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Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Java isn't Open-Sourcey Enough for O'Reilly

Let's just break the cardinal rule: don't blog when you are upset.

Both my sessions for this year's OSCON were rejected. Not just an improved, updated and Ajax-ey Building Web Applications with Tapestry, but a very differently scoped Metaprogramming Java with HiveMind and Javassist.

For O'Reilly ... if it doesn't say Ruby, it's not open source enough! This is doubly dissapointing, because last year's session went well (and turned out to be lucrative), and OSCON is held in Portland, OR ... just 10 minutes away by MAX.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

could be for any reason though....anyways, i've decided i've had enough of oreilly too.....java has almost always been their #1 seller, so biting ther hand that feeds it seems...well...stupid.

Anonymous said...

Any chance we can still see the session contents you had planned?

Unknown said...

Yes, if you see me at a No Fluff Just Stuff. Actually, I haven't written the meta-programming one yet, and now I don't have to.

Anonymous said...

I would have to agree with you on this one Howard.....I've noticed a definite shift from O'Reilly in their books and their articles.

Anonymous said...

Any chance you'll be coming to the Austin NFJS symposium this year? I really love these conferences but browsing the potential sessions in Austin this year left me feeling a little flat.

Anonymous said...

This is silly. Most rejected talk proposals are because there are too many proposals and not enough slots, not some anti-whatever conspiracy. (Besides, if it were really about best-selling books, the conference would be half David Pogue and half Head First.)

Anonymous said...

Seems possible that it's Tapestry rather than Java that's being dinged. I don't have an opinion about Tapestry but I'm guessing there will be quite a few Java talks.

Anonymous said...

Live by the buzz, die by the buzz, dude.

Anonymous said...

Obviously one data point isn't much to condemn O'Reilly with, but I've noticed a similar thing. O'Reilly has gone from being a hardcore tech publisher to being a pop tech publisher. It appears they are more interesting in promoting/championing technologies and producing mass-market tech books (hacks, head first). That doesn't make O'Reilly bad, but it does make a mark shift from hardcore geek O'Reilly of 10 years ago.

Anonymous said...

Besides in Tapestry, who else uses HiveMind to warrant a presentation on it at such a prestegious conference?

Unknown said...

For both Tapestry and HiveMind, I know of only a tiny slice of the market making use of the libraries. There are HiveMind installations that are not using Tapestry (SourceForge is one; they use HiveMind in their new and improved search functionality). I'm aware of others (at financial clients, who don't like plublicity).

Anonymous said...

Howard - I feel your pain; all of my OSCON proposals were denied as well... Clearly it has nothing to do with book sales - Foundations of Ajax has sold very well (four printings so far) but apparently I'm not compelling enough to persuade the Ajax/JS track committee. I haven't scoured the entire list but sure seems to be a lot of Rails/Ruby (to be expected I guess).

Anonymous said...

I had two proposals turned down, neither to do with Java (and both to do at least peripherally with Perl, which remains their bread & butter, book-wise).

Fact is, each year the number of submitters grows. Which means the cut-off line gets pushed higher and higher.

Randy J. Ray
rjray@blackperl.com

Anonymous said...

That is just rediculous. We just launched an AJAX intensive massive vertical CMS platform written using tapestry. It blows away many existing website creation/management tools. I'd love to give you a demo if you are interested.

kris at dreamthis com