A few folks have been asking what the hell's happened to me, and I realized that I have not posted anything here for like 6 months. Well, the truth is, apart from recently becoming a father, I've been quite busy with a really exciting new project. And yeah, my head is full of a hundred interesting things I could blog about, but, unfortunately, the new project is super-duper secret for now, so I'll have to keep a lid on it until we're ready for an alpha release (perhaps another 6 months from now).

Via TSS, I found this excellent post. Unfortunately, while I appreciate the sentiment (hell, I'm not so young and commitment-free no more), I'm simply not convinced that these things are actually myths. Sure, age discrimination sucks, I guess, and I'd like them to be myths, but is it really a myth that:

Older software developers are less able to perform the arduous tasks of software development (read: work long, painful hours) because of family commitments and other attachments that younger workers don’t have.

Or that:

Older software developers are more jaded and cynical and therefore, less desirable in the workplace than younger ones. Younger developers are more enthusiastic than older ones.

C'mon, let's give these young snippets their due! Lots of young guys really are smart, hard-working and enthusiastic. And their crazy ideas are much too often shot down by experienced, but clueless, people in more senior roles.

Sure, there's lots of reasons to want some more level-headed folks floating around the project somewhere, but you're going to have to do more than simply assert that these things are myths before I'm going to drop my (totally-based-on-personal-experience-so-take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt) belief that younger folks are, on average, more productive than older folks.

And now let me flip this around a bit: is the incredible salary discrimination (5x, or more) against younger developers really defensible?

Norman Richards has left Red Hat to work for a startup company. Thanks, Norman, for all your work on the Seam project over the last 4 years, and good luck with your new endeavor.

Norman leaves us with a funny blog post showing how many large companies scare away talented potential employees like Norman, one of the many things that makes it hard for large organizations to stay competitive and innovative.

Wow, we are on fire. :-)

The guys at Caucho have an interesting write up about their decision to aim for EE 6 Web Profile compliance. It's worth hearing their take on the new platform.