I'd like to make a confession that's long overdue. There's something that I am very much embarrased to admit but I am also extremely happy about it, ironically, at the very same time. Nobody would believe it, yes, I've officially turned into a drama queen, fresh, for about two weeks now. I've fallen into the temptation of a drama series so good, i even dreamt about it in my dreams. The series is the much fabled "Six Feet Under", an original series produced by HBO. It's now running on channel 40 of Astro, the encore of the first season is now showing and is about to end sometime next week, followed by the second season. I cannot tell anybody how much I really fall for this series, some reasons I don't actually completely comprehend. It's a great show. Funny and witty, it's a show that actually reflects the realities, pressures, and facts of life that are sometimes too hard to take and accept. The characters are shown to go through countless plausible challenges and how they triumph or failed them. It sounds boring through my descriptions, but I was stuck to it immediately like a magnet the first time I saw it about two weeks ago. It's just amazing. Probably because of this, I've forsaken my familiar tech world for that long and had not written a word on ORG. But it was fun, just to take some fresh air out of the stiffening world of technology.

Okay, time for some rants that I absolutely love very very much. First things first, Java is DEAD. I personally think so, and many are getting on to the same waveform as I discover very slowly. Of course, judging Java that way isn't very healthy for my health, as many agrees that Java is the bleeding edge of computing and web services technology and mobile services. True, but the hype is always fancier than the true technology. Java is relatively slow, as in the case of the GUI framework, the Java SWING. I really hate it, and what I found out from other similar interpreted languages, though not implementing SWING had much faster and efficient GUI implementations than that of Java's. Second, Java code is stiff and smotheringly uncomfortable. It's a pessimistic language, as some might call it, being a very grammatically correct language sometimes hinders the developer from focusing on the system being developed and directing all the effort unnecessarily towards syntaxes. Come on, it's a new world, everything has to work fast and come out in the least amount of time. We are not trying to build Parthenon of Athens again, we're more of the practical folks now, fast and pragmatic. The code for any program written in Java is also considerably much longer than if written in another interpreted language, such as Ruby. Also, Java is not a system level language. Much of the details of a platform is shrouded from the developer. Java is strictly an applications development platform, not suited for low level system development. I hate that feature the MOST, i must admit. On the other hand, Java is pathetically huge in size. The platform in binary form is a whopping 50++ Meg download. That is so much bigger than any other languages that also incorporate an interpreter and extension modules including libraries. Let's take Ruby for example, its whole bundle of platform is about 7MB in size, that's it. The point here is that non-Java platforms are easier to adopt quickly into a new system without the extra overhead that Java incurs. To load the Java platform into a new system is much more of a hassle. I've successfully loaded Ruby into my system without much fuss and i'm very happy about it. I was up and playing with it in no time. My conclusion? Well, that's a long one. Java is in essence, more hype than solution-wonder. Yes, Sun Microsystems had done a remarkable job in bringing the web technology closer to its peak, but it's popularity is very much credited to Sun's marketing and promotions. Most gullible developers truly believe it's a solution to everything but it's not. Sun's marketing is what really put Java to its current state of popularity and fame. I've been taken into the wave of this Java-fever and i've come out of it not even slightly impressed. Sun is not meant to develop software solutions, they were meant to be hardware, servers, clusters and high-end systems manufacturer, and i personally believe they should see that as their real place rather than sticking their foot into some really undersized shoe.

My next big hit? I don't really know. I'm not sure what would it be. Maybe I should get back to discovering my soul and mend my ravaged spirit and be a more wholesome person. Maybe that's the next big hit. Who knows what each day brings? Only God knows and I can only be sure of one thing -- I'm definitely in for nice surprises.