Middleware Matters

Today was my last day at IONA. After a little over ten years here, I'm heading off to join a startup, an opportunity of a lifetime, in a business very different from IONA's. I can't tell you any details about the startup, but I can say that it involves both hardware and software, which takes me back to my roots (I started to shift from hardware development into software 20 years ago), and of course it involves some distributed computing, but in this case, I'll be a user of distributed computing infrastructure, not a provider like I've been for the past 16 years.

IONA has been nothing short of wonderful. This little company has an amazing number of brilliant people, so much passion, and simply excellent leadership. It's not a company, it's a family. That's why I stayed for over ten years, that's why it took the prospect of an opportunity of a lifetime to convince me it was time to go, and that's why I had such a difficult time actually deciding to leave. Here at the end, it came as no surprise to me that IONA would handle my departure with nothing but class and respect, with no exceptions. In a recent internal presentation, I stated that IONA is great because its people are great, and that's a fact. I'm going to miss this place.

Obviously, this is my final posting on this blog. I'll eventually reappear in the blogosphere, but it might be awhile. I do plan, however, to keep writing my "Toward Integration" column in Internet Computing. Thanks for reading this blog over the past few years and for all your comments and trackbacks. Take care, and I hope to see you again soon.

In case you're allergic to PDF, my "REST Eye for the SOA Guy" column is now also available over at IEEE Distributed Systems Online.

For some reason I've always been able to see both sides of most arguments. I'm not sure why, but maybe it's because I'm the middle of seven children. Whatever the reason, my latest Internet Computing (IC) Toward Integration column tries to take a middle ground in the ongoing "REST vs. SOA" debate. It's called "REST Eye for the SOA Guy" (PDF) and it attempts to explain, from the perspective of someone like me with a lengthy SOA background, the benefits that REST brings to the distributed systems picture. As always, all feedback on the column (or any of my previous columns) is welcomed.

This column is my 30th for IC, which is published bimonthly, which in turn means that Toward Integration now enters its 6th year. I'd like to thank all of you who have read my work over the past 5 years, and would especially like to thank those of you who provided me with reviews and feedback. If you have ideas for topics you'd like to see me cover in 2007, please drop me a note. I write this column in my "spare time" — being chief engineer for IONA is more than a full-time job, as you might imagine — so coming up with topics isn't always easy.