I read Paul Graham off and on and find most of what he writes about interesting even if I don’t agree with all of what he has to say. His latest essay, “Six Principles for Making New Things”, is one that seems to echo a lot of what’s been said before about solving problems with software. In his own words the steps are:

I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly.

To summarize, find a simple solution to a problem and release early and release often.

Sun has launched a project called the Da Vinci Machine, also being described “a multi-language renaissance for the Java Virtual Machine architecture.” The project includes prototype JVM extensions to run non-Java lanugages on the JVM. The intent is to address JSR 292 Request and have the extensions included in the next release of Java SE, Java SE 7.

It should be pretty interesting how far John Rose (project lead) can take this and whether it will truly lead to a renaissance for Java in light of the popularity of dynamic languages.