AJAX is not a new technology but the coupling of old and established technologies (HTML, JavaScript, XML, HTTP) which were created to deliver information over the web.

We can force those technologies to act as a web application framework but to me time has come to apply the proper technologies to solve problems even if some of those technologies are not open source.

Regards, Alessandro

1. Java 7 – I expect at least a couple of important changes: Consumer JRE and Kernel Java.
9. Year of Flex is too pretentious. Flex is not as big as one might think. But I\’m sure that Flex skills will be one of the hottest skills to have in 2008.
12. I\’m writing about the USA market. An ability to learn quickly is not something tangible and easily verifiable. During the job interview I have just 30 min to assess your technical skills, and your abilities to learn is not something that I can test. This ability is more important in retaining the job but not in getting it. If you have something elso to show on your CV, do not waste a line on this phrase.

7. I did not mention many other outsourcing countries too – Romania, Brazil, Philippines, Belarus, etc. Cheap labor from China does not scare me. There is so many other things to consider while selecting your offshore partners. I receive emails almost daily from China and other countries offering programmers at $10USD and hour. These emails go straight into the trash folder.

13. The situation won\’t change next year, but it may start changing. I never stated that code generators are for masses. But its certainly is for decent programmers. Take a look at the hamachi project.

14. I\’ve erased Vista and put XP back on my laptop 5 months ago and have no time or intentions to try it again unless there is a really serious reason to do so. One of my respected colleagues is currently testing usability of Mac OS and Apple hardware, and if he likes it, I\’ll switch too next year.

I would like to hear your opinion about the following items:

1. Java. Java 7 is scheduled to be released in 2008. Will Sun manage to create a milestone release, or this will be “next extension to Java 5″?
9. Adobe Flex & AIR. What is your opinion — will it be (still) the year of Flex 2 or the year of Flex 3 (at last)?
7. Outsourcing. You didn’t mention China, and there is a growing trend to prefer China over India due to extremely low rates of former.
12. Hottest IT skills. The best skill is the ability to learn and to learn quickly. The best skill ever, not only for 2008. All the rest is just “the most popular tags for CV as of ”
13. The next big thing. Well, I guess you are kidding. There are a lot of developers who _use_ code generators, but there is only a small fraction of IT engineers who _create_ custom code generators / domain-specific languages / metadata processing tools. Such situation exists for ages and it’s unlikely to change next year — the majority will keep following the motto “we’ve never tried it, but we know it’s very complex” in regard to code-generation.
“Codegenartion for masses”… “Nuclear weapon for masses”… No, it sounds unreal.

14. [Not a prediction, but rather a dream] SP1 for Windows Vista that fixes all the hassles MS-Santa, are you listening?

VS