My son Jeff is 20, which means he

won't take a normal vacation with me, or at least that's all I can figure. But he'll go cycling, so no complaints there. This is our second year to cruise the roads of the Texas hill country.

That's our annual vacation :)  Oh well, you do what you can.

Look no further than last night's Spring Dallas User's group meeting for indication of how deeply Spring has cut into the mindspace of java enterprise programmers.

Spring Rivals Java Enterprise In Developer Interest ?

This is a "special interest group" for the java community in Dallas, and last night was almost as large an attendance as some of our JavaMUG meetings.

JavaMUG is a hugely successful, well attended, and long lived user group, so this should not be ignored by anyone who is planning projects over the next decade, Spring really does rival enterprise java at this point

Neal Ford came to JavaMUG this week to a packed crowd of 65 developers. The big story for me was his un-expected comments about IBM's product line.

I got a lot of helpful coding tips, for example something we don't always hear in talks at our user's group - a caution against "Ancticipatory Design" where you don't try to design around any anticipated needs until they actually show up. Being a more seasoned veteran than 28 years ago when I started, I'm willing to admit how true that actually is, even if I never thought about it much before.

Top Ten Tips Includes Dark Humor About WSAD ?

Neal's comments are always colorful, but number one on his Top 10 Corporate Code Smells is "There is a reason WSAD isn't called WHAPPY".

Click On Thumbnails to view Slideshow on Google's Picasa

Could there really be a "Fountain of Youth" ?

When Ponce de Leon went to the "New World" to discover the fountain of youth over 500 years ago, there was apparently this goofy belief that there could be such a thing as a place you could go that would make you younger.

What a silly idea - and welcome to White Rock Lake, in my home town of Dallas, Texas, where it really comes true.

We didn't know that Dad would be singing, we were just going for the concert ( er uh service ). Instead of the usual soloist emerging from Dad's choir, this time he just turned around and sang the two solos himself.

If you knew me even a little bit you would know that I am a giant smart aleck. I've always enjoyed starting fights, riling people up, doing just about anything to get some kind of electricity started. It's not always a great quality to have. Or habit, whatever it is that troublemaking wants to be called.

Last week was my fourth week here at Genuitec, and they are still saying things like "I'm sure you've done [* one or another practice *] at other places you've been."

Well, I haven't. Not like this anyway.

Setting aside my natural state as the reclusive nerd-type I flew in to Silicon Valley this week for my first EclipseCon. Lots of new experiences to take in, new aquaintances, and a first convention representing my new employer, Genuitec.

Sun's Gregg Sporar presented at JavaMUG tonight on memory leaks. We had a really good crowd, about 58 people.

The biggest thing I picked up from the presentation is why there would ever even be any memory leaks - because I would never write any in my programs, of course. So I had to learn how others might write leaks that I would be asked to fix. :)  Never lie, either, except in this blog.