After working on the Drools Flex Editor, I started thinking a lot more of what it would take for it to be usable by non-developers, i.e. domain experts. This narrative of thought brought me to heavyweights such as Charles Simonyi, founder of Intentional Software and
Gregor Kiczales, founder of AOP, latest paper. It also led me to a lot of other concepts such as the law of leaky abstractions, history of software, Lagom Process, along with the more obtuse concepts such as the omega number, and people like Gregory Chaitin.
And of course, what would our industry be without it's acronyms: MDA, DSL, BPM, UML, DDD, SOA. There are plenty of others, but I think I've made my point.
That's a lot of information to digest especially if you looked up Chaitin, which would have led you to our Founding Fathers: Leibniz , Turing, and Godel. Now ask your self: what kind of a thought narrative can take a person from Adobe Flex to Godel. It would almost be funny.
Now, let's step back for a moment. A lot of people argue that software development should be reduced to visual tools. A counter argument can be that mathematicians do not use visual tools to draw up their equations. They use blackboards and chalk, the most primitive of tools. Excel has been praised as the most successful intent based system. But, if you look at it, it's not visual at all. At best, it's a basic grid, with cell co-ordinates, and a blank text input box allowing manipulation of cells. Another argument is that business people are somehow not smart enough to program. It takes a special kind of mind to generate code. The fallacy with this statement is that business people already code, just not in the typical "tech" way, but rather in their own domain. Their interaction with excel, the domain expertise, the manipulation of that domain expertise - can all be considered coding. They manipulate their symbols to achieve their goals. The only thing separating technology developers and domain experts is which domain they are experts in.
There was a quote from Charles Simonyi that went something like this: If we don't expect business people to learn how to code, why do we expect coders to learn the business. Each path is extremely inefficient and is rife problems. So, instead, let's allow each group to focus on what they do best. Developers should stick to technology, business people should stick to business.
So, we have established that a business person is capable of performing some form of "development" to encode their domain expertise into a set of steps, "their intent". It is also probably safe to assume that a business person understands concepts like if-then-else, for-each and standard algebra. It is also safe to assume that they know nothing of JSP, Servlets, JMS, EJB, transactions, XA, JDBC, SQL, Java, Class, public/private, encapsulation, polymorphism, design pattern, singleton, facade, heap, stack, binary search tree, NP-complete, and on, and on, and on, .... So, where does this leave us? I think it means that software development stops being the pure domain of developers, and instead is split between developers and business people.
If we look at a typical business system, we can see that it has inputs(JMS, GUI, etc...), a concrete data representation model in the form of a database schema, complex output in the form of varied reports, processes that criss-cross the system that have some triggers such as external events (JMS, Schedule, User, etc...) . There is also business logic in the form of calculations, business steps, if-blocks, etc... sprinkled through the system. Some of it lives embedded in the report logic, others in the processes, and some, perhaps, even implicit in the data storage or data format.
I think we can start to take steps to separate the domains. Process flows attempt to separate the process logic from the system logic. Web Services attempts to expose the individual services and by so reduce the hard linking between services. Business Intelligence is attempting to expose the data to the users and allow ad-hoc manipulation. Proliferation of domain specific languages, online compilers, rule engines is a sign of the desire to separate the system from the business rules. Hibernate, JDO, etc... are attempting to isolate the system from the underlying data stores, and map out the data definitions. Ontology's are attempting to bridge the interaction of a human defined relationships and a system. Mashups - i.e. http://www.programmableweb.com/, Yahoo Pipes, are yet more examples of technical concepts being exposed to non-technical people. All these things, in my opinion, are converging on the same topic of intentional programming.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Alpha Release of Drools Flex Editor - 0.5
Orange Mile is proud to announce the long awaited alpha release of a Drools Rule Editor in Flex.
http://code.google.com/p/drools-flex-editor/
The current release includes all the Flex pieces without the rather basic server side code for rule compilation, and code completion. This will be available in the final 1.0 release.This is the beginning of having rich enough components available within the system that can allow the user/admin to directly manipulate the business rules without having the long development cycle.
Orange Mile is Expanding
We are proud to welcome Venu to the Orange Mile Team. Venu will also act as a contributing author to the blog.
Although, Orange Mile started as a small math with a single avout, it has since expanded, grown and matured.
We have become a devout following. At times, looked down upon by the saecular world, but always, pursuing our dreams.
Entry written in the style of Anathem.
Although, Orange Mile started as a small math with a single avout, it has since expanded, grown and matured.
We have become a devout following. At times, looked down upon by the saecular world, but always, pursuing our dreams.
Entry written in the style of Anathem.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Orange Mile Security Release - 1.1
Orange Mile is proud to release version 1.1 of Dynamic Rule Based Security.
The new features include:
1. A complete example based on Spring Security - see orangemile-security-test.war
2. isGranted JSTL Tag
http://code.google.com/p/dynamic-rule-security
The new features include:
1. A complete example based on Spring Security - see orangemile-security-test.war
2. isGranted JSTL Tag
http://code.google.com/p/dynamic-rule-security
Friday, October 10, 2008
Doom and Gloom and the Economy
Although, this is a tech blog, I strongly believe that a good developer must be an Erudite. Given this, I feel justified in writing about the economy in this blog.
We are living through historic times. Mid last year, I started getting very scared and started blogging about randomness and the economy.
http://orangemile.blogspot.com/2007/05/black-swan.html
http://orangemile.blogspot.com/2007/07/supply-of-money.html
You will notice that in the Supply of Money entry, I actually wrote about the likely hood of the collapse of world economy due to the unsustainable supply of fiat money.
What's interesting about those entries and that time period is why did my mind shift to the arcane topics of money supplies, carry trades, fiat money, when the blog entries before and after clearly deal with the arcane topics of technology. Perhaps, my subconscious started to pick up on the feelings of uneasiness in the global market; hiccups if you will. I can't possibly attribute those entries to knowledge, because I am simply not qualified to speak of money supplies, fiat currency, and carry trades.
So, what is happening today is a global loss of confidence. What is interesting is that companies, specifically, banks are hoarding cash rather then people. I would argue that if people started hoarding cash than we're all doomed. The global economy would come to a scretching halt. Chinese economy will collapse, probably throwing that country into either Marshall law or revolution. America and Europe will fall into severe and prolong depression taking the rest of the civilized world with it. Africa will fall into an even lower level of sustainability with probably wide ranging civil wars due to lack of food and an acute demand for natural resources such as diamonds, gold, and oil. India's economy will also take a severe beating, but I think they will remain a loose democracy. If they position themselves well, they may end up being the next superpower.
Right now, the US government is printing money at an ever faster clip, giving it away, almost for free, and nationalizing large areas of the financial industry. Money is flooding the global economy. What's interesting is that we are actually in the period where money is actually disappearing. As the perceived value of assets fall, money disappears. The US Government then tries to fill in the gap of lost money, by providing more money to the institutions whose wealth disappeared; hoping against all hope that the newly provided money will be used to create more money by the institutions. Let's recap how money gets created. A person decided to do something on credit, let's say by a house. They go to the bank and say give me 300k to buy a house. The banks gives you the money, and you go buy a house. The thing is that the 300k is actually some other depositor's money. Money the bank doesn't actually have. What's happening now is that the bank thought it had 300k loan asset. But instead, the 300k is really only a 200k asset. This means that if you default, the bank looses 100k of someone Else's money. If enough loans do this, the bank won't be able to cover the loses, confidence in the bank erodes, people start to retrieve their deposits, and of course, after some interval, the bank simply runs out of money to give out to depositors. This is why the FDIC was created. This is a standard Ponzi scheme. In other words, if the asset side of the bank balance sheet starts to reduce, they will reduce the amount of new loans they can give out, and by so, reduce lending, which will probably drive the interest rates up because there are less institutions lending. This actually means the opposite of what I said earlier, money isn't destroyed, the rate of creation just reduces. The bank industry is structured as a very calibrated entity, with a minor hiccup in cash flows or perceived cash flows destabilizing the entire industry. The Fed is trying to erase the perceived losses from the Bank's balance sheet, and by so, start up the loan process. Another interesting thing is how many industries rely on having a continuous supply of new loans. Imagine a ponzi scheme applied to the car industry. If Ford borrows money to pay it workers, hoping that in the future it will sell enough cars to pay back the loan, except it doesn't, so it borrows more to keep going. At some point it actually needs to borrow from Person A to pay Person B, and on and on. This should end at some point when there is no-one else willing to lend to the said company. But, unfortunately, for most companies there is always someone willing to lend. This is partly due to the obscurity/opaqueness of the financial industry. Now, our current scenario, where the said company can't get a loan not because of the financial condition of the company, but because of the financial condition of the lender; all lenders.
What the Fed is trying to do now is fight the deflationary path. Money is becoming a scares resource, not because there is not enough of it, but because banks are hoarding it. A lot of people are also talking about hyper-inflationary model. I don't see this happening, even if I believed it for awhile. In a hyper-inflationary model, you have too much money. This is unlikely because the Fed can always mop up the money supply; and because the world is dollar denominated, at least for the foreseeable future. I think what is more likely is nationalization of a number of areas, and banks, a significant increase of money available to the banks, guarantee of bank assets, forced reduction of inter-bank rate, and a forced reduction of the interest rate payed by home owners.
Interesting reads:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve_banking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swap
There is another animal that hasn't received much news: credit default swaps. This instrument is a form of insurance against default. The problem is that this is not based on anything, and the current amount of outstanding CDS is a few times larger than all money combined ever produced. This means that the government needs to do its darnest to make sure those CDS contracts never come due, because if they do, all financial institutions will file for bankruptcy, governments will default, end of the world, etc....
So, what is the government to do. Money must be made cheaper to a point where it is basically free. This will allow the banks to start to give out loans, this would spur the market for re-financing, which should save some borrowers. At the same time, the government will probably start with the regulation. We will see a period of a slow down - recession, in which the disaster of the day, will become a distant memory, and we will start up with the next bubble, maybe energy, maybe the housing sector again to a lesser form, although, this will probably be regulated to the gills. My guess energy or commodities. But the bubble won't start until the people regain confidence, which will take a few years.
I repeat, the Fed must make money cheap. After a recovery, they will attempt to make money more expensive again to starve off another bubble, but they will tread very lightly to avoid any more panic. This means that rates will stay cheap, or only very gradually over a long interval will start to go up.
Of course, there is another animal in this picture: US treasury bonds backed by our taxes. I don't fully understand this animal and it's relationship to the money supply, but hopefully, in the next few blog entries...
We are living through historic times. Mid last year, I started getting very scared and started blogging about randomness and the economy.
http://orangemile.blogspot.com/2007/05/black-swan.html
http://orangemile.blogspot.com/2007/07/supply-of-money.html
You will notice that in the Supply of Money entry, I actually wrote about the likely hood of the collapse of world economy due to the unsustainable supply of fiat money.
What's interesting about those entries and that time period is why did my mind shift to the arcane topics of money supplies, carry trades, fiat money, when the blog entries before and after clearly deal with the arcane topics of technology. Perhaps, my subconscious started to pick up on the feelings of uneasiness in the global market; hiccups if you will. I can't possibly attribute those entries to knowledge, because I am simply not qualified to speak of money supplies, fiat currency, and carry trades.
So, what is happening today is a global loss of confidence. What is interesting is that companies, specifically, banks are hoarding cash rather then people. I would argue that if people started hoarding cash than we're all doomed. The global economy would come to a scretching halt. Chinese economy will collapse, probably throwing that country into either Marshall law or revolution. America and Europe will fall into severe and prolong depression taking the rest of the civilized world with it. Africa will fall into an even lower level of sustainability with probably wide ranging civil wars due to lack of food and an acute demand for natural resources such as diamonds, gold, and oil. India's economy will also take a severe beating, but I think they will remain a loose democracy. If they position themselves well, they may end up being the next superpower.
Right now, the US government is printing money at an ever faster clip, giving it away, almost for free, and nationalizing large areas of the financial industry. Money is flooding the global economy. What's interesting is that we are actually in the period where money is actually disappearing. As the perceived value of assets fall, money disappears. The US Government then tries to fill in the gap of lost money, by providing more money to the institutions whose wealth disappeared; hoping against all hope that the newly provided money will be used to create more money by the institutions. Let's recap how money gets created. A person decided to do something on credit, let's say by a house. They go to the bank and say give me 300k to buy a house. The banks gives you the money, and you go buy a house. The thing is that the 300k is actually some other depositor's money. Money the bank doesn't actually have. What's happening now is that the bank thought it had 300k loan asset. But instead, the 300k is really only a 200k asset. This means that if you default, the bank looses 100k of someone Else's money. If enough loans do this, the bank won't be able to cover the loses, confidence in the bank erodes, people start to retrieve their deposits, and of course, after some interval, the bank simply runs out of money to give out to depositors. This is why the FDIC was created. This is a standard Ponzi scheme. In other words, if the asset side of the bank balance sheet starts to reduce, they will reduce the amount of new loans they can give out, and by so, reduce lending, which will probably drive the interest rates up because there are less institutions lending. This actually means the opposite of what I said earlier, money isn't destroyed, the rate of creation just reduces. The bank industry is structured as a very calibrated entity, with a minor hiccup in cash flows or perceived cash flows destabilizing the entire industry. The Fed is trying to erase the perceived losses from the Bank's balance sheet, and by so, start up the loan process. Another interesting thing is how many industries rely on having a continuous supply of new loans. Imagine a ponzi scheme applied to the car industry. If Ford borrows money to pay it workers, hoping that in the future it will sell enough cars to pay back the loan, except it doesn't, so it borrows more to keep going. At some point it actually needs to borrow from Person A to pay Person B, and on and on. This should end at some point when there is no-one else willing to lend to the said company. But, unfortunately, for most companies there is always someone willing to lend. This is partly due to the obscurity/opaqueness of the financial industry. Now, our current scenario, where the said company can't get a loan not because of the financial condition of the company, but because of the financial condition of the lender; all lenders.
What the Fed is trying to do now is fight the deflationary path. Money is becoming a scares resource, not because there is not enough of it, but because banks are hoarding it. A lot of people are also talking about hyper-inflationary model. I don't see this happening, even if I believed it for awhile. In a hyper-inflationary model, you have too much money. This is unlikely because the Fed can always mop up the money supply; and because the world is dollar denominated, at least for the foreseeable future. I think what is more likely is nationalization of a number of areas, and banks, a significant increase of money available to the banks, guarantee of bank assets, forced reduction of inter-bank rate, and a forced reduction of the interest rate payed by home owners.
Interesting reads:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve_banking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swap
There is another animal that hasn't received much news: credit default swaps. This instrument is a form of insurance against default. The problem is that this is not based on anything, and the current amount of outstanding CDS is a few times larger than all money combined ever produced. This means that the government needs to do its darnest to make sure those CDS contracts never come due, because if they do, all financial institutions will file for bankruptcy, governments will default, end of the world, etc....
So, what is the government to do. Money must be made cheaper to a point where it is basically free. This will allow the banks to start to give out loans, this would spur the market for re-financing, which should save some borrowers. At the same time, the government will probably start with the regulation. We will see a period of a slow down - recession, in which the disaster of the day, will become a distant memory, and we will start up with the next bubble, maybe energy, maybe the housing sector again to a lesser form, although, this will probably be regulated to the gills. My guess energy or commodities. But the bubble won't start until the people regain confidence, which will take a few years.
I repeat, the Fed must make money cheap. After a recovery, they will attempt to make money more expensive again to starve off another bubble, but they will tread very lightly to avoid any more panic. This means that rates will stay cheap, or only very gradually over a long interval will start to go up.
Of course, there is another animal in this picture: US treasury bonds backed by our taxes. I don't fully understand this animal and it's relationship to the money supply, but hopefully, in the next few blog entries...
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Release of Microsoft Analysis Services 2005 Automation SDK
I am proud to announce the long awaited release of the Microsoft Analysis Services 2005 Automation SDK.
http://code.google.com/p/mssas-automation/
The library allows a java developer to automate the creation and modification of a MSSAS 2005 cube. The design consists of codifying most of the XMLA 1.1 specification into java pojo's via Jibx binding framework. On top of this core library, it then becomes trivial to codify specific design patterns or utilities to automate or speed up the creation/modification of a cube.
http://code.google.com/p/mssas-automation/
The library allows a java developer to automate the creation and modification of a MSSAS 2005 cube. The design consists of codifying most of the XMLA 1.1 specification into java pojo's via Jibx binding framework. On top of this core library, it then becomes trivial to codify specific design patterns or utilities to automate or speed up the creation/modification of a cube.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
How not to be a turkey - a dead turkey!
The idea is to build a little web app that will scan the common news sources nightly, and compile a score for different words on how negative or positive the topic is described. For example, regarding the economy, the system should pick up speeches from the Fed, congress discussions, etc... The idea behind all this is from the Black Swan Book. The theory goes that the night before Thanksgiving, the turkey should have the highest confidence in the goodness of humans.
To achieve this, I will need an NLP mood analyzer, or in other words, Sentiment Analysis. Some open source tools to accomplish this are:
NPL Libraries:
- http://www.opencalais.com/ (Reuters Web Service)
- RapidMiner
- JavaNPL
- LingPipe
- Jane16
- http://garraf.epsevg.upc.es/freeling
Knowledge Understanding
- http://commons.media.mit.edu/en/
- http://www.opencyc.org/
- http://wordnet.princeton.edu/
- http://framenet.icsi.berkeley.edu/
News Sources
- http://cookbook.daylife.com/
- http://thomas.loc.gov/home/c110query.html (Government Enrolled Bills)
Ekman's research on universal facial expressions
[happy, sad, anger, fear, disgust, surprise]
Frustration – Repetition of low-magnitude anger
Relief – Fear followed by happy
Horror – Sudden high-magnitude fear
Contentment – Persistent low-level happy
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