It’s not really a dragonfly, but I think it looks like one — it’s the 2009 Shelby Ultimate Aero EV. According to Shelby SuperCars, it’s the world’s fastest production car.

The company says,

SSC will display its AESP in the Ultimate Aero EV in order to prove that electric-powered vehicles will not only match but also provide more linear power (electric motors have 100% torque at 0 RPM) and overall performance than internal combustion cars. The Ultimate Aero EV utilizes a twin motor AESP producing an astounding 1,000 HP and 800 lb-ft of torque enabling it to rocket to 60 mph in a mere 2.5 seconds and reach a top speed of 208 mph.

AESP is Shelby’s All-Electric Scalable Powertrain. The release continues,

SSC expects to roll out its first full-scale, pre-production Ultimate Aero EV in second quarter 2009. Ultimate Aero EV deliveries will start as early as fourth quarter 2009.

Dang! I want one!

It’s that time again! The editors of SD Times are beginning their deliberations, choosing the leaders and innovators who had the greatest impact on software development during 2008. SD Times subscribers are invited to participate by offering up their nominations.

Now in its seventh year, the SD Times 100 recognizes the top companies, organizations and individuals in the software development industry. We’ll be honest: It’s subjective, a value judgment by the editors of SD Times and some of our closest industry advisors.

Unlike other awards programs, we don’t benchmark application servers. We don’t count defects in operating systems, or consider annual sales values, or ask companies to submit flattering essays about themselves and their customers. The SD Times 100, in fact, isn’t a product award or a marketing award.

Instead, we work hard to identify – and highlight – where the “buzz” is. What are development managers thinking about? What are the talking heads talking about? What are competitors sweating about? What is the industry focused on? That’s the SD Times 100.

You are cordially invited to nominate the companies, organizations or individuals that you believe were the trend-makers and thought-leaders during calendar year 2008. You can submit your nomination by visiting our Web form.

We’ll ask you to identify your nominee, and to help us categorize the nominee’s area of leadership. The form also asks you to briefly describe what the nominee did during 2008 that demonstrated exceptional innovation and leadership in the software development community. What got everyone talking?

Reader nominations for the SD Times 100 will be accepted through March 13, 2009. After that, the judges really knuckle down to the hard task ahead. The SD Times 100 list will be published in the June 15, 2009, issue of SD Times, and on that date on SDTimes.com.

Last year’s SD Times 100 list is available to read online. If you’d like background about the SD Times 100, that info is available too.

Thank you for your nomination, and for participating in the SD Times 100!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SPTechCon San Francisco: The SharePoint Technology Conference, Succeeds with Blow-Out Crowd

Despite the recession, attendees flock to BZ Media’s debut SharePoint Technology Conference

Huntington, N.Y., January 27, 2009 — BZ Media LLC today announced a blow-out attendance at SPTechCon™ San Francisco: The SharePoint Technology Conference. The debut event defied conventional wisdom during tough economic times by attracting more than 600 attendees.

SPTechCon San Francisco, held January 26-28, 2009, at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport, is an exciting new event for IT professionals, business leaders and software developers whose organizations use Microsoft Office SharePoint Products and Technologies.

BZ Media is the publisher of SD Times, the newspaper of record for software development managers as well as Systems Management News, the authoritative source for IT professionals and systems administrators. More than 600 people have preregistered for SPTechCon San Francisco, and are expected to attend the first dedicated SharePoint technology event in the Bay Area.

• They’ll be attending more than 60 workshops and technical classes.
• They’ll be attending keynote addresses by Tom Rizzo, Director of SharePoint at Microsoft, and by Errin O’Connor, the founder and CEO of EPC Group.
• They’ll be learning from more than 30 top-quality faculty member, including Microsoft SharePoint team members and Microsoft MVP experts.
• They’ll be meeting 24 SharePoint solutions providers, lead by SPTechCon Platinum Sponsors Citrix, CommVault and Quest.

Ted Bahr, President of BZ Media, said, “When the going gets tough, the tough get smarter! Businesses large and small are seeing how SharePoint technology can help them weather today’s difficult economic climate by improving operational efficiency. What’s more, they see that their investment in education at SPTechCon is possibly the single best way they can take full advantage of SharePoint’s ability to boost business productivity, and manage or even reduce IT and line-of-business budgets by streaming workflows, improving internal communications and collaboration. If ever there’s an example of how technology and training can help business thrive in tough times, it’s SharePoint and SPTechCon.”

Based on the strong attendance for SPTechCon San Francisco, BZ Media has announced SPTechCon Boston, which will follow the same format (see separate release) from June 22-24, 2009, at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge. Between 500-700 attendees are expected at the industry’s first northeast SharePoint conference.

About BZ Media

BZ Media LLC® is a high-tech media company combining the best of print and Web-based publishing, offering industry-leading magazines, newspapers, Web sites and conferences.

SPTechCon™ San Francisco (Jan. 27-29, 2009) and SPTechCon™ Boston (Jun. 22-24, 2009) are the leading SharePoint Technology Conferences for IT professionals, business managers and developers.

Computer science has an image problem. That’s one of the conclusions drawn at the Rebooting Computing Summit, which I attended a couple of weeks ago.

Last week, I wrote about some of the challenges facing computer science. I covered what we discussed in the first day of discussions, which was the overall issue of attracting more young people into the field.

The second day of the event revolved around various loosely directed brainstorming activities (under the unfortunately label of “Appreciative Inquiry,” or AI). The task at hand was to determine a set of concrete actions that the conference attendees – and potentially, larger groups like the ACM or IEEE Computer Society) would undertake to make computer science appear more inviting, relevant, engaging and appealing to young people.

After a lot of work creating potential projects – and then a black-box system of weeding them down and combining them, the list – there were a dozen projects. As you can see, many are focused on education. Here’s my description of them:

• Redefine the public’s image of what computing means
• Create learning communities around computer science
• Create a national curriculum for multi-disciplinary collaboration
• Clearly define computing with a field model and field guide
• Create tools to demonstrate the fun and beauty in computer science
• Promote computing as an essential subject in K-12 education
• Teach computing fundamental in K-8 education
• Hire and train 10,000 new computing teaching teachers by 2018

• Create a repository of open artifacts for use in K-16
• Promote problem-based learning in grades 7-14
• Create socially relevant computer science projects
• Promote initiatives to orient computer science around multicore

To be honest, I’m not sure that the effort was entirely successful. Many of the projects were loose, and in some cases, they were conflicting. There was little effort to define what success would actually look like, and with few exceptions, the set of concrete actions appeared to be aspirational goals instead of real projects.

With that said, it was good that the discussion took place, and I was honored to be part of it – and to work with such an impressive group of people.

The big question is, what happens next? I wish I knew. That, too, was not defined.

What is computer science? Why are so few young people, at least in the United States, choosing to enter the field? Isn’t computer science just programming? What can we do about it?

Last week, I was privileged to attend the Rebooting Computing Summit, a gathering of 200-odd enthusiasts in Silicon Valley. The summit brought together the leading lights of our profession, and it was humbling to be in their presence.

Visionaries like Peter Denning, Vint Cert and Alan Kay, and industry legends like Multics creator Peter Neumann, Lisp authority Dick Gabriel, natural-language pioneer Terry Winograd, and UML inventor Grady Booch, were the headliners. There were also dozens of computer-science professors, high-school computing teachers, industry professionals, graduate students, and others top-shelf experts.

The purpose of the summit was, as the title said, to find ways to reboot the science of computing. During the three days, the group delved (sometimes deeply, sometimes not) into the fundamental questions. Is computer science just a hifalutin’ way to say “programming”? Is computer science really a science? Why isn’t C.S. generally seen as an attractive academic pursuit, compared to other science and engineering majors? Why aren’t young people lining up for careers in computer science?

Without trying to summarize three days of exercise, introspection and debate, there were some challenges that were generally (but not universally) agreed upon:

• Computer science has an image problem: It’s not seen as cool or relevant.
• There is a confusion, both within and outside our community, about exactly what C.S. is.
• Computer science impacts nearly every aspect of society, but it’s a deep dark secret.
• There are areas that are exciting to young people, like robotics and contests, but the C.S. tie-in is hidden.

What do you think are the challenges facing computer science?