Some JUG Politics or "Why doesn't a community grow under farcism"

A group with no/poor leadership is like a ship without a rudder.

I have been trying to reboot MyJUG (at a tangible level, a site and some blogs) for years with no avail, to take lead but got beaten down (continue reading), and when I wanted to talk about some MNCC stuff to the group just now, I found out that I was banned.

MyJUG is established since 1999, founded by Loke KS, owned by Loke, bossed by Loke. Once in a short while, some new faces come and new motivation generated to create new discussions and some ambitious to live up the group and technical talks. Most recently, before 2011, we were told by Loke that he's working something out with Oracle (and now, being the mid of 2011, the group still haven't yet organized a single activity) and looking for volunteers to help out (I have no idea why we have never formed a board or committee to have some balance of power and management, I raised it), and I did,

On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 2:34 AM, Yuen-Chi Lian wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I created two polls in Doodle, just click, no hassle registration:
>
> Vote for new platform
> Vote for next talk
>
> I wrote a blog post too, let's make some change to the group for 2011.

On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 8:54 AM, Loke KS wrote:
>
> Yuen, why don't you take the lead in organising some talks?

Very good, I got a tap on the shoulder to go for it.

And I moved fast again, including finding a right place to document the activities of the group, to vote for topics, etc. (so I also started a Google Sites, as the earlier work I did is hosted in my ex-company server). Most importantly, I kept things transparent in the mailing list and opened them for better suggestions.

Then?

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Loke KS wrote:
> Can you discuss with me first before you take any action on any matter?

Come on, what the fuck?

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Yuen-Chi Lian wrote:
> I was acting based on the votes. I didn't know there was a concern,
> enlighten me.

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Loke KS wrote:
>
> If you want to work as a team, then we work as a team else we work
> individually, separately. What does working in a team means? What if I have
> other plans that I am working with other people?

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 11:24 AM, Yuen-Chi Lian wrote:
>
> Then always share with us.
>
> Secret agenda is no longer a weapon but stumbling block of a community.
> Being open and transparent is the initial driving force to start or change a
> community in this era. You can learn from some successful stories, GitHub is
> one, how Apache/Hudson/MySQL/OpenOffice left Oracle is another.
>
> There's just too much legacy to drag us from moving forward. When we
> sacrifice more individualistic controls over things back to community decision,
> you will see how things can be different.
>
> I'm sure you get my point. Oracle doesn't.
>
> It's not about working as a team, but working with the community.

Things went quiet again, until Bernie (great Android developer) started similar topic, but Loke, this time, never looked into the problem nor contributed anything practical to realize the members' desire.

About a week plus ago, I was told that Chee Aun is working on Connections.my, and thus I brought it up in MyJUG (although I misunderstood what the site is actually for in the beginning, but that's not important) and also mentioned about having a breakaway JUG, as, at that point of time, I was frustrated that Loke still hasn't yet done any real deal with the great Oracle. When emotion goes wrong, bad things can happen - I'm banned:

You have been banned from this group by the group moderator (Yahoo! ID banned: yuenchi.lian). You may not join the group myjug.

I'm not sure if I'm the first one to be banned, but I am seriously tired of dealing with one's fascism (there's only one owner and moderator to maintain the Yahoo! group) but nothing else every time I wanted to realize something.

So, here's an idea, is anyone up for a breakaway, to start clean, with no boss but the people?

At the same time, while the old Facebook page is deprecating, I have spawned a new one here, please join.

The Malaysian Java User Group can be more than just a mailing list

Is simply just a mailing list for years. Continue reading.

Recently, I received an email (with a few in the loop, not through the mailing list) from Loke to discuss about some aspects of MyJUG. I found it hard to respond to most posted questions (such as "Best Practices" and "Strengths and Opportunities" of this group), simply because - the cruelest fact - there's nothing much to describe.

I join the mailing list about 4 to 5 years ago, when I innocently thought getting to know more people there could get some new hires for my former employer. It doesn't work that way (or at least at the moment), so if you happen to have the same intention, you may want to readjust or quit.

Every now and then, I whine and whine to some people about the lack of substantive committee to move forward the group, the lack of activities, etc. Then, every now and then, we voted for topics and things go silent. Then, recur.

StackOverflowError not yet.

To run a successful technical/user group seems really hard in Malaysia. FOSS-SM used to have consistent monthly meetup when Aizat was active. Chee Seng runs the Flex UG (MyFlex) but the number of participants is really low (also given the fact that Flex is barely a killer). Umm, the PHP UG seems pretty successful though. Why?

I don't know.

The community can change it.

• Vote for next topics
• Vote for new platform

A Networking Session with Sun / Java Evangelists

There was an invitation sent to MyJUG, to a networking session with the Sun / Java Evangelists last Wednesday at Monash University. The turn-up wasn't that high and I reached there pretty late too, I guess everyone was pretty stuck at work or in the jam. Thanks Chee Seng for the ride, otherwise I would have stuck 'til the event had ended.

Good to see familiar face like Colin Charles (the MySQL guy) and Loke there, and finally met up with Monica Ng (the Marketing Communication Consultant of Sun). The evangelists in list anyway, were, Matt Thompson, Reginald Hutcherson, Lee Chuk Munn, Peter Karlsson, Colin and Naveen Asrani.

Sitting alongside with the evangelists was fun. We started our technical conversation when Chee Seng introduced himself as a Flex guy. Chuk Munn and other folks started to bash Flex to promote JavaFx, something that I did not show much interest on which I might give a try now after being told that the beta release will be a very fine product.

We also touched on the performance enhancement of Java 6 SE Update 10 as well as the new Open Solaris. We all left after some folks distributed the live CD of the OS.

It would have been a greater event without the nearly 2-hour jam. Hopefully Sun will make it a weekend next time.

- yc

FOSS-SM April 2008 Meetup, Selenium Web Testing Tool

I will be giving a presentation on Selenium this Thursday at the FOSS-SM meeting, more details can be found here:

• http://www.my-jug.org/calendar
• http://foss.org.my/projects/meetups/april-2008-meetup/myoss-april-2008-meetup-selenium-web-testing/view

Your support will definitely be appreciated, please join me to attend this.

- yc

Qi4J on the 13th

Supported by the Malaysian Java User Group, the FOSS-SM hosted the March meet-up with the presence of Rickard Oberg on the topic of Composite Oriented Programming in Java using Qi4J.

It's a good occasion to meet Rickard in person and other JUG guys -- Edward, Bernie, KC., ..

Qi4J in short is an implementation of Composited Oriented Programming (COP), an idea heavily influenced by the concept of Domain Driven Development (DDD). You can read more about its background from this page. Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) and Dependency Injection (DI) are essential parts of Qi4J to achieve DDD (you might want to check Matthew Podwysocki's blog).

In Qi4J, you no longer think about objects but composites. A Composite is a collection of fragments, where a fragment can be a Mixin that holds the state of the composite, a Constraint that validates the usage, a Concern that handles contextual behaviour or a SideEffect that is used for notification. Here are some resources to help you more with it:

• Qi4J Brochures and Diagrams
• Qi4J Concepts

I like the general idea personally, just like how I like AOP at the first time I got in touch with it. Clean code, domain centric, separation of concerns, and low coupling between components (that also promotes reusability).

There are some concerns from the ground too, that,

It is Hackish

To some people, the framework looks completely like a hack to achieve something can not be originally done by Java. I beg to differ with that point, programming to me is a lively and creative area of computer science, with a good design and deep thoughts, we are actually leveraging the Java platform to introduce a new programming style. Just like how people use Spring and its applicationContext.xml to do AOP.

Learning Curve and Adoption

Learning curve is a major concern too. The discussion focused on how long it would take for new and old Java programmers to adopt to this new programming style. My opinion is, what truly drives someone to do something to be different from the norm relies on how widespread and the quality of the new concept; as well as how conservative an individual would like to remain, a comfortability issue. Likewise, not everyone uses AOP, ORM, etc. because they do not see the point, accept the idea, or are comfortable with what they are currently doing. But certainly, Spring has a very good documentation and from the way I look at it, Qi4J is going to have one too. :-)

Performance

A realistic concern. I talked to Niclas and Edward (folks from Jayway, the core committers of Qi4J) after meeting. They shared with me that, which is also written in the website, Qi4J is not production ready. The product is still undergoing development and the team has not yet done any performance tuning. Take note that it doesn't even have a binary release at the moment. A more mature codebase should be ready by end of this year.

I am ending this blog entry here. Like I said, I like the idea of it and Qi4J definitely worth revisiting at a later time and since it is an OPS4J project, I will definitely find a time to contribute to the codebase.

Lastly, please visit our JUG's blog for a list of other blogs that discuss about the meeting.

- yc

Where the Malaysian Java User Group is heading to?

Not just the website, there are more things that you can do for the group, really. I am a believer of "community for the people, by the people". The group will never work without a group of good leaders, active members and industry support. So here are a few suggestions:

• Spread the words
• Be the committee
• Be the sponsor
• Keep an eye on us

...

I have just blogged about the direction of our JUG in the website: what we have been doing, what we can do, and what we will be doing. The blog can be found at:

http://www.my-jug.org/2008/02/19/Where+the+JUG+is+heading

- yc

Malaysian Java User Group - Request for Expressions of Interest

I wrote this public email, sent it to the MyJUG mailing list and also to some local organizations. I wish to receive some responses, and of course, if you're reading it, please forward to your friends or the Java persons in your organization.

Cheers.

Hello,

I am one of exco committees of the Malaysian Java User Group (MyJUG).
A Java User Group, basically, is a non-profit organization, a group of
people who share common interest in Java and related technology.

Recently, we are trying to re-establish the group and to reaffirm its
determination to be an influential group in driving the local Java
community and technology. We had a meeting in August and our agenda
contains establishing a portal, wiki, organizing monthly events and
technical talks, etc. We will be having a meeting again within the
coming weeks to bring ideas into concrete forms.

The reason you are receiving this email is because we have very strong
faith and are true believers that the IT industry's contribution is
important to the success of this group of the Java community and its
people. I would like to encourage the you and your organization to
participate in our portal, mailing list, technical talks, events,
advertisements, etc.

I kindly request you to forward this email to the point of contact (of
Java technology or sales and marketing department) in your
organization; and reply to this email to share with me your interest
on this subject.

Cheers.

References:

Java User Groups -- http://java.sun.com/community/usergroups/
Malaysian Java User Groups -- http://my-jug.org/ | Mailing list:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/myjug/

--

Regards,
Yuen-Chi Lian
"I do not seek. I find." - Pablo Picasso

- yc, let's rock

MyJUG Committee Meeting, 4th Aug 2007

Malaysian Java User Group have just had a committee meeting last Saturday (4th Aug) at Secret Recipe of Mid Valley Megamall. The following is a list of the attendees:

• Kar Seng, Loke (founder)
• A. Faisal Shaazi
• Desmond Lee
• Chee Seng, Chua
• Yuen-Chi Lian
• Kristanto Oetomo

The meeting focused on re-establishing the group, which currently, has more than 600 members in its mailing. Agenda as followed:

• MyJUG's background
• Committee members and roles
• Web-page, contents and hosting
• Sponsorship
• Active members and future events

Some had been addressed in this thread #6870 a month ago.

Here is a brief summary on the ongoing tasks after the meeting:

• Working on the web hosting plan and its sponsorship (Faizal)
  
• Working on a long-term strategy that increases the value of MyJUG (Faizal)
• Promoting MyJUG to people through different communities and channels (Yuen-Chi)
• Collecting more ideas as part of the features of the group and its website (Yuen-Chi)
• Planning on the future events, esp. organizing tech talks (Kar Seng and Chee Seng)

Most of the plans are right now still preliminary but nevertheless a good start. Our next meeting will be held in about a month time, to follow-up some of the issues of previous meeting and to put things into concrete form.

Anyway, we love ideas, we love inputs. If you wish to be part of MyJUG, to help out, or to be one of the sponsors, feel free to talk to me.

- yc, jugging