Category Archives: Technology

“i want a career in java”; “java is the next cobol”

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Over the past week, I’ve heard the following quotes “I want a career in Java” and “Java is the next Cobol.”  While these two statements don’t conflict with each other when taken literally, the connotations are quite clearly opposites.  Let’s take a look at themS

“I want a career in Java”

This is often asked in the context of a college student who doesn’t have any programming job yet.  So why Java specifically?  When I was in college, I wanted to be a developer.  Any language would have been fine.  It was where my path happened to take me that made me (currently) a Java developer.

Further, you don’t have a career in one programming language.  Things change too fast in technology for that to be the case.  So despite the fact that I’ve been a Java developer for the last ten years, it doesn’t imply that will be the language for my whole career.  Or maybe a career is a shorter term concept than that which I think of?

I think the context behind this statement is that Java jobs appear to be plentiful and pay well making them attractive to someone without any language experience.

“Java is the next Cobol”

A quick internet search says Java has been compare to Cobol since at least 2007.   Let’s see.  Cobol is a widespread language used in countless production applications.  It lasted decades.  It wasn’t cool, but it worked.  Not a bad place to be.

I think the context behind this statement is that Java isn’t cool anymore.  Or a “default” choice of language.  Which is fine.

Where we are

 These quotes show that we have people eager to learn Java and people predicting it’s demise at the same time.  Clearly the reality is somewhere in the middle.

Java is good for certain types of apps.  JVM languages are good for certain types of apps (especially when there is a desire to integrate with “legacy” Java code.)  As is .NET and Python and Ruby and …

Inovation is good.  That’s why we became techies!

Classroom of the future

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I attended Social media Week‘s classroom of the future talk.  See my notes from the higher ed version or my notes on the K-12 version in this post.

Tools in physical classroom

  • Twitter like tool (since twitter blocked at some scools) – back channel during class and after class
  • Social media study groups
  • Blog about what learning so understand it more
  • Text – questions, announcements, ask someone outside school like parent to get outside perspectives. Let cell phones enhance learning and not be a distraction. There is a program that strips out phone number and saves history

Cool: showed live demo of interactive quiz to see comprehension

Be an early tester but a late adopter of technology. It needs to fit your work/life flow. “twitter is for old people”. When did that happen?

Computer acceptable use policy better than filtering because teaches responsibility. [hmm. Maps to coporate america]

Schools behind companies in terms of tech. And companies behind what you do at hone. Income divide. Not everyone has a cell phone. And the district doesn’t have ebough money to lend laptops. Same for connectivity. Not everything is on broadband. Schools making money advertising on billboards and lockers to pay for things like this.

When not everyone, has a phone, pair/triple up. she also can get laptops. [what happens when everyone is poor?]. In India, very poor people have a phone because it is a life changer. Don’t need a smartphone. Can learn by SMS.

We’ve been hearing about the disuption of the textbook market for years. Think will be delivered on tablets and the real question is how to get people to pay for them. Need to take advantage of tech and not just make paper look nicer. A textbook limits you to one point of view [or collates info]. Also allows making it better suited for ESL or kids reading below grade level. The White House announced last week that they will be pushing a guide/advice for digital textbooks.