Interview of Carol McDonald by Developpez.com

the Java Group

Carol McDonald , evangelist at Sun Microsystems has accepted to answer our questions.

Our questions are presented as sections headlines, and Carol's answers are in the body of the sections.

Une traduction en français de l'ensemble de cette interview est également disponible.

- Titre : Interview of Carol McDonald by Developpez.com

- Auteur : the Java Group

- Parution : 30 octobre 2007

- Licence : Copyright ® 2007 Developpez LLC. Tous droits réservés Developpez LLC. Aucune reproduction, même partielle, ne peut être faite de ce site et de l'ensemble de son contenu : textes, documents et images sans l'autorisation expresse de Developpez LLC. Sinon vous encourez selon la loi jusqu'à trois ans de prison et jusqu'à 300 000 € de dommages et intérêts.

Sommaire

- You and your work

- Could you introduce yourself in a few words?

- What is your professional background? How to become a Sun evangelist?

- What is the typical workday of an evangelist?

- What is your last publication?

- What are you currently working on?

- What you think about Java

- What do you think of the adoption of Java EE 5 in the professional world?

- What do you think of the Open JDK project?

- What do you think of the new features of Java SE 7 (Closures, super packages, ...)?

- Why are there so few commercial offers for Java hosting out there?

- The frenchies and Java

- What do you think of the Tech Days in Paris? of your presentation there?

- How have you found out about java.developpez.com?

- What do you think of the French contribution to the Java World?

You and your work

Could you introduce yourself in a few words?

Carol McDonald : I am a Java Architect/Technology Evangelist at Sun Microsystems. I travel around the world with Sun Tech Days talking about the latest and greatest Java Stuff ;) . Specifically I focus on Web and Server Side Technologies like: Java EE, JavaServer Faces, Ajax, Java Persistence API, Web Services, EJB 3.0.
I also develop and give Hands On Labs , sample applications and I have a blog .

What is your professional background? How to become a Sun evangelist?

Carol McDonald : As a software developer for > 15 yrs , my experience has been in the technology areas of distributed network applications and protocols, including Java EE technology, XML, Internet/Intranet applications, LDAP, Distributed Network Management (CMIP,SNMP) and Email (X.400,X.500).
Before joining I worked on a Car Loan Servicing application for Toyota at Shaw Systems, Pharmaceutical Intranet applications for Roche in Switzerland, a Telecom Network Management Application for Digital (now HP) in France, a X.400 Email Server for IBM in Germany, and as a student intern for the National Security Agency. I have a M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Tennessee, a B.S. in Geology from Vanderbilt University, and am a Sun Certified Java Architect and Java Language Programmer.
Originally at Sun I was developing and giving Code Camps, when we started giving the code camps as part of Sun Tech Days my role evolved.

What is the typical workday of an evangelist?

Carol McDonald : When I'm not traveling, I working on a Hands on Labs, a sample applications, and or demos. If I'm not doing that I'm either traveling to speak at Sun Tech Days, JUGs, companies, or conferences.

What is your last publication?

Carol McDonald : a JRuby Rails application .

What are you currently working on?

Carol McDonald : a REST web service example application, a Web Services Hands on Lab, talks and Hands on Lab for Sun Tech Days in Frankfurt and a JUG in Cologne Germany.

What you think about Java

What do you think of the adoption of Java EE 5 in the professional world?

Carol McDonald : Glassfish (Sun's open source Java EE application server) adoption is up .
These Java EE 5 applications are built on top of Glassfish Wotif.com, Imixs, University North Carolina Document Management, Auchan collections and promotional activities, Harvard Dataverse Network, 4HomeMedia portal services, DaliCMS, DocDoku, Peerflix. For more information see http://blogs.sun.com/stories/ .
Spring's Rod Johnson says that GlassFish is gaining traction . Also Weblogic 10 and JBoss 4.2.x application servers implement Java EE 5.

What do you think of the Open JDK project?

Carol McDonald : It is interesting because it allows developers to collaborate and influence the future of the JDK.

What do you think of the new features of Java SE 7 (Closures, super packages, ...)?

Carol McDonald : I think great improvements were made in performance,concurrancy..in Java SE 5, 6. Actually my focus is more on Java EE, and with all the new stuff going on there I haven't had time to look into the new features of Java SE 7 yet.

Why are there so few commercial offers for Java hosting out there?

Carol McDonald : There are some : isionwebhosting , Eapps , javaservlethosting , rimuhosting , dailyrazor .
JSR 284, led by Google, aims make it easier: The Resource Consumption Management API API will allow for partitioning resources (constraints, reservations) among Java applications and for querying about resource availability (notifications). It will also provide means of exposing various kinds of resources.

The frenchies and Java

What do you think of the Tech Days in Paris? of your presentation there?

Carol McDonald : I really enjoyed talking to developers at Tech Days Paris, especially in the hands-on-labs. There were even some developers that traveled from Spain and Poland to attend.

How have you found out about java.developpez.com?

Carol McDonald : using Google, what else :)

What do you think of the French contribution to the Java World?

Carol McDonald : Well I already knew from working in France (for Digital) that France has great engineers. At JavaOne this yr I attended a grails evening and I was surrounded by Frenchies: Patrick Chanezon, Alexis Moussine-Pouchkine,Ludovic Champenois, Jean-Francois Arcand, Romain Guy... (It was fun, I don't meet so many french people every day in Virginia).
Yes there is an impressive list of French engineers in the software World, some of them are making nice profits: Red Hat bought JBoss for $350 million, and SAP paid $6.8 billion for Business Objects!