Composite Materials

Book review: Symmetry, A Journey into the Patterns of Nature

Last month I was set to spend two weeks along the headwaters of the Saint Lawrence River, on holiday. Of course, this required suitable reading material. On impulse I grabbed Marcus du Sautoy's book on Symmetry from the "new books" section of one of my local libraries. The title intrigued me, although I knew nothing of the author.

My impulse was a very good one. This book is a wonderful exploration of the mathematics of symmetry. It has two strong threads, historical and personal, wonderfully interwoven. For the most part it is light on the actual mathematics, which I found somewhat disappointing (I am an electrical engineer by training, so I have a strong background in applied maths), but is very clear on the key mathematical elements, without being complex, confusing, or boring.

For me the strongest thread was historical. du Sautoy relates the past history of his discipline with great skill, and genuine enthusiasm. A close second was the more recent history, mixed with the author's own personal involvement with key figures in recent advances in the field. The combination was gripping, and a thoroughly enjoyable read. It also is very suggestive of how God has structured the universe in ways that are both understandable and incredibly creative. A highly recommend read!

Posted at 10:40PM Sep 23, 2008 by rtenhove in General  |  Comments[3]

OpenESB about to hit a major milestone

Any parent will tell you there are major milestones that you, as a parent, mark in your child's life, like when she gets her first tooth, or first goes off to kindergarten (or college!). These moments can fill you with pride, and excited anticipation for what's next.

It is with similar parental feelings that I can announce that Project OpenESB is about to hit a major milestone in the life of an open-source enterprise software project: a commercially supported version is to be introduced. This indicates the the project is both mature enough and stable enough to be widely "used in anger." After about three years of development, project OpenESB has "grown up" enough to mark this important occasion.

Sun will be introducing a branded version of OpenESB, to be called GlassFish ESB (running atop the GlassFish v2 application server, so the name is quite descriptive). GlassFish ESB is essentially Open ESB (including most of its components), fully supported by Sun, with the 24/7, one-throat-to-choke type of support a lot of enterprises require for key production systems.

I know some OpenESB users have, in the past, requested this kind of support, and some have even gone into production without it, so I've known for quite a while OpenESB was ready for milestone. Congratulations to the whole OpenESB community! You make me proud. And I know this is only the beginning.

Posted at 07:55AM Sep 23, 2008 by rtenhove in Java Business Integration  |