Or alternatively, as expressed by my mom: "To each his own." So now that this deeply personal matter has been aired, let’s walk through a setup of my favorite Symbian Dev Tools.

Over a year ago, I bought a new computer. This was a carefully considered decision, as I don't change computers that often and so try to get something I will be satisfied with for as long as possible.

You can listen to most of the 2007 sessions on the Javaposse site to get an idea of how fun and engaging the conversations were. We expect more people this time, maybe even a sellout.

The RIA Jam will explore (directly) Flex and Silverlight, and (indirectly, since it's not ready yet) JavaFX. The Flex-TurboGears Jam will use Flex on the front end and TurboGears on the server. For either you can choose to only drill down on a particular technology.

This week we released an early access version of the book, Programming in Scala, in PDF form. With this work, Artima enters the world of book publishing for the first time. In this blog post, I explain what we did and why, and what this means for Artima in the future.

I created and ran both the C++ and Java tracks at the Software Development Conference for many years, and have spoken at numerous other conferences. Since discovering Open Spaces, my interest in "eyes-forward" conferences has waned.