Yakov Fain

What would you think if a person visited your training registration page shown below and asked you the following question, “Yakov, when the early bird price for your JavaScript training expires?” A not so savvy Web person could’ve reacted like this, “Helloooo, can’t you read? S... (more)

About six years ago I wrote a blog titled “I have no idea what  Web 2.0 means“.  That blog had link to a video where IT leaders were helplessly trying to explain what Web 2.0 means. One guy said something like this, “Everyone wants to do it, and you can’t find enough people to do... (more)

While preparing the courseware for my upcoming JavaScript workshop I ran into the following definition in the Mozilla’s online documentation: “callee is a property of the arguments object. It can be used to refer to the currently executing function inside the function body of that... (more)

Clear Data Builder for Ext JS (CDBExt) is an open source tool that automatically builds Ext JS/Java EE CRUD applications given one or more annotated Java interfaces. The generated JavaScript and Java code enforce best Ext JS and Java EE practices and is deployed on the developmen... (more)

In May, I’m flying to Kiev, Ukraine to participate in a Java conference there and this won’t be the only conference I’ll be going to this year.  For software developers the ability to attend a major professional conference is a valuable perk given by their employers. OK, all expe... (more)

Teacher: “Mary, what do you think should happen in a Web browser when the user presses Ctrl-T?” Mary: “It should open a new tab with either a blank page or your home page. Some browsers show most recently visited sites. In any case, it should be easily configured”. Teacher: “Go... (more)

Yesterday, I made a trip to Manhattan on some family matters. While walking by the the Seaport in the lower Manhattan, I noticed a group of asian guys doing back massage to the tourists right on the street. I’m sure you saw these special chairs where you kinda sitting on your kne... (more)

Just got an email from a person who calls himself a Senior Java Developer. Two out of five pages were devoted to  describing his skills. Below is an extract from the Skills section: Java 2 (J2EE, J2SE) rich operational experience JDBC 2.0. rich operational experience EJB considera... (more)

When I post a job opening for a Senior Java Developer, people send me resumes, and their titles match my post title. But the meaning of the word “senior” varies depending on the geography. Here in the USA a 22-24y.o. person graduates from college and starts as an intern or a juni... (more)

Any Web browser has local cache, and everyone knows that its goal is to minimize the number of network requests by caching locally some resources like images or even the program code. The google.com home page opens blazing fast? Sure, because the browser loads it from your disk c... (more)

On average, I pass the airport security four times a month either on business or as a tourist. Over the years I became a living proof that Pavlov’s finding about conditioned reflexes were correct. When I see an airport, I start pulling off my belt, taking off my shoes, and my han... (more)

Sometimes I eat chicken eggs in the morning. I boil two eggs for six minutes. My wife is not too happy with the fact that I’m doing this in an old-fashioned way. Yes, I simply bring the water to the boiling point and then put there as many eggs as I want. But my wife has a dozen ... (more)

If you are planning to do build a career as a software developer, you have to be prepared to get trained and re-trained every couple of years. But how? If you’re lucky, your employer will send you to classes, otherwise you have to spend substantial amount of time self-studying. B... (more)

Not that I don’t like social networks, but I see no use for them in my personal life. I use Twitter for business reasons mainly, like advertising my upcoming training “JavaScript for Java Developers“, which doesn’t prevent me from posting a photo of two salmon heads that I was ab... (more)

Have you read today’s German version of Financial Times? I did. Not that I can read German, but you don’t have to – just copy/paste the text of this article to Google Translate’s left box. It’s smart enough to recognize that it’s in German. Pick your language in the “To:” dropdow... (more)

Design patterns were not born equal. Some of them are boring, while others are special. Do you remember your feelings after learning what the Data Transfer Object is? Don’t remember? Of course – cause you didn’t have any special feelings about it other than “It’s easy”. What do ... (more)

During the last fifteen years I’ve being spending at least one week a year vacationing in France. Love this country for their culture, traditions, gourmet food, great wine, great skiing, and friendly people. Once in a while I rent a car and drive there visiting all these nice lit... (more)

People take pictures of people. Saying “Cheese” or “Sex” immediately puts an artificial smile on the other person’s face. Taking photos of people from the front is so 19-th Century. You gotta be a professional photographer to make a realistic portrait. Last summer, while walking... (more)

I like Apple products. Our family of four owns nine of their devices. I’ll always respect Steve Jobs for being a visionary and improving our taste. And I’ve enjoyed his keynotes a lot. Yesterday, I was watching Tim Cook’s presentation of the new iPad. I saw a gray-haired fit man... (more)

Over the last five years one of my responsibilities was interviewing and hiring software developers and many of them were physically located overseas. In this post I’d like to share with you my thoughts (and get your feedback) on one of the aspects for offshore hiring: pros and c... (more)