I am a technology entrepreneur, innovator, author and, as some say, a “thought leader”. I like to solve challenging computing problems, especially those that drive innovation. Being a polyglot programmer, I can program fluently in many languages, including Java, Python, C++, C, Ruby, ActionScript, JavaScript, Objective-C, Haskell, Scala, Clojure, PHP, Groovy, Lisp and Perl. I must admit that I like to learn programming languages and if there is a new interesting one coming, I wouldn’t be far behind getting to grips with it. Over the last many years I have built some cutting edge enterprise and consumer software applications, many of which have leveraged large data sets and the web based programming paradigms. This means I also know a lot about data bases and persistence. I am very conversant with relational databases, embedded databases, object databases, text based data and XML. Having leveraged web based programming paradigms, I have first hand experience with a lot of web development frameworks, including but not limited to Adobe Flex, Spring MVC, Rails, Grails and Django. Not to forget, I obviously have worked a lot with HTML, JS and CSS. My experience and interest are varied and diverse and range a wide spectrum of application development realms that include the server, the client and the middleware.
Besides, programming, I am also deeply interested in mathematics and theoretical computer science. This motivates me to bring my knowledge of applied mathematics, statistical modeling, artificial intelligence and sometimes simply data structures, to good use, when I build applications. A couple of domains like financial mathematics and scientific computing seem to have been good fit for such expertise.
I am an ardent supporter of open source software and try and contribute to open source code bases and causes. I like the plurality and variety that software development offers; the choice of programming languages, the abundant availability of tools and libraries, the existence of multiple operating systems and the possibility of varied software development methodologies. As a member of the technology community, I am an active contributor to the ever evolving software development languages, methodologies and standards. I am an expert group member on a number of JCP (Java Community Process) specifications, for example JSRs 274, 283, 299, 301 & 312, and have been recognized as an Adobe Flex Champion.I run and organize a few community events like Flex Camp Wall Street, Show Ramp and Polyglot World.
I bring together all my expertise in terms of services and products via my primary venture, Treasury of Ideas LLC, in which I play the role of a Managing Partner. Treasury of Ideas LLC, through its focus on innovation and value optimization, offers many best of the breed services and products and has incubated many ideas to help translate them to reality. Our clients range from large enterprises, government agencies, not-for-profit organizations to promising new startups.
I write regularly in many technical journals and magazines, present in seminars and mentor developers and architects. I have authored a few books, including Advanced Flex 3 (friends of Ed/APress, 2008) and Professional BlazeDS (Wrox/Wiley, 2009) , and am in the process of authoring a few more. You can learn all about my books and public talks by browsing through the Publish & Present page at www.shanky.org.
With the beginning of 2010 I have put breaks on my frequent speaking
engagements. What I have decided, is to speak at select few events and
venues, else for the most part keep to online communication. I will tell
everyone about my plans for online sessions in a following post but for now
let me talk more about the next event where I appear.
Going by the last few years, by the first week of March I would have spoken
at atleast 4 to 5 events. However, this year is different and consciously so!
My first event is 360 Flex at San Jose (March 7-10, 2010). You may ask why
360 Flex and you may want to know what I am talking about at that conference.
Let me first attempt to answer the “why” part of the question and then I
will talk a bit about what I am presenting on at the conference.
360 Flex is one of the few conferences that is run by and for the developers.
Its one bi... (more)
Five technology application trends that I think will be most popular in 2011
are:
Tablets, tablets and tablets: iPad started the fever and its not stopping
anytime soon. Newer and smarter tablets of all sizes, form factors and
capabilities will emerge. Newer and newer applications for these devices will
be available. Big data will get bigger: More and more big data will become
available in the public domain and we will see the emergence of newer and
smarter storage and analytics solutions in the space. In other words NoSQL
and all tools that help manage big data will boom. Cloud... (more)
Election for JCP EC members is in progress and by next week a new committee
will be in place. So it’s an important time to understand where the JCP
stands and what the EC members can possibly do to make things better for the
JCP and the Java community.
Simply stated, JCP is a member driven organization to create standards for
the Java language and the platform. Ideally, it intends to be the common
aggregation point for all the voices in the community. Unfortunately though,
it’s still far away from realizing this dream. There are over 10 million
programmers and thousands of comp... (more)
Adobe’s Flex team seems inclined to move away from clean design.
Flex framework’s current stable version is 3.x and the Flex team at Adobe
is actively working on getting the version 4.x ready this year. At this time,
the core SDK of Flex 4, codenamed Gumbo, is evolving through an open source
process. From peeking into its initial version, it looks promising as there
are serious attempts to create a clean separation of behavior and
presentation in the components, apart from the tons of nifty enhancements
throughout the framework. (I promise to write about some of the forthcoming
... (more)
Last week at Adobe MAX 2010, the BlackBerry Playbook was introduced to the
world of developers. Positioned as a powerful multi-tasking environment it
promises to pose formidable competition in the tablet landscape. The PlayBook
OS is built on QNX, the real-time time-tested OS and offers an Adobe AIR
based SDK for developers to write their apps.
As soon as I was back from MAX, I was itching to write my first “Hello
World” app using the BlackBerry PlayBook SDK. So here in this post is an
account of that adventure.
To get started with the PlayBook SDK, first go to the BlackBerry Tab... (more)
I am a technology entrepreneur, innovator, author and, as some say, a “thought leader”. I like to solve challenging computing problems, especially those that drive innovation. Being a polyglot programmer, I can program fluently in many languages, including Java, Python, C++, C, Ruby, ActionScript, JavaScript, Objective-C, Haskell, Scala, Clojure, PHP, Groovy, Lisp and Perl. I must admit that I like to learn programming languages and if there is a new interesting one coming, I wouldn’t be far behind getting to grips with it. Over the last many years I have built some cutting edge enterprise and consumer software applications, many of which have leveraged large data sets and the web based programming paradigms. This means I also know a lot about data bases and persistence. I am very conversant with relational databases, embedded databases, object databases, text based data and XML. Having leveraged web based programming paradigms, I have first hand experience with a lot of web development frameworks, including but not limited to Adobe Flex, Spring MVC, Rails, Grails and Django. Not to forget, I obviously have worked a lot with HTML, JS and CSS. My experience and interest are varied and diverse and range a wide spectrum of application development realms that include the server, the client and the middleware.
Besides, programming, I am also deeply interested in mathematics and theoretical computer science. This motivates me to bring my knowledge of applied mathematics, statistical modeling, artificial intelligence and sometimes simply data structures, to good use, when I build applications. A couple of domains like financial mathematics and scientific computing seem to have been good fit for such expertise.
I am an ardent supporter of open source software and try and contribute to open source code bases and causes. I like the plurality and variety that software development offers; the choice of programming languages, the abundant availability of tools and libraries, the existence of multiple operating systems and the possibility of varied software development methodologies. As a member of the technology community, I am an active contributor to the ever evolving software development languages, methodologies and standards. I am an expert group member on a number of JCP (Java Community Process) specifications, for example JSRs 274, 283, 299, 301 & 312, and have been recognized as an Adobe Flex Champion.I run and organize a few community events like Flex Camp Wall Street, Show Ramp and Polyglot World.
I bring together all my expertise in terms of services and products via my primary venture, Treasury of Ideas LLC, in which I play the role of a Managing Partner. Treasury of Ideas LLC, through its focus on innovation and value optimization, offers many best of the breed services and products and has incubated many ideas to help translate them to reality. Our clients range from large enterprises, government agencies, not-for-profit organizations to promising new startups.
I write regularly in many technical journals and magazines, present in seminars and mentor developers and architects. I have authored a few books, including Advanced Flex 3 (friends of Ed/APress, 2008) and Professional BlazeDS (Wrox/Wiley, 2009) , and am in the process of authoring a few more. You can learn all about my books and public talks by browsing through the Publish & Present page at www.shanky.org.
David Lucas
Cathy Lopez
Shaul Efraim
Terence Martin Breslin
Cory Marchand
David Hughes
James Carlini
John Iffert
Dan Stolts
Joe Zeto
