I went to an Atlanta Java Users Group meeting last night, briefly. This was the second time I've been, and the second time I've left after a mere 30 minutes. Maybe JUGs just aren't my scene, but I got the impression that most folks were either newbies, or the big fish in a small pond at their particular company. It was "Guru Night" where the presenters shared what it takes to be "the go-to guy" in your shop. I frankly wasn't impressed by what it takes to acheive the "guru" moniker these days.

So, here're my questions: Are there any hard-core java developers in Atlanta? Any of you guys want to meet for coffee? Or should I go to C/C++ users groups for mental stimulation, and avoid all of the java weenies?

addendum: Just to clarify, I do not think of myself as a guru. I'm looking for real gurus who can stretch my mind and ways of thinking.

InfoWorld: Tools for rules by Jon Udell even mentions drools.

The dust was thick on my copy of the 1985 Clocksin and Mellish classic, Programming Prolog. But Ted Neward, author of the forthcoming book Effective Enterprise Java, brought it all rushing back: expert systems, declarative rules engines, predicate calculus, backward- vs. forward-chaining evaluation.

Jason Hunter of JDOM fame has started a list for folks who want to talk about xquery.

We strongly recommend people interested in XQuery join the talk@x-query.com mailing list. This list is for practical discussion about XQuery: a place to work together to learn a new language, talk about problem solutions, discuss engines and implementations, chat about the latest announcements, and so on.

blogs.codehaus.org is now up and running.

Got the blogging system set up today.

MovableType is now available for hausmates or projects.

The Business Rule Engine 2003 Magic Quadrant does not mention drools.

Business rule engines are moving toward maturity. In 2003, they will support business agility when called on to do so.

XRML

Extensible Rule Markup Language (XRML) can support the automatic processing of implicit rules embedded in the hypertexts and help human browse them for their comprehension. The topology of XRML in contrast to XML and HTML is shown in Figure 1. XRML aims to convert itself to XML for browsing, and assist the generation and maintenance of consistent explicit rule structure