The coming doom of old media

Aug 13, 2012

I try to keep this blog on topic to Healthcare IT interoperability as much as I can, but this is too tempting to resist. For a dose of daily light relief, I long ago subscribed to Sharky. While I read it, I check out other featured blog posts from various pundits on current happenings in the IT world - generally about how Microsoft is drowning in the sea of Apple. But I was rather taken aback by this latest post, “Why cash is still alive … until optimized Java thrives”. As an part time (and now somewhat reluctant) Java programmer, naturally that caught my eye. The post argues that e-Payments are taking over the world, and they are only being held back by performance issues - latency in back-end systems - and that these can be solved by faster Java execution:

Java is one important moving part in this equation. Java is involved in every step of the e-payment spectrum. Many front-end applications running on smartphones use Java or Java-like languages in handsets. Some network control infrastructure is written in Java. Back-end payment systems are generally made of legacy systems combined with newer features — and those newer features are primarily implemented in Java. It goes without saying that Java-based applications needs to be optimized as a key part of driving overall performance and customer satisfaction.

Well, ok, I suppose so. A bit, I mean, but there’s so many other latencies… and actually, if the java part is too slow, then re-write the Java part; it’s most likely your algorithms that are the problem. Java itself is actually pretty fast, and only a few applications will really benefit from a faster JVM. As in, really benefit enough to make a difference to the end user. Anyway, for most of those applications, you can just throw a few more servers at the problem. And just when I’d decided that I might even make a comment about it, I got to the author’s tag line:

Scott Sellers provides strategic leadership and visionary direction as the CEO and co-founder of Azul Systems, which delivers high-performance and elastic Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) so enterprises can effectively scale while meeting business objectives

uh? Computerworld is now pushing paid advertising as real content? (“The Financial IT Spotlight provides tips, guidance, predictions, methodologies and best practices for the implementation and use of technology by the financial services industry”). If you’re not sure, you can check Scott Sellers publishing record on Computer World. I suppose I should be happy they at least published his affiliation.

If something as venerable (!) as Computerworld is now flogging advertising as content… well, you might as well just go and read blogs.

Old media… it’s on terminal life support. I’m watching out for the death notice soon.