Maybe the software industry (for software-engineers) is not looking that bad after all. According to Time, computer-software engineers (or applications developers), is one of the top 15 jobs with the largest projected increases for 2000-2010; it’s actually number 9 in the biggest gainers category, expecting 380,000 new jobs.
They say, “As long as computer upgrades are constant, so will be the jobs.”
I also think that software engineers will be in great demand in the next decade. Why? It’s still a very young field, and a lot of companies will need the engineers to develop software properly — according to the software-engineering standards. Good for us, software engineers, developers!
Here is a short list of very good articles on Java Server Pages that appeared recently on SitePoint.com (very good developer’s resource). For those that do not know it, JSP are used to generate dynamic content on the site — it’s a very good, powerful technology.
Struts (very popular lately):Complete the MVC Puzzle with Struts
JSTL (gaining momentum also):Introduction to the Java Standard Tag Library
Use JSP to get RSS:Use Custom Tags to Aggregate RSS Feeds into JSP-Based Web Apps
Intro to JSP (older article):JSP Quick-Start Guide for Windows
So a whole lot of resources for JSP! Very good job by SitePoint.com
I found this to be an interesting and simple read about Web Services (from Application Develpment Trends magazine). You’ve probably heard about Web Services quite a few times and I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about it, hopefully this can give you a general idea about it and clear some things out.
What is a Web service?The simplest and most basic definition that I can give you is that a Web service is an application that provides a Web API. An API supports application-to-application communication. A Web API is an API that lets the applications communicate using XML and the Web.So here’s the basic concept: Web services use the Web to perform application-to-application integration. A lot of the hype around Web services talks about dynamic assembly of Web-based software services. It talks about the software-as-a-service business model. It talks about spontaneous discovery of new business partners. My advice is to ignore this hype. It’s possible that at some point in the future some of these glossy images will become reality, but please don’t let the science fiction stories distract you from reality or dissuade you from using this technology today to solve real business issues.
Read more here (ADTmag.com).
Applying Uml and Patterns
by Craig Larman
ISBN 0130925691
Date Read 2002
My Rating
One of my favorite books. It is just filled with excellent information. Larman is an excellent teacher. You’ll learn about good design, development processes, UML, and more. I have to re-ead this title soon (the second edition came out recently), as I read this book a long time ago….