Thanks Mark Hapner - Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems

This past Friday was Mark Hapner's last day at Sun Microsystems.  Mark was a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems.

Mark has been a real friend and mentor.  I was very fortunate to be able
to learn from Mark over the years.  This included not only software at Sun Microsystems but in our private lives as well.  Mark is a real Corvette and automotive expert.  We went to Corvettes at Carlisle last year which was a lot of fun.

Mark was hired as a member of Sun's object technology group to work on the specs Sun was preparing for submission to OMG.   Mark later joined JavaSoft in early '96 to work with Graham Hamilton and Rick Cattell on JDBC which lead to the creation of J2EE.

Mark is a real thought leader and just a great guy.  Mark can not be replaced and will be sorely missed.  I wish Mark nothing but the best and hope we will remain in contact.  

Thanks Mark.

The Two Things You Need To Know

Glen Whitman, Economist( (his Two Things You Need To Know is here), was asked the following at a diner:

“What are the two things you need to know about Economics?  Glen replied with:
         
                  1) Incentives matter.
                  2) There is no such thing as a free lunch.

He then came to the conclusion that:  "For every subject, there are really only two things you really need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important.”

I think Glen Whitman is brilliant in his clear, concise and compelling summary of topics.


“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”  Mark Twain ended in a letter to a friend