I’ve been using Eclipse 3.0M7 and like some of the new features (RCP, smarter editor, etc.) and concurrency improvements. But I’m afraid of the new UI changes coming in M8 (along with many other people). Maybe there is something I’m missing, but having Eclipse look like a native app was always a huge plus in my mind. Usability improvements are one thing, but having funky colored buttons and sloped tabs don’t do much for me. I think I’ll follow the advice of EclipsePowered.org
Over the weekend, Massport cut down a bunch of tall trees near my building because we’re on the flight path for Hanscom Field, which is also an Air Force base (nice unnecessary use of flash). It’s too bad because I like trees. And my building is close to the chopped trees and about the same height. So reading the blogs of nerds learning to fly at Hanscom makes me feel real safe.
There’s a good piece by James Surowiecki called The Pipeline Problem in this week’s New Yorker. It talks about the difficulty that big companies have doing real innovation, in this case the pharmaceutical giants like Merck and Pfizer. Explored in the article are some similar causes detailed in The Innovator’s Dilemma about inertia and risk aversion. There is an understandable rationale for big companies being slow to enter new markets. For entirely new markets they are hard to measure well a priori and therefore make it difficult to form a detailed business case for entering. And growing markets are typically smaller than those that big companies play in, which helps to explain their fashionably late arrival. Surowiecki doesn’t seem to think this is necessarily bad, but perhaps they should focus less on innovation (which they don’t do as well) and instead focus on their strengths in marketing and distribution more like the movie business.
Related to market size, I liked the advice in Sink’s latest column, “Getting Started with Your Own Software Company”, that for small ISVs it is important to make sure the market you’re entering isn’t too big (which he caps at $50m).
Spent a long weekend in Montreal, walking around the old city and the like. Very relaxing except for an unexpected moment on a snowy highway offramp. Bumpers are replacable.
E.J. Dionne has a great piece on the truth about Massachusetts, disputing the myth about Masschusetts liberalism. The phrase “Massachusetts Liberal” seems designed to conjure up an image of a Chomsky-reading, anti-religion, gun-hating, elitist egghead PhD. And, sure, there are some of those but they are almost all Cantabrigians. Just a small sampling of the various reality tv shows out there, which always feature a Bostonian, would convince you that the stereotype is (mostly) unfounded.
With our Patriots winning the Superbowl, our Senator Kerry being the presumptive Democratic nominee and our Court mandating legalizing gay marriage, we’ll see how the rest of America feels about us Massholes. Gulp.
