James Ahern, Chief Architect and Head of Engineering at Daon. He reminisces about Smalltalk, one of the original Object Oriented languages, which he used to build one of General Motors' first OO systems in Europe.

Many people in software engineering have heard about Smalltalk but few have experienced it. I had the pleasure of working with the language for two years in the mid-1990s and I have to say it was, and remains, a revelation. However, 14 years after I worked with it and 30 years on from the ground breaking release of Smalltalk-80, where is it now and why did it not make it to the big time?

Imad Mouline is Chief Strategy Office with Everbridge in the US and has worked on ground-breaking technology throughout his career. In this article, Imad discusses how to measure the cloud so that it can be effectively managed.

As a former CTO for Gomez, I've lived and breathed application performance metrics on a daily basis. But more recently, I've been thinking about how to go beyond the technical metrics and measure the real information that matters to the business.

Una Kearns is Director of Technology within the CTO Office at EMC. She is a veteran of Silicon Valley and a previous board member of OASIS. In this interview, you can find out more about Una, her thoughts on the future of technology, the greatest challenge she has faced in her career to-date and her advice for the future.

How would you describe yourself?

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf! Why do developers find parallel programming so hard?

Guest post by Colin Fitzpatrick - Software Development Director at Waratek

Parallel programming seems to scare people; books and articles warn of dead locks and non-determinist problems which are hard to find. As a result, people steer away from parallel programming, avoiding it at all costs. When programmers find themselves having no option but to deal with it, they often end up using so many locks to remove problems that they may as well not be parallel programming at all! .

Developing for the iPhone and iPad - coming to grasp with Objective C and the perils of Interface Builder

Guest post by Emer MacDowell - Senior Technology Manager

About a year ago, I first started looking at creating some iPhone apps.  Having noticed that many apps were merely websites called from a Web UI controller, and having heard that there were a plethora of tools available, I was hopeful that I could create the app I needed without having to do a deep dive into Objective C.

Procrastination and speculation can do great harm to a business.

Guest post by Barry Wyse, Software Engineering Director, previous senior roles at AOL and Critical Path

In my experience, procrastinating on a decision can lead to a lot pain in the future; whilst hedging bets when faced with two choices can lead to confusion, with the organisation often torn in two. It is far better to make a quick firm decision, the outcome of which can be managed, than to speculate and not decide.

Guest Post by Cathal Grogan, Managing Director of Verify Recruitment and 20 years IT experience

'Agile' can be a great method for software development. If used correctly it can be quicker and more effective than other methods with much less time spent on documentation etc. But, in my experience, organisations who are successful at implementing 'Agile' as an approach to delivering great solutions are those that take the time to understand not only the development community but the new roles, responsibilities and contributions expected of everyone involved in the process, most importantly the expert users.

Last month the renowned Irish business magazine Business Plus released their Tech Trends Survey 2010. Business Plus do a series of very well respected surveys throughout the year that you can find on their website. They look in detail at the trends in each sector and what the following year will hold for Irish companies.