Tech 2007

2006 is almost over, and it's time to start thinking at what I should expect from 2007 (technologically speaking, of course); this year Intel and AMD have introduced multi core processing to the consumers, and most likely I will soon buy a new computer based on a Core2 Duo (4Mb cache, overclockable), connected with my LCD 32” TV. Surely I will get a wireless keyboard and mouse, and I will set up a wireless network in the house. I want to try Vista, and I want to continue using Ubuntu with Aiglx and Compiz or Beryl, so I want a nice graphic adapter (nVidia 7600 GT with passive silent dissipation). Why all this powerful hardware? Because of the new great software I expect to see next year! First of all I want to start focusing on Java again, and Java 6 seems quite interesting. It will surely be a great platform to test the advanced features that the new GUIs will offer; and I want to recover the VSC project, while continuing JObjectStore – both heavily multithreaded, so dual core could make sense. And from now on I think that also desktop applications, as server applications since now, will start focusing on multithread, to take full advantage from the new architectures, so to stay in touch with this trend, I'll start again studying concurrent programming – a topic I've unattended since the university times.

Rich Internet Applications are getting better and better (Google stuff is impressive), and Java EE and PHP will surely capture my interest, and most likely they'll become part of my new job. But also .NET could be interesting, mostly because of Vista's new features that will make obsolete old win32 software – what a great opportunity to create new work! Software houses that will use this opportunity will surely be the smartest next year, and the smartest developers or architects will surely need to know about .NET.

So this is what I expect to see in 2007:

• Concurrent programming on desktop applications, not only servers
• New GUIs, Vista and Aiglx, bringing new advanced desktop features
• RIA based on Ajax, served by Java EE
• .NET applications replacing old Win32 applications

I don't expect to see much C++ until the new standard comes out, so I'll focus mainly on Java6 and C#.