Cloud Computing, Blade Spring time and Visa's

Cloud Computing

The last few weeks I have been investigating Cloud Computing and what it is going to mean to me as a developer.

“It’s one of the foundations of the next generation of
computing. . .. It’s a world where the network is the platform
for all computing, where everything we think of as
a computer today is just a device that connects to the big
computer we’re building. Cloud computing is a great way
to think about how we’ll deliver computing services in the
future.”
—Tim O’Reilly, CEO, O’Reilly Media

I think this quote best sums up what it will mean to us all. Many articles that I have read are either full of marketing hype or academic theory which go into huge depth about how cloud computing will be implemented and how it will change the world.

Quite a good introduction can be found here: http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/579826

What I am interested in as a developer is the glue which will join together the marketing hype with all that the theory promises.

In my job I develop mainly in Java so initially I am going to be investigating this from that perspective, although really the language we implement this in is of no consequence to our user, all they care about is they get to the information they want when they want it.

So in the upcoming months I will be researching Cloud Computing in general and various technologies that will be part of the Cloud development solution:

• Java CAPS - Composite Application Platform Suite, this is Sun's take on the way forward for developing for the cloud environment. http://developers.sun.com/javacaps/index.jsp
  
• REST - Representational State Transfer a collection of network architecture principals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Transfer
• Hadoop - Apache Hadoop Core is a software platform that lets one easily write and run applications that process vast amounts of data. It also has one of the strangest names for a platform, but lets hope that doesn't get in the way of its success. http://hadoop.apache.org/core/

I think as a developer the big guns will work upon frameworks that will hide the complexities of the cloud's resources and give us great power to exploit them. The cloud to us will just be a resource that we can call upon to provide us with enough processing power and storage capacity to tackle any problem very fast, but the age old problem will remain does the end result meet the user's needs.

To be continued...

Blade Spring Time

Blade is my own personal CASE tool, I develop it in my spare time to make my job easier, my code output faster and produce higher quality products.

It already has the following features:

• Code Builder - This is the core function and enables me to write code hundreds of times faster than my little fingers can and without typos.
• Project Manager - This helps me manage my projects and keep track of documentation, user requirements through to testing.
• Template manager - This is really a sub function for the code builder which enables me to add code templates.
• Knowledge Manager - A store for articles and various bits of knowledge I come across during my work/research.
• Language Manager - Another sub function of the code builder which enables me to teach Blade the various languages and technologies.
  
• SQL Builder - SQL tool to help build the database side that much faster.
• CSS Builder - CSS tool which will be integrated into the code builder when I feel inclined, but for now it will serve as a quick reference.

There is a lot more to it than I can describe here but the above is a brief summary.

This week I have decided to add Spring to the code builder. The first task is going to be write a feature into the code builder for writing the XML configuration files or "wiring" as it is called. I already have an XML tool so I plan to start from there. The goal will be to come up with some easy visual way to construct this so that all I need to think about is what I want to do.

Visa's

The last couple of weeks at work have been hectic. The government in its infinite wisdom decided to bring in a law for April 2009, with regard to immigrant students, which tightens up how they are dealt with when entering the UK to study here.

The pressure was really on in this project as the specification was not finalised until 30 March and the project was to be live for 6 April. The main reason being that the law was not finalised until March!

I did meet the deadline but it was difficult to build from scratch and test in such a short space of time. Definitely the shortest project I have worked on professionally.

Well that's enough for this week, Easter is here!!!