Build vs Buy

It has always been a constant debate on Build v.s. Buy. After working for an elite consulting company, and now a revolutionary product company, I start thinking that there probably is no simple answer.

http://www.addsimplicity.com/adding_simplicity_an_engi/

Maybe the truth is that this is the wrong question to ask, that the real question is "How to verify the return of the investment in IT"

GScript - You don't Have to Use Ruby to be Cool

So why do you think Ruby is cool?

If you are like me who work mainly on Java platform, then you probably like Ruby because how much less code you write in Ruby to achieve the same result. Now, if you think about it, not all of them are because of the type-free concept.

With the way that generics goes (what it was and what it is), we can see that the design of Java language comes with some tough trade-offs. After all, I don't suppose you want to piss off the big vendors who keep the money rolling.

Well, what if we can start fresh?

Check this one out...

var list = new ArrayList({one, two})
// this creats a map of beans with ID as key.
var idMap = list.partition(\bean -> bean.ID)

A few notes:

• The last statement uses closure, in GScript syntax. For anyone familiar with Ruby, this call would be something like "list.partition {|bean| bean.id}"
• The expression "bean.ID" is actually a "bean.getID()" method call, which is declared as property getter in GScript
• Even though "list" is a type of List, you can add "Enhancement" to this interface so that you can have additional behavior built on top of existing public methods. This gives you some of the benefit of "mixing" without sacrificing the type safety. If you use apache commons library extensively, you probably have a list of enhancement that you can write already.
  
• The type is inferred so you really need to type once. (Note that the type of variable idMap will be inferred as Map<Key, KeyableBean>, a generic map instead of just a Map)
• Create the list like the way you mean it instead of the Arrays.asList syntax.

You have just caught a glimpse (and I do mean "glimpse") of GScript, the language that Guidewire developed on top of Java. You want a rule engine that can be configured? What about a rule engine that can be programed and deployed without bouncing the server?

There are talks about making this public, by which time you will be able to see the full power of it. Before that, you can consider coming in for an interview. :)

Free Broadband using Sewer System from Google!

As expected, Google has something cool this time every year.

The last several ones that I have enjoyed was:

• How does google search work?
• Google drink
  

Or you can read all of them here.