A month ago I relocated to London. And now I’m looking for a job here. The process is quite boring. Agents, sites, applications, cover letters, CVs. And.. unfortunately no visible result yet. But sometimes potential employers ask to do interesting tasks. For example, one of them asked to answer the questions below:

What is your favourite	What do you *think* of
programming language operating system editor/IDE version control system bug tracking system development tool web site movie record book?	XML Web Services Flash Excel AJAX, “web 2.0″ the Semantic Web Agile Development UML OO Microsoft Google Apple?

My version could be found below.

What is your favorite

1. programming language

My experience includes programming in Java, JavaScript, C, C++, Pascal and database inner languages (PL/SQL, SQL PL etc). Still, my favorite language is PHP. It’s small and fast. It’s simple and convenient. Have you ever used arrays in PHP? They are divine.

2. Operating system

I like to use the most modern software. My computer likes to be up-to-date. My devices like to be identified from the first attempt. Friendliness and usability are the most important things for me. I partook in action called “A year without Windows, work on Linux”. It was a prolonged battle but I was responsible and bet on, so I installed Windows on 366 day, not earlier. I choose Windows, but I really like bash in Linux/Unix.

3. Editor/IDE

• Notepad++ is for rapid notes and corrections. Light and powerful.
• Netbeans is for Java. I have not seen a better one for Java.
• Aqua Data studio is the best one for database development. Works with all possible databases: from H2 to Oracle.
• Eclipse is for all other projects. Millions of plugins. Thousands of good plugins.

4. Version control system

I have recently switched from CVS to SVN and I’m not thinking about going back. SVN manipulates all file types, works faster and is still alive.

5. Bug tracking system

I have used ClearQuest and Jira. I don’t have any specific preferences, but the first one exists in several realisations and could be easily integrated into Eclipse environment.

6. Development tool

IBM Rational package is highly professional software. Programs extremely well integrate into each other. You could design even an aircraft within this environment. Mostly I like Rational Rose Data Modeler and its’ forward and reverse engineering abilities.

7. Web site

Favorite websites are constantly and dynamically changing. When I’m heavily working within Oracle and PL/SQL environment, the most favorite site is http://ora-code.com/. When I’m working with PHP – http://php.net and Java – http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/.

I visit regularly bbc.com and economist.com websites to catch last world news.

8. Movie

The Green Mile. Emotional. Strong ideas. Great actors.

9. Record

I graduated musical school on the saxophone. I love jazz. Check that out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPxSSBe8DaU. Is not it wonderful?

10. Book

Allen Carr – The Easy Way to Stop Smoking. If you have faced a smoking problem, I highly recommend you this book.

What do you *think* of

1. XML

XML is very simple and powerful. When I was writing my bachelor’s thesis called XML Data Search in Relational Databases I run into one of the Microsoft executive’s opinion. He thought that XML’s popularity was fabricated and would be short-time frame. He told it in 2002. Was he mistaken? Now XML is everywhere. XML is in your telephone, is a foundation of your favorite feed, in configuration files and it is even a basic format for Microsoft Office documents. Unbelievable, but XQuery is a primary language in DB2 database. Oracle also keeps this realization in plans. SQL/XML is 14th extension of SQL standard.

But history does not remember occasions when the thing becomes universal and is used everywhere. XML has one big minus. The ratio of all information to useful information is approximately 10:1 in the average XML file. Have you heard abou Json, Yaml? I have. And I think the computing world will probably hear about them in the nearest future. What if that executive was right?

2. Web Services

What would I choose: remote procedures, messages or resources? I like the last two. I strongly believe that services should “understand” their responsibilities very deeply and “do” their whole job very well. I like to think in abstractions. For me it’s not important at all what realization on the server side is. I need to be convinced that provision of this service is somebody else’s responsibility. I don’t want to depend on remote libraries.

3. Flash

As far as traditional plain web application is concerned, XHTML is for a structured data, CSS is for presentation, JavaScript is for actions and effects, Flash is for

• Applications such as games, webcasts, movies or records. As you know JavaScript cannot work with client files. Sometimes flash applications could be used very efficiently, for example, when you want to create a web application that would resize user pictures. If you use JavaScript you will realize this service on server side, but if you use Flash you can do it on the user side. What is the plus? Traffic.
• Advertisements. I presume that flash-movies will be very intensively used as advertisements in the nearest future.

But if we speak about the future technologies, I think there is a very huge probability that we will see quite many different visualization technologies in the future. Not only flash. For example, Microsoft stake on its own technology called Silverlight.

4. Excel

Special language was designed for excel templates in my previous job. Fragments of the code were integrated into excel comments. An application that dealt with these templates was located on the server side. What was the plus? We had the ability to develop very complex excel reports without using any special environment but excel.

You could think about excel in different ways. J Excel could be really powerful not only in traditional way

5. AJAX, “web 2.0″

Two years ago one could have claimed that Ajax was the future of the web. Today it appears to be a misbelieve. Ajax is the present, but probably not the future. Why? It’s very efficient.

I would like to say that I constantly use Google Docs. The idea to be independent from the computer device is a good one. I like it very much. Now we can manage and modify our files through the internet, tomorrow we will use Web operating systems to install the programs. Ajax will help us very much.

6. the Semantic Web

What is the purpose of the Semantic Web? To have the ability of describing everything. To have the ability to query everything. I think that the semantic web is in a same position that Ajax was in two years ago. Associations between friends in social networks, OpenID, RSS, Yahoo Answers, Google search opportunities are just the first steps in developing one large semantic web.

7. Agile Development

I like it.

8. UML

UML is a really good layer between the ideas and realization, between the analysts and developers.

I like forward-engineering. Moreover I think that in the nearest future most of the code will be generated by moving different components or objects on the screen. Java will become a low-level language. C will become an underground level language. UML and forward-engineering are just one of the first steps.

9. OO

I like to think in abstractions. I programmed in Java, PHP OO, C++ and used Oracle OO capabilities.

UML is just a modeling language, it’s just a tool that helps realize several conceptions. UML helps visually realize the conception of OO paradigm. OO is an excellent layer between the real life and computer.

10. Microsoft, Google and Apple

	Micrososft	Google	Apple
Synonym to	Personal computer, Software	Search engine, Web	Mobile devices
Age of	Vizualization	Search	Design
Is memorized by	Usability	Minimalism, Courageous ideas	Comfort, Inimitable Design

I think Microsoft will try to overtake Google in Web.
Apple and Google will try to overtake Microsoft in browsers.
Apple will try to overtake Microsoft in Operating system.
Google will release the first web operating system.

What is your version?

What do you think? You are welcome!

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