Started the new (old) job today. It looks like I'll actually be creating non-web graphical interfaces, which is probably a good thing. The Java part of my brain is slowly waking up, and it looks like we'll be moving from JBuilder to Netbeans as a development platform. Netbeans is pretty massive (tho modular), and it seems that there's a way to have it use xemacs as an editor, but I wasn't quite able to get that to work. (Very beta.) I like the way it uses virtual filesystems, and the IDE itself is pretty nifty, altho I definitely need some more memory. (A few mhz wouldn't hurt, either...)
I was extremely surprised to see that Microsoft released a JDBC driver for MS SQL Server. I know it's based in large part on the driver from Merant, but I'd previously filed this in the 'when pigs fly' category.
It's very strange coming back to this place and going over my old code to remember what's what. Fortunately I haven't been cursing myself too much :-) And everyone has been very warm in welcoming me back.
I wonder: if things go well over the next few months, can I finagle a cool Mac to work and play with OS X?
(Originally posted elsewhere)