NBA

The NBA playoffs have always seem to go like this: A boring first round with a “upset” or two, then BOOM an exciting second round. The main highlight in the sense of excitement has been the Pacers-Cavs series. In game one, the Pacers won with Tyrese Haliburton scoring 22 and Andrew Nembhard leading the team with 23 points.

In game two, the hype would be shown with Haliburton scoring the game winner with 1.1 seconds left and coming back from 20 down. Game three was more calm with the Cavs winning 126–104.

Elsewhere in the East, the Knicks and the Celtics have also had exciting finishes with Mikal Bridges having clutch defensive plays in both games.

The West has also had their share of playoff drama. Highlighted by Thunder-Nuggets, game one had Aaron Gordon would hit a game wining three with 2.8 left.

Game two would see the Thunder score 87 points in the first half, an NBA Playoff record. Oklahoma City would win 149–106 in a blowout. Game three wen to overtime and saw the Nuggets experience as the advantage as they won 113–104.

Minnesota Timberwolves-Golden State Warriors seems to be the most chill series out of the four. Game one would have cold offense as both teams failed to score over a 100 points in a 99–88 Warriors win with Stephen Curry getting hurt. Game two would see the Wolves cruise to a win 117–93.

NHL

The NHL playoffs, as always, have been entertaining. Even with a lack of seed upsets, the games have still be great to watch.

Starting in the East, the Maple Leafs take on the Panthers in the first Conference semi final. The Leafs took game one and two but game three saw Brad Marchand get the overtime winner.

Capitals-Hurricanes has been a interesting series. Game one saw a overtime winner from Jaccob Salvin. In game two, all but one goal was scored in the third in a 3–1 Caps win.

The West has seen more chaotic hockey. The Knights-Oilers series has been proof. The Oilers have come back from deficits in all 6 of their playoff wins dating back from the first round. This including a OT win in game two with Leon Draisatil scoring the game winner.

Jets-Stars have seen A hat trick from Miko Rantanen in game one and a Connor Hellebuyck shutout in game two. Game three is set for Sunday.

Second Chance Brackets

These picks were made before the start of the second round. Now my NBA bracket was holding up well, but my NHL bracket was screwed when I swapped Dallas with Colorado.

My NHL bracket has corrected the mistake with the Stars winning the Cup against the Panthers. I swapped the Capitals with the Canes in the second round after the former was a little too close for me in their series with the Canadians at some points.

There’s not much to say in my NBA bracket, as it’s mostly the same. But it’s not looking good with the Cavs down 1–2 and the Celtics behind 0–2 in the East, and the West is too close to call.

Theo’s Sports Update for 5/10 was originally published in Chimp McGee on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In this market?

I recently received and accepted an offer from a company and I thought it would be a good thing for me to review my journey in finding a position. First off, let me say I am probably not the most common candidate in the market. I have very pertinent skills like cloud architecture, java, and devops. Combined with years of planned industry hopping to get me a wide range of expertise to pull from. Finally, I have a ridiculous amount of experience in many fields and as an architect. So, understand that in context of what I describe later.

I have heard a lot about this market and I will say, it has changed since I was looking even 3 years ago. That is not so long ago but the roots of this market were there. A lot of applying to no response and just a lack of serious interest in what a candidate could bring to the party. Today’s market has even more remote positions but everyone applies to those. Still, more fundamentally, this market feels different. Let’s break it down.

I want to add that a lot of this is likely to be most helpful to folks starting out as they tend to be long term solutions. I see a lot of articles out there about how to find a job in a weeks worth of work but I have found it usually takes longer, some planning, to bolster your career. That is not to say there are not things for experienced job hunters but to be honest, I would expect them to kind of nod along or maybe share their own strategies that worked for them.

How I applied

I mostly was on Linkedin. In the past, I was all over the internet but to be honest, Linkedin dominated when I was looking. It had the most openings, the easiest interface and research for the companies built in. I worry about this as I am, very much, a spread my efforts wide kind of guy. I know, I should focus on just a few and I do, but I like to look over a much wider spread of opportunities.

I found Easy Apply positions a waste of time. The more serious opportunities led me to the company’s site to apply there. I would get rejections but at least I would know. Ghosting was the more common result.

Resume, background, matching, AI

I know you have all heard about the various scanning methods recruiters use on resume. You can look up free ATS scanners for you resume (free trial Zoho) or apply a little bit of AI (ChatGPT) by feeding in your linkedin profile plus the job description.

No, you are not done.

You then need to go through it with a fine toothed comb to make sure you fix all the things the AI botched or more to the point, did not express your preferences properly. You can take my profile and say I should be a network engineer, and yes, I can do that but that is not where I want my career to go. Take the time.

Socialize your resume and take the feedback from colleagues, preferably ones who know you. I cannot tell you how many people looked at my resume, some in my network and some recruiters just nice enough to take 15 minutes. Some feedback I got was on format, one recruiter pointed out how ageism was working against me when I stated I have 35 years of experience. It did not matter that my skills are up to date, I am old and I know it and I was telling potential recruiters to screen out my old ass. So, look at your resume and see if you have something that might work against you like that.

Network

Yeah, you have heard this one. I applied to a small number of opportunities cold. About 30 since March 15 (the day I was let go from my last job) and most of the cold calls led to nothing but FOADs. The three interviews I had were pretty targeted, and were from people recommending me in my network. The position I landed was directly related to working with people who knew my work, knew I was a productive member of a team, and that have a great deal of architectural insight and ingenuity.

Look, at the end of the day, networks are something you cannot generate in two weeks after you are laid off. You need to form those relationships ahead of time and SINCERELY! Don’t just glad hand people. You need to invest in them, help them, sincerely invest yourself into knowing these people. I am one of the worst at keeping up connections. I am a bit of an introvert and often forget to reach out to people but I try and I think that counts for something. We are all busy. I haven’t talked with Steve Engel from Edgewater (some 20 years ago) in probably 5 years but when I do reach out to him, he catches me up and I am genuinely interested in what he has been up to.

I can say, as a solid piece of advice, forge those relationships, maintain them and make sure to pay it forward to them. It will be the best investment you could ask for.

Oh, and no, your network should not be transactional.

Attitude

A quick point here, I went through the roller coaster of emotions on this journey. It is so important to manage your state of mind and how you interact with recruiters and interviewers. It can be tough when all the pressure of being out of work pile up but hang in there and remember to keep trying generate leads, reach out to people, and put your best face on interviews.

Conclusion

The opportunity I ended up with is one that was:

1. Born from my network. No, I did not ask him for a job, but made sure my network knew I was looking. Then, when they heard about an architect job, I came to mind.
2. Was well suited to me because I did not communicate I was looking for anything. I was clear, concise and folks knew my strengths.
3. Gelled around an interview process that allowed me to explore them, and them to explore me.

I would love to hear what is working (or not working) for you in the comments.

Good luck and good hunting.

How I got a job was originally published in Chimp McGee on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In a continuing look back series, let’s take a look at JavaServer Faces. This is a technology was first rolled out in 2004 and my first encounter with it was shortly after that in 2005. It is part of the Java EE (which I was doing a lot of back then) release and was a released to address component base web applications. I used JSF mostly in conjunction with JSP and struts.

In general, JSF use has waned over the years as robust javascript frameworks have arisen. Still, like JSP, it is still in use today especially in large organizations that use Java EE and require specific integrations or support legacy applications. Some of those integrations are

• Component-Based Design : JSF’s component-based framework is useful for teams that prefer a declarative approach to building UIs.
• Integration with Jakarta EE : JSF continues to be included as part of the Jakarta EE platform, making it a viable choice for teams already invested in Jakarta EE technologies.
• Applications Requiring Server-Side Rendering : Server-side rendering (SSR) is still relevant for certain use cases, like applications requiring high security or environments with limited JavaScript support.

But why are people movign away from JSF?

1. Rise of Modern Front-End Frameworks — Like I said, REACT, Angular and other FE JS frameworks are domination and replacing serverside rendering. I often wonder if a serverside rendering framework could ever rise to challenge these. Maybe a topic for another article?
2. Shift Toward Microservices — Microservices tend to favor frameworks like Spring Boot, Quarkus and Micronaut over large monoliths like JSF and Java EE.
3. Better Alternatives for Java-Based UIs — Think Thymeleaf and Spring MVC and you have a lot stronger, more modern, faster ecosystem to work with. They use REST while a lot of times you are struggling with AJAX in JSF.
4. Decline of Jakarta EE/Java EE Popularity — Certain Jakarta is still in use but it has faded in popularity to Spring and other alternatives. This introduces all kinds of problems such as finding devs, hosting and resources.

In short, most orgs are not going to be doing green field dev with JSF but legacy applications are still there and still in need of support.

What does JSF Bring?

There are many items that JSF brings to the party. This is a solid list but not the whole ball of wax.

• Component-Based Framework
• Event-Driven Programming
• Server-Side Rendering
• Integration with Java EE
• Custom Tag Libraries
• Managed Beans
• Navigation Handling
• Support for AJAX

The ones I found most useful were the eventing and support for AJAX. Being able to intertwine these technologies made the end product, JSP/JSF much more effective and robust.

General Benefits

To sum up the above capabilities into a list of benefits is tough but here goes.

• Simplifies the development of web applications by abstracting low-level details.
• Promotes reusability through custom components.
• Provides a rich set of prebuilt UI components.
• Supports internationalization and accessibility standards.

It has to be noted that some of these overlap with JSP and generally, we would use the framework that made the most sense for what we were working on but usually, you had custom tag libs in both JSF and JSP. In practice, there was little to distinguish them since JSP can call on JSF CTLs.

Some Simple Examples

This is a really simple version of JSF and the supporting bean to handle the input of a name.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
      xmlns:h="http://xmlns.jcp.org/jsf/html">
<head>
    <title>JSF Example</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h:form>
        <h:outputLabel for="name" value="Enter your name: " />
        <h:inputText id="name" value="#{userBean.name}" />
        <h:commandButton value="Submit" action="#{userBean.greet}" />
    </h:form>
<h:outputText value="#{userBean.greeting}" />
</body>
</html>

Supporting Bean

import jakarta.faces.bean.ManagedBean;
@ManagedBean
public class UserBean {
    private String name;
    private String greeting;
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }
    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }
    public String getGreeting() {
        return greeting;
    }
    public void setGreeting(String greeting) {
        this.greeting = greeting;
    }
    public String greet() {
        this.greeting = "Hello, " + name + "!";
        return null; // Return null to stay on the same page
    }
}

AJAX Example

Update a page without reloading it.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
      xmlns:h="http://xmlns.jcp.org/jsf/html"
      xmlns:f="http://xmlns.jcp.org/jsf/core">
<head>
    <title>JSF AJAX Example</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h:form>
        <h:outputLabel for="name" value="Enter your name: " />
        <h:inputText id="name" value="#{userBean.name}">
            <f:ajax event="keyup" render="greeting" />
        </h:inputText>

        <h:outputText id="greeting" value="#{userBean.greeting}" />
    </h:form>
</body>
</html>Bean to go with it.

import jakarta.faces.bean.ManagedBean;import jakarta.faces.bean.ManagedBean;

@ManagedBean
public class UserBean {
    private String name;

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    public String getGreeting() {
        return name != null && !name.isEmpty() ? "Hello, " + name + "!" : "";
    }
}

Bonus: CTLs

I am a big fan of custom tag libraries. They were all the rage but they have decreased in popularity. It is much more common in the modern front end frameworks to use custom component libraries or templating engines. Still, CTLs will always have a warm spot in my heart since they solved so many issues with front end development at the time.

Here is an example:

<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html" prefix="h" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core" prefix="f" %>

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>JSF with JSP Example</title>
</head>
<body>
    <f:view>
        <h:form>
            <h:outputLabel for="name" value="Enter your name: " />
            <h:inputText id="name" value="#{userBean.name}" />
            <h:commandButton value="Submit" action="#{userBean.greet}" />
        </h:form>

<h:outputText value="#{userBean.greeting}" />
    </f:view>
</body>
</html>

Conclusion

Well, the JSF framework is something that likely is not going to make a huge resurgence and likely will be found most often in legacy apps. That does not mean server side rendering does not have its uses or should be ignored. JSF was an important stepping stone to the modern architectures of today. It has contributed in a few ways.

• Component-Based UI Architecture — Modern frontend frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue.js use component-based architectures, where UIs are built as reusable components. Backend frameworks like Blazor (from Microsoft) and Vaadin (Java) also use component-driven paradigms inspired by JSF.
• Managed Beans and Injection — Modern frameworks like Spring Boot and Jakarta EE (formerly Java EE) heavily use dependency injection for managing application components. The idea of binding UI elements to application state (e.g., React’s state management or Angular’s two-way data binding) can also be traced back to JSF’s managed beans.
• Event Driven Programming — Event-driven programming is now a core concept in modern architectures, both on the frontend (e.g., React’s event handlers) and backend (e.g., microservices event-driven systems using tools like Kafka or RabbitMQ).
• Server Side Rendering — While client-side rendering (CSR) dominates today, modern frameworks like Next.js (for React) and Nuxt.js (for Vue) use SSR for better SEO and performance. JSF’s focus on SSR laid the groundwork for use cases where SSR is still relevant, such as secure enterprise applications or environments with limited JavaScript support.
• Templating and Reusability — Modular templating is a cornerstone of modern frontend frameworks like React (JSX templates) and Angular (HTML templates). Backend templating engines like Thymeleaf and Mustache also build on the concept of reusable templates.
• Navigation and State Management — Modern frontend libraries use sophisticated routers (e.g., React Router, Angular Router) to manage navigation and state seamlessly. Backend frameworks like Spring Web Flow or Vaadin Flow incorporate stateful navigation inspired by JSF.
• Integration with Backend Frameworks — Frameworks like Spring Boot and Quarkus emphasize backend integration and dependency injection, which evolved from the patterns used in JSF and Java EE.
• Ajax Integration — AJAX is now a standard feature in modern web development and is heavily used in frameworks like React and Angular (e.g., React’s use of fetch or Angular's HTTP client).
• Stateful Applications in Web Development — Stateful architectures are still relevant today in frameworks like Vaadin (Java) and Blazor (C#), which provide server-side control of the UI.
• Enterprise-Level Web Application — Modern enterprise applications often adopt lightweight alternatives like Spring Boot or cloud-native architectures, but JSF’s principles of component-based design and backend integration remain influential.

To make progress forward, it helps to know where you came from.

A Look Back: JSF : JavaServer Faces was originally published in Chimp McGee on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

NCAA Second Weekend and Final Four

The second weekend of the NCAA Tournament was when the tournament started to get more exciting. It started when Texas Tech would come back from down 16 to win it in overtime. Then Houston would win a close one against Purdue with this shot in the final seconds.

Alabama would blow out BYU 113–88 with a record 25 threes and Michigan State won a close one verses Ole Miss. The Elite Eight was more calm with all of the one seeds making it to the Final Four for the first time since 2008.

The Final Four saw Houston come back against Duke in a quick 9–0 run.

The other semifinal had Florida defeat Auburn with the Tigers letting the halftime lead of eight slip away. In the National Championship it was a close game with an insane ending that saw the Gators win their first National Championship since going back to back in 2006–07.

Masters Playoff

I don’t usually follow golf, but the Masters this year had me intrigued. Of course the Masters is always intriguing with the clout it carries and the traditions it has, but this year was more special than most. You see, this year’s masters ended with a playoff on the 18th hole after Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose. What added to the tenson was that Rory was looking to complete the career grand slam. He had already won The Open, US Open, and the PGA Championship but was missing a green jacket. Add the fact that this was the first playoff at Augusta since 2017 and you can get the picture of what was at stake.

In the Playoff, Rory would come out on top, winning the tournament with this putt.

NBA Play In

This week saw the newest edition of the NBA Play In tournament. The first part was nothing to write home about, as uninteresting games plagued the first half of the event, with the home teams ( Magic, Warriors) winning the 8 vs 9 games and the away team (Heat, Mavs) winning the 7 vs 10 games. Friday’s games were somewhat of a different story. Heat-Hawks went to overtime and Miami would prevailed with Tyler Herro scoring 30. The Grizzlies would end the Mavericks season with Ja Morant playing with a bad ankle and Jaren Jackson Jr leading the Griz with 24 points.

Start of the MLB Season

The MLB season started in earnest in late March and things are close when it comes to divisions. The best one is the NL West where the Padres lead the Dodgers with a MLB best 15–5 but a 0.5 lead. None of the division leads are big but it is only mid April after all. The other leaders in order of division from East to West are the Yankees (13–7, +1), the Tigers (12–8, +1.5), the Rangers (12–8, +1.5), Mets (13–7, +1), and the Cubs (13–9, +1).

NHL and NBA Playoff Predictions

This weekend starts the NHL’s Stanly Cup Playoffs and the NBA playoffs, and I got predictions.

Starting with the NHL, I feel like there will be more upsets than I have, but I couldn’t drag myself to pick more. In the end, I think the Capitals and the Avs will make it to the final with the Avalanches better second half carrying them to the cup, while the Capitals will shock the East and make it to the finals.

As for the NBA, I went fairly chalk. Sans a Warriors upset, Bucks beating the Pacers, and the Celtics representing the East. My finals pick is the Thunder beating the Celtics with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leading the young team to the title.

Theo’s Sports Update for 4/19 was originally published in Chimp McGee on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As architects, we need to look at the upsides and downsides of many systems. Today, let’s look at a Customer Relationship Management system, Salesforce. Now, let’s be clear, Salesforce is the 500 lb gorilla at about 25% of the market. That may not seem like much but it is. The market for CRMs is about 100 billion USD and that is not nothing.

What is Salesforce?

A customer relationship management system is a collection of tools to do, as it sounds like, manage all the aspects of dealing with, selling to and gaining insights to your customers. A good one will help in in managing sales, creating tools for customer retention and building a database of all things about your customers.

It should be noted that the above chart is not the complete service list for Salesforce. It has niche offerings like integrations with slack, education, health and financial cloud offerings. The above is a good representation of the core CRM clouds and services.

Why Salesforce?

Salesforce has a lot of momentum behind it but if it is not a fit for your organization then you will need to look elsewhere (more on that later). Here are some of the key selling points for me on Salesforce.

1. Customizability

• When to Choose Salesforce: Your business processes are unique and require a highly customizable CRM. You need the flexibility to build custom workflows, objects, and applications.
• Why Salesforce?: Salesforce offers tools like Salesforce Lightning and Apex for custom app development. Extensive APIs and AppExchange marketplace allow for seamless customization.

2. Scalability

• When to Choose Salesforce: You are a growing company, and your CRM needs to scale with your business. You have a large enterprise with complex requirements.
• Why Salesforce?: Suitable for businesses of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises. Offers industry-specific solutions and advanced features like AI-driven insights.

3. Integration Needs

• When to Choose Salesforce: You need to integrate your CRM with multiple tools and platforms (e.g., ERP, marketing tools, analytics).
• Why Salesforce?: Extensive integration capabilities with tools like MuleSoft, APIs, and AppExchange connectors. Pre-built integrations with a wide range of third-party applications.

5. Advanced Analytics and AI

• When to Choose Salesforce: You want to leverage AI and data analytics for better decision-making.
• Why Salesforce?: Einstein AI provides predictive analytics, lead scoring, and automation. Tableau CRM offers advanced data visualization and analytics.

6. Cloud-Based and Mobile-Friendly

• When to Choose Salesforce: You prefer a cloud-based solution with mobile access for your teams.
• Why Salesforce?: 100% cloud-based platform with a robust mobile application. Real-time updates and accessibility from anywhere.

7. Complex Sales and Service Processes

• When to Choose Salesforce: You have complex sales pipelines or multi-tiered customer service processes.
• Why Salesforce?: Advanced tools for managing sales pipelines, forecasting, and customer support workflows. Omni-channel service support across phone, email, chat, and social media.

Why Not?

If you are a very small business or startup with a limited budget, simpler and more cost-effective CRMs (e.g., HubSpot, Zoho CRM) may be better. Let’s be real, Salesforce costs a lot of money. If your team requires a minimal learning curve, less complex tools might be more suitable. For businesses with very simple CRM needs, free or open-source solutions might suffice. So, here are some other reasons:

1. High Cost

• Licensing Costs: Salesforce can be expensive, especially for small and medium-sized businesses.
• Add-Ons: Many features, such as Marketing Cloud, Tableau CRM, or advanced support, come at an additional cost.
• Customization Costs: Custom development, third-party integrations, and consultancy services can significantly increase expenses.

2. Complexity

• Steep Learning Curve: Salesforce has a complex user interface and a wide array of features, which can be overwhelming for new users.
• Customization Challenges: While it is highly customizable, making changes requires expertise in Salesforce development (e.g., Apex, Visualforce, Lightning).
• Admin Dependency: Non-technical users often need to rely on Salesforce administrators or developers to make changes or implement new features.

3. Performance Issues

• Speed and Latency: The platform can experience slow performance, especially when handling large datasets or during peak usage times.
• Data Storage Limits: Salesforce imposes limits on data storage, which can lead to additional costs for purchasing extra storage.

4. Customization and Integration Challenges

• Customization Overhead: While flexible, designing, implementing, and maintaining custom workflows and objects can be time-consuming and expensive.
• Integration Complexity: Integrating Salesforce with legacy systems or non-standard third-party apps can require significant development effort.
• Dependency on AppExchange: Many integrations require third-party tools from the AppExchange, which may involve additional licensing fees.

5. User Interface (UI) Limitations

• Cluttered UI: The interface can appear cluttered and unintuitive for some users, reducing efficiency.
• Inconsistent Experience: Switching between Classic and Lightning experiences can be confusing for users.
• Mobile Limitations: While the mobile app is functional, it lacks the full range of features available on the desktop version.

6. Implementation Challenges

• Lengthy Implementation: Deploying Salesforce, especially with heavy customization, can take months or longer.
• Change Management: Training employees to use Salesforce effectively and encouraging adoption can be a significant challenge.

7. Feature Overlap

• Redundant Features: Some businesses find that Salesforce offers too many features, some of which may overlap or remain unused.
• Overkill for Small Businesses: Smaller businesses may not need the extensive functionalities Salesforce provides and might find simpler CRMs like HubSpot or Zoho more suitable.

8. Vendor Lock-In

• Proprietary Ecosystem: Businesses can become highly dependent on Salesforce, making it difficult and costly to switch to another platform.
• Limited Export Options: Exporting data and metadata for migration to other systems can be cumbersome.

9. Security and Compliance

• Shared Responsibility: While Salesforce provides robust security measures, businesses are still responsible for configuring user roles and permissions correctly.
• Compliance Overhead: Maintaining compliance with industry standards (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA) in highly regulated industries requires careful setup and monitoring.

10. Limited Offline Access

• Salesforce’s offline capabilities are limited compared to certain other CRMs, which can be problematic for field sales or service teams with limited internet connectivity.

11. Automation and Workflow Limits

• Complex Workflow Automation: Tools like Process Builder and Flow have limitations and can become cumbersome for very complex business logic.
• API Limits: Salesforce imposes API usage limits, which can restrict high-volume integrations or custom applications.

12. Dependence on Developers

• Developer Expertise Required: Advanced customizations, integrations, and troubleshooting often require skilled Salesforce developers.
• Hiring Challenges: Salesforce developers and administrators can be expensive and difficult to hire due to high demand.

13. Customer Support

• Costly Premium Support: While basic support is included, advanced or priority support requires an additional fee.
• Slow Response Times: Some users report delays in issue resolution, especially for non-urgent problems.

14 Data Migration Challenges

• Complex Data Imports: Importing data into Salesforce can be tricky, especially with large datasets or complex relationships between objects.
• Risk of Errors: Poorly planned data migration can result in duplicate records, data loss, or incorrect data relationships.

15. Frequent Updates

• Constant Changes: Salesforce releases frequent updates, which can disrupt customized workflows or require additional testing and adjustments.
• Versioning Conflicts: New features and updates may not always be compatible with custom code or third-party applications.

What else is there?

Having lived through the advent of CRMs (and written two of my own), there are many out there competing with Salesforce and others filling an unserviced niche but all have to acknowledge that they are competing with Salesforce and need to offer a diferentiator.

Some competitors:

1. Microsoft Dynamics 365

• Why It’s a Competitor: Offers a robust suite of CRM and ERP solutions integrated with Microsoft’s ecosystem (e.g., Office 365, Azure).Provides tools for sales, marketing, customer service, finance, and operations.
• Strengths: Seamless integration with other Microsoft products.Flexible deployment options (cloud, on-premise, or hybrid). Strong appeal to businesses already using Microsoft tools.

2. HubSpot CRM

• Why It’s a Competitor: Known for its user-friendly interface and focus on small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).Offers a free CRM with optional paid features for marketing, sales, and customer service.
• Strengths: Affordable pricing and ease of use for smaller businesses.Strong marketing automation tools and content management system (CMS).Integrations with a wide range of third-party applications.

3. Oracle CX (Customer Experience)

• Why It’s a Competitor: Enterprise-grade CRM solution that integrates with Oracle’s broader portfolio of cloud and database offerings. Focuses on delivering end-to-end customer experience solutions.
• Strengths: Advanced analytics and AI capabilities.Strong presence in industries like finance, manufacturing, and telecom.Deep integration with Oracle ERP and supply chain solutions.

Conclusion

It might look like there are more reasons not to choose Salesforce but the capabilities are there and for the money, it is the most flexible of platforms. Apex and VisualForce can seem daunting but once a developer gets in there, you realize a great deal of your Java skills port over. The most important point though, is to remember the biggest challenge with Salesforce is the learning curve on administration. Even for developers, it will take a bit of effort to get a good CICD pipeline in place, acknowledge best change management processes and all the overhead. It is not unlike jumping into a new cloud PaaS and having to learn all that as well.

In the end though, well planned out automation, the lead and opportunity tracking and just base knowledge about your customers can make all the different.

To Salesforce or Not to Salesforce was originally published in Chimp McGee on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In my time, I did a lot of Struts but also a lot of other frameworks. Struts 1 was where I started and I was happy to upgrade to Struts 2 when it came along. Sure, I did my share of Spring MVC and JSF but Struts kept coming up. For those who do not know, Struts is an MVC framework that came out around 2000 (2004 if you are an Apache purist).

It handles a lot of boilerplate code for you. It has a series of controllers that handle incoming requests and use actions as singletons to handle the work of the requests, the actions that the requests want performed. The model handles the business logic and the data. They are usually POJOs but you may see java beans as well. This is also where we would integrate to something like hibernate. The view handles displaying data to the user. It often uses JSP and JSTL (JSP tags) and can be integrated with modern javascript frameworks (REACT, Angular, View) but that is a bit of a different approach and we will leave it at that.

Why is this being used?

Most modern devs are likely to be in spring, python or a javascript framework (Yes, sorry I did not name your favorite lang/framework ;)). Struts2 has definitely seen a decrease but there are still faithful followers out there. Usually they fall into two camps:

1. Legacy — Yeah, the last guy did it and we do not have time to redo it.
2. Really like the features — The MVC framework is simple to grasp, fairly easy to implement, tag libs give you a dynamic way to update the frontend, supports REST and it is opensource.

Let’s look at some of the reasons to use Struts2

1. Legacy System Maintenance

• If you’re working within an organization that already uses Struts 2, it may make sense to continue using it for consistency and compatibility with existing systems.
• Struts 2 is still actively maintained by the Apache Software Foundation, with security patches and updates.

2. MVC Framework Simplicity

• Struts 2 provides a robust and simple Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework for web applications.
• Its separation of concerns (Model, View, and Controller) is well-suited for developers familiar with traditional web application architectures.

3. Customizable and Flexible

• Struts 2 is highly customizable, allowing developers to configure actions, interceptors, and results in a way that suits specific project requirements.
• Its plugin architecture enables easy extension of core functionalities.

4. Integration with Java Ecosystem

• Struts 2 integrates well with other Java technologies, such as Spring, Hibernate, and Java EE.
• If your project requires leveraging these technologies, Struts 2 can be a good fit.

5. Rich Tag Libraries

• Struts 2 provides extensive tag libraries (e.g., UI tags) that simplify the creation of dynamic views in JSPs.
• These tags abstract complex functionality, making it easier for developers to focus on application logic.

6. Security Features

• Struts 2 includes built-in security mechanisms like CSRF protection, input validation, and prevention against common vulnerabilities (e.g., XSS, SQL injection).
• If security is a priority, Struts 2 offers a solid foundation.

7. Active Community and Documentation

• Struts 2 has an active community and extensive documentation that can help developers troubleshoot issues and learn more about the framework.
• Many legacy tutorials, guides, and codebases exist online for reference.

8. Support for RESTful APIs

• Struts 2 can expose actions as RESTful APIs, enabling integration with modern front-end frameworks such as React, Angular, and Vue.js.
• This makes Struts 2 a viable backend framework for applications with modern front-end technologies.

9. Scalability for Large Applications

• Struts 2 is designed to scale for large enterprise applications with complex workflows and requirements.
• Interceptors and customizable action mappings allow fine-grained control over application behavior.

10. Open Source and Free

• Struts 2 is an open-source framework maintained by the Apache Software Foundation.
• It is free to use and does not require licensing fees, making it an attractive option for budget-conscious projects.

10. Open Source and Free

• Struts 2 is an open-source framework maintained by the Apache Software Foundation.
• It is free to use and does not require licensing fees, making it an attractive option for budget-conscious projects.

The downsides

While Struts 2 has its strengths, there are situations where it might not be the best choice:

1. Modern Development Needs: If your project requires cutting-edge features like reactive programming, microservices architecture, or serverless deployment, modern frameworks like Spring Boot, Quarkus, or Micronaut would be better suited.
2. Learning Curve for New Developers: Developers unfamiliar with Struts 2 may find it harder to learn compared to more modern and widely adopted frameworks.
3. Community Popularity: Struts 2 is less popular compared to Spring MVC, Spring Boot, or JavaScript frameworks like Node.js for backend development, making it harder to find talent or community support.
4. Legacy JSP-Based Views: Struts 2 relies heavily on JSPs for its default view layer, whereas modern frameworks use more advanced templating engines or integrate natively with front-end technologies.

Some of this can be mitigated but in the end, you put a lot of work into those changes. You need to understand the scope of your project before you decide on your framework.

Conclusion

So, where are we today. Do we use Struts 2 or not? Some possible usecases:

• Enterprise Applications: Struts 2 works well for large-scale enterprise applications where its modular architecture and integration capabilities shine.
• Backend for Legacy Systems: If you’re maintaining or extending an application originally built with Struts 2, it makes sense to continue using it.
• Education and Training: Struts 2 can be a good teaching tool for understanding the basics of MVC frameworks and web application architecture.
• Government or Regulated Projects: Some government or regulated industries still use Struts 2 due to its stability and long-term support.

It is not going to be right for all projects and to be clear, it is, as with all architecture, a calculation of tradeoffs. Spring is much more flexible, performant and generally better supported.

Struts: Looking Back was originally published in Chimp McGee on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Context is King

Just like when we are writing code, we need to look at the team and understand what it needs. A team working in an environment that is broken, disorganized and poor process is going to need a different team from one that is established and running. It should also be noted that as you go, you really need to do regular introspecton to determine if what is working continues to work or needs to be discarded. IF YOU DO NOTHING ELSE DO THIS, REGULAR INTROSPECTION!!!!

This is a check list I find useful for determining a context of a team.

1. Do we have clear goals? This often is expressed from the business in two parts, clear requirements the team understands and the priority that comes with them.
2. Do we have clear processes? Meaning, do we have our CICD laid out (maybe not implemented but the process at least), do we have a clear intake process, do we have clear processes for intake of new features?
3. Do we have timelines? I want to be clear, not talking about date driven development but more “We need feature X by date Y”. Then a discussion about features and MVP can be had and what can be accomplished in that time frame.

These three fundamental business supplied items will help to determine what the team needs in terms of organizations and tools. It is also important as a tool for the business owners to be a part of the team, to have a stake in what the team is doing and again, to be involved and integral. One of the largest failures I have seen, over and over again, is business owners being ostracized from the team. Sometimes they do this by treating the technical team as a bunch of order takers, and sometimes the business team does it by treating the business team as “others” just generating random features. Remember, when I say team, I mean Business Owners/Stakeholders too.

The Technical Team

Let’s take a look at the technical team. This is a team that needs input from all members and here is the list.

Technical Team Organization

1. Developers — Developers are the implementers. They help gather/refine features, write code, setup CICD, manage repositories, review code, pursue quality and much more. They are the backbone of a team. They will, inevitably, bring different strengths and weaknesses to the party. You can have as few as 1 and as many as 10 (and yes, you could have more than 10 but using that as a cap here). I have found, in my experience, that 5 is a very good target in terms of time management, effectiveness and cost. You could have more than 1 of those technical teams on a project, but as an organizational unit, it is pretty awesome.
2. Product Owner — Product owners are the fuel that makes the team go. They are the ones who drive organizing the tasks, refining the features, organizing sprints, tracking progress. They are the owners of those features and the second check on feature fulfillment (developers are the first). They will often work the closest with the business owners and ensure lines of communication stay healthy.
3. Scrum Master — Scrum masters are often overlooked, left as an after thought but I find them critical. They are the oil that makes the engine work smoothly. They will perform introspections, track velocity, capacity and ensure work is balanced on the team. More, they will work with the PO to ensure lines of communication and reach out to other teams for requests and communication.
4. Technical Lead — Tech leads are the steering in our car analogy. Tech Lead is one of those truly frustrating titles that mean a lot of things depending on where you are. I like to think of them as a force multiplier. They play the role of solutions architect, developer for areas that the team may have blind spots on, sometimes PO and sometimes Scrum master. Many companies, unfortunately, just think of them as a Senior Senior Dev. I do not like this definition and have found it is most effective when the emphasis is on Leadership from the technical side. They will work with the team on designs, goals and ensuring the team is in alignment with the company standards.

When all of these parts fire together, there is little that a motivated team cannot accomplish.

The Business Team

The Business Team is every bit as important as the Technical Team. The project depends on them to provide items like the budget, the overall goals, the features and their requirements, the order the team should work on them and what the definition of done is.

The team is composed of the following roles.

1. SME — Subject Matter Expert. These are the people who know the need, know the business and are resources for the team. They sometimes work directly with the developers or members of the tech team, other times with the business analyst and the Business Team. They are the raw source of the needs driving the project.
2. Business Owner — this is someone, probably not with that title, but who has the overall picture of what the end state will be for the project. This is sometimes an enterprise architect, sometimes a person who is less technical and always a SME on the features requested. They often work with the Business Analyst to refine features, priorities and goals.
3. Business Analyst — Sometimes you have more than one but they are the ones, like Developers, doing the work to gather requirements and deliver them in a sensible, effective format to the team. This role may be filled by a SME and will always work closely with the Product Owner.
4. Manager — Managers for the project are concerned with timelines, budgets and features. They will be involved in almost all aspects of the project and will be a primary driver of the progress.

The Business team will often have transient members and this sometimes leads the Technical Team to think of themselves as THE TEAM. This should be avoided. In my experience, the most effective projects have a single overarching team, broken into sub-teams for specialized action.

Final Thoughts

I am a define by center kind of thinker. For me, there are core responsibilities that are then supplemented with other tasks. A developer may write code but may also find themselves helping the business analyst refine features. The tech lead might be doing architectural design but find himself helping with a quality assurance aspect. So, take the above as the core responsibilities.

Overall, teamwork and collaboration is key. Mutual respect and cooperation is vital. A lot of poorly organized teams can get by for a while if those are present, but even the best organized team cannot survive and produce quality code without them.

Finally, yes, this is my experience. It is not law. It is not immutable fact, it is my experience and opinion. Like coding patterns, there are many patterns to team organization. I have found the above organization works in a lot of different situations. What are some team organization patterns that have worked for you?

The Perfect IT Team was originally published in Chimp McGee on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Chalk Madness round 1

Last week was the 1st round of the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament. A round usually with upsets and chaos was instead controlled by chalk and low seeds. All of the top 4 seeds in each region made the 1st round undefeated for the first time since 2017.

The only major upsets in this round was from the 5–12 match-ups. 12 seeds McNeese and Colorado State would upset 5 seed Clemson and Memphis respectfully. 10 seed New Mexico would score a minor upset against Marquette. Other than that, Power 4 teams and low seeds won all there games.

Second Round

The second round of the tournament gave us more chalk but packed more of a punch. The defending champions UConn was defeated by Florida to start things off, 10 seed Arkansas defeated 2 seed Saint John’s, and Maryland’s Derik Queen would make a buzzer beater layup to send the Terps to the Sweet 16.

BYU would also make the Sweet 16 after defeating Wisconsin after the Big Ten started 10–0. The conference would finish 12–4 after the first weekend. However the SEC has the most teams in the second weekend with 7, Big 12 and Big Ten with 4, and the ACC with one. In fact, all but one of the match-ups will have a SEC or a B1G team.

MLB Predictions

The MLB Season will start this Thursday and I got some predictions.

Now I have to admit these predictions are pretty vanilla. I got the Orioles, Royals, and Houston wining the AL divisions, while the Mets, Brewers, and Dodgers winning the NL divisions. New York, Rangers, and the Red Sox grab the wild cards from the AL, and the Phillies, Braves, and Padres get the NL wild card berths.

As for the World Series, I’m seeing the Dodgers repeat as world series champs by beating the O’s in 6 games.

Games of the Week

The second weekend of March Madness starts on Thursday with BYU and Alabama being the first game.

SWEET 16

THURSDAY

BYU vs Alabama 6:09PM CDT CBS

Maryland vs Florida 6:39PM TBS/TruTV

Arizona vs Duke 8:39PM CBS

Texas Tech vs Arkansas 9:09PM TBS/TruTV

FRIDAY

Michigan State vs Ole Miss 6:09PM CBS

Kentucky vs Tennessee 6:39PM TBS/TruTV

Michigan vs Auburn 8:39PM CBS

Purdue vs Houston 9:09PM TBS/TruTV

MLB starts this Thursday with the Brewers traveling to the Yankees which starts at 2:00PM Central on ESPN. The Tigers-Dodgers games will also be on ESPN and starts at 6:00PM.

Theo’s Sports Update for 3/24 was originally published in Chimp McGee on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Architecture is often a set of trade-offs, not really which is best. In this article, I am hoping to give you the quick reference to handle making those decisions. They are not always obvious or actually about functionality, but as an architect you need to be able to know what the overhead maintenance will be for your application, or the cost of running them or any number of things not related to “Will it run my application”?

EC2: The Container Maintainer

Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. EC2 allows users to obtain and configure virtual servers, known as instances, quickly and efficiently. It offers a variety of instance types optimized for different use cases, such as compute-intensive, memory-intensive, or storage-intensive applications. EC2 enables users to scale their infrastructure up or down based on demand and only pay for the resources they use.

So, what does that look like:

Features

• Virtual servers in the cloud.
• Wide range of instances types.
• Customizable configurations.
• Full control over the operating system.Integration with other AWS services.

Benefits

• High flexibility and customizability.
• Scalable according to demand.
• Broad selection of instance types tailored to different workloads.
• Suitable for a wide range of applications.

Disadvantages

• Requires management of the underlying infrastructure.
• Can be complex to set up and manage.
• Potentially higher costs if not managed properly.

Fargate: The container automater

AWS Fargate is a serverless compute engine for containers that works with Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS). It allows users to run containers without having to manage the underlying infrastructure. With Fargate, users define their application requirements, and Fargate takes care of provisioning, configuring, and scaling the compute resources. This simplifies the process of deploying and managing containerized applications, enabling users to focus more on application development and less on infrastructure management.

And if we break this down:

Features

• Serverless compute engine for containers.
• Supports both Amazon ECS and EKS.
• No need to manage servers or clusters.Automatic scaling.

Benefits

• Simplifies container management.Reduces operational overhead.
• Pay-as-you-go pricing model
• Ideal for microservices and batch jobs.

Disadvantages

• Less control over the underlying infrastructure.
• May not be suitable for all workloads.
• Potentially higher costs for long-running applications.

EKS: The container liberator

Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) is a fully managed Kubernetes service provided by AWS. It simplifies the process of deploying, managing, and scaling containerized applications using Kubernetes. EKS handles the control plane operations, including the management of Kubernetes masters, so users can focus on running their applications. The service integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, such as IAM for security, CloudWatch for monitoring, and VPC for networking. EKS supports both Amazon EC2 and AWS Fargate for running Kubernetes worker nodes, providing flexibility and scalability for various workloads.

And breaking this down:

Features

• Managed Kubernetes service.
• Automatic scaling and self-healing.
• Integrated with AWS services such as IAM and VPC.Supports both EC2 and Fargate for worker nodes.

Benefits

• Simplifies Kubernetes cluster management.
• Provides high availability and scalability.
• Reduces operational overhead.Seamless integration with AWS ecosystem.

Disadvantages

• Kubernetes learning curve.
• Potentially higher costs due to managed service fees.
• Limited control over the underlying infrastructure.

Honorable mention: ECS

Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service) is a fully managed container orchestration service provided by AWS. It allows users to run and manage Docker containers on a cluster of Amazon EC2 instances or using AWS Fargate. ECS simplifies the deployment, management, and scaling of containerized applications. This is the underlying container orchestration for many other container based services.

Costs: How do they compare?

A lot of the pricing for these services depends heavily on what support model you choose. On-demand is usually the most expensive but likely the most common choice since it runs all the time, on demand. If you can commit to 1–3 years, the reserved instances can save you some money. Spot instances are for those run infrequently applications. Fargate follows, ironically, a model that reminds me of old bare metal configurations in that it charges by resource use. This can get out of hand if you employ scaling.

AWS EC2

• Pay for compute capacity by the hour or second.
• Various pricing options: On-Demand, Reserved Instances, Spot Instances.
• Additional costs for storage, data transfer, and other services.

AWS EKS

• $0.10 per hour for each Amazon EKS cluster.
• Additional costs for worker nodes (EC2 or Fargate).
• Additional costs for storage, data transfer, and other services.

AWS Fargate

• Pay for vCPU and memory resources used by your containerized applications.
• No additional costs for managing servers or clusters.
• Additional costs for storage, data transfer, and other services.

Summary

In the end, you need to look at your requirements, future needs and evaluate which way to go. Now, one of the GREAT advantages of the cloud are containers. They let you switch between these services pretty easily (note: I did not say easily!). Good luck with your next architectural review!

AWS EC2

• Features: Customizable virtual servers, wide range of instances, full OS control.
• Costs: Pay by the hour/second, various pricing options.
• Benefits: High flexibility, scalable, suitable for diverse applications.
• Disadvantages: Requires infrastructure management, complexity, potential higher costs.

AWS Fargate

• Features: Serverless containers, supports ECS/EKS, automatic scaling.
• Costs: Pay for vCPU and memory, no server management costs.
• Benefits: Simplifies container management, reduces overhead, ideal for microservices.
• Disadvantages: Less infrastructure control, may not suit all workloads, potential higher costs for long-running apps.

AWS EKS

• Features: Managed Kubernetes, automatic scaling, AWS integration.
• Costs: $0.10/hour for clusters, additional costs for worker nodes and other services.
• Benefits: Simplifies Kubernetes management, high availability, reduced overhead.
• Disadvantages: Kubernetes learning curve, managed service fees, limited infrastructure control.

EC2 v EKS v Fargate was originally published in Chimp McGee on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

NCAA Bracket released

Yesterday evening, the NCAA released there bracket for the March Madness, the collegiate basketball tournament. Auburn, Duke, Houston, and Florida all received number one seeds. The Southeastern Conference got 14 of there 16 teams in the tournament, while the Big Ten got 8 teams in. Some of the biggest surprises was North Carolina getting in to the dance instead of Indiana and West Virginia, Michigan getting a 5 seed even after winning the Big Ten Tournament title, and Texas getting in despite being 6–12 in conference play.

As for my picks, I got some popular upsets in my bracket with UC-San Diego upsetting Michigan, Purdue losing to High Point, McNeese beating Clemson, and BYU making to Elite 8. My Final Four has Auburn vs Saint John’s and Duke vs Houston with the Blue Devils and Cooper Flagg winning it all.

The tournament kicks off on Tuesday with the First Four and main tournament games starting on Thursday.

What I did last week: Attending the IHSA Boys Basketball State Finals

Last week, I attended the IHSA (Illinois High School Association) Boys Basketball State Finals which is hosted at State Farm Center at the University of Illinois. The state finals are made of 4 classes based on school population and lasted for 3 days from Thursday-Saturday. The boys tournament has been hosted at UIUC since 2022 after it was hosted at Peoria from the 1996–2019.

My experience was a nice one, as the 3A and 4A championships were instant classics. The 3A final between Brother Rice and DePaul prep went into double overtime with DePaul Prep completing the 3-peat (Look, OT in prep basketball is kinda boring with no shot clock), and the 4A final which had Warren and Benet and some drama. First, the scorers table couldn’t get the score right and were one point off the actual score.

After some time they fixed up the score to be 52 points to Benet.

The game would come down to the last seconds. Warren had a chance to win but they slipped and call a timeout with .3 seconds left. Benet would then deflect the inbounds pass to win there first state championship in boys basketball.

Overall as I stated, I enjoyed my experience at State Farm Center. But I think it could be better. For example, the day finished at around 11pm, where they were done presenting the 4A trophies. Now most of it was delayed due to the 3A game, but it was also a hassle to get in to the final session, as the game was delayed from 6pm to 6:22pm. Also the crowd wasn’t as strong as I hoped it was. Now it’s most likely due to all 4A and three 3A teams being from upstate and the finals being downstate, but it was still disappointing. Now both 3A and 4A is mostly upstate/Chicago area teams. In my opinion, to get more fans into the area, they should move the bigger school tournaments to Chicago either at DePaul’s arena or UIC (Illinois-Chicago). Or they shouldn’t open the upper bowl at SFC as almost no one was there on the upper section besides parts of student sections.

Games to watch this week

Besides March Madness starting for the Men and the Women, other postseason tournaments will kick off this week. The National Innovational Tournament starts this Tuesday with first round games, with the Women's Version, the WBIT, starting this Thursday.

Tuesday and Wednesday the MLB will start it’s regular season with the Tokyo Series witch starts at 5:10 AM on FOX with the Cubs taking on the defending World Series champion Dodgers. The first pitching matchup will feature 2 Japanese's pitchers with Shota Imanaga starting for Chicago and Yoshinobu Yamamoto for LA. Justin Steele will start game two for the Cubbies and Roki Saski will make his Dodger debut. March 27th is the regular opening day.

Theo’s Sports Update for 3/17 was originally published in Chimp McGee on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.