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315 items tagged "programming"

Slashdot: IT

The Headaches of Cross-Platform Mobile Development

Posted: January 20th, 2012, 3:18am CET by samzenpus

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "Increased emphasis on distinctive smartphone UIs means even more headaches for cross-platform mobile developers, writes Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister, especially as users continue to favor native over Web-based apps on mobile devices. 'Google and Microsoft are both placing renewed emphasis on their platforms' user experience. That means not just increased competition among smartphone and tablet platforms, but also new challenges for mobile application developers. ... The more the leading smartphone platform UIs differ from one another, the more effort is required to write apps that function comparably across all of them. Dialog boxes, screen transitions, and gestures that are appropriate for one platform might be all wrong for another. Coding the same app for three or four different sets of user interface guidelines adds yet another layer of cost and complexity to cross-platform app development."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Bosses Do Everything Better (or So They Think)

Posted: January 11th, 2012, 11:20am CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

theodp writes "Some people, writes Dave Winer, make the mistake of thinking that if the result of someone's work is easy to use, the work itself must be easy. Like the boss — or boss's boss's boss — who asks for your code so he can show you how to implement the features he wants instead of having to bother to explain things. Give the code to him, advises Winer. If he pulls it off, even poorly, at least you'll know what he was asking for. And if he fails, well, he might be more patient about explaining what exactly he wants, and perhaps even appreciate how hard your work is. Or — more likely — you may simply never hear from him again. Win-win-win. So, how do you handle an anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better boss?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ask Slashdot: Writing Hardened Web Applications?

Posted: January 3rd, 2012, 1:10am CET by Unknown Lamer

Tags: programming

rhartness writes "I am a long time Software Engineer, however, almost all of my work has been developing server-side, intranet applications or applications for the Windows desktop environment. With that said, I have recently come up with an idea for a new website which would require extremely high levels of security (i.e. I need to be sure that my servers are as 100% rock-solid, unhackable as possible.) I am an experienced developer, and I have a general understanding of web security; however, I am clueless of what is requires to create a web server that is as secure as, say, a banking account management system. Can the Slashdot community recommend good websites, books, or any other resources that thoroughly discuss the topic of setting up a small web server or network for hosting a site that is as absolutely secure as possible?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ask Slashdot: Handing Over Personal Work Without Compensation?

Posted: December 28th, 2011, 2:16am CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

rsmith84 writes "I'm the Senior Systems administrator for a small trade college. When I was hired on, it was strictly for L3 related tasks such as advanced server administration, Exchange design and implementation, etc. They have no in-house programmers, no help desk software, and no budget to purchase one. I'm a moderate PHP and MySQL programmer on the side and am easily capable of writing something to meet their needs, but do not believe I should be A) asked to or B) required to, as my job description and employment terms are not based upon this skill set. I like a challenge, and since all of my goals outlined since my hire date have been met and exceeded, I have a lot of down time. So I wrote the application. It streamlines several critical processes, allows for a central repository of FAQ, and provides end users with access to multiple systems all in one place. I've kept a detailed time log of my work and feel I should be remunerated for the work before just handing over the code. The entire source was developed on personal equipment off company hours. My question is: what should I do? If they are willing to compensate me, I will gladly hand it over. However, it's been mentioned that, if I do the project, it is all but guaranteed that I will see no compensation. The application would streamline a lot of processes and take a lot of the burden off my team, freeing them up to handle what I deem to be more challenging items on their respective punch lists and a better utilization of their time and respective skills. I'm a firm believer in not getting 'something for nothing,' especially when the skills are above my pay grade."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

Ask Slashdot: Geek-Centric Magazines Still Published On Paper?

Posted: December 27th, 2011, 3:49pm CET by timothy

Tags: programming

QwkHyenA writes "I've recently cancelled my Linux Magazine subscription because they went paperless. I know, I'm a heartless geek and should be 'shunned,' but I enjoy the unplugged sensation of reading paper periodicals. What sort of magazines are out there that still are delivered via USPS that will scratch my Engineering, Coder, System Administrator and 3D Printer itch?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

Ruby Clouds: Engine Yard Vs. Heroku

Posted: December 1st, 2011, 2:08pm CET by samzenpus

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Andrew Glover provides an in-depth comparison of Engine Yard and Heroku, two cloud-based, platform-as-a-service offerings for Ruby development. 'To put it simply, Heroku will appeal more to developers and Engine Yard will appeal to operations folks. Consequently, when evaluating the two platforms, one's choice usually comes down to what's more important: Heroku's rapid deployment via a hands-off infrastructure, or Engine Yard's total control over all aspects of application deployment, provisioning, and monitoring.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Will Adobe's HTML5 Strategy Help Developers?

Posted: November 11th, 2011, 3:36pm CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister sees Adobe's shift toward HTML5 as a boon for developers only if the company secures its place in the Web developer tools market — but initial signs suggest that this won't be the case. 'The opportunity for Adobe now lies in filling the gaps in today's IDEs, code editors, and graphics software with new tools that can help designers and developers more easily take advantage of the multimedia capabilities of HTML5,' McAllister writes. 'Unfortunately, however, it sounds like Adobe is going to drop the ball. In this week's meeting with financial analysts, the company said its emphasis is not on building great tools but on subscription pricing, Web-based content creation software, and — most important of all — growing its digital marketing, advertising, and analytics businesses. That's right: Adobe wants to be Google. It's too bad because Web developers could really use an Adobe right now.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Book Review: Metasploit The Penetration Tester's Guide

Posted: September 15th, 2011, 12:15am CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

eldavojohn writes "The Metasploit Framework has come a long way and currently allows just about anyone to configure and execute exploits effortlessly. Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide takes current documentation further and provides a valuable resource for people who are interested in security but don't have the time or money to take a training class on Metasploit. The highlights of the book rest on the examples provided to the reader as exercises in exploiting several older versions of operating systems like Windows XP and Ubuntu while at the same time avoiding triggering antivirus or detection. The only weak point of this book is that a couple chapters refer the reader to external texts (on stacks and registers) in order to meet requirements for crafting exploits. The book also gives the reader a brief warning on ethics as many of these exploits and techniques would most likely work on many sites and networks. If you're wondering how seemingly inexperienced groups like lulzsec constantly claim victims, this would be an excellent read." Keep reading for the rest of eldavojohn's review.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Book Review: Metasploit The Penetration Tester's Guide

Posted: September 15th, 2011, 12:15am CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

eldavojohn writes "The Metasploit Framework has come a long way and currently allows just about anyone to configure and execute exploits effortlessly. Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide takes current documentation further and provides a valuable resource for people who are interested in security but don't have the time or money to take a training class on Metasploit. The highlights of the book rest on the examples provided to the reader as exercises in exploiting several older versions of operating systems like Windows XP and Ubuntu while at the same time avoiding triggering antivirus or detection. The only weak point of this book is that a couple chapters refer the reader to external texts (on stacks and registers) in order to meet requirements for crafting exploits. The book also gives the reader a brief warning on ethics as many of these exploits and techniques would most likely work on many sites and networks. If you're wondering how seemingly inexperienced groups like lulzsec constantly claim victims, this would be an excellent read." Keep reading for the rest of eldavojohn's review.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
JavaScript Toolkit V1.1.0 Released

Posted: September 3rd, 2011, 2:03am CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

First time accepted submitter Mensa Babe writes "Oliver Morgan, the original author of the JavaScript Toolkit, or just 'The Toolkit' as it is known in the JavaScript community, has just announced the release of the long awaited version 1.1.0, with better documentation and added function support. Quoting the project documentation: '[JavaScript] Toolkit offers a large number of integrated methods and utilities to help enrich the javascript object library. Javascript was built originally for browsers and as such lacks a large number of data utility methods with are seen in languages such as Python and Ruby. However times have changed and JavaScript is being used more and more in backend platforms. JS Toolkit aims to bridge that gap and provide everyone a modern developer needs to produce fast, secure and tidy code quick and easily.' The Toolkit fully supports ECMAScript 5 and runs on the most important virtual machines that we have today, including Node.JS, V8, Rhino, RingoJS, and many others. It continues to be actively developed."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
GA Tech: Internet's Mid-Layers Vulnerable To Attack

Posted: August 23rd, 2011, 2:49am CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "Evolution has ossified the middle layers of the Internet, leaving it vulnerable but security breaches could be countered by diversification of protocols, according to Georgia Tech, which recommends new middle layer protocols whose functionality does not overlap, thus preventing 'unnatural selection.' Extinction sucks, especially when it's my favorite protocols like FTP."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
GA Tech: Internet's Mid-Layers Vulnerable To Attack

Posted: August 23rd, 2011, 2:49am CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "Evolution has ossified the middle layers of the Internet, leaving it vulnerable but security breaches could be countered by diversification of protocols, according to Georgia Tech, which recommends new middle layer protocols whose functionality does not overlap, thus preventing 'unnatural selection.' Extinction sucks, especially when it's my favorite protocols like FTP."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Six Python Web Frameworks Compared

Posted: August 11th, 2011, 12:30am CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Rick Grehan provides an in-depth comparison of six Python Web frameworks, including CubicWeb, Django, Pyramid, Web.py, Web2py, and Zope 2. 'No matter what your needs or leanings as a Python developer might be, one of these frameworks promises to be a good fit,' Grehan writes. 'As usual, the choice is highly subjective. You will find zealots for each product, and every zealot is able to present rational reasons why their chosen framework is superior.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
DARPA Commits To Funding Useful Hacking Projects

Posted: August 7th, 2011, 2:27pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

Hugh Pickens writes "Fahmida Y. Rashid reports that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will fund new cyber-security proposals under the new Cyber-Fast Track project intended to cut red tape for hackers to apply for funding for projects that would help the Defense Department secure computer networks, says Peiter Zatko, a hacker known as Mudge who was one of the seven L0pht members who testified before a Senate committee in 1998 that they could bring down the Internet in 30 minutes and is now a program manager for the agency's information innovation office. Anything that could help the military will be considered, including bug-hunting exercises, commodity high-end computing and open software tools and projects with the potential to 'reduce attack surface areas, reverse current asymmetries' are of particular interest. Under the Cyber-Fast Track initiative, DARPA will fund between 20 to 100 projects annually. Open to anybody, researchers can pitch DARPA with ideas and have a project approved and funded within 14 days of the application."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Rise of Git

Posted: July 27th, 2011, 6:01am CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "InfoWorld takes a look at the rise of Git, the use of which has increased sixfold in the past three years. Buoyed in large part by interest among the Ruby community and younger developers, Git has been gaining share for open source development largely because of its distributed architecture, analysts note. And the version control system stands to gain further traction on Subversion in the years ahead, as Eclipse is making Git its preferred version control system, a move inspired by developers and members."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Most Dangerous Programming Mistakes

Posted: July 1st, 2011, 3:31pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister discusses the most dangerous programming mistakes, and what can be done to avoid them. 'Even more than input validation errors, this year's list is rife with application security blunders of all kinds. Some of them sound fairly esoteric, such as "inclusion of functionality from untrusted control sphere." But of all such errors, the highest-ranking one on the list is "missing authentication for critical function" — in other words, the attacker was able to gain access because there was no lock on the door to begin with,' McAllister writes. 'With the pace of Internet attacks accelerating, now is not the time to cut QA staff or skimp on testing and code review.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Biggest Changes In C++11 (and Why You Should Care)

Posted: June 21st, 2011, 2:22pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

Esther Schindler writes "It's been 13 years since the first iteration of the C++ language. Danny Kalev, a former member of the C++ standards committee, explains how the programming language has been improved and how it can help you write better code."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Modeling Security Software To Mimic Ant Behavior

Posted: June 1st, 2011, 5:48pm CEST by Roblimo

Tags: programming

wiredmikey writes "Researchers from universities and national laboratories in the United States are developing software that mimics ant behavior, as a new approach to network security." The concept has been around for a while, but this summer researchers are working to train the "digital ants" well enough that they can turn them loose into the power grid to seek out computer viruses trying to wreak havoc on the system.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
JavaScript Servers Compared

Posted: May 25th, 2011, 9:57pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner test-drives five leading JavaScript servers and finds the results compelling though still a work-in-progress. 'I enjoyed the challenge and stimulation of rethinking everything I know about the server, but I still found myself hesitant to push these new ideas too far or too fast. The speed of experimentation and development is heady and exciting to the open source crowd, but it will probably seem scary to corporate developers who like the long, stable lives of tools from Microsoft or Oracle. Some of these platforms will probably morph three or four times over the next few years, something that won't happen to the good, old JSP standard in the Java world,' Wayner writes in review of Node.js, Jaxer, EJScript, RingoJS, and AppengineJS."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

Ask Slashdot: Moving From *nix To Windows Automation?

Posted: May 7th, 2011, 12:55am CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

Zubinix writes "I have a background in doing automation in a Unix/Linux environment using scripting languages such as perl and bash shell, as well as ssh for remote scripting. My next project will be in the Windows environment so what approach and methodology is best for developing, say, the automation required for a test system? I don't want to use things like Cygwin, as I need to integrate with Windows applications such as Exchange and Sharepoint. Is there a list of should and should not dos when it comes to Windows automation?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

Drupal 8 Development Begins — 15 Bugs At a Time

Posted: March 11th, 2011, 1:22am CET by timothy

Tags: programming

darthcamaro writes "It took nearly 3 years for the open source Drupal 7 content management system to hit general availability. The plan for pushing out Drupal 8 is to be faster. How are they going to do that? '"At no point in time will there be more than 15 critical bugs," Dries Buytaert, founder of Drupal said. "I will not pull in a big change if we know there are known bugs. This gives us the ability to do timely releases because we know at most the release is only 15 critical bugs away from being ready."'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Python 3.2 Released

Posted: February 21st, 2011, 2:55pm CET by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

digitalderbs writes "Python 3.2 was released on Feb 20th 2011 with many new improvements. New features include many useful updates to the unittest module, a stable ABI for extensions, pyc repository directories, improvements to the email and ssl modules and many others. This also marks the first release in the 3000-series that is no longer backported to the 2.0-series."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Are 10-11 Hour Programming Days Feasible?

Posted: January 14th, 2011, 12:20am CET by timothy

Tags: programming

drc37 writes "My current boss asked me what I thought of asking all employees to work 10-11 hour days until the company is profitable. He read something from Joel Spolsky that said the best way to get new customers is to add new features. Anyways, we are a startup with almost a year live. None of the employees have ownership/stock and all are salary. Salaries are at normal industry rates. What should I say to him when we talk about this again?"

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Slashdot: Linux

Linus On Branching Practices

Posted: November 30th, 2010, 6:18pm CET by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

rocket22 writes "Not long ago Linus Torvalds made some comments about issues the kernel maintainers were facing while applying the 'feature branch' pattern. They are using Git (which is very strong with branching and merging) but still need to take care of the branching basics to avoid ending up with unstable branches due to unstable starting points. While most likely your team doesn't face the same issues that kernel development does, and even if you're using a different DVCS like Mercurial, it's worth taking a look at the description of the problem and the clear solution to be followed in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes. The same basics can be applied to every version control system with good merge tracking, so let's avoid religious wars and focus on the technical details."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Kernel Tracing With LTTng On Ubuntu Maverick

Posted: November 13th, 2010, 4:25pm CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

francis-giraldeau writes "Linux Tracing Toolkit (LTTng) provides high-performance kernel tracing for Linux. This is the killer app for system level debugging and performance tuning. It's now easier than ever to install, with packages released for Ubuntu Maverick. The short introduction to kernel tracing shows how to interpret a simple kernel trace and relate it to strace. I would like to ask Slashdot readers what they would expect as features for a kernel tracing analysis tool, because I'm starting my PhD on this topic and looking for ideas. Also, I wonder why LTTng is not mainline yet. Will Linus Torvalds see the light in 2011?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

A Decade of Agile Programming — Has It Delivered?

Posted: November 3rd, 2010, 1:18pm CET by timothy

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "InfoWorld offers a look back at the first decade of agile programming. Forged in February 2001 when a group of developers convened in Utah to find an alternative to documentation-driven, 'heavyweight' software development practices, The Manifesto for Agile Software Development sought to promote processes that accommodate changing requirements, collaboration with customers, and delivery of software in short iterations. Fast-forward a decade, and agile software development is becoming increasingly commonplace, with software firms adopting agile offshoots such as Scrum, Extreme Programming, and Kanban — a trend some see benefiting software development overall."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

Linux Kernel Development 3rd Ed

Posted: October 1st, 2010, 8:52pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

eldavojohn writes "Linux Kernel Development Third Edition by Robert Love is the perfect book for the beginning or intermediate Linux kernel hacker. It provided me an excellent bridge between the high level introduction I had in college (from Operating Systems Concepts) and the actual kernel code. The best part about this book is that the chapters are — like the kernel — modular, and allow the reader to dig down in a particular part if they have a specific interest. This, in conjunction with Love's indications of which files and code snippets contain the logic, gave me confidence to clone the kernel, make tiny adjustments, compile and run. At four hundred pages, the book is a long read, but for kernel newbies like me it's a better alternative to jumping into the millions of lines of code. While you might find this information in pieces floating around online, this book balances clarity with brevity in an exceptional manner. It should also be noted that this book defaults to the x86 architecture when explaining architecture-sensitive parts of the kernel (with 64-bit differences occasionally outlined)." Keep reading for the rest of eldavojohn's review.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Programming Things I Wish I Knew Earlier

Posted: September 6th, 2010, 8:14pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

theodp writes "Raw intellect ain't always all it's cracked up to be, advises Ted Dziuba in his introduction to Programming Things I Wish I Knew Earlier, so don't be too stubborn to learn the things that can save you from the headaches of over-engineering. Here's some sample how-to-avoid-over-complicating-things advice: 'If Linux can do it, you shouldn't. Don't use Hadoop MapReduce until you have a solid reason why xargs won't solve your problem. Don't implement your own lockservice when Linux's advisory file locking works just fine. Don't do image processing work with PIL unless you have proven that command-line ImageMagick won't do the job. Modern Linux distributions are capable of a lot, and most hard problems are already solved for you. You just need to know where to look.' Any cautionary tips you'd like to share from your own experience?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

How To Use HTML5 Today

Posted: July 12th, 2010, 5:46pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Dori Smith offers developers a hands-on guide to using HTML5 today. 'Many of the media reports about HTML5 have focused on the politics, the "not until 2022" sound bite, or on HTML5's prospects as a "Flash killer." The reality of HTML5 is simply that it's the long-needed and long-overdue update to HTML4 — and you can start to implement it today,' Smith writes. Video, semantic tags, smart form input validation — Smith steps through several HTML5 features that can already be implemented, while noting several other presentation features that will soon be on their way. Smith also discusses IE work-arounds, such as HTML 5 Shiv and Google Chrome Frame."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Kaminsky Offers Injection Antidote

Posted: June 15th, 2010, 11:23am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

ancientribe passes along this excerpt from DarkReading.com: "Life's too short to defend broken code. That's the reason renowned researcher Dan Kaminsky says he came up with a brand-new way to prevent pervasive SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and other injection-type flaws in software — a framework that lets developers continue to write code the way they always have, but with a tool that helps prevent them from inadvertently leaving these flaws in their apps. The tool, which he released today for input from the development and security community, basically takes the security responsibility off the shoulders of developers. Putting the onus on them hasn't worked well thus far, he says. Kaminsky's new tool is part of his new startup, Recursive Ventures."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Choice of Programming Language Doesn't Matter For Security

Posted: May 7th, 2010, 8:39pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "The Security Ninja has written a blog post which discusses web programming languages and the fact that they are all insecure. It's based on a report from WhiteHat Security and aims to dispel the myth that some languages will guarantee that an application will be more or less secure than other languages. '... secure code is the product of a secure development process and real business commitment to deliver secure applications which includes developer education. The absence of these processes and business commitments will lead to web applications being developed insecurely regardless of the language being used.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
How To Exploit NULL Pointers

Posted: April 13th, 2010, 11:03pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "Ever wondered what was so bad about NULL pointer exceptions? An MIT Linux kernel programmer explains how to turn any NULL pointer into a root exploit on Linux. (There was also a previous installment about virtual memory and how to make NULL pointers benign.)"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

How To Exploit NULL Pointers

Posted: April 13th, 2010, 11:03pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "Ever wondered what was so bad about NULL pointer exceptions? An MIT Linux kernel programmer explains how to turn any NULL pointer into a root exploit on Linux. (There was also a previous installment about virtual memory and how to make NULL pointers benign.)"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

How To Find Bad Programmers

Posted: April 9th, 2010, 6:16pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

AmberShah writes "The job post is your potential programmer's first impression of your company, so make it count with these offputting features. There are plenty of articles about recruiting great developers, but what if you are only interested in the crappy ones?" I think much of the industry is already following these guidelines.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Microsoft Fuzzing Botnet Finds 1,800 Office Bugs

Posted: April 2nd, 2010, 11:09am CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

CWmike writes "Microsoft uncovered more than 1,800 bugs in Office 2010 by tapping into the unused computing horsepower of idling PCs, a company security engineer said on Wednesday. Office developers found the bugs by running millions of 'fuzzing' tests, a practice employed by both software developers and security researchers, that searches for flaws by inserting data into file format parsers to see where programs fail by crashing. 'We found and fixed about 1,800 bugs in Office 2010's code,' said Tom Gallagher, senior security test lead with Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group, who last week co-hosted a presentation on Microsoft's fuzzing efforts at the CanSecWest security conference. 'While a large number, it's important to note that that doesn't mean we found 1,800 security issues. We also want to fix things that are not security concerns.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

Simpler "Hello World" Demonstrated In C

Posted: March 17th, 2010, 3:03am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "Wondering where all that bloat comes from, causing even the classic 'Hello world' to weigh in at 11 KB? An MIT programmer decided to make a Linux C program so simple, she could explain every byte of the assembly. She found that gcc was including libc even when you don't ask for it. The blog shows how to compile a much simpler 'Hello world,' using no libraries at all. This takes me back to the days of programming bare-metal on DOS!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

"Mythical Man-Month" Supposedly Busted By MIT Startup

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 2:15am CET by samzenpus

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "We all know about the Mythical Man-Month, the argument that adding more programmers to a software project just makes it later and later. A Linux startup out of MIT claims to have busted the myth, using an MIT holiday month to hire 20 college student interns to get all their work done and quadrupling its productivity."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

"Mythical Man-Month" Supposedly Busted By MIT Startup

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 2:15am CET by samzenpus

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "We all know about the Mythical Man-Month, the argument that adding more programmers to a software project just makes it later and later. A Linux startup out of MIT claims to have busted the myth, using an MIT holiday month to hire 20 college student interns to get all their work done and quadrupling its productivity."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

Do Your Developers Have Local Admin Rights?

Posted: December 31st, 2009, 5:45pm CET by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

plover writes "I work as a developer for a Very Large American Corporation. We are not an IT company, but have a large IT organization that does a lot of internal development. In my area, we do Windows development, which includes writing and maintaining code for various services and executables. A few years ago the Info Security group removed local administrator rights from most accounts and machines, but our area was granted exceptions for developers. My question is: do other developers in other large companies have local admin rights to their development environment? If not, how do you handle tasks like debugging, testing installations, or installing updated development tools that aren't a part of the standard corporate workstation?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
5th Underhanded C Contest Now Open

Posted: December 30th, 2009, 6:25pm CET by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

Xcott Craver writes "The next Underhanded C Contest has begun, with a deadline of March 1st. The object of the contest is to write short, readable, clear and innocent C code that somehow commits an evil act. This year's challenge: write a luggage routing program that mysteriously misroutes a customer's bag if a check-in clerk places just the right kind of text in a comment field. The prize is a gift certificate to ThinkGeek.com."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

Is Linux Documentation Lacking?

Posted: December 3rd, 2009, 4:18pm CET by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

eldavojohn writes "A number of blog posts are surfacing that are calling out the helpful open source community on their documentation. No, not the documentation for the highly skilled technical people, but the documentation from beginner to apprentice. A two-part series by Carla Schroeder lists bad documentation as 'Linux Bug #1' and advises users to use Google as the documentation. We've discussed before some of open source's documentation being out of date. Is it really as bad as these blogs paint it? Has it come down to using Google before a man page?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Microsoft Buys Teamprise, Will Ship Linux Tools

Posted: November 13th, 2009, 9:33am CET by timothy

Tags: programming

spongman writes "Microsoft's Senior Vice President, Developer Division, S. Somasegar has announced that Microsoft has acquired Teamprise from Sourcegear, LLC, and will be shipping it as part of the upcoming Visual Studio 2010 release. Teamprise is an Eclipse plugin (and related tools) for connecting to Team Foundation Server, Microsoft's source-control/project-management system. What's most interesting about this is not only that Microsoft has realized that heterogeneous development platforms are important to their developer customers, but the fact that Microsoft themselves will now be developing and shipping products based on those heterogeneous platforms, including 5 versions of Unix."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Con Kolivas Returns, With a Desktop-Oriented Linux Scheduler

Posted: September 6th, 2009, 11:29am CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

myvirtualid writes "Con Kolivas has done what he swore never to do: returned to the Linux kernel and written a new — and, according to him — waaay better scheduler for the desktop environment. In fact, BFS appears to outperform existing schedulers right up until one hits a 16-CPU machine, at which point he guesses performance would degrade somewhat. According to Kolivas, BFS 'was designed to be forward looking only, make the most of lower spec machines, and not scale to massive hardware. i.e. [sic] it is a desktop orientated scheduler, with extremely low latencies for excellent interactivity by design rather than 'calculated,' with rigid fairness, nice priority distribution and extreme scalability within normal load levels.'"
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Slashdot: IT

Dirty Coding Tricks To Make a Deadline

Posted: August 26th, 2009, 8:39am CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Gamasutra is running an article with a collection of anecdotes from game developers who had to employ some quick and dirty fixes to get their products to ship on time. Here's a brief excerpt: "Back at [company X] — I think it was near the end of [the project] — we had an object in one of the levels that needed to be hidden. We didn't want to re-export the level and we did not use checksum names. So right smack in the middle of the engine code we had something like the following. The game shipped with this in: if( level == 10 && object == 56 ) {HideObject();} Maybe a year later, an artist using our engine came to us very frustrated about why an object in their level was not showing up after exporting to what resolved to level 10. I wonder why?" Have you ever needed to insert terrible code to make something work at the last minute?
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Making Sense of Revision-Control Systems

Posted: August 26th, 2009, 1:18am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

ChelleChelle writes "During the past half-decade there has been an explosion of creativity in revision-control software, complicating the task of determining which tool to use to track and manage the complexity of a project as it evolves. Today, leaders of teams are faced with a bewildering array of choices ranging from Subversion to the more popular Git and Mercurial. It is important to keep in mind that whether distributed or centralized, all revision-control systems come with a complicated set of trade-offs. Each tool emphasizes a distinct approach to working and collaboration, which in turn influences how the team works. This article outlines how to go about finding the best match between tool and team."
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Clojure and Heroku Predict Flight Delays

Posted: August 21st, 2009, 7:09pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

murphee writes "Flight delayed again? Should have asked FlightCaster, a new site using statistical analysis to predict the delay of your flight in real-time. What's even better, the services is fully buzzword compliant: it's built with Clojure, distributed with Hadoop, served with Rails, and hosted on Heroku. This interview with one of the FlightCaster developers gives the gory details on architecture, Clojure tips, and your boss a reason to let you have all the multimethods and macros you can eat. Seems like now that O'Reilly's publishing a LISP book, the Age of Parenthesus has come..."
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The Myth of the Isolated Kernel Hacker

Posted: August 20th, 2009, 4:09pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

Ant writes "The Linux Foundation's report (PDF) on who writes Linux — "... Linux isn't written by lonely nerds hiding out in their parents' basements. It's written by people working for major companies — many of them businesses that you probably don't associate with Linux. To be exact, while 18.2% of Linux is written by people who aren't working for a company, and 7.6% is created by programmers who don't give a company affiliation, everything else is written by someone who's getting paid to create Linux. From top to bottom, of the companies that have contributed more than 1% of the current Linux kernel, the list looks like this: ..."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

The Myth of the Isolated Kernel Hacker

Posted: August 20th, 2009, 4:09pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

Ant writes "The Linux Foundation's report (PDF) on who writes Linux — "... Linux isn't written by lonely nerds hiding out in their parents' basements. It's written by people working for major companies — many of them businesses that you probably don't associate with Linux. To be exact, while 18.2% of Linux is written by people who aren't working for a company, and 7.6% is created by programmers who don't give a company affiliation, everything else is written by someone who's getting paid to create Linux. From top to bottom, of the companies that have contributed more than 1% of the current Linux kernel, the list looks like this: ..."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

Scala, a Statically Typed, Functional, O-O Language

Posted: August 18th, 2009, 8:00pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

inkslinger77 notes a Computerworld interview with Martin Odersky on the Scala language, which is getting a lot of attention from its use on high-profile sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn. The strongly typed language is intended to be a usable melding of functional and object-oriented programming techniques. "My co-workers and I spend a lot of time writing code so we wanted to have something that was a joy to program in. That was a very definite goal. We wanted to remove as many of the incantations of traditional high-protocol languages as possible and give Scala great expressiveness so that developers can model things in the ways they want to. ... You can express Scala programs in several ways. You can make them look very much like Java programs which is nice for programmers who start out coming from Java. ... But you can also express Scala programs in a purely functional way and those programs can end up looking quite different from typical Java programs. Often they are much more concise. ... Twitter has been able to sustain phenomenal growth, and it seems with more stability than what they had before the switch, so I think that's a good testament to Scala. ... [W]e are looking at new ways to program multicore processors and other parallel systems. We already have a head start here because Scala has a popular actor system which gives you a high-level way to express concurrency. ... The interesting thing is that actors in Scala are not a language feature, they have been done purely as a Scala library. So they are a good witness to Scala's flexibility..."
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C# and Java Weekday Languages, Python and Ruby For Weekends?

Posted: August 15th, 2009, 9:22pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

Dan Lorenc writes "Using the StackOverflow.com data dump, I measured the activity of various programming languages throughout the week. The results: Ruby and Python saw a rise in questions asked on the weekend while C# and Java saw a dropoff in activity on the weekend. This means that more programmers are using Python and Ruby on the weekend for their personal projects, showing that these languages are more fun to use. Show this experiment to your boss the next time you are selecting a programming language for a project at work."
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21st International Olympiad of Informatics Opens, In Bulgaria and Online

Posted: August 10th, 2009, 5:02am CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

Kostadin Vodenicharov writes "The International Olympiad in Informatics is considered one of the most prestigious programming contests in the world. Currently the 21st IOI is being held in Plovdiv, Bulgaria (which was the country that also hosted the 1st IOI), from 8th to 15th August. High school students from all over the world have gathered to put their programming skills to the test. Everyone else who wishes to participate can do it in the online contest which will run in parallel with the real one and will present the same tasks to be solved. The competition itself is going to take place on Monday 10th August and Wednesday 12th August from 9:00 to 14:00 EEST (UTC+3)."
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Contributing To a Project With a Reclusive Maintainer?

Posted: August 8th, 2009, 11:13am CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

zerointeger writes "I am still fairly new to programming in C, but I was asked to extend an open source authentication module by my employer. The project is complete, testing has been done and it works as designed. The extension/patch I have created is fairly robust, as it includes configuration options, help files, and several additional files. The problem is that I have been unable to make contact with the current maintainer about having this feature added. I think the only reason I'd like to see this included is to prevent any patching of later revisions. A few others I have spoken with agree that the patch would benefit administrators attempting to push Linux onto the desktop, as we have done at the University that employs me. Has anyone else submitted patches/extensions to what seems to be a black hole?"
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Slashdot: Linux

Contributing To a Project With a Reclusive Maintainer?

Posted: August 8th, 2009, 11:13am CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

zerointeger writes "I am still fairly new to programming in C, but I was asked to extend an open source authentication module by my employer. The project is complete, testing has been done and it works as designed. The extension/patch I have created is fairly robust, as it includes configuration options, help files, and several additional files. The problem is that I have been unable to make contact with the current maintainer about having this feature added. I think the only reason I'd like to see this included is to prevent any patching of later revisions. A few others I have spoken with agree that the patch would benefit administrators attempting to push Linux onto the desktop, as we have done at the University that employs me. Has anyone else submitted patches/extensions to what seems to be a black hole?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

Bjarne Stroustrup On Concepts, C++0x

Posted: August 7th, 2009, 7:15pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "Danny Kalev has an interview with Bjarne Stroustrup about the failure of concepts, the technical issues of concepts, whether the ISO committee's days are over, and whether C++ is at a dead-end. 'I don't think that concepts were doomed to fail. Also, I don't think concepts were trying to fix many things or to transform C++ into an almost new language. They were introduced to do one thing: provide direct language support to the by-far dominant use of templates: generic programming. They were intended to allow direct expression of what people already state in comments, in design documents, and in documentation. Every well-designed template is written with a notion of what is required from its arguments. For good code, those requirements are documented (think of the standard's requirements tables). That is, today most templates are designed using an informal notion of concepts.'"
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Google's Launches 2nd Android Developer Contest

Posted: August 5th, 2009, 10:41pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

coffeeisclassy writes "Google's second Android Developer Contest (ADC2) has started, despite some confusion around how to submit applications. The prizes are different from the first ADC, with each category having prizes of 100k, 50k, and 25k and an overall best of 150k,50k and 25k, meaning the best Android application from ADC2 is eligible for ~250k. The rules seem to allow any application never published before August 1st to compete, and the contest is open through the end of August (so break out your keyboards!). The top prizes are certainly less than that of first ADC, but with the prizes broken down by category, Google may be hoping to inspire some love for less popular categories."
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Mario AI Competition

Posted: August 5th, 2009, 9:37am CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

togelius writes "We're running a competition to see who can program the best AI for a version of Super Mario Bros. It's about deciding what to do at each time step — run, jump, shoot etc. — based on a description of the platforms, items and enemies around Mario. This is hard. It's so hard we believe that some sort of machine learning algorithm will be necessary to reach good playing performance. But really, any approach is fair game. We welcome hard-coded submissions, commercial AI programmers, academics and amateurs alike. Whoever wins, it will be really interesting. The competition is associated with two IEEE conferences, and there are cash prizes available for the best submissions."
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Alan Cox Quits As Linux TTY Maintainer — "I've Had Enough"

Posted: July 29th, 2009, 9:52pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

The Slashdolt writes "After a stern criticism from Linus, the long-time kernel hacker Alan Cox has decided to walk away as the maintainer of the TTY subsystem of the Linux Kernel, stating '...I've had enough. If you think that problem is easy to fix you fix it. Have fun. I've zapped the tty merge queue so anyone with patches for the tty layer can send them to the new maintainer.'" A response to a subsequent post on the list makes it quite clear that he is serious.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

Alan Cox Quits As Linux TTY Maintainer — "I've Had Enough"

Posted: July 29th, 2009, 9:52pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

The Slashdolt writes "After a stern criticism from Linus, the long-time kernel hacker Alan Cox has decided to walk away as the maintainer of the TTY subsystem of the Linux Kernel, stating '...I've had enough. If you think that problem is easy to fix you fix it. Have fun. I've zapped the tty merge queue so anyone with patches for the tty layer can send them to the new maintainer.'" A response to a subsequent post on the list makes it quite clear that he is serious.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

Netflix Prize Contest Ends, Down To the Wire

Posted: July 28th, 2009, 10:55pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

suraj.sun updates us on the Netflix Prize now that the competition has officially closed. We discussed the new leader with one day to go in the contest: The Ensemble, taking the lead from long-time leader BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos, the first contestant to submit an entry that broke the 10% barrier. In the contest's final day, BellKor re-took the lead with 20 minutes to go, then The Ensemble apparently pulled a Michael Phelps with 4 minutes to go, squeaking ahead by 0.01%. At least so the leaderboard claims — but those numbers are posted by the competing teams. The NY Times reports that an official winner will not be named until September — Netflix needs that much time to pore through the complex entries and read the code. Netflix contacted BellKor on Sunday to tell them the team remained in first place; The Ensemble has had no such notification.
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Manager's Schedule vs. Maker's Schedule

Posted: July 27th, 2009, 6:16pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

theodp writes "Ever wonder why you and the boss don't see eye-to-eye on the importance of meetings? Paul Graham explains that there are Maker Schedules (coder) and Manager Schedules (PHB), and the two are very different. With each day neatly cut into one-hour intervals, the Manager Schedule is for bosses and is tailor-made for schmoozing. Unfortunately, it spells disaster for people who make things, like programmers and writers, who generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can't write or program well in units of an hour, says Graham, since that's barely enough time to get started. So if you fall into the Maker camp, adds Graham, you better hope your boss is smart enough to recognize that you need long chunks of time to work in. How's that working out in your world?" Ironically enough, I have a meeting to attend in three minutes.
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New Leader In Netflix Prize Race With One Day To Go

Posted: July 26th, 2009, 4:15pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

brajesh writes "The Netflix Prize, an algorithm competition to improve the Netflix Cinematch recommendation system by more than 10%, has a new leader — The Ensemble — just one day before the competition ends. The 30-day race to the end was kicked off after BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos submitted the first entry to break the 10% barrier, with the results showing a 10.08% improvement. The Ensemble, made up of three teams who chose to join forces ('Grand Prize Team,' 'Opera Solutions' and 'Vandelay United), has managed to overtake BellKor with a score of 10.09% — an improvement of .01% over the former leaders. From the article on Techcrunch: 'The competition will end [today], so teams still have a little bit of time left to make their last-second submissions, but things are looking good for The Ensemble. This has to be absolutely brutal for team BellKor.'"
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The Best First Language For a Young Programmer

Posted: July 25th, 2009, 4:22pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister questions whether Scheme, a dialect of Lisp taught as part of many first-year CS curricula and considered by some to be the 'latin of programming,' is really the best first language for a young programmer. As he sees it, the essentially write-only Scheme requires you to bore down into the source code just to figure out what a Scheme program is trying to do — excellent for teaching programming but 'lousy for a 15-year-old trying to figure out how to make a computer do stuff on his own.' And though the 'hacker ethic' may in fact be harming today's developers, McAllister still suggests we encourage the young to 'develop the innate curiosity and love of programming that lies at the heart of any really brilliant programmer' by simply encouraging them to fool around with whatever produces the most gratifying results. After all, as Jeff Atwood puts it, 'what we do is craftmanship, not engineering,' and inventing effective software solutions takes insight, inspiration, deduction, and often a sprinkling of luck. 'If that means coding in Visual Basic, so be it. Scheme can come later.'"
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Stroustrup Says New C++ Standard Delayed Until 2010 Or Later

Posted: July 23rd, 2009, 8:48pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

wandazulu writes "At the end of an article written by the creator of C++, where he talks about removing a feature from the new C++ standard, he drops a bombshell: The new C++ standard (typically referred to as C++0x) has been delayed until 2010 or later. What does this mean? No new C++ features like threads, proper enum classes, or hash tables. C++0x is dead, long live C++1x!"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Even Faster Web Sites

Posted: July 22nd, 2009, 7:44pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Michael J. Ross writes "Slow Web page loading can discourage visitors to a site more than any other problem, regardless of how attractive or feature-rich the given site might be. Consequently, many Web developers hope to achieve faster response times using AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), since only portion(s) of an AJAX page need to be reloaded. But for many rich Internet applications (RIAs), such potential performance gains can be lost as a result of non-optimized JavaScript, graphics, and CSS files. Steve Souders — a Web performance expert previously at Yahoo and now with Google — addresses these topics in his second book, Even Faster Web Sites: Performance Best Practices for Web Developers." Read on for the rest of Michael's review.
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Open Source Languages Rumble At OSCON

Posted: July 21st, 2009, 10:12pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

blackbearnh writes "Everybody knows what the best programming language is, it's whatever one you like the most. But is there a best language overall? Or even a best language for a given purpose? This question has been debated since the first time there were two languages to choose from. The argument is still going on, of course, but maybe a little light will be shed on the issue this week at OSCON. On Wednesday night at 7PM Pacific, representatives of the 5 major open source languages (perl, PHP, Python, Java and Ruby), as arbitrarily decided by O'Reilly, will meet to debate the merits of their various languages. If you're not going to be at OSCON, you can watch it live on a webcast and pose questions or comments to the participants. The representatives are: Python: Alex Martelli, Google; Ruby: Brian Ford, Engine Yard; PHP: Laura Thomson, Mozilla; Perl: Jim Brandt, Perl Foundation; Java: Rod Johnson, SpringSource."
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Most Expensive JavaScript Ever?

Posted: July 21st, 2009, 2:45pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

ekran writes "A while ago Opera Software needed more servers. Not just a few servers either — they were planning Opera Mini's growth, implementing Opera Link, and My Opera was also growing quickly. Most of the major hardware vendors grabbed their specs and came back with offers and sample servers shipped all the way to Oslo for testing. One of the biggest vendors, however, did not do their homework. They shipped the server, but when the Opera sysadmins started up the web-admin interface, they were met with a JavaScript statement that managed to piss off the whole company including the CTO. The script, apparently, locked out the Opera web-browser."
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Collaborative Software For Pair Programming?

Posted: July 20th, 2009, 10:17pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

DavidMatuszek writes "I will be teaching Java again this Fall. Students work in pairs, but unfortunately (after the first hour) typically not physically together. I would like to find collaborative software that is (1) dead simple to use, because that's not what the course is about, and (2) free. Google Docs would do, but students will be sharing code — plain text — not RTF or HTML or Word files. Is there such software for plain text?"
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0 A.D. Goes Open Source

Posted: July 15th, 2009, 7:40pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

DoubleRing writes "Wildfire Games has announced that it will be moving its previously closed development process for 0 A.D. to open source. All code will be released under the GPL and all art under CC-BY-SA. 0 A.D. is a historically-based RTS, and while it's not yet complete, this trailer is purportedly actual gameplay footage. With a codebase of over 150k lines of C++ code plus 25k lines in development tools, this is looking like a fairly promising entrant into the open source RTS field. The screenshots are definitely pretty, to say the least."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Best Game Engines

Posted: July 15th, 2009, 4:42pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

SlappingOysters writes "IGN has taken a look at the most impressive middleware solutions for the next generation of gaming, giving a detailed analysis of which engines are performing the best and which have the most exciting futures. It runs through the technical strengths of each engine, as well as how that translates into actual gameplay. It also runs through which software has and will be using each engine."
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6 Reasons To License Software Under the (A/L)GPL

Posted: July 14th, 2009, 4:33pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

Henry V .009 writes with a link to Zed Shaw's "newest rant," which gives a cogent description of his reasons for choosing the not-always-popular GPL for his own code: "Honestly, how many of you people who use open source tell your boss what you're using? How many of you tell investors that your entire operation is based on something one guy wrote in a few months? How many of you out there go to management and say, 'Hey, you know there's this guy Zed who wrote the software I'm using, why don't we hire him as a consultant?' You don't. None of you. You take the software, and use it like Excalibur to slay your dragon and then take the credit for it. You don't give out any credit, and in fact, I've ran into a vast majority of you who constantly try to say that I can't code as a way of covering your ass."
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Hello World!

Posted: July 13th, 2009, 8:15pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

stoolpigeon writes "Hitting middle age has been an interesting time. I catch myself thinking about how well kids have it today and sounding a lot like my father. One difference is while my dad was happy to teach me about sports or cars, we never spent any time knocking out code together. I think he did realize that home computers were important and I will always be grateful for the Commodore Vic-20 he brought home one day. It was a substantial purchase for our household. I spent many days copying lines of basic from magazines and saving the results to cassette tapes. In my home today we have a considerably better situation, computing wise. There are usually a couple laptops running as well as the desktop machine upstairs. My kids take for granted what I found to be amazing and new. Still, that's all pretty normal and I'd like to give them an opportunity to go deeper if they are so inclined, just like we give them opportunities to explore other skills and pursuits. With that in mind I brought a copy of Hello World! home a few weeks ago, and the response from my oldest has been surprisingly enthusiastic." Keep reading for the rest of JR's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Developer Stigma After a Bad or Catastrophic Release?

Posted: July 11th, 2009, 6:28pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "We hear in the news all the time about how executives can drive a company into the ground and yet somehow become more desirable to other big companies. What we don't hear about are the grunts who implemented those decisions, and whether or not they end up resume-stained or blacklisted. Since we've got so many developers with lots of time in the trenches, I thought I would appeal to their experience. When disaster looms and sales starts pushing development that has little chance but to end in disaster, what happens to the programmer who decides he needs his job enough to follow orders? Have they ever become unhireable?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Developer Stigma After a Bad Or Catastrophic Release?

Posted: July 11th, 2009, 6:28pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "We hear in the news all the time about how executives can drive a company into the ground and yet somehow become more desirable to other big companies. What we don't hear about are the grunts who implemented those decisions, and whether or not they end up resume-stained or blacklisted. Since we've got so many developers with lots of time in the trenches, I thought I would appeal to their experience. When disaster looms and sales starts pushing for development that has little chance but to end in disaster, what happens to the programmer who decides he needs his job enough to follow orders? Have they ever become unhireable?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
What Open Source Can Learn From Apple

Posted: July 10th, 2009, 8:03pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

Linux and open source have long struggled to gain acceptance from the wider (read: non-technical) audience. This has improved in recent years, but still has a long way to go. Columnist Matt Asay suggests that perhaps open source projects should attempt to emulate Apple's design philosophy, with whoever succeeds becoming the "winner" of the hearts and minds of the vast majority of users. "Some projects already accomplish this to some extent. The strength of Mozilla, for example, is that it has figured out how to enable 40 percent of its development to be done by outside contributors, as BusinessWeek recently wrote. The downside is that these contributors are techies, but the upside is that they're techies who add language packs, accessibility features, and other "niche" areas that Mozilla might otherwise struggle to deliver. This suggests a start: enable your open-source project to accept meaningful outside contributions that make the project reflective of a wider development community. But the real goldmine is broadening the definition of "developer" to include lay users of your software. The day that I, as a nontechnical software user, can meaningfully participate in an open-source project is the day that open source will truly have won."
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Mono Outpaces Java In Linux Desktop Development

Posted: July 9th, 2009, 11:42pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

dp619 writes "Mono, a framework based on Microsoft technology, has become more popular for Linux desktop applications than Java, but recent changes could strengthen Java's hand, SD Times is reporting. The story also touches on the failure of Linux distros to keep pace with Eclipse."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

Mono Outpaces Java In Linux Desktop Development

Posted: July 9th, 2009, 11:42pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

dp619 writes "Mono, a framework based on Microsoft technology, has become more popular for Linux desktop applications than Java, but recent changes could strengthen Java's hand, SD Times is reporting. The story also touches on the failure of Linux distros to keep pace with Eclipse."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

Jazz Technical Lead Erich Gamma Answers Your Questions

Posted: July 8th, 2009, 9:30pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

Last week you asked Jazz technical lead Erich Gamma questions about Jazz or anything else in his realm of expertise. Here are his answers, along with many external links and places to continue the conversation if you are interested.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
CJKV Information Processing 2nd ed.

Posted: July 8th, 2009, 8:00pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

stoolpigeon writes "At the end of last year, I made a move from an IT shop focused on supporting the US side of our business to a department that provides support to our operations outside the US. This was the first time I've worked in an international context and found myself, on a regular basis, running into long-time assumptions that were no longer true. My first project was implementing a third-party, web-based HR system for medium-sized offices. I found myself constantly missing important issues because I had such a narrow approach to the problem space. Sure, I've built applications and databases that supported Unicode, but I've never actually implemented anything with them but the same types of systems I'd built in the past with ASCII. But a large portion of the world's population is in Asia, and ASCII is certainly not going to cut it there. Fortunately, a new edition of Ken Lunde's classic CJKV Information Processing has become available, and it has really opened my eyes." Keep reading for the rest of JR's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Volunteer Programming For Dummies?

Posted: July 7th, 2009, 5:44pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Tios writes "I've been studying programming languages (C++, Java, C, Visual Basic) on my own with the self-guided, basic textbooks and tutorials, and I'm starting to get tired of working with examples that are not put into real use. I'm motivated to utilize my programming potential, but I've not had any experience programming in a team environment with lead developers, mentors, or collaborators. If finding a programming job isn't an option, I wonder if I could volunteer for programming in an open-source community. If this is a good idea, how do I start? What resources are out there that could get me oriented in volunteering? What kind of basic projects are out there, with a supportive team/mentor for me to develop, practice, learn, and contribute?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source Code of Several Atari 7800 Games Released

Posted: July 4th, 2009, 12:22am CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

jadoon88 writes to share a series of old Atari 7800 games that have been unofficially open sourced. "Remember Dig Dug or Centipede or Robotron? They used to be favorites when Atari's 7800 series was still around. Since the era of those consoles is over, and a different world of interactive reality gaming has taken over, Atari has unofficially released source code of over 15 games for the coders and enthusiasts to admire the state-of-the-art (because this is what it was back then). During those times, nobody would have imagined in their wildest dreams the games that Atari's developers floated into the gaming thirsty market and instantly swept across continental boundaries. But things changed soon after that and a company once regarded as one of the most successful gaming console manufacturers and developers faded away in the pages of our technology's hall-of-fame."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
IBM Releases Open Source Machine Learning Compiler

Posted: July 3rd, 2009, 7:42am CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

sheepweevil writes "IBM just released Milepost GCC, 'the world's first open source machine learning compiler.' The compiler analyses the software and determines which code optimizations will be most effective during compilation using machine learning techniques. Experiments carried out with the compiler achieved an average 18% performance improvement. The compiler is expected to significantly reduce time-to-market of new software, because lengthy manual optimization can now be carried out by the compiler. A new code tuning website has been launched to coincide with the compiler release. The website features collaborative performance tuning and sharing of interesting optimization cases."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
What Are the Best First Steps For Becoming a Game Designer?

Posted: July 2nd, 2009, 6:30pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

todd10k writes "I've recently decided to go back to college. I have a lot of experience with games, having played them for most of my adult life, and have always toyed with the idea of making them one day. I've finally decided to give it my best. What I'd like to know is: what are the best languages to study? What are the minimum diploma or degree requirements that most games companies will accept? Finally, is C++ the way to go? ASP? LUA?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Does the 'Hacker Ethic' Harm Today's Developers?

Posted: June 29th, 2009, 10:37pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister questions whether the 'hacker ethic' synonymous with computer programing in American society is enough for developers to succeed in today's economy. To be sure, self-taught 'cowboy coders' — the hallmark of today's programming generation in America — are technically proficient, McAllister writes, 'but their code is less likely to be maintainable in the long term, and they're less likely to conform to organizational development processes and coding standards.' And though HTC's Vineet Nayar's proclamation that American programmers are 'unemployable' is overblown, there may be wisdom in offering a new kind of computer engineering degree targeted toward the student who is more interested in succeeding in industry than exploring computing theory. 'American software development managers often complain that Indian programmers are too literal-minded,' McAllister writes, but perhaps Americans have swung the pendulum too far in the other direction. In other words, are we 'too in love with the hacker ideal of the 1980s to produce programmers who are truly prepared for today's real-life business environment?'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
How To Get Out of Developer's Block?

Posted: June 26th, 2009, 1:08am CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

Midnight Thunder writes "I have spent the past six months working on a software project, and while I can come up with ideas, I just can't seem to sit down in front of the computer to code. I sit there and I just can't concentrate. I don't know whether this is akin to writer's block, but it feels like it. Have any other Slashdotters run into this and if so how did you get out of it? It is bothering me since the project has ground to a halt and I really want to get started again. I am the sole developer on the project, if that makes a difference."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Automated Migration From Cobol To Java On Linux

Posted: June 24th, 2009, 10:02pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

Didier DURAND writes "Just published an article about our 100% automated migration from IBM mainframe with Cobol to Linux Java: we could convert of our own application (4 million lines of code) through the tools that we developed. Those tools are open-sourced under GPL for other companies to benefit from them. We save 3 millions euros / year after this migration!"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
On the Humble Default

Posted: June 24th, 2009, 7:48am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

Hugh Pickens sends along Kevin Kelly's paean to the default. "One of the greatest unappreciated inventions of modern life is the default. 'Default' is a technical concept first used in computer science in the 1960s to indicate a preset standard. ... Today the notion of a default has spread beyond computer science to the culture at large. It seems such a small thing, but the idea of the default is fundamental... It's hard to remember a time when defaults were not part of life. But defaults only arose as computing spread; they are an attribute of complex technological systems. There were no defaults in the industrial age. ... The hallmark of flexible technological systems is the ease by which they can be rewired, modified, reprogrammed, adapted, and changed to suit new uses and new users. Many (not all) of their assumptions can be altered. The upside to endless flexibility and multiple defaults lies in the genuine choice that an individual now has, if one wants it. ... Choices materialize when summoned. But these abundant choices never appeared in fixed designs. ... In properly designed default system, I always have my full freedoms, yet my choices are presented to me in a way that encourages taking those choices in time — in an incremental and educated manner. Defaults are a tool that tame expanding choice."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
An Experiment In BlackBerry Development

Posted: June 23rd, 2009, 3:03am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

ballwall writes "We've all read the stories about how lucrative selling apps on the iPhone can be (or not), but what about other platforms? BlackBerry accounts for twice as many handsets shipped as Apple, according to Gartner, so I decided to find out. I wrote about my experiences developing my first BlackBerry application including sales, platform issues, and a bunch of other things I thought new mobile developers might want to know about."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
State of Sound Development On Linux Not So Sorry After All

Posted: June 19th, 2009, 11:44pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "There have been past claims by Adobe and others that development on Linux is a jungle, particularly with regards to audio. However today, the author of the popular 'The Sorry State of Sound in Linux' has posted a follow up showing Adobe's claims to be FUD, as well as being a good update on where OSS and ALSA are holding today, and why PulseAudio isn't a good idea."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

State of Sound Development On Linux Not So Sorry After All

Posted: June 19th, 2009, 11:44pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "There have been past claims by Adobe and others that development on Linux is a jungle, particularly with regards to audio. However today, the author of the popular 'The Sorry State of Sound in Linux' has posted a follow up showing Adobe's claims to be FUD, as well as being a good update on where OSS and ALSA are holding today, and why PulseAudio isn't a good idea."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
State of Sound Development On Linux Not So Sorry After All

Posted: June 19th, 2009, 11:44pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "There have been past claims by Adobe and others that development on Linux is a jungle, particularly with regards to audio. However today, the author of the popular 'The Sorry State of Sound in Linux' has posted a follow up showing Adobe's claims to be FUD, as well as being a good update on where OSS and ALSA are holding today, and why PulseAudio isn't a good idea."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

The "Doctor Who" Model of Open Source

Posted: June 19th, 2009, 5:03pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

Glyn Moody writes "Open source projects are generally fine when there's a long-term leader like Linus; but what happens when nobody is able or willing to run things for extended periods? Peter Murray-Rust explains how the open chemistry group known as the Blue Obelisk has evolved what he calls the 'Doctor Who Model of Open Source': 'You'll recall that every few years something fatal happens to the Doctor and you think he is going to die and there will never be another series. Then he regenerates. The new Doctor has a different personality, a different philosophy (though always on the side of good). It is never clear how long any Doctor will remain unregenerated or who will come after him. And this is a common theme in the Blue Obelisk.' Could other open source projects learn from this experience as long-term leaders start to move on?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
HTML 5 Takes Aim At Flash and Silverlight

Posted: June 17th, 2009, 12:37am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "While Adobe, Microsoft, and Sun duke it out with proprietary technologies for implementing multimedia on the Web, HTML 5 has the potential to eat these vendors' lunches, offering Web experiences based on an industry standard. In fact, one expressed goal of the standard is to move the Web away from proprietary technologies such as Flash, Silverlight, and JavaFX. 'It would be a terrible step backward if humanity's major development platform [the Web] was controlled by a single vendor the way that previous platforms such as Windows have been,' says HTML 5 co-editor Ian Hickson, a Google employee. But whether HTML 5 and its Canvas technology will displace proprietary plug-ins 'really depends on what developers do,' says Firefox technical lead Vlad Vukicevic. It also depends on Microsoft, the only company involved in the HTML 5 effort that is both a browser developer and an RIA tool developer. 'That's a big elephant in the room for them because you can imagine the Silverlight team [whose] whole existence is to add [this] functionality in. [But] if Internet Explorer puts it already in there, why do we have Silverlight?' asks Mozilla's Dion Almaer." The RIA guys are quoted as saying they're not worried, because HTML 5 + CSS 3 is 10 years out. Are they just whistling in the dark?
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Erlang's Creator Speaks About Its History and Prospects

Posted: June 16th, 2009, 3:28pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

Seal writes "Erlang, originally created at Ericsson in 1986, is a functional programming language which was released as open source around 10 years ago and flourished ever since. In this Q&A, Erlang creator Joe Armstrong talks about its beginnings as a control program for a telephone exchange, its flexibility and its modern day usage in open source programs. 'In the Erlang world we have over twenty years of experience with designing and implementing parallel algorithms. What we lose in sequential processing speed we win back in parallel performance and fault-tolerance,' Armstrong said. He also mentions how multi-core processors pushed the development of Erlang and the advantages of hot swapping."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Are Code Reviews Worth It?

Posted: June 13th, 2009, 11:23pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

JamaicaBay writes "I'm a development manager, and the other day my boss and I got into an argument over whether it's worth doing code reviews. In my shop we've done both code reviews and design reviews. They are all programmer-led. What we've found is that code reviews take forever and tend to reveal less than good UI-level testing would. The payback on design reviews, meanwhile, is tremendous. Our code is intended for desktop, non-critical use, so I asked my boss to consider whether it was worth spending so much time on examining built code, given our experience not getting much out of it. I'm wondering whether the Slashdot crowd's experience has been similar."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Should Undergraduates Be Taught Fortran?

Posted: June 11th, 2009, 2:47pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

Mike Croucher writes "Despite the fact that it is over 40 years old, Fortran is still taught at many Universities to students of Physics, Chemistry, Engineering and more as their first ever formal introduction to programming. According to this article that shouldn't be happening anymore, since there are much better alternatives, such as Python, that would serve a physical science undergraduate much better. There may come a time in some researchers' lives where they need Fortran, but this time isn't in 'programming for chemists 101.' What do people in the Slashdot community think?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
How To Sponsor an Open Source Sprint

Posted: June 11th, 2009, 4:36am CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Esther Schindler writes "Does your favorite open source project need just a little extra functionality? As Esther Schindler explains in this IT World article, your company can encourage the developers to add the features you've been yearning for — for far, far less money than you imagine. She interviews companies who have sponsored 'code-a-thons' for Drupal, Plone, simwiddy, and a set of applications for British Telecom, and provides specific pointers. From the article: 'To ensure that the event happens and that it meets its goals, you must connect with the right members of the community and motivate them to work with you. "It's not like these people are paid to work for your interests," points out Brightcove's Whatcott. If your business already has project committers on its staff, then it's just a matter of leveraging existing relationships. But, says Stahl, "Someone less 'core' in the community might well have a harder time.'"'
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Yahoo Releases Open Source Hadoop Distribution

Posted: June 10th, 2009, 11:49pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

ruphus13 writes "Yahoo has been a vociferous Apache Hadoop user and supporter for several years now, and uses it extensively within its Search technologies. Hadoop has been gaining popularity in the Cloud Computing space, with companies like the NYTimes converting 4TB and 11 million articles to PDFs in under 24 hours using Hadoop and EC2 in late 2007. Hadoop has been made available in Amazon's cloud and Yahoo has now released its own Hadoop version. From the article: 'At today's Hadoop Summit in Silicon Valley, Yahoo! announced the availability of the Yahoo! Distribution of Hadoop, a source-only version of Apache Hadoop that Yahoo! uses within its own search engine. [Hadoop] is an open source software framework that helps process very large data sets, and is widely used in large-scale data mining applications as well as in search tools at sites like Facebook and many others. For developers and users interested in Hadoop, it's worth noting that the Yahoo! Distribution of Hadoop has been widely tested and developed at Yahoo! for years now.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
How Software Engineering Differs From Computer Science

Posted: June 6th, 2009, 8:05am CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

cconnell sends in a piece he wrote for Dr. Dobb's which "argues that software development will never be a fully formal, rigorous discipline, and the reason is that software engineering involves humans as central to the process." Quoting: "Software maintainability, for example, is the ability of people to understand, find, and repair defects in a software system. The maintainability of software may be influenced by some formal notions of computer science — perhaps the cyclomatic complexity of the software's control graph. But maintainability crucially involves humans, and their ability to grasp the meaning and intention of source code. The question of whether a particular software system is highly maintainable cannot be answered just by mechanically examining the software. The same is true for safety. Researchers have used some formal methods to learn about a software system's impact on people's health and property. But no discussion of software safety is complete without appeal to the human component of the system under examination."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Splash, Splatter, Sploosh, and Bloop!

Posted: June 4th, 2009, 2:33am CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Acoustic Bubble writes "Researchers at Cornell University have developed the first algorithm for synthesizing familiar bubble-based fluid sounds automatically from 3D fluid simulations, e.g, for future virtual environments. The research (entitled 'Harmonic Fluids') will appear at ACM SIGGRAPH 2009 in New Orleans in August 2009. Check out some videos of falling, pouring, splashing and babbling water simulations (computed on a Linux cluster)."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Can "Page's Law" Be Broken?

Posted: June 1st, 2009, 2:51pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

theodp writes "Speaking at the Google I/O Developer Conference, Sergey Brin described Google's efforts to defeat "Page's Law," the tendency of software to get twice as slow every 18 months. 'Fortunately, the hardware folks offset that,' Brin joked. 'We would like to break Page's Law and have our software become increasingly fast on the same hardware.' Page, of course, refers to Google co-founder Larry Page, last seen delivering a nice from-the-heart commencement address at Michigan that's worth a watch (or read)."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Comparing the Size, Speed, and Dependability of Programming Languages

Posted: May 31st, 2009, 4:44pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

In this blog post, the author plots the results of 19 different benchmark tests across 72 programming languages to create a quantitative comparison between them. The resulting visualizations give insight into how the languages perform across a variety of tasks, and also how some some languages perform in relation to others. "If you drew the benchmark results on an XY chart you could name the four corners. The fast but verbose languages would cluster at the top left. Let's call them system languages. The elegantly concise but sluggish languages would cluster at the bottom right. Let's call them script languages. On the top right you would find the obsolete languages. That is, languages which have since been outclassed by newer languages, unless they offer some quirky attraction that is not captured by the data here. And finally, in the bottom left corner you would find probably nothing, since this is the space of the ideal language, the one which is at the same time fast and short and a joy to use."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Beginning Python Visualization

Posted: May 27th, 2009, 8:02pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

aceydacey writes "Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Beginning Python Visualization: Creating Visual Transformation Scripts, published in February 2009 by Apress, shows how Python and its related tools can be used to easily and effectively turn raw data into visual representations that communicate effectively. The author is Shai Vaingast, a professional engineer and engineering manager who needed to train scientists and engineers to do this kind of programming work. He was looking for a tutorial and reference work, and unable to find a suitable text, wound up writing his first book. He writes in the easy and clear style of someone comfortable and engaged with the subject matter." Keep reading for the rest of aceydacey's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Beginning Python Visualization

Posted: May 27th, 2009, 8:02pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

aceydacey writes "Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Beginning Python Visualization: Creating Visual Transformation Scripts, published in February 2009 by Apress, shows how Python and its related tools can be used to easily and effectively turn raw data into visual representations that communicate effectively. The author is Shai Vaingast, a professional engineer and engineering manager who needed to train scientists and engineers to do this kind of programming work. He was looking for a tutorial and reference work, and unable to find a suitable text, wound up writing his first book. He writes in the easy and clear style of someone comfortable and engaged with the subject matter." Keep reading for the rest of aceydacey's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
What Free IDE Do You Use?

Posted: May 27th, 2009, 8:41am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

postermmxvicom writes "I program only occasionally and mostly for personal interest. I went to update my favorite free IDE, Dev C++, yesterday and noticed that it had not been updated since 2005! I went looking for other free IDEs and came across Code::Blocks and Visual Studio Express. I work from a Windows machine, use C++, and make mostly console apps; but have written a few Windows apps and D3D or OpenGL apps. I wanted to know what free IDEs you use and recommend. What do you like about them? What features do they lack? What about them irritate you (and what do you do to work around these annoyances)? For instance, when I used Visual C++ 6.0 in college, there was an error in getline that had to be fixed, and the code indenting in DevC++ needed to be tweaked to suit my liking."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
What Free IDE Do You Use?

Posted: May 27th, 2009, 8:41am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

postermmxvicom writes "I program only occasionally and mostly for personal interest. I went to update my favorite free IDE, Dev C++, yesterday and noticed that it had not been updated since 2005! I went looking for other free IDEs and came across Code::Blocks and Visual Studio Express. I work from a Windows machine, use C++, and make mostly console apps; but have written a few Windows apps and D3D or OpenGL apps. I wanted to know what free IDEs you use and recommend. What do you like about them? What features do they lack? What about them irritate you (and what do you do to work around these annoyances)? For instance, when I used Visual C++ 6.0 in college, there was an error in getline that had to be fixed, and the code indenting in DevC++ needed to be tweaked to suit my liking."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Why Programming Rituals Work

Posted: May 18th, 2009, 10:41pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

narramissic writes "Programmers may not think that their rituals are unusual, but if you swear that your code is less buggy if you recite it aloud or you prepare for coding by listening to certain music, don't be surprised if you get a couple sideways glances. In a recent ITworld article, Issac Kelly, Lead Developer at Servee.com, explains his routine and why it works: 'To me, programming is really the 'last mile' to getting something done. When I do the planning and specifications, I go on lots of walks, take lots of time with my wife, and really do as little work in front of the computer as possible. The more I plan (in my head, on paper, on a whiteboard) the less I program; and all of my rituals are to that end.' His ritual goes like this: 'Before sitting down to a coding session, he gets a big glass of water, takes everything off of his desk, and closes out all programs and e-mail, keeping open only his code editor. The office door is shut, and some sort of music is playing ('typically an instrumental only, like my 'Explosions in the Sky' pandora station,' says Kelly).'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Finding a Personal Coding Trifecta

Posted: May 17th, 2009, 10:30pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

jammag writes "For Seinfeld's George Constanza, his dream of the ideal moment was having sex while watching TV and eating a pastrami sandwich. He called this Nirvana state 'The Trifecta.' Developer Eric Spiegel adapts this concept of Nirvana to the act of writing your best possible code. He examines all (or most) of the possible things that might contribute to the 'The Trifecta' for developers — food, beverages, time of day. Spiegel also describes his personal Trifecta."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Interview With UIzard Creator Ryu Sunt-tae

Posted: May 15th, 2009, 11:02pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

volume4 writes "A couple of days ago, the folks over at Ajaxian introduced the world to UIzard, an awesome creation by a Korean developer using YUI. There is actually a heck of a lot more about it, and the excitement about the app caused the UIzard website to go down. Most people could not interact with the app or learn more. A day or so later, the website was back but I could still not access the app. I went on a search to find the creator of UIzard to learn more about it, and finally, through Jinho.Jung on Flickr, I got ahold of his email address and hooked up with Ryu Sunt-tae to learn more."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Microsoft To Banish Memcpy()

Posted: May 15th, 2009, 5:26pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

kyriacos notes that Microsoft will be adding memcpy() to its list of function calls banned under its secure development lifecycle. This reader asks, "I was wondering how advanced C/C++ programmers view this move. Do you find this having a negative impact on the flexibility of the language, and do you think it will restrict the creativity of the programmer?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Have Sockets Run Their Course?

Posted: May 13th, 2009, 7:40am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

ChelleChelle writes "This article examines the limitations of the sockets API. The Internet and the networking world in general have changed in very significant ways since the sockets API was first developed in 1982, but the API has had the effect of narrowing the ways in which developers think about and write networked applications. This article discusses the history as well as the future of the sockets API, focusing on how 'high bandwidth, low latency, and multihoming are driving the development of new alternatives.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Qt Opens Source Code Repositories

Posted: May 12th, 2009, 5:23pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

sobral writes "Following the announcement of the LGPL license model, since yesterday the Qt source code repositories are open to the public together with their roadmap. The contribution model is online and will enable developers from the community to submit patches through a single click process, avoiding the previous hassle of sending in signed paperwork. The code is hosted at qt.gitorious.org and an instant benefit of this launch is that Qt Software has been working together with Gitorious maintainers for the last four months to improve Gitorious and all these new features are already submitted upstream."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Old-School Coding Techniques You May Not Miss

Posted: April 30th, 2009, 6:06am CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

CWmike writes "Despite its complexity, the software development process has gotten better over the years. 'Mature' programmers remember manual intervention and hand-tuning. Today's dev tools automatically perform complex functions that once had to be written explicitly. And most developers are glad of it. Yet, young whippersnappers may not even be aware that we old fogies had to do these things manually. Esther Schindler asked several longtime developers for their top old-school programming headaches and added many of her own to boot. Working with punch cards? Hungarian notation?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
2009 ACM Programming Contest Results and Webcast

Posted: April 22nd, 2009, 8:32pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

Jon Larsson writes "Yesterday, the 33rd World Finals of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest were held at KTH — The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. World Champions, for the second consecutive year, are the Saint Petersburg State University of IT, Mechanics and Optics. They won in competition with 99 other teams from all six continents — the best of the over 7000 teams participating in the qualifying rounds during the past half year. The full results can be found here and the contest problem set is available here (PDF). For the first time ever, the whole event was broadcast live, both on the web and on national TV in Sweden. The broadcast was produced by media students of KTH and the Lillehammer University College in Norway. The webcast in its entirety (over 7 hours) can be viewed here."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Project Management For Beginners?

Posted: April 22nd, 2009, 2:32pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

lawpoop writes "At my current workplace, I'm tasked with creating a rather complicated and metastasizing web-database application. I've mostly been the sole 'IT guy' at my workplaces in the past, so I've never had to, nor taken the time, to learn proper project management routines — code comments mostly got me through it. Now for this project, it's getting somewhat hairy and I'm sensing that I need to start doing things in a more organized manner. What resources would you direct me to? Books? (I wouldn't mind buying one good one.) Websites? What do proper 'specs' look like? Must I use UML (seems complicated and unintuitive) or a simpler ER diagram? For this job, I just need to provide better estimates for completing features, but what will I need if/when I would be working with a team?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Where's Your Coding Happy Place?

Posted: April 20th, 2009, 9:26pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

jammag writes "Cranking out code — your very best code — requires being in the optimal environment, muses developer Eric Spiegel. He explores the pitfalls and joys of the usual locales, cubicle, home, the beach. He claims he's done his best coding on an airplane. In the end, though, he suggests that the best environment is a matter of the environment inside yourself, your internal mood — and to hell with the cubicle or wherever. You have to be focused on quality, regardless of the idiot clients. It's all inside your mind. Where's your coding happy place?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Philosophies and Programming Languages

Posted: April 17th, 2009, 6:10pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

evariste.galois writes "Wikipedia has a special section called, 'Language Philosophy,' in every article for a programming language. This section looks at the motivation and the basic principles of the language design. What if we investigate further than that? What deeper connections between philosophies and programming languages exist? By considering the most influential thinkers of all time (e.g. Plato, Descartes, Kant) we can figure out which programming language fits best with aspects of their philosophy (Did you know that Kant was the first Python programmer)? The list is not exhaustive, but this is a funny and educative start."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Brendan Eich Explains ECMAScript 3.1 To Developers

Posted: April 17th, 2009, 3:01pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

VonGuard writes "On April 9, ECMA International produced the final draft for the first major update to JavaScript since 1999. It's called ECMAScript 3.1, but will soon be known as ECMAScript, Fifth Edition. You'll know it as JavaScript, the Next Generation. Mozilla will begin implementing these features after Firefox 3.5, and Microsoft is already showing prototypes behind closed doors. The question, however, is what this will change for JavaScript coders. To get those answers, I tracked down Brendan Eich, Mozilla's CTO and the creator of JavaScript. I transcribed the interview without any editorial since he explains, perfectly, what's changing for programmers. Long story short: Json will be safer, getters and setters will be standard, and strict mode will make things easier to debug."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
What Do You Call People Who "Do HTML"?

Posted: April 14th, 2009, 4:53pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

gilgongo writes "It's more than 10 years since people started making a living writing web page markup, yet the job title (and role) has yet to settle down. Not only that, but there are different types of people who write markup: those that approach the craft as essentially an integration task, and those that see it as part of UI design overall. The situation is further complicated by the existence of other roles in the workplace such as graphic designer and information architect. This is making recruitment for this role a real headache. So, how do you describe people who 'do HTML' (and CSS and maybe a bit of JavaScript and graphics manipulation)? Some job titles I've seen include: Design Technologist, Web Developer, Front-end Developer, HTML/CSS Developer, Client-side Developer and UI Engineer. Do you have any favourite job titles for this role?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Worst Working Conditions You Had To Write Code In?

Posted: April 13th, 2009, 7:35pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

sausaw writes "I recently had to write code in a hot dusty room for 20 days with temperatures near 107F (~41C); having nothing to sit on; a 64 Kbps inconsistent internet connection; warm water for drinking and a lot of distractions and interruptions. I am sure many people have been in similar situations and would like to know your experiences."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Can rev="canonical" Replace URL-Shortening Services?

Posted: April 12th, 2009, 9:40pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Chris Shiflett writes "There's a new proposal ('URL shortening that doesn't hurt the Internet') floating around for using rev="canonical" to help put a stop to the URL-shortening madness. In order to avoid the great linkrot apocalypse, we can opt to specify short URLs for our own pages, so that compliant services (adoption is still low, because the idea is pretty fresh) will use our short URLs instead of TinyURL.com (or some other third-party alternative) replacements."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
COBOL Turning 50, Still Important

Posted: April 11th, 2009, 5:20pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Death Metal writes with this excerpt from a story about COBOL's influence as it approaches 50 years in existence: "According to David Stephenson, the UK manager for the software provider Micro Focus, 'some 70% to 80% of UK plc business transactions are still based on COBOL.' ... Mike Gilpin, from the market research company Forrester, says that the company's most recent related survey found that 32% of enterprises say they still use COBOL for development or maintenance. ... A lot of this maintenance and development takes place on IBM products. The company's software group director of product delivery and strategy, Charles Chu, says that he doesn't think 'legacy' is pejorative. 'Business constantly evolves,' he adds, 'but there are 250bn lines of COBOL code working well worldwide. Why would companies replace systems that are working well?'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Researcher Resurrects the First Computer

Posted: April 10th, 2009, 4:56pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

aleph60 writes "A German researcher is about to resurrect the first fully electronic general-purpose stored-program computer, the Manchester Mark 1 (1948). The functional replica will run the source code of an original program from 1952 by Christopher Strachey, whose sole purpose was generating love letters; it is historically interesting as one of the first examples of a text-generating program. The installation will be shown at an art exhibition in Germany at the end of April." Here is researcher David Link's Manchester Mark I emulator home, which generates a new love poem on each page load. When the Mark I had been used to search for new Mersenne primes in 1949, a press account coined the phrase "electronic brain" to characterize it.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Twitter On Scala

Posted: April 7th, 2009, 10:35pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

machaut writes "Twitter, one of the highest profile Ruby on Rails-backed websites on the Internet, has in the past year started replacing some of their Ruby infrastructure with an emerging language called Scala, developed by Martin Odersky at Switzerland's École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Although they still prefer Ruby on Rails for user-facing web applications, Twitter's developers have started replacing Ruby daemon servers with Scala alternatives, and plan eventually to serve API requests, which comprise the majority of their traffic, with Scala instead of Ruby. This week several articles have appeared that discuss this shift at Twitter. A technical interview with three Twitter developers was published on Artima. One of those developers, Alex Payne, Twitter's API lead, gave a talk on this subject at the Web 2.0 Expo this week, which was covered by Technology Review and The Register."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Strange Glitches In Games

Posted: April 6th, 2009, 6:31am CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Parz writes "Even the best of game developers can leave a big dirty glitch buried within its products that can turn a gameplay experience on its head (sometimes literally). Gameplayer has trawled through the web to locate video footage of some of the more amazing and hilarious examples of glitches in games. It acts as an interesting insight into the bugs that some games — especially today — ship with. What interesting bugs have you encountered?"
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Shouldn't Every Developer Understand English?

Posted: March 31st, 2009, 8:52pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

Pickens writes "Jeff Atwood has an interesting post that begins by noting that with the Internet, whatever country you live in or language you speak, a growing percentage of the accumulated knowledge of the world can and should be available in your native language; but that the rules are different for programmers. 'So much so that I'm going to ask the unthinkable: shouldn't every software developer understand English?' Atwood argues that 'It's nothing more than great hackers collectively realizing that sticking to English for technical discussion makes it easier to get stuff done. It's a meritocracy of code, not language, and nobody (or at least nobody who is sane, anyway) localizes programming languages.' Eric Raymond in his essay 'How to be a Hacker' says that functional English is required for true hackers and notes that 'Linus Torvalds, a Finn, comments his code in English (it apparently never occurred to him to do otherwise). His fluency in English has been an important factor in his ability to recruit a worldwide community of developers for Linux. It's an example worth following.' Although it may sound like The Ugly American and be taken as a sort of cultural imperialism, 'advocating the adoption of English as the de-facto standard language of software development is simple pragmatism, the most virtuous of all hacker traits,' writes Atwood. 'If that makes me an ugly American programmer, so be it.'"
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Project Aims For 5x Increase In Python Performance

Posted: March 27th, 2009, 9:29pm CET by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

cocoanaut writes "A new project launched by Google's Python engineers could make the popular programming language five times faster. The project, which is called Unladen Swallow, seeks to replace the Python interpreter's virtual machine with a new just-in-time (JIT) compilation engine that is built on LLVM. The first milestone release, which was announced at PyCon, already offers a 15-25% performance increase over the standard CPython implementation. The source code is available from the Google Code web site."
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Crowdsourcing JavaScript Testing

Posted: March 25th, 2009, 12:31am CET by timothy

Tags: programming

snitch writes "John Resig, creator of the jQuery JavaScript library, has released Test Swarm, a platform for distributed continuous integration testing for client-side JavaScript. Frustrated with traditional JavaScript testing environments that don't scale, John's new project, which is currently in private alpha, aims to provide a system for outsourcing browser-related testing to large groups of people or communities."
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Programming Language Specialization Dilemma

Posted: March 21st, 2009, 6:20pm CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

aremstar writes "I'm a final-year Computer Science student from the UK. During my studies, we covered 3 programming languages: C, C++ and Java. The issue is that we didn't cover any of these languages in sufficient depth for me to claim that I have commercial-ready experience. It's one thing being able to write simple programs for class assignments, but those are quite different from writing something as complex as the Linux kernel or a multi-threaded banking app. I'm thinking of spending a few weeks/months studying in order to specialize in one of those languages. Fortran also entered my consideration, as it is great for numerical computing and used by many financial institutions, banks, etc. In terms of skill requirements in job ads, my (brief) experience suggests that most programming jobs require C++, with Java a close second. C — unfortunately — doesn't appear as much. My question is: if you were in my shoes, which language would win your time investment? My heart suggests C, with a little bit of Fortran to complement it, but I'm a bit worried that there might not be enough demand in the job market."
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Blizzard Asserts Rights Over Independent Add-Ons

Posted: March 21st, 2009, 4:18pm CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

bugnuts writes "Blizzard has announced a policy change regarding add-ons for the popular game World of Warcraft which asserts requirements on UI programmers, such as disallowing charging for the program, obfuscation, or soliciting donations. Add-ons are voluntarily-installed UI programs that add functionality to the game, programmed in Lua, which can do various tasks that hook into the WoW engine. The new policy has some obvious requirements, such as not loading the servers or spamming users, and it looks like an attempt to make things more accessible and free for the end user. But unlike FOSS, it adds other requirements that assert control over these independently coded programs, such as distribution and fees. Blizzard can already control the ultimate functionality of add-ons by changing the hooks into the WoW engine. They have exercised this ability in the past, e.g. to disable add-ons that automate movement and facilitate 'one-button' combat. Should they be able to make demands on independent programmers' copyrighted works, such as forbidding download fees or advertising, when those programmers are not under contract to code for Blizzard? Is this like Microsoft asserting control over what programmers may code for Windows?"
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From an Unrelated Career To IT/Programming?

Posted: March 20th, 2009, 5:47pm CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "I hate my career of the past few years. For a long time I've wondered what I'd do after I broke even and could get into something new, and I keep coming back to computers. I'd like to get into software, since I always enjoyed coding. I have some background with C++ so I'm not starting entirely from scratch. My problem is my degrees and past employment have no practical application to the field. Where should I start? I have friends in both IT and software development who might be able to pull some strings and get me an interview or two for entry-level positions, but what can I do to make myself hireable in a short period of time? Is it possible to pick up enough of what I'd need within a couple months? If so, what and how?"
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It's Not the 15th Birthday of Linux

Posted: March 19th, 2009, 1:45pm CET by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

Glyn Moody writes "There's been a spate of celebrations of Linux's 15th birthday recently. What they're really marking is the 15th anniversary of version 1.0. But do version numbers matter for free software? The 'release early, release often' approach means there's generally little difference between version 0.99.14z, say, and version 1.0. In fact, drawing attention to such anniversaries is misguided, because it gives the impression that free software is created in the same way as traditional proprietary code, working towards a predetermined end-point according to a top-down plan. So how should we be choosing and celebrating free software's past achievements?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

It's Not the 15th Birthday of Linux

Posted: March 19th, 2009, 1:45pm CET by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

Glyn Moody writes "There's been a spate of celebrations of Linux's 15th birthday recently. What they're really marking is the 15th anniversary of version 1.0. But do version numbers matter for free software? The 'release early, release often' approach means there's generally little difference between version 0.99.14z, say, and version 1.0. In fact, drawing attention to such anniversaries is misguided, because it gives the impression that free software is created in the same way as traditional proprietary code, working towards a predetermined end-point according to a top-down plan. So how should we be choosing and celebrating free software's past achievements?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
It's Not the 15th Birthday of Linux

Posted: March 19th, 2009, 1:45pm CET by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

Glyn Moody writes "There's been a spate of celebrations of Linux's 15th birthday recently. What they're really marking is the 15th anniversary of version 1.0. But do version numbers matter for free software? The 'release early, release often' approach means there's generally little difference between version 0.99.14z, say, and version 1.0. In fact, drawing attention to such anniversaries is misguided, because it gives the impression that free software is created in the same way as traditional proprietary code, working towards a predetermined end-point according to a top-down plan. So how should we be choosing and celebrating free software's past achievements?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

Best Practice For Retiring RSS Feeds?

Posted: March 17th, 2009, 2:57pm CET by timothy

Tags: programming

GBJ writes "I work for an organisation that runs seasonal online competition events. Each event has its own news feed which becomes obsolete shortly after the event finishes. We're still getting RSS requests for some events as far back as 2004. I'd like to close a few thousand old feeds and remove the resource hit they cause, but I'm not sure what is the best approach. Currently I'm considering just returning a 404, but I have no idea if there is a better way to handle this. Uncle Google hasn't turned anything up yet, but sometimes it's hard to find something when you don't know what it's called ..."
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Assemble the Social Web with Zembly

Posted: March 16th, 2009, 6:55pm CET by samzenpus

Tags: programming

stoolpigeon writes "Web applications are all the rage, web applications that function within the context of social networking sites doubly so. I think it is safe to say that pretty much anyone looking to garner a large audience on the web, for financial or any other reasons, has to be considering how they can reach people on sites like Facebook, or all those users out there accessing the web via their iPhones. Sun Microsystems has entered this arena by providing a set of web-based development tools and a platform on which to host the resulting products that is now in beta and named Zembly. And while Zembly has not been open to the public for all that long, two of Zemblys architects with the help of two writers have published a new cookbook for the aspiring Zembly developer, Assemble the Social Web with Zembly." Read below for the rest of JR's review.
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Are Quirky Developers Brilliant Or Dangerous?

Posted: March 16th, 2009, 3:14pm CET by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

jammag writes "Most developers have worked with a dude like Josh, who's so brilliant the management fawns over him even as he takes a dump in the lobby flowerpot. Eric Spiegel tells of one such Josh, who wears T-shirts with offensive slogans, insults female co-workers and, when asked about documentation, smirks, "What documentation?' Sure, he was whipsmart and could churn out code that saved the company millions, but can we please stop enabling these people?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Barbara Liskov Wins Turing Award

Posted: March 10th, 2009, 8:28pm CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

jonniee writes "MIT Professor Barbara Liskov has been granted the ACM's Turing Award. Liskov, the first US woman to earn a PhD in computer science, was recognized for helping make software more reliable, consistent and resistant to errors and hacking. She is only the second woman to receive the honor, which carries a $250,000 purse and is often described as the 'Nobel Prize in computing.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Realities of Selling On Apple's App Store

Posted: March 10th, 2009, 10:16am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

Owen Goss writes "Everyone is familiar with the story of the iPhone developer who spends two weeks of spare time making a game that goes on to make them hundreds of thousands of dollars. The reality is that with the App Store now hosting over 25,000 apps, the competition is fierce. While it's true that a few select apps are making developers rich, the reality is that most apps don't make a lot of money. In a blog post I take a hard look at the first 24 days of sales data for the first game, Dapple, from Streaming Colour Studios. The post reflects what is likely the norm for developers just getting into the iPhone development game."
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Congress Mulls API For Congressional Data

Posted: March 6th, 2009, 4:47pm CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

Amerika sends in a Wired blog post on the desire in Congress to make data on lawmaking more easily available to the public. The senator who introduced the language into an omnibus appropriations bill wants feedback on the best way to make (e.g.) the Library of Congress's Thomas data more available — an API or bulk downloads, or both. Some comments on the blog posting call for an authenticated versioning system so we can know unequivocally how any particular language made its way into a bill. "Congress has apparently listened to the public's complaints about lack of convenient access to government data. The new Omnibus Appropriations Bill includes a section, introduced by Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), that would mark the first tangible move toward making federal legislative data available to the public in bulk, so third parties can mash it up and redistribute it in innovative and accessible ways. This would include all the data currently distributed through the Library of Congress's Thomas web site — bill status and summary information, lists of sponsors, tracking timelines, voting records, etc."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
QT 4.5 Released, Plus New IDE and Analysis Tool

Posted: March 3rd, 2009, 4:41pm CET by timothy

Tags: programming

stoolpigeon writes "QT 4.5 has arrived and is now available for download. This new release is quite significant due to licensing changes that now make it simpler to use QT in a wider range of products without cost as well as a number of new features. The latest version of Webkit is now integrated into the product. Qt 4.5 sees the introduction of QtBenchLib, a new component to make measuring the performance of the toolkit and checking for regressions easier. Mac developers who use Qt will note a major reworking of 4.5 on the Mac, now providing 64-bit support. QT Creator is a new IDE that looks to have combined a number of previously separate tools. And there is much more."
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Null References, the Billion Dollar Mistake

Posted: March 3rd, 2009, 4:22pm CET by timothy

Tags: programming

jonr writes "'I call it my billion-dollar mistake. It was the invention of the null reference in 1965. At that time, I was designing the first comprehensive type system for references in an object oriented language (ALGOL W). My goal was to ensure that all use of references should be absolutely safe, with checking performed automatically by the compiler. But I couldn't resist the temptation to put in a null reference, simply because it was so easy to implement. This has led to innumerable errors, vulnerabilities, and system crashes, which have probably caused a billion dollars of pain and damage in the last forty years. In recent years, a number of program analysers like PREfix and PREfast in Microsoft have been used to check references, and give warnings if there is a risk they may be non-null. More recent programming languages like Spec# have introduced declarations for non-null references. This is the solution, which I rejected in 1965.' This is an abstract from Tony Hoare Presentation on QCon. I'm raised on C-style programming languages, and have always used null pointers/references, but I am having trouble of grokking null-reference free language. Is there a good reading out there that explains this?"
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Open Source Usability — Joomla! Vs. WordPress

Posted: March 3rd, 2009, 11:20am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "PlayingWithWire profiles two open source tools for Web development, comparing Joomla! and WordPress through the lens of usability. The article has apparently upset a few people at the Joomla! forum, but it does bring up a good point. Many open source projects are developed by engineers for engineers — should they focus more on usability? PlayingWithWire makes a bold analogy: 'If Joomla! is Linux, then WordPress is Mac OS X. WordPress might offer only 90% of the features of Joomla!, but in most cases WordPress is both easier to use and faster to get up and running.'" The article repeatedly stresses that blogging platform WordPress and CMS harness Joomla! occupy different levels of the content hierarchy. How fair is it to twit Joomla! on usability?
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Hope For Multi-Language Programming?

Posted: February 28th, 2009, 6:09am CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

chthonicdaemon writes "I have been using Linux as my primary environment for more than ten years. In this time, I have absorbed all the lore surrounding the Unix Way — small programs doing one thing well, communicating via text and all that. I have found the command line a productive environment for doing many of the things I often do, and I find myself writing lots of small scripts that do one thing, then piping them together to do other things. While I was spending the time learning grep, sed, awk, python and many other more esoteric languages, the world moved on to application-based programming, where the paradigm seems to be to add features to one program written in one language. I have traditionally associated this with Windows or MacOS, but it is happening with Linux as well. Environments have little or no support for multi-language projects — you choose a language, open a project and get it done. Recent trends in more targeted build environments like cmake or ant are understandably focusing on automatic dependency generation and cross-platform support, unfortunately making it more difficult to grow a custom build process for a multi-language project organically. All this is a bit painful for me, as I know how much is gained by using a targeted language for a particular problem. Now the question: Should I suck it up and learn to do all my programming in C++/Java/(insert other well-supported, popular language here) and unlearn ten years of philosophy, or is there hope for the multi-language development process?"
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Whither the 19th IOCCC?

Posted: February 25th, 2009, 7:15am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

dazedNconfuzed writes "Whatever happened to the 19th IOCCC? The opening thereof was announced over two years ago and the winners' names were posted, but the source code was never released — leaving the results of the 2006 contest unknown as we get well into 2009. Emails to questions@ioccc.org just bounce. Surely the quiet absence of a high point of geekdom becomes news at some point!"
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Walter Bright Ports D To the Mac

Posted: February 22nd, 2009, 3:52pm CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

jonniee writes "D is a programming language created by Walter Bright of C++ fame. D's focus is on combining the power and high performance of C/C++ with the programmer productivity of modern languages like Ruby and Python. And now he's ported it to the Macintosh. Quoting: '[Building a runtime library] exposed a lot of conditional compilation issues that had no case for OS X. I found that Linux has a bunch of API functions that are missing in OS X, like getline and getdelim, so some of the library functionality had to revert to more generic code for OS X. I had to be careful, because although many system macros had the same functionality and spelling, they had different expansions. Getting these wrong would cause some mysterious behavior, indeed.'"
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Web-based IDEs Edge Closer To the Mainstream

Posted: February 19th, 2009, 4:04pm CET by timothy

Tags: programming

snitch writes "Last week Mozilla released Bespin, their web-based framework for code editing, and only a few days later Boris Bokowski and Simon Kaegi implemented an Eclipse-based Bespin server using headless Eclipse plug-ins. With the presentation of the web-based Eclipse workbench at EclipseCon and the release of products like Heroku, a web-based IDE and hosting environment for RoR apps, it seems that web-based IDEs might soon become mainstream."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Collective Intelligence in Action

Posted: February 18th, 2009, 7:03pm CET by samzenpus

Tags: programming

lamaditx writes "The book Collective Intelligence in Action shows you how to apply theory from Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Data Mining to your business. The goal is to create systems which make use of data created by groups of people — i.e. social networks — and abstract from these to gain new or additional information. Some of you might think "just another kind of Web 2.0." This is one application you might think of, but the input and output format do not matter that much. You can use these methods anywhere as long as the amount of data is big enough. You will find some examples related to the latest web technologies to explain methods, but the code is rather generic. Also, you won't find a lot disturbing details about HTML, HTTP and the like." Keep reading for the rest of Adrian's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Case For Supporting and Using Mono

Posted: February 5th, 2009, 11:29pm CET by timothy

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister argues in favor of Mono, asking those among the open source community who have 'variously described Mono as a trap, a kludge, or simply a waste of effort' to look past Miguel de Icaza and Mono's associations with Microsoft and give the open source implementation of .Net a second chance, as he himself has, having predicted Mono's demise at the hands of open source Java in 2006. Far from being just a clone of .Net for Linux, McAllister argues, Mono has been 'expanding its presence into exciting and unexpected new niches.' And for those who argue that 'developing open-source software based on Microsoft technologies is like walking into a lion's den,' McAllister suggests taking a look at the direction Mono is heading. The more Mono evolves, the less likely Microsoft is to use patent claims or some other dirty trick to bring down the platform."
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Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development

Posted: February 4th, 2009, 8:42pm CET by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Michael J. Ross writes "Every major content management system (CMS) offers considerable functionality for building Web sites out of the box. But to get the most out of any CMS, its functionality must be extended through the addition of modules, most of which are created by third-party developers. For instance, a given CMS may need to be supplemented by an e-commerce module in order to use that CMS for building an online store. Joomla, one of the most widely used CMSs, is no exception. Web developers interested in creating their own Joomla extensions can read Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development, authored by Joseph LeBlanc." Read below for the rest of Michael's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
FBML Essentials

Posted: February 2nd, 2009, 7:12pm CET by samzenpus

Tags: programming

stoolpigeon writes "Facebook became the largest worldwide social site in the middle of last year. If their current pace holds they will pass MySpace as number one in the US some time next year. Those numbers have led a number of people to strike out and develop Facebook applications, hoping to grab a piece of that huge audience. One aspect of writing such applications is knowing Facebook Markup Language, which has been described as the icing on the Facebook API cake. FBML Essentials aims to be the resource that provides hopeful application writers with what they need to use FBML successfully." Keep reading for the rest of JR's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ruby 1.9.1 Released

Posted: February 1st, 2009, 6:12am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

Janwedekind writes "Yuki Sonoda yesterday announced the release of Ruby 1.9.1 (Ruby Inside coverage with lots of links). The VM of Ruby 1.9, formerly known as YARV, was initiated by Koichi Sasada and has been in the making for quite some time. Ruby's creator Yukihiro Matsumoto has already presented many of the upcoming features in his keynote at RubyConf 2007. Most notably, Ruby 1.9 now supports native threads and an implementation of fibers. A lot of work also went into encoding awareness of strings. The 1.9.1 version is said to be twice as fast as the stable 1.8.7. It will take some time though until the majority of existing Ruby extensions get ported to 1.9."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ruby 1.9.1 Released

Posted: February 1st, 2009, 6:12am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

Janwedekind writes "Yuki Sonoda yesterday announced the release of Ruby 1.9.1 (Ruby Inside coverage with lots of links). The VM of Ruby 1.9, formerly known as YARV, was initiated by Koichi Sasada and has been in the making for quite some time. Ruby's creator Yukihiro Matsumoto has already presented many of the upcoming features in his keynote at RubyConf 2007. Most notably, Ruby 1.9 now supports native threads and an implementation of fibers. A lot of work also went into encoding awareness of strings. The 1.9.1 version is said to be twice as fast as the stable 1.8.7. It will take some time though until the majority of existing Ruby extensions get ported to 1.9."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
BotPrize — A Turing Test For Bots

Posted: January 24th, 2009, 6:18pm CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Philip Hingston writes "Computers can't play like people — yet. An unusual kind of computer game bot-programming contest has just been held in Perth, Australia, as part of the IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Games. The contest was not about programming the bot that plays the best. The aim was to see if a bot could convince another player that it was actually a human player. Game Development Studio 2K Australia (creator of BioShock) provided $7,000 cash plus a trip to their studio in Canberra for anyone who could create a bot to pass this 'Turing Test for Bots.' People like to play against opponents who are like themselves — opponents with personality, who can surprise, who sometimes make mistakes, yet don't robotically make the same mistakes over and over. Computers are superbly fast and accurate at playing games, but can they be programmed to be more fun to play — to play like you and me?" Read on for the rest of Philip's thoughts.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Survey Says C Dominated New '08 Open-Source Projects

Posted: January 23rd, 2009, 12:54am CET by timothy

Tags: programming

svonkie writes "C overwhelmingly proved to be the most popular programming language for thousands of new open-source projects in 2008, reports The Register (UK). According to license tracker Black Duck Software, which monitors 180,000 projects on nearly 4,000 sites, almost half — 47 per cent — of new projects last year used C. 17,000 new open-source projects were created in total. Next in popularity after C came Java, with 28 per cent. In scripting, JavaScript came out on top with 20 per cent, followed by Perl with 18 per cent. PHP attracted just 11 per cent, and Ruby six per cent. The numbers are a surprise, as open-source PHP has proved popular as a web-site development language, while Ruby's been a hot topic for many."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The ASP.NET Code Behind Whitehouse.gov

Posted: January 21st, 2009, 2:23am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "The author looks at the markup for the new whitehouse.gov site, launched today. It uses ASP.NET and various JavaScript libraries. It suffers from various inefficiencies, most easily remedied. Check the images and techniques used to build the site front-end."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Beginning iPhone Development

Posted: January 19th, 2009, 8:35pm CET by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Cory Foy writes "When my wife got a Touch several months back, the first thing I wanted to do was build some applications for it. Who wouldn't want to play with a device that has accelerometers, position sensors and multi-touch gestures? But being new to the Mac world, I needed something to help guide me along. Beginning iPhone Development aims to be that guide. But does it live up to the challenge of teaching a newbie Mac and iPhone developer?" Read below for the rest of Cory's review.
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Can We Create Fun Games Automatically?

Posted: January 15th, 2009, 11:50am CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

togelius writes "What makes games fun? Some (e.g. Raph Koster) claim that fun is learning — fun games are those which are easy to learn, but hard to master, with a long and smooth learning curve. I think we can create fun game rules automatically through measuring their learnability. In a recent experiment, we do this using evolutionary computation, and create some simple Pacman-like new games completely without human intervention! Perhaps this has a future in game design? The academic paper (PDF) is available as well."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Evolution of Python 3

Posted: January 12th, 2009, 10:02pm CET by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

chromatic writes to tell us that O'Reilly has an interview with Guido van Rossum on the evolutionary process that gave us Python 3.0 and what is in store for the future. "I'd like to reiterate that at this point, it's a very personal choice to decide whether to use 3.0 or 2.6. You don't run the risk of being left behind by taking a conservative stance at this point. 2.6 will be just as well supported by the same group of core Python developers as 3.0. At the same time, we're also not sort of deemphasizing the importance and quality of 3.0. So if you are not held back by external requirements like dependencies on packages or third party software that hasn't been ported to 3.0 yet or working in an environment where everyone else is using another version. If you're learning Python for the first time, 3.0 is a great way to learn the language. There's a couple of things that trip over beginners have been removed."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
More Than Coding Errors Behind Bad Software

Posted: January 12th, 2009, 8:19pm CET by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "SANS' just-released list of the Top 15 most dangerous programming errors obscures the real problem with software development today, argues InfoWeek's Alex Wolfe. In More Than Coding Mistakes At Fault In Bad Software, he lays the blame on PC developers (read: Microsoft) who kicked the time-honored waterfall model to the curb and replaced it not with object-oriented or agile development but with a 'modus operandi of cramming in as many features as possible, and then fixing problems in beta.' He argues that youthful programmers don't know about error-catching and lack a sense of history, suggesting they read Fred Brooks' 'The Mythical Man-Month,' and Gerald Weinberg's 'The Psychology of Computer Programming.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Git Adoption Soaring; Are There Good Migration Strategies?

Posted: January 10th, 2009, 11:15am CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Got To Get Me A Git writes "Distributed version control systems (DVCS) seem to be the next big thing for open source software development. Many projects have already adopted a DVCS and many others are in the process of migrating. There are a lot of major advantages to using a DVCS, but the task of migrating from one system to another appears to be a formidable challenge. The Perl Foundation's recent switch to Git took over a year to execute. The GNOME project is planning its own migration strategy right now after discovering that a significant majority of the project's developers favor Git. Perhaps some of the projects that are working on transitions from other mainstream version control systems can pool their resources and collaborate to make some standardized tools and migration best practices documentation. Does such a thing already exist? Are any folks out there in the Slashsphere working on migrating their own project or company to a DVCS? I'd appreciate some feedback from other readers about what works and what doesn't."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Using Drupal

Posted: January 9th, 2009, 9:03pm CET by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Michael J. Ross writes "After installing and learning the basics of the content management system Drupal, many Web developers do not know how to best proceed from there. They may realize that much of the programming potential of Drupal — and thus the earning potential of Drupal developers — is derived from the use of community-contributed modules that greatly extend Drupal's power. But there are thousands of such modules, with no objective direction as to which ones are best suited for particular tasks, and what bugs and other flaws could trip up the developer. These programmers need a thorough guide as to which modules are the most promising for the development of the most common types of Web sites. A new book, Using Drupal, aims to fill this need." Keep reading for the rest of Michael's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Scripts and Scaling In Online Games

Posted: January 9th, 2009, 7:11am CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

CowboyRobot writes "Jim Waldo of Sun Microsystems has written an article titled Scaling In Games & Virtual Worlds, saying that they 'should be perfect vehicles to show the performance gains possible with multicore chips and groups of cooperating servers. Games and virtual worlds are embarrassingly parallel, in that most of what goes on in them is independent of the other things that are happening. Of the hundreds of thousands of players who are active in World of Warcraft at any one time, only a very small number will be interacting with any particular player.' A group of researchers at Cornell wrote a related piece about improving game development and performance through better scripting."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Power of the R Programming Language

Posted: January 8th, 2009, 1:33am CET by samzenpus

Tags: programming

BartlebyScrivener writes "The New York Times has an article on the R programming language. The Times describes it as: 'a popular programming language used by a growing number of data analysts inside corporations and academia. It is becoming their lingua franca partly because data mining has entered a golden age, whether being used to set ad prices, find new drugs more quickly or fine-tune financial models. Companies as diverse as Google, Pfizer, Merck, Bank of America, the InterContinental Hotels Group and Shell use it.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Linux Kernel 2.4 Or 2.6 In Embedded System?

Posted: January 4th, 2009, 2:11pm CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

snikulin writes "My 6-year-old embedded software happily runs on kernel v2.4 on an XScale CPU. The software gets a bunch (tens of megabytes) of data from an FPGA over a PCI-X bus and pushes it out over GigE to data-processing equipment. The tool chain is based on the somewhat outdated gcc v2.95. Now, for certain technical reasons we want to jump from the ARM-based custom board to an Atom-based COM Express module. This implies that I'll need to re-create a Linux RAM disk from scratch along with the tool chain. The functionality of the software will be essentially the same. My question: is it worth it to jump to kernel 2.6, or better to stick with the old and proven 2.4? What will I gain and what will I lose if I stay at 2.4 (besides the modern gcc compiler and the other related dev tools)?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Balancing Performance and Convention

Posted: January 3rd, 2009, 4:48pm CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

markmcb writes "My development team was recently brainstorming over finding a practical solution to the problem that's haunted anyone who's ever used a framework: convention vs. customization. We specifically use Rails, and like most frameworks, it's great for 95% of our situations, but it's creating big bottlenecks for the other 5%. Our biggest worry isn't necessarily that we don't know how to customize, but rather that we won't have the resources to maintain customized code going forward; it's quite simple to update Rails as it matures versus the alternative. What have your experiences been with this problem? Have you found any best practices to avoid digging custom holes you can't climb out of?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Getting Started With Part-Time Development Work?

Posted: January 2nd, 2009, 7:17pm CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

fortapocalypse writes "I'm getting paid a good salary as a Java developer and the hours are great. It is also very stable, which means something in today's economy, especially with a family to feed. However, I'm very unmotivated both because of the work that I do, which is boring, and because the organization I work for is highly political, disorganized, and lacks accountability. I've done what I could to try to change things at work and have pretty much given up on that. I want to go out on my own, either starting my own company or just working as a contractor doing Java development, but I'm not sure of the best way to get started, and my family needs the stability of my current job. I'd really like to start out part-time at 5-15 hours a week to use it as supplemental income (which my family could really use at the moment), but I really don't know where to start. I doubt many contracting agencies would be interested in a part-time worker. What would you suggest for someone in my position?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Cryptol, Language of Cryptography, Now Available To the Public

Posted: December 26th, 2008, 8:44pm CET by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

solweil writes to mention that Cryptol, a 'domain specific language for the design, implementation and verification of cryptographic algorithms,' is now available to the public. Cryptol was originally designed for the NSA. It allows for a quick evaluation and continued revisions, and is available for Linux, OS X, and Windows.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Rails and Merb Ruby Web Frameworks Merge

Posted: December 23rd, 2008, 11:05pm CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "The Merb and Rails Core Teams today announced a major merger; the two projects will become one, and be released some time in Q2 of 2009 as Rails 3. This is great news for lots of folks who worried about the potential community fracture, as well as great news for all the developers who will now have an all-around better option for programming Ruby. Read more about the details in Yehuda's blog post, or at the Ruby on Rails blog."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Hardware Is Cheap, Programmers Are Expensive

Posted: December 20th, 2008, 4:47pm CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Sportsqs points out a story at Coding Horror which begins: "Given the rapid advance of Moore's Law, when does it make sense to throw hardware at a programming problem? As a general rule, I'd say almost always. Consider the average programmer salary here in the US. You probably have several of these programmer guys or gals on staff. I can't speak to how much your servers may cost, or how many of them you may need. Or, maybe you don't need any — perhaps all your code executes on your users' hardware, which is an entirely different scenario. Obviously, situations vary. But even the most rudimentary math will tell you that it'd take a massive hardware outlay to equal the yearly costs of even a modest five person programming team."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Scaling Facebook To 140 Million Users

Posted: December 17th, 2008, 5:02pm CET by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

1sockchuck writes "Facebook now has 140 million users, and in recent weeks has been adding 600,000 new users a day. To keep pace with that growth, the Facebook engineering team has been tweaking its use of memcached, and says it can now handle 200,000 UDP requests per second. Facebook has detailed its refinements to memcached, which it hopes will be included in the official memcached repository. For now, their changes have been released to github."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Now Final

Posted: December 12th, 2008, 9:18pm CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

beetle496 writes "It has been going on nine years now, but finally there are formal standards for Web accessibility for technologies other than HTML. They ask that you start with the press release (lots of links), but regulars might be more entertained by the last time WCAG made the front page here. Many folks here will point out that web accessibility is old hat, and by implication this is hardly news, but if you do Web development for any government organization, you should expect that accessibility is a base requirement. The Section 508 standards are to be updated (relatively) soon too."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Comparison of Nine Ruby Implementations

Posted: December 9th, 2008, 4:52pm CET by timothy

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "Zen and the Art of Programming published a new version of The Great Ruby Shootout, which was aimed at testing the performances of multiple Ruby implementations. On the benchmark table this time around are Ruby 1.8 (on GNU/Linux and Windows), Ruby 1.9 (aka Yarv), Ruby Enterprise Edition (aka REE), JRuby 1.1.6RC1, Rubinius, MagLev, MacRuby 0.3 and IronRuby. The results of this comprehensive comparison show that for this set of benchmarks, Ruby 1.9.1 is almost 5 times faster than the notoriously slow Ruby 1.8. Is Ruby finally going to be acceptably fast?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Evolution of Mona Lisa Via Genetic Programming

Posted: December 9th, 2008, 7:07am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

mhelander writes "In his weblog Roger Alsing describes how he used genetic programming to arrive at a remarkably good approximation of Mona Lisa using only 50 semi-transparent polygons. His blog entry includes a set of pictures that let you see how 'Poly Lisa' evolved over roughly a million generations. Both beautiful to look at and a striking way to get a feel for the power of evolutionary algorithms."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
What Programming Language For Linux Development?

Posted: December 7th, 2008, 12:46am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

k33l0r writes "Recently I've been thinking about developing (or learning to develop) for Linux. I'm an IT university student but my degree program focuses almost exclusively on Microsoft tools (Visual Studio, C#, ASP.NET, etc.) which is why I would like to expand my repertoire on my own. Personally I'm quite comfortable in a Linux environment, but have never programmed for it. Over the years I've developed a healthy fear of everything Java and I'm not too sure of what I think of Python's use of indentation to delimit blocks. The question that remains is: what language and tools should I be using?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

What Programming Language For Linux Development?

Posted: December 7th, 2008, 12:46am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

k33l0r writes "Recently I've been thinking about developing (or learning to develop) for Linux. I'm an IT university student but my degree program focuses almost exclusively on Microsoft tools (Visual Studio, C#, ASP.NET, etc.) which is why I would like to expand my repertoire on my own. Personally I'm quite comfortable in a Linux environment, but have never programmed for it. Over the years I've developed a healthy fear of everything Java and I'm not too sure of what I think of Python's use of indentation to delimit blocks. The question that remains is: what language and tools should I be using?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
What Programming Language For Linux Development?

Posted: December 7th, 2008, 12:46am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

k33l0r writes "Recently I've been thinking about developing (or learning to develop) for Linux. I'm an IT university student but my degree program focuses almost exclusively on Microsoft tools (Visual Studio, C#, ASP.NET, etc.) which is why I would like to expand my repertoire on my own. Personally I'm quite comfortable in a Linux environment, but have never programmed for it. Over the years I've developed a healthy fear of everything Java and I'm not too sure of what I think of Python's use of indentation to delimit blocks. The question that remains is: what language and tools should I be using?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

What Happens To Code From Failed Projects?

Posted: December 6th, 2008, 4:21pm CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Idzuna writes "With the somewhat recent announcement of Tabula Rasa shutting down, I have been thinking about what will happen to the Server/Client code. Does it get used as a guide for other projects? Does it get destroyed? Or does it just sit there on a hard drive somewhere in storage? The same question applies to many other failed creations. I know the likelihood of the code being distributed freely is next to nil, as most companies probably recycle code. If a vulnerability was found in old code, it could be applied to other products that the company has released. But wouldn't it help development of different projects if such a resource was available?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Time To Get Good At Functional Programming?

Posted: December 6th, 2008, 1:23am CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

prone2tech writes "From an article at Dr. Dobb's: Chipmakers have essentially said that the job of enforcing Moore's Law is now a software problem. They will concentrate on putting more and more cores on a die, and it's up to the software industry to recraft software to take advantage of the parallel-processing capabilities of the new chips. As is argued in this article, this means becoming proficient in parallel functional programming. The bad news? Getting good at functional programming is hard, harder than moving from iterative Pascal or Basic or C coding to object-oriented development. It's an exaggeration but a useful one: When you move to FP, all your algorithms break.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Political and Technical Implications of GitTorrent

Posted: December 4th, 2008, 7:03pm CET by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

lkcl writes "The GitTorrent Protocol (GTP) is a protocol for collaborative git repository distribution across the Internet. Git promises to be a distributed software management tool, where a repository can be distributed. Yet, the mechanisms used to date to actually 'distribute,' such as ssh, are very much still centralized. GitTorrent makes Git truly distributed. The initial plans are for reducing mirror loading, however the full plans include totally distributed development: no central mirrors whatsoever. PGP signing (an existing feature of git) and other web-of-trust-based mechanisms will take over from protocols on ports (e.g. ssh) as the access control 'clearing house.' The implications of a truly distributed revision control system are truly staggering: unrestricted software freedom. The playing field is leveled in so many ways, as 'The Web Site' no longer becomes the central choke-point of control. Coming just in time for that all-encompassing Free Software revolution hinted at by The Rebellion Against Vista, this article will explain more fully some of the implications that make this quiet and technically brilliant project, GitTorrent, so important to Software Freedom, from both technical and political perspectives."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Python 3.0 Released

Posted: December 4th, 2008, 1:57pm CET by samzenpus

Tags: programming

licorna writes "The 3.0 version of Python (also known as Python3k and Python3000) just got released few hours ago. It's the first ever intentionally backwards-incompatible Python release."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A Look At Modern Game AI

Posted: December 4th, 2008, 7:01am CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

IEEE Spectrum is running a feature about the progress of game AI, and how it's helping to drive AI development in general. They explore several of the current avenues of research and look at potential solutions to some of the common problems. "The trade-off between blind searching and employing specialized knowledge is a central topic in AI research. In video games, searching can be problematic because there are often vast sets of possible game states to consider and not much time and memory available to make the required calculations. One way to get around these hurdles is to work not on the actual game at hand but on a much-simplified version. Abstractions of this kind often make it practical to search far ahead through the many possible game states while assessing each of them according to some straightforward formula. If that can be done, a computer-operated character will appear as intelligent as a chess-playing program--although the bot's seemingly deft actions will, in fact, be guided by simple brute-force calculations."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Model-View-Controller — Misunderstood and Misused

Posted: December 2nd, 2008, 9:36pm CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

paradox1x writes "Malcolm Tredinnick shares a terrific rant against the misunderstanding and misuse of the Model-View-Controller design pattern. In particular he takes issue with the notion that Django should be considered an MVC framework. He says that 'It's as valid as saying it's a "circus support mechanism," since the statement is both true, in some contexts, and false in others (you can definitely use Django-based code to help run your circus; stop looking so skeptical).' I'm not sure I agree with the entire piece, but it is a very good read." We recently discussed another look at the bending and stretching of MVC patterns in the world of Web development.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Avoiding Mistakes Can Be a Huge Mistake

Posted: December 1st, 2008, 11:20pm CET by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

theodp writes "No doubt many will nod knowingly as they read Paul Graham's The Other Half of 'Artists Ship', which delves into the downside of procedures developed by Big Companies to protect themselves against mistakes. Because every check you put on your programmers has a cost, Graham warns: 'And just as the greatest danger of being hard to sell to is not that you overpay but that the best suppliers won't even sell to you, the greatest danger of applying too many checks to your programmers is not that you'll make them unproductive, but that good programmers won't even want to work for you.' Sound familiar, anyone?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Avoiding Mistakes Can Be a Huge Mistake

Posted: December 1st, 2008, 11:20pm CET by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

theodp writes "No doubt many will nod knowingly as they read Paul Graham's The Other Half of 'Artists Ship', which delves into the downside of procedures developed by Big Companies to protect themselves against mistakes. Because every check you put on your programmers has a cost, Graham warns: 'And just as the greatest danger of being hard to sell to is not that you overpay but that the best suppliers won't even sell to you, the greatest danger of applying too many checks to your programmers is not that you'll make them unproductive, but that good programmers won't even want to work for you.' Sound familiar, anyone?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Solving the Knight's Tour Puzzle In 60 Lines of Python

Posted: November 30th, 2008, 8:01pm CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

ttsiod writes "When I was a kid, I used to play the Knight's Tour puzzle with pen and paper: you simply had to pass once from every square of a chess board, moving like a Knight. Nowadays, I no longer play chess; but somehow I remembered this nice little puzzle and coded a 60-line Python solver that can tackle even 100x100 boards in less than a second. Try beating this, fellow coders!"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Solving the Knight's Tour Puzzle In 60 Lines of Python

Posted: November 30th, 2008, 8:01pm CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

ttsiod writes "When I was a kid, I used to play the Knight's Tour puzzle with pen and paper: you simply had to pass once from every square of a chess board, moving like a Knight. Nowadays, I no longer play chess; but somehow I remembered this nice little puzzle and coded a 60-line Python solver that can tackle even 100x100 boards in less than a second. Try beating this, fellow coders!"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Would You Add Easter Eggs To Software Produced At Work?

Posted: November 28th, 2008, 10:55pm CET by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Mr. Leinad writes "Do you add Easter Eggs to the software that is produced at the office? I mean, if you have complete control over the final product, do you spice it up with that little personal touch, which, as unlikely as it is that anyone will see, carries with it an 'I was here' signature? I've just finished the development of a large software product, and I have a couple of days left to try to add my own personal Easter Egg code, but given that the software is quite professional, I don't know if I should. What do you think? Should we developers sign our creations?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Web Browser Programming Blurring the Lines of MVC

Posted: November 28th, 2008, 6:32pm CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

lkcl tips his in-depth article up at Advogato on the difficulties for the MVC programming model that are introduced by Javascript and AJAX, and solutions for them. He writes: "This article outlines how the MVC concept is made incredibly awkward by the gradual but necessary introduction of Javascript and AJAX. A solution is found in the form of Javascript Compiler Technology such as GWT or Pyjamas (PyPy's JS backend or Rb2Js could be used, with some additional work). The article outlines how and why the traditional MVC patterns are fragmented by Javascript and AJAX, advocating that if a site is programmed purely in a high-level language that is then compiled to Javascript for the Web Browser sections, the same high-level source code can be executed either client-side on the browser, or server-side, or even both, depending on the requirements. The implications of this approach are discussed in depth."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
jQuery in Action

Posted: November 26th, 2008, 6:48pm CET by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Michael J. Ross writes "As perhaps the only substantial computer language embedded inside of the major Web browsers, JavaScript has brought an unprecedented level of power to client-side programming for the Internet. Yet as a result of cross-browser incompatibilities and other problems, it has probably also resulted in an unprecedented number of headaches for Web developers. JavaScript libraries attempt to mitigate much of these difficulties. One of the most popular such libraries, jQuery, is explored in a book by Bear Bibeault and Yehuda Katz, titled jQuery in Action." Keep reading for the rest of Michael's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
When Agile Projects Go Bad

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 7:55am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

blackbearnh writes "CIO Magazine has an article up looking at some of the ways that Agile projects can fail, or Agile can be misapplied in organizations. Some of the issues raised may not be new, but folks might want to pay special attention to these, since the people throwing the stones are two of the original Agile Manifesto signatories, Alistair Cockburn and Kent Brock. From the article: 'Once individuals become familiar with Agile, either through training or practice, they can become inflexible and intolerant of people new to the process. Cockburn has seen this in action. "I'm one of the authors of the manifesto, so if I say something 'weird,' they can't tell me I don't understand Agile. But if someone else — and it doesn't matter how many years of experience they have — says something funny, they get told they don't understand Agile."'" Here's another recent article by the same author on the perils now besetting Agile.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Distributed Compilation, a Programmer's Delight

Posted: November 14th, 2008, 5:36pm CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

cyberpead writes in with a Developerworks article on the open source tool options that can help speed up your build process by distributing the process across multiple machines in a local area network.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Java Trial Support Coming In Linux Standard Base

Posted: November 12th, 2008, 8:40pm CET by timothy

Tags: programming

LinuxScribe writes "Java isn't in the LSB — yet. It's been a hard target to hit: which version gets standardized? How will test suites work? But the new version of LSB will take the first steps towards Java inclusion in standardized Linux development by introducing trial support for the language."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

Java Trial Support Coming In Linux Standard Base

Posted: November 12th, 2008, 8:40pm CET by timothy

Tags: programming

LinuxScribe writes "Java isn't in the LSB — yet. It's been a hard target to hit: which version gets standardized? How will test suites work? But the new version of LSB will take the first steps towards Java inclusion in standardized Linux development by introducing trial support for the language."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

(Useful) Stupid Regex Tricks?

Posted: November 10th, 2008, 3:17pm CET by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

careysb writes to mention that in the same vein as '*nix tricks' and 'VIM tricks', it would be nice to see one on regular expressions and the programs that use them. What amazingly cool tricks have people discovered with respect to regular expressions in everyday life as a developer or power user?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ioke Tries To Combine the Best of Lisp and Ruby

Posted: November 10th, 2008, 7:22am CET by timothy

Tags: programming

synodinos writes "Ola Bini, a core JRuby developer and author of the book Practical JRuby on Rails Projects, has been developing a new language for the JVM called Ioke. This strongly typed, extremely dynamic, prototype-based, object-oriented language aims to give developers the same kind of power they get with Lisp and Ruby, combined with a nice, small, regular syntax."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
How to Search Today's Usenet For Programming Information?

Posted: November 9th, 2008, 10:08pm CET by timothy

Tags: programming

DeadlyBattleRobot writes "I've been using Usenet searches since about 1995 to get programming information, sample code, etc., mostly for those standard APIs that are never documented well enough in the official documentation. At first I used dejanews, and now Google Groups (Google bought dejanews). Over the last few years, I've noticed a steady decline in the quantity of search results on programming topics on Usenet from Google, increasing difficulty with their search UI and result pages, and today I find I'm completely unable to get a working Usenet search on their advanced group search page. I'm used to searching on 'microsoft.*' or 'comp.*,' sometimes supplemented with variations like '*microsoft*' or 'comp*.' As an example, try to find a post from the 1996-1998 time period on 'database' in either the comp.* or microsoft.* hierarchies, and if you can do it, please show your search expression. There should be thousands of results, but I'm getting the result 'Your search — database group:comp.* — did not match any documents.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
How Do I Get Open Source Programs Written For Me?

Posted: November 7th, 2008, 4:26pm CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "I am a biomedical researcher interested in having general-purpose, scientific programs developed and released as open source. Interface design and reusability of the code are of primary importance to me. For my purpose, Cocoa applications relying on Core Data seem to be the best way to get the job done quickly. While I have some programming experience, I have few connections to the industrial world. So my question to Slashdot readers is: how do I find someone (individual or business) to write high-quality programs? Are there reputable contractors experienced in Cocoa? What sort of rates should I expect, to use as a starting point in negotiations? Would a requirement that programs are released as open source make it more or less difficult to find someone to do the job?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Reuse Code Or Code It Yourself?

Posted: November 5th, 2008, 1:02am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

eldavojohn writes "I began coding for a project that had simple requirements for my employer — Web services and a test application for them. But requirements have been creeping, as they always do. Initially I had decided to use the Spring Framework with Hibernate. And I re-used a lot of libraries that made things simple and quick for me. The new requests coming in involve capabilities beyond those of the frameworks. Now, I used to be told that good programmers write code and great programmers reuse code. It's starting to look like I would have saved myself a whole lot of time if I had written the database transaction using JDBC instead of Hibernate — now that I'm married to this object model framework, some of this stuff doesn't look doable. So what is better for the majority of software projects out there: reuse code, or code from scratch? What elements or characteristics of a problem point to one option over the other?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Scripting In Commodore BASIC For Windows & Linux

Posted: November 4th, 2008, 10:41pm CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

SomeoneGotMyNick writes "Someone more nostalgic than I am, and with a lot of time on their hands, had created a scripting language based on Commodore BASIC for Mac OS X. They recently finished a version that works on Windows and Linux. You can pass the text of a BASIC program as a parameter to the program. I found it odd that it took 1.8 MB of source code to compile to an interpreter that used to fit in 8K of ROM space. If this ever becomes popular, perhaps we'll see Obfuscated CBM BASIC contests." In a simliar vein, in the comments someone points out what is essentially an open source AmigaOS Classic.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Programming .NET 3.5

Posted: November 3rd, 2008, 6:00pm CET by samzenpus

Tags: programming

lamaditx writes "The world of the .NET framework is taken to the next level by the release of .NET 3.5. The intended audience of this book are experienced .NET programmers. There are no sections that tell you details about C#, SQL servers or anything like that. I don't recommend this book if you never worked on a .NET project and don't know how to set up a SQL database. You should be aware that the code is written in C#. You might use one of the software code converters if you prefer Visual Basic instead. I think the code is still readable even if you do not know C#. I appreciate the fact that the authors decided to use one language only because it keeps the book smaller. The authors assume you are using Visual Studio 2008. You don't necessarily need to update to 2008 if you are working with an older edition because you can use the free Express Edition to get started." Keep reading for the rest of Adrian's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A Look At Successful Game Mods

Posted: October 22nd, 2008, 10:30pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Parz writes "Mods have been an important part of gaming for well over 15 years. Not only have they provided plenty of additional free gaming to players, but they've acted as a launch pad for independent and amateur programmers to show off their skills to potential employers. This Gameplayer article highlights the programmers who are doing it best, and what mods have made biggest and most enjoyable impact on gaming. The article not only provides details for each game, but also links to the downloads, and is a great resource for those interesting in getting up-to-date with this exciting scene." Obviously, this list will seem incomplete to anyone whose favorite mod was omitted. What mods contributed most to your enjoyment?
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Dojo: Using the Dojo JavaScript Library

Posted: October 22nd, 2008, 6:48pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

stoolpigeon writes "The number and functionality of web based applications has exploded recently. Many of these applications rely heavily on AJAX to provide a more desktop-like experience for users. As the number of people using JavaScript grew, libraries were developed to assist with commonly encountered issues. Jim Harmon's new book Dojo: Using the Dojo JavaScript Library to Build Ajax Applications aims to introduce readers to one of those libraries, the Dojo Toolkit." Keep reading for the rest of JR's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Practical Reasons To Choose Git Or Subversion?

Posted: October 21st, 2008, 9:13pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

markmcb writes "I develop Rails applications and recently followed my lemming herd and made the switch to Git after learning some of the practical advantages Git offers over Subversion. As I'm sure there are many die-hard Subversion fans in the Slashdot audience, I'm curious what your key reasons are for sticking with Subversion. If possible, I'd like reasons that apply to 'most of the time' as opposed to arguments based on obscure features that may get used only a few times ever."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
6 Languages You Wish the Boss Let You Use

Posted: October 15th, 2008, 9:00pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

Esther Schindler writes "Several weeks ago, Lynn Greiner's article on the state of the scripting universe was slashdotted. Several people raised their eyebrows at the (to them) obvious omissions, since the article only covered PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl and JavaScript. As I wrote at the time, Lynn chose those languages because hers was a follow-up to an article from three years back. However, it was a fair point. While CIO has covered several in depth, those five dynamic languages are not the only ones developers use. In 6 Scripting Languages Your Developers Wish You'd Let Them Use, CIO looks at several (including Groovy, Scala, Lua, F#, Clojure and Boo) which deserve more attention for business software development, even if your shop is dedicated to Java or .NET. Each language gets a formal definition and then a quote or two from a developer who explains why it inspires passion."
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OpenGL ES 2.0 Programming Guide

Posted: October 6th, 2008, 8:05pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Martin Ecker writes "Mobile phones and other embedded devices are getting more and more powerful each year. The availability of dedicated hardware for 3D rendering is becoming increasingly ubiquitous, and the latest mobile phones come with 3D hardware acceleration that rivals the power of desktop graphics hardware. OpenGL ES 2.0 is the latest version of a cross-platform, low-level graphics API to utilize these new resources available in embedded devices. The OpenGL ES 2.0 Programming Guide published by Addison-Wesley Publishing aims to help the reader make use of the full power of OpenGL ES 2.0 to create interesting 3D applications." Keep reading for the rest of Martin's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Getting Paid To Abandon an Open Source Project?

Posted: October 5th, 2008, 4:24pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

darkeye writes "I'm facing a difficult dilemma and looking for opinions. I've been contributing heavily to an open source project, making considerable changes to code organization and quality, but the work is unfinished at the moment. Now, a company is approaching me to continue my changes. They want to keep the improvements to themselves, which is possible since the project is published under the BSD license. That's fair, as they have all the rights to the work they pay for in full. However, they also want me to sign a non-competition clause, which would bar me from ever working on and publishing results for the original open source project itself, even if done separately, in my free time. How would you approach such a decision? On one side, they'd provide resources to work on an interesting project. On the other, it would make me an outcast in the project's community. Moreover, they would take ownership of not just what they paid for, but also my changes leading up to this moment, and I wouldn't be able to continue on my original codebase in an open source manner if I sign their contract."
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Python 2.6 to Smooth the Way for 3.0, Coming Next Month

Posted: October 4th, 2008, 12:49am CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

darthcamaro writes "Some programming languages just move on to major version numbers, leaving older legacy versions (and users) behind, but that's not the plan for Python. Python 2.6 has the key goal of trying to ensure compatibility between Python 2.x and Python 3.0, which is due out in a month's time. From the article: 'Once you have your code running on 2.6, you can start getting ready for 3.0 in a number of ways,' Guido Van Rossum said. 'In particular, you can turn on "Py3k warnings," which will warn you about obsolete usage patterns for which alternatives already exist in 2.6. You can then change your code to use the modern alternative, and this will make you more ready for 3.0.'"
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Working Effectively with Legacy Code

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 6:17pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Merlin42 writes "I recently took a Test-Driven-Development (TDD) training course and the teacher recommended that I read "Working Effectively with Legacy Code" by Michael Feathers. First things first, a note about the title. Feathers defines "Legacy Code" a bit different than you may expect, especially if you are not into the XP/Agile/TDD world. I have heard (and used) a number of definitions for "legacy code" over the years. Most of these definitions have to do with code that is old, inherited, difficult to maintain, or interfaces with other 'legacy' hardware/software. Feathers' definition is 'code without tests.' For those not into TDD this may seem odd, but in the TDD world, tests are what make code easy to maintain. When good unit tests are in place, then code can be changed at will and the tests will tell automatically you if you broke anything." Read on for the rest of Kevin's review.
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Becoming a Famous Programmer

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 2:40pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "GrokCode analyzes more than 200 famous programmers to determine what types of projects made them famous. Inventing a programming language, game, or OS ranked among the top projects likely to lead to fame. Most programmers became famous through their work on only one project. The article also shows that among famous programmers, the ratio of males to females is much larger than among normal programmers."
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What To Do Right As a New Programmer?

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 3:38am CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

globeadue writes "My company just tagged me for full time App Dev — I've essentially never coded for money, but the last 3 years of support desk gives me the business sense to know the environment I'll be coding for. Now my company will be training me, so I think the technical side of things will be covered, what I'm looking for is best practices, habits I should/shouldn't develop, etc as I take on my new craft."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Clean Code

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 7:10pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Cory Foy writes "As developers, system admins, and a variety of other roles in IT, we have to deal with code on a daily basis. Sometimes it's just one-off scripts we never have to see again. Sometimes we stare at something that, for the life of us, we can't understand how it came out of a human mind (or, as the book puts it, has a high WTF/minute count). But there is a time when you find code that is a joy to use, to read and to understand. Clean Code sets out to help developers write that third kind of code through a series of essay-type chapters on a variety of topics. But does it really help?" Read below to find out.
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Apple Bans iPhone App For Competing With Mail.app

Posted: September 21st, 2008, 2:36pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

recoiledsnake writes "Another submission has been rejected from the iPhone App Store, this time for 'duplicating the functionality of the iPhone Mail application.' The author claims that his application allows the user to log into their multiple web email accounts and that Apple seems to be confusing Gmail and Mail.app. This comes on the heels of Apple rejecting an application for competing with iTunes and rejecting other silly but harmless apps as being of 'limited utility.'" ComputerWorld has an update to the rejected Podcaster app mentioned above. It seems the developer has used Apple's "Ad Hoc" service to begin distributing the software despite the fact that they blocked it from the App Store.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Don't Count Cobol Out

Posted: September 20th, 2008, 12:25am CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

Hugh Pickens writes "Although Turing Award-winning computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra once said, 'the use of Cobol cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense,' Michael Swaine has an interesting entry to Dr. Dobb's Journal asserting that Cobol is the most widely used language in the 21st century, critical to some of the hottest areas of software development today, and may be the next language you'll be learning. In 1997, the Gartner Group estimated that there were 240 billion lines of Cobol code in active apps, and billions of lines of new Cobol code are being written every year. Cobol is a key element in the realization of modern distributed business software architecture concepts — XML/metadata, Web Services, Service Oriented Architecture — and e-business."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Why Lazy Functional Programming Languages Rule

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 5:18pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

Da Massive writes "Techworld has an in-depth chat with Simon Peyton-Jones about the development of Haskell and his philosophy of do one thing, and do it well. Peyton-Jones describes his interest in lazy functional programming languages, and chats about their increasing relevance in a world with rapidly increasing multi-core CPUs and clusters. 'I think Haskell is increasingly well placed for this multi-core stuff, as I think people are increasingly going to look to languages like Haskell and say 'oh, that's where we can get some good ideas at least', whether or not it's the actual language or concrete syntax that they adopt.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Best Reference Site For Each Programming Language?

Posted: September 18th, 2008, 2:33am CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Howling writes "I've been a PHP programmer for a few years and after taking a trip through many sites Ive learned that www.php.net is probably the most complete source when looking for information/documentation. I have been trying to find similar sites for every other language (Java, perl or ASP, for instance) without equal success, though. I ask: what is the best documentation/reference site for your preferred programming language?"
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Spolsky's Software Q-and-A Site

Posted: September 16th, 2008, 10:01pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

guzzibill writes "Joel Spolsky has announced the beta release of Stack Overflow, intended to be a high-quality source of answers to software questions. Post a software question and watch the answers flow in. Popularity voting is very much woven into the site, where both questions and answers can be edited for clarity and voted up or down for correctness. Correctly posed questions and insightful answers float to the top. This site has reached critical mass." From Joel's description, he was envisioning a source of technical Q&A about programming. So far, many of the questions are broader and less technical, such as advice on the best book about software development. It will be interesting to see where the community that's forming takes it.
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Best Cross-Platform, GUI Editor/IDE For Python?

Posted: September 16th, 2008, 4:12pm CEST by morgan_greywolf (posted by timothy)

Tags: programming

What do you find is the best text editor for Python software development? I've tried several, and I'm always frustrated by the limitations of each. Eclipse is cool, but it's huge, and I've had multiple problems with corruption of the workspace. It got so bad at one point that every week or so I was tearing it down and recreating it. I spent so much time re-creating Eclipse's workspace that I found any productivity gains were lost due to Eclipse's brokenness. (Read more below.)
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Learning Drupal 6 Module Development

Posted: September 11th, 2008, 7:08pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Michael J. Ross writes "Of all the content management systems (CMSs) that a Web developer could use for creating a new site, the best ones allow the developer to extend the chosen CMS's capabilities, by adding new functionality, in the form of third-party modules. This is one of many reasons why Drupal is growing in popularity: Developers can choose from hundreds of Drupal modules but not all functionality that a developer might want has been captured in a module, and many of the modules are unfinished or otherwise limited in capabilities. Fortunately, PHP programmers can create their own modules, and one way to get up to speed is Learning Drupal 6 Module Development, authored by Matt Butcher."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Objective-J and Cappuccino Released

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 5:08pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

Wizard Drongo writes "280 North, who earlier this year released 280 Slides, a revolutionary new type of web-app written in Objective-J using the Cappuccino framework (both of which they also wrote), have today made good on their promise to open-source the language and framework. From their about page: 'Cappuccino is an open source application framework for developing applications that look and feel like the desktop software users are familiar with. Cappuccino was implemented using a new programming language called Objective-J, which is modeled after Objective-C and built entirely on top of JavaScript. Programs written in Objective-J are interpreted in the client, so no compilation or plugins are required. Objective-J is released alongside Cappuccino in this project and under the LGPL.' You can download the framework, tools, documentation and more on their website."
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Django 1.0 Released

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 5:18am CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

jgomo3 writes "Finally, the stable version 1.0 of Django (one of the most popular free Python based frameworks) has been released. Explained in the project blog, this achievement was in part due to the great users and developers community of the Django project, and recall the big effort with numbers like 4000 commits and 2000 bugs fixed since last stable version. Django is 'The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines.' You can dive in by reading the overview."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Top Technologies of Next-Gen Gaming

Posted: September 4th, 2008, 11:48pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

SlappingOysters writes "Gameplayer is running an article that examines the key technology developments of the next-generation of gaming. They go into plenty of detail as to why they believe each piece of technology is helping to take gaming on the PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii to more spectacular heights. They also have a related story which takes a look at the best game engines of next-generation games."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AppJet Offers Browser-Based Coding How-To, Hosting

Posted: September 2nd, 2008, 9:40pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

theodp writes "Know someone who wants to learn to program? Paul Graham advises programmer wannabes to check out The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Programming on the Web from AppJet, which aims to be 'the funnest and easiest way for a beginner to get started programming.' Setting the guide apart from other tutorials is the ability to edit and run any of the all-Javascript examples directly in your browser. Newcomers to programming and experienced developers alike can also publish their AppJet creations on the web. Sure beats GE BASIC on the General Electric Time-Sharing Service!"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AppJet Offers Browser-Based Coding How-To, Hosting

Posted: September 2nd, 2008, 9:40pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

theodp writes "Know someone who wants to learn to program? Paul Graham advises programmer wannabes to check out The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Programming on the Web from AppJet, which aims to be 'the funnest and easiest way for a beginner to get started programming.' Setting the guide apart from other tutorials is the ability to edit and run any of the all-Javascript examples directly in your browser. Newcomers to programming and experienced developers alike can also publish their AppJet creations on the web. Sure beats GE BASIC on the General Electric Time-Sharing Service!"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Programming Jobs Abroad For a US Citizen?

Posted: August 31st, 2008, 6:38am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "I am a American citizen with a masters in Computer Science from a 3rd tier college and 4 years of work experience under my belt. I would like to work somewhere abroad in Europe for a couple years before I get too settled in life but have no clue where to start. I only speak English but would love to learn a second language. What sort of opportunities are there for American citizens to work abroad? What countries offer the best opportunity to balance a challenging work environment with enough vacation to explore the rest of Europe in my free time? Any hassles I should know about?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Programming Jobs Abroad For a US Citizen?

Posted: August 31st, 2008, 6:38am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "I am a American citizen with a masters in Computer Science from a 3rd tier college and 4 years of work experience under my belt. I would like to work somewhere abroad in Europe for a couple years before I get too settled in life but have no clue where to start. I only speak English but would love to learn a second language. What sort of opportunities are there for American citizens to work abroad? What countries offer the best opportunity to balance a challenging work environment with enough vacation to explore the rest of Europe in my free time? Any hassles I should know about?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
ESPN and TopCoder Run College Football Algorithm Challenge

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 6:50pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Mike writes with a timely link to a story about the ESPN/TopCoder Winning Formula Challenge, a combination of fantasy football and competitive programming. The goal is to write an algorithm to predict the outcome of college football games using a collection of historical data provided by the tournament organizers. The season is broken up into 3-4 week chunks that are used to evaluate the results. Prizes will total $100,000.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
ESPN and TopCoder Run College Football Algorithm Challenge

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 6:50pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Mike writes with a timely link to a story about the ESPN/TopCoder Winning Formula Challenge, a combination of fantasy football and competitive programming. The goal is to write an algorithm to predict the outcome of college football games using a collection of historical data provided by the tournament organizers. The season is broken up into 3-4 week chunks that are used to evaluate the results. Prizes will total $100,000.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The State of Scripting Languages

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 11:14pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

Esther Schindler writes to tell us that Lynn Greiner has another look at the state of the scripting universe as a follow on to the same topic three years ago. Greiner talks to major players from each of the main scripting languages (PHP, Perl, Tcl, Python, Ruby, and Javascript) to find out the current status and where they are headed in the future. "The biggest change since 2005 has been the growth of richer Web applications that perform more of their computations in the browser using JavaScript. The demand for these applications has forced developers to learn and use JavaScript much more than before. There's also been a lot of interest in Ruby, another dynamic language, spurred by the release and growth of Ruby on Rails. As a result of these changes, many developers are becoming more comfortable with dynamic languages."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Interview Update With Bjarne Stroustrup On C++0x

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 5:59pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "DevX interviewed Bjarne Stroustrup about C++0x, the new C++ standard that is due in 2009. Bjarne Stroustrup has classified the new features into three categories: Concurrency, Libraries and Language. The changes introduced in Concurrency makes C++ more standardized and easy to use on multi-core processors. It is good to see that some of the commonly used libraries are becoming standard (eg: unordered_maps and regex)."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Was Standardizing On JavaScript a Mistake?

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 5:10pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister questions the wisdom of standardizing on a single language in the wake of the ECMA Committee's decision to abandon ECMAScript 4 in favor of the much less ambitious ECMAScript 3.1, stunting the future of JavaScript. Had the work continued, McAllister argues, it could have ushered in an era of large-scale application development that would ensure the browser's ability to meet our evolving needs in the years ahead. 'The more I hear about the ongoing efforts to revise the leading Web standards, the less convinced I am that we're approaching Web-based applications the right way,' McAllister writes. 'If anything, the more we talk about building large-scale Web applications, the more we should recognize that a single style of programming will never suit every job.' McAllister's simple truth: JavaScript will never be good for everything — especially as the Web continues to evolve beyond its original vision. His solution? 'Rather than shoehorning more and more functionality into the browser itself, maybe it's time we separated the UI from the underlying client-side logic. Let the browser handle the View. Let the Controller exist somewhere else, independent of the presentation layer.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
My Job Went To India

Posted: August 20th, 2008, 6:11pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Josh Skillings writes "The author, Chad Fowler, draws upon his experiences as a software engineer, a team leader over a group of Indian developers, and as a jazz musician, to describe 52 ways or tips that will help you to become a more valuable employee. These tips are described in two or three pages each, and are usually illustrated by a practical example or story. The tips are well thought-out, well-explained and make sense. Chad draws upon the open source movement as well, highlighting ways that contributing to and learning from open source can improve your career. These tips gave me greater respect and appreciation for the open source movement in general." Read on for the rest of Josh's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Boost 1.36 Released

Posted: August 17th, 2008, 9:12pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

AndrewStephens writes "Good news for C++ programmers: Boost 1.36 has been released with 4 new libraries (including very useful exception templates) and a host of updates. In particular, boost.asio (the cross platform AsyncIO library) has seen major additions and now supports asynchronous disk operations on Windows. Almost every modern C++ codebase uses Boost somewhere, and many of its features find their way into the official language specifications."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Software Logging Schemes?

Posted: August 17th, 2008, 2:02am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

MySkippy writes "I've been a software engineer for just over 10 years, and I've seen a lot of different styles of logging in the applications I've worked on. Some were extremely verbose — about 1 logging line for every 2 lines of code. Others were very lacking, with maybe 1 line in 200 devoted to logging. I personally find that writing debug and informational messages about every 2 to 5 lines works well for debugging an issue, but can become cumbersome when reading through a log for analysis. I like to write warning messages when thresholds or limits are being approached — these tend to be infrequent. I log errors whenever I catch one (but I've never put a "fatal" message in my code, because if it's truly a fatal error I probably didn't catch it). Recently I came across log4j and log4net and have begun using them both. That brings me to my question: how do the coders on Slashdot handle logging in their code?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
ECMAScript 4.0 Is Dead

Posted: August 16th, 2008, 7:23pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

TopSpin writes "Brendan Eich, creator of the JavaScript programming language, has announced that ECMA Technical Committee 39 has abandoned the proposed ECMAScript 4.0 language specification in favor of a more limited specification dubbed 'Harmony,' or ECMAScript 3.1. A split has existed among the members of this committee, including Adobe and Microsoft, regarding the future of what most of us know as JavaScript. Adobe had been promulgating their ActionScript 3 language as the next ECMAScript 4.0 proposal. As some point out, the split that has prevented this may be the result of Microsoft's interests. What does the future hold for Mozilla's Tamarin Project, based on Adobe's open source ActionScript virtual machine?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Linux Foundation Paving Way for New Kernel Developers

Posted: August 16th, 2008, 12:01am CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

Jack Spine writes "The Linux Foundation has published a how-to document for developers who want to negotiate the hidden shoals of open source. According to both the Linux Foundation and the Open Source Consortium, developers can get frustrated with the processes in open source coding, especially for enterprise-class projects like Linux. 'A guide to the kernel development process' aims to encourage participation from new programmers by explaining what's involved. Some developers and businesses attempting to submit changes to the Linux kernel find themselves tangled up with the processes used, according to the guide, which was written by Jonathan Corbet, executive editor of lwn.net and himself a Linux developer."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

Linux Foundation Paving Way for New Kernel Developers

Posted: August 16th, 2008, 12:01am CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

Jack Spine writes "The Linux Foundation has published a how-to document for developers who want to negotiate the hidden shoals of open source. According to both the Linux Foundation and the Open Source Consortium, developers can get frustrated with the processes in open source coding, especially for enterprise-class projects like Linux. 'A guide to the kernel development process' aims to encourage participation from new programmers by explaining what's involved. Some developers and businesses attempting to submit changes to the Linux kernel find themselves tangled up with the processes used, according to the guide, which was written by Jonathan Corbet, executive editor of lwn.net and himself a Linux developer."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

California Can't Perform Pay Cut Because of COBOL

Posted: August 5th, 2008, 8:41pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

beezzie writes "Last week, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered a pay cut, to minimum wage of $6.55/hr,, for 200,000 state workers because a state budget hadn't been approved yet. The state controller, who has opposed the pay cut on principle and legal grounds, now says the pay cut isn't even feasible because the state's payroll systems are so antiquated. He says it would take 6 months to go to minimum wage, and 9 months more to restore salaries once a budget is passed. The system is based on COBOL, according to the Sacramento Bee, and the state hasn't yet found the funds or resources, in 10 years of trying, to upgrade it." The article quotes a consultant on how hard it is to find COBOL programmers; he says you usually have to draw them out of retirement. Problem is, if there were any such folks on the employment rolls in California, Gov. Schwarzenegger fired them all last week, too.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

VIA Releases 800 Pages of Documentation For Linux

Posted: July 27th, 2008, 2:13pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

billybob2 writes "VIA has published three programming guides that total 800 pages in length and cover their PadLock, CX700, and VX800/820 technologies. The VIA PadLock provides a random number generator, an advanced cryptography engine, and RSA algorithm computations. The VX800 chipset was VIA's first Integrated Graphics Processor, while the CX700 is a System Media Processor designed for the mobile market. This is another step in VIA's strategy to support the development of Free and Open Source drivers under Linux, which comes pre-installed on VIA products such as the Sylvania NetBook, HP Mini-Note, 15.4" gBook, gPC, CloudBook, Zonbu, and VIA OpenBook. Earlier this week, VIA hired Linux kernel developer and GPL-Violations.org founder Harald Welte to be VIA's liason to the Open Source community."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

JavaScript: The Good Parts

Posted: July 25th, 2008, 7:55pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Anita Kuno writes "JavaScript: The Good Parts is about the good parts of JavaScript and how to use them. This book takes a realistic look at the strengths and weaknesses of JavaScript and tells you how to use it to its best advantage. The code samples deal with the language and its merits — creating web pages is not discussed. How to understand the language, to execute the operations you want, is the focus of the book, not how to make rounded corners. The author, Douglas Crockford says, 'My microwave oven has tons of features, but the only ones I use are cook and the clock. And setting the clock is a struggle. We cope with the complexity of feature-driven design by finding and sticking with the good parts.'" Keep reading for the rest of Anita's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Programmer's File Editor With Change Tracking?

Posted: July 25th, 2008, 5:51pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

passionfingers writes "My business users regularly have to tweak large (>32MB text) data files manually. Overlords charged with verifying the aforementioned changes have requested that the little people be provided with a new file editor that will track changes made to a file (as a word processor does). I have scouted around online for such an animal, but to no avail — even commercial offerings like UltraEdit32 don't offer such a feature. Likewise on the OSS side of the fence, where I expected a Notepad++ plugin or the like, it appears that the requirements to a) open a file containing a large volume of text data and b) track changes to the data, are mutually exclusive. Does anyone in the Slashdot community already have such a beast in their menagerie? Perhaps there is there a commercial offering I've missed, or could someone possibly point me to their favorite (stable) OSS project that might measure up?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Practical Django Projects

Posted: July 23rd, 2008, 8:30pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Chromodromic writes "Apress's newest Django offering, Practical Django Projects by James Bennett, weighs in lightly at 224 pages of actual tutorial content, but trust me, they're dense pages. Filled with pragmatic examples which directly address the kinds of development issues you will encounter when first starting out with Django, this book makes an important addition to the aspiring Django developer's reference shelf. In particular, the book's emphasis on demonstrating best practices while building complete projects does an excellent job of accelerating an understanding of Django's most powerful features — in a realistic, pragmatic setting — and which a developer will be able to leverage in very short order." Read below for the rest of Greg's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
How To Encourage a Young Teen To Learn Programming?

Posted: July 22nd, 2008, 11:11am CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Anonymous Hacker writes "I'm in a bit of a bind. My young teenage son is starting to get curious about computers, and in particular, programming. Now, I'm a long time kernel hacker (Linux, BSD and UNIX). I have no trouble handling some of the more obscure things in the kernel. But teaching is not something that I'm good at, by any means. Heck, I can't even write useful documentation for non-techies. So my question is: what's the best way to encourage his curiosity and enable him to learn? Now, I know there are folks out there with far better experience in this area than myself. I'd really appreciate any wisdom you can offer. I'd also be especially interested in what younger people think, in particular those who are currently in college or high school. I've shown my son some of the basics of the shell, the filesystem, and even how to do a 'Hello World' program in C. Yet, I have to wonder if this is the really the right approach. This was great when I was first learning things. And it still is for kernel hacking, and other things. But I'm concerned whether this will bore him, now that there's so much more available and much of this world is oriented towards point-n-click. What's the best way to for a young teen to get started in exploring this wonderful world of computers and learning how to program? In a *NIX environment, preferably." Whether or not you have suggestions for generating interest or teaching methods, there was probably something that first piqued your curiosity. It seems like a lot of people get into programming by just wondering how something works or what they can make it do. So, what caught your eye?
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Selling Online with Drupal e-Commerce

Posted: July 21st, 2008, 8:16pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Michael J. Ross writes "Many Web developers wish to create e-commerce sites that also support collaborative editing of content, community forums, and other features that can increase traffic to the sites. But most shopping cart products do not include those capabilities, or, if such third-party add-ons exist, they may be quite limited in functionality. Similarly, most if not all content management systems (CMSs) lack native e-commerce capabilities. Yet that barrier is being overcome, because a handful of e-commerce modules have been created for the most popular CMSs. Perhaps the most promising pairing, at this time, is Drupal and the e-Commerce module — a combination covered in the book Selling Online with Drupal e-Commerce by Michael Peacock." Keep reading for the rest of Michael's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Web 2.0 Lessons For Corporate Dev Teams

Posted: July 21st, 2008, 7:30pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

jcatcw writes "Quick, incremental updates, along with heavy user involvement, are key characteristics of the emerging software development methods championed by a new generation of Web 2.0 start-ups. A survey conducted for Computerworld showed that an overwhelming majority of the respondents said that traditional corporate development teams could benefit from Web 2.0 techniques, specifically the incremental feature releases, quick user feedback loops and quality assurance programs that include users. Fifty seven percent of the respondents said problem-solving and analytical skills will be key requirements for next generation developers. The bottom-line: corporate development teams need to get to know their users."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Guide For Small Team Programming?

Posted: July 20th, 2008, 11:50pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

dm writes "I run a small design shop and have been doing more and more web development, including fairly involved back-end programming of what's now essentially become our own CMS. Up to now I've been doing all the programming myself. Now we are working with a second programmer for the first time. I already use version control (SVN) and an issue-tracking system, and I guess we are both decent at what we do — although self-taught, but we both lack experience programming in a team context. Is there a useful guide for this? Most of the tutorials I have seen for Subversion are surprisingly organized from a single coder's perspective. Where else should I look?"
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Best and Worst Coding Standards?

Posted: July 20th, 2008, 3:21pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "If you've been hired by a serious software development house, chances are one of your early familiarization tasks was to read company guidelines on coding standards and practices. You've probably been given some basic guidelines, such as gotos being off limits except in specific circumstances, or that code should be indented with tabs rather than spaces, or vice versa. Perhaps you've had some more exotic or less intuitive practices as well; maybe continue or multiple return statements were off-limits. What standards have you found worked well in practice, increasing code readability and maintainability? Which only looked good on paper?"
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The Father of Multi-Core Chips Talks Shop

Posted: July 19th, 2008, 11:40pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

pacopico writes "Stanford professor Kunle Olukotun designed the first mainstream multi-core chip, crafting what would become Sun Microsystems's Niagra product. Now, he's heading up Stanford's Pervasive Parallelism Lab where researchers are looking at 100s of core systems that might power robots, 3-D virtual worlds and insanely big server applications. The Register just interviewed Olukotun about this work and the future of multi-core chips. Weird and interesting stuff."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
How To Show Code Samples?

Posted: July 12th, 2008, 1:56am CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Todd writes "I've been looking around at 'help wanted' advertisements for programming jobs, and almost all of them demand that you not only have professional experience, but also that you show samples of your work. This got me wondering; with the work product, trade secret, and non-disclosure laws/agreements, how exactly can you show work that you've done in a professional capacity to a prospective employer without violating the privacy of the company for which the code was written? For instance, I can't say I've written many BASH scripts (at least, not large ones) for myself personally, but the assortment of such scripts written for my current job is wide and varied indeed. I can't very well just deliver these scripts, or even small portions thereof, to third parties to help demonstrate my scripting prowess. With that in mind, what am I supposed to show them?"
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The Web Development Skills Crisis

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 10:28pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister raises questions regarding Web development skills in an era of constant innovation. Sure, low barriers to entry give underdog technologies ample opportunity to thrive without the backing of name-brand vendors. But doesn't this fragmentation of the Web development market put undue pressure on developers to specialize? Choosing one tool to be your bread and butter from a field this broad is one thing, McAllister writes. Recruiting talent for a Web project when your technology requirements eliminate most of the applicants is another. The result is a crisis, McAllister concludes, one in which maintaining a marketable skill set gets more and more difficult as the so-called state of the art changes on an almost daily basis."
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33-Year-Old Unix Bug Fixed In OpenBSD

Posted: July 9th, 2008, 2:10am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

Ste sends along the cheery little story of Otto Moerbeek, one of the OpenBSD developers, who recently found and fixed a 33-year-old buffer overflow bug in Yacc. "But if the stack is at maximum size, this will overflow if an entry on the stack is larger than the 16 bytes leeway my malloc allows. In the case of of C++ it is 24 bytes, so a SEGV occurred. Funny thing is that I traced this back to Sixth Edition UNIX, released in 1975."
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Learn a Foreign Language As an Engineer?

Posted: July 8th, 2008, 12:12am CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

Ben B writes "I'm working on an undergraduate degree in computer engineering in the US, and I'm a native English-speaking citizen. In fact, English is the only language that I know. Maybe it's not the same at other schools, but for the engineering program at mine, a foreign language is not required. If my plans are to one day be involved in research, is it worth my time to learn a foreign language? If so, which one?" Learning something new is almost never a waste of time, but how much energy have others found worthwhile to expend with all of the programming/math/tech type courses to be had at a large university?
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The Next Browser Scripting Language Is — C?

Posted: July 7th, 2008, 9:11pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

mad.frog writes to tell us that in a recent talk by Adobe's Scott Petersen he demonstrated a new toolchain that he has been working on (and soon to be open-sourced) that allows C code to be run by the Tamarin virtual machine. "The toolchain includes lots of other details, such as a custom POSIX system call API and a C multimedia library that provides access to Flash. And there's some things that Petersen had to add to Tamarin, such as a native byte array that maps directly to RAM, thereby allowing the VM's "emulation" of memory to have only a minor overhead over the real thing. The end result is the ability to run a wide variety of existing C code in Flash at acceptable speeds. Petersen demonstrated a version of Quake running in a Flash app, as well as a C-based Nintendo emulator running Zelda; both were eminently playable, and included sound effects and music."
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Head First C#

Posted: July 7th, 2008, 8:24pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

Michael J. Ross writes "For computer programmers who do not have a solid understanding of object-oriented programming (OOP), learning the C# programming language can be rather challenging, even if they have experience with C or C++, which at least would give them a head start over non-C programmers. Any developer in this situation may well want to begin the learning process with a book that aims to teach both OOP and C# in as gentle a manner as possible, with plenty of patient explanations and illustrative diagrams — such as those found in the book Head First C# by Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene." Read below for the rest of Michael's review.
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Interview With Author of the First Spoof Language

Posted: July 5th, 2008, 1:43am CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader brings us Computerworld's interview with Don Woods, one of the creators of Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym (INTERCAL). INTERCAL and its documentation were created in 1972 as a parody of that era's languages and instruction manuals. Among other things, Woods had this to say: "We designed the language without too much trouble. Writing the manual took a while, especially for things like the circuit diagrams we included as nonsensical illustrations. The compiler itself actually wasn't too much trouble, given that we weren't at all concerned with optimising the performance of either the compiler or the compiled code. I admit I'm surprised at its longevity. Some of the jokes in the original work feel rather dated at this point. It helps that the language provides a place where people can discuss oddball features missing from other languages, such as the 'COME FROM' statement and operators that work in base 3."
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Best Color Scheme For Coding, Easiest On the Eyes?

Posted: July 3rd, 2008, 3:19pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

Marzubus writes "I tend to do a lot of code editing in vim and sometimes get the 'burning eyes' or headaches. I have been trying to find a background / foreground combination for my terminal sessions which is easiest on the eyes but cannot seem to find any real data on this subject. Does anyone know of a study / data on this topic?"
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Using AI With GCC to Speed Up Mobile Design

Posted: July 2nd, 2008, 7:46pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

Atlasite writes "The WSJ is reporting on a EU project called Milepost aimed at integrating AI inside GCC. The team partners, which include include IBM, the University of Edinburgh and the French research institute, INRIA, announced their preliminary results at the recent GCC Summit, being able to increase the performance of GCC by 10% in just one month's work. GCC Summit paper is provided [PDF]."
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Non-Programming Jobs For a Computer Science Major?

Posted: July 1st, 2008, 7:10pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "I recently graduated from a 'major' university in America with a BS degree in Computer Science. I unfortunately must admit that I am not very skilled with programming. I finished with the degree, and I've spent much of my college career working a job doing technical support (fixing laptops, troubleshooting Windows problems, etc). What jobs can I get with a computer science degree that are NOT mainly programming jobs? A little programming wouldn't be bad, but none would be preferred. And what kind of salaries do these jobs typically fetch?"
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Cocoa-Like JavaScript Framework Announced

Posted: June 29th, 2008, 7:03pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

TwilightSentry writes "Ars Technica reports that a group of developers has created an Objective-C-like extension to JavaScript along with a class library mirroring Cocoa. They've used these to release an impressive demo app called 280 Slides. The article notes, 'Whereas SproutCore seeks to "embrace the platform" by giving a Cocoa-like development model for developers already using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to make a web app, Cappuccino and Objective-J take an entirely different approach. "Since Cappuccino runs entirely on the client, at run time, we're never actually generating HTML or CSS," says Boucher. "When you build an application in Cappuccino, you don't need to ever deal with HTML or CSS. All of your interface is designed in Objective-J and Cappuccino. Cappuccino focuses on application architecture more than anything else, like building applications that know how to save and open documents, or copy and paste. We also built a powerful graphics engine into Cappuccino, so you can make rich applications like 280 Slides."' The developers plan to release the framework and preprocessor as open source. No mention is made of a specific license."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Software Diagramming In Embedded Systems?

Posted: June 25th, 2008, 10:01pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

afd100 writes "I work for a medium-sized company building embedded systems using C. As of yet, we do not have a great design methodology, but it is something we're working on. For the last 7 years now, we've been documenting our embedded software in an IEEE'esque Software Detailed Design, and using a very cryptic block diagram to explain our software. What does the embedded software community at large currently use to graphical represent their software or do they even try this? Since the programming is functionally decomposed, is UML the right way to go?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Bjarne Stroustrup Reveals All On C++

Posted: June 25th, 2008, 3:37pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "Bjarne Stroustrup, the creative force behind one of the most widely used and successful programming languages — C++ — is featured in an in-depth 8-page interview where he reveals everything programmers and software engineers should know about C++; its history, what it was intended to do, where it is at now, and of course what all good code-writers should think about when using the language he created."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Brendan Eich Discusses the Future of JavaScript

Posted: June 24th, 2008, 12:49am CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

snydeq writes "JavaScript creator Brendan Eich talks at length about the future of JavaScript, ARAX, disputes with Microsoft, and the Screaming Monkey scripting engine for IE in an interview with InfoWorld's Paul Krill. JavaScript 2, which Mozilla's Eich expects to be available in some form by the end of the year, will 'address programming in the large.' To do that, Eich hopes to improve the integrity of the language without sacrificing flexibility and making JavaScript 'painfully static in a fixed way like Java does.' Eich does not expect Firefox support for JavaScript 2 until at least Version 3.1 of the browser. As for Internet Explorer, Eich explains how Screaming Monkey will help bring JavaScript 2 to IE should Microsoft drag its heels on providing meaningful support."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
What Does It Mean To Be an Open Source Author?

Posted: June 23rd, 2008, 11:21pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

lolococo writes to tell us that Laurent Cohen, founder of the open source project JPPF (Java Parallel Processing Framework), has decided to share what life is like for an open source contributor in general and little bit about what that means. "There came a time of coding, releasing, coding, releasing. The project started gathering some momentum, as a small community of users started to use it, but why was it not working in this case, or why did it not have this feature, or how could I do this, etc...? You get the drift. Oh my, now I had to start interacting with other folks! What was I to do? That started a (thankfully short) period of intense existential self-questioning. What was the purpose of this project? Why did I actually open-source it? I resolved this by deciding unilaterally that it would be a free contribution, for whomever would be interested enough to look into it. I also decided that it was my personal responsibility to support these brave folks into using the project, and to make it, as much as possible, a happy experience for them."
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The Principles of Project Management

Posted: June 23rd, 2008, 8:26pm CEST by samzenpus

Tags: programming

zedguy writes "Ask someone what 'project management' is and you're liable to get a few blank stares — it's one of those fields people have heard of, but probably have problems pinning down a definition. So that is what the first section of the book does: provides a definition that can be summed up as applying tools and skills to complete a project. That then leads to what exactly is a "project": a set of tasks with a time-frame and goal of somehow adding value. So yes, the introduction does involve a fair bit of terminology that isn't going to be familiar to many readers coming from a coder's background, but there's a helpful appendix that lays out many of the terms. Just as important, the introduction explains what project management is not, some of the misconceptions and why it's good to know." Keep reading for the rest of Zoltan's review.
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Visualizing Open Source Contributions

Posted: June 16th, 2008, 9:24pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "A student at UC Davis has created some stunning visualizations of open source software contributions, including Eclipse, Python, Apache httpd and Postgres. From the website: 'This visualization, called code_swarm, shows the history of commits in a software project. A commit happens when a developer makes changes to the code or documents and transfers them into the central project repository. Both developers and files are represented as moving elements. When a developer commits a file, it lights up and flies towards that developer. Files are colored according to their purpose, such as whether they are source code or a document. If files or developers have not been active for a while, they will fade away. A histogram at the bottom keeps a reminder of what has come before.'"
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Do Women Write Better Code?

Posted: June 16th, 2008, 2:30pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

JCWDenton writes "The senior vice-president of engineering for computer-database company Ingres-and one of Silicon Valley's highest-ranking female programmers-insists that men and women write code differently. Women are more touchy-feely and considerate of those who will use the code later, she says. They'll intersperse their code ... with helpful comments and directions, explaining why they wrote the lines the way they did and exactly how they did it. The code becomes a type of 'roadmap' for others who might want to alter it or add to it later, says McGrattan, a native of Ireland who has been with Ingres since 1992. Men, on the other hand, have no such pretenses. Often, 'they try to show how clever they are by writing very cryptic code,' she tells the Business Technology Blog. 'They try to obfuscate things in the code,' and don't leave clear directions for people using it later. "
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Undocumented Open Source Code On the Rise

Posted: June 15th, 2008, 6:40pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

ruphus13 writes "According to security company Palamida, the use of open source code is growing rapidly within businesses. However, the lack of documentation and understanding of how the code works can increase the vulnerability and security risks the companies face. OStatic quotes Theresa Bui-Friday saying, 'In 2007, Palamida's Services team audited between 300M to 500M lines of code for F500 to venture-backed companies, across multiple industries. Of the code we reviewed, Palamida found that applications written within the last five years contain 50% or more open source code, by a line of code count. Of that 50% of open source code, 70% was undocumented. This is up from 30% in 2006.' How can businesses protect themselves and still draw on open source code effectively?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Best Chair For Desktop Coding?

Posted: June 12th, 2008, 9:02pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

wifeoflurker writes "Can someone give me recommendations for a desk chair to give my husband as a Father's Day gift? He currently uses a cheap one he got from Office Max, but I want him to have a really comfortable one. He spends his life in this chair (coding and lurking on Slashdot). I don't have time to research good chairs on the internet today (I'm chasing my 10 month old around, and she seems to get into the most mischief when I'm staring at the computer screen), so I figured a few folks here might share their personal recommendations." Has there been any great progress in the state of the art (of sitting) since the last time readers sought recommendations for back-friendly chairs a few years back, or the perfect computer chair nearly a decade back? Is there even such a thing as a back-friendly chair, or should we all be in astronaut-style lounge workstations?
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HyperCard Comes Back From the Dead to the Web

Posted: June 7th, 2008, 11:24pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

TedCHoward writes "On the heels of the recent mention of HyperCard comes the launch of a brand new site called TileStack. Cnet's Webware blog writes, 'The idea behind it is to bring old HyperCard stacks back to life by putting them on the Web, meaning you can take some of those long lost creations from the late '80s and early '90s and make them working Web apps. You simply upload them to TileStack's servers and they'll be converted and hosted for just you or the entire world to use once again... Since the service runs without Flash... TileStack is perfect for the iPhone and other devices that run on the Web.' They also have a video showing the upload process."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
'Extreme Programming' Controls Phoenix Mars Lander

Posted: June 7th, 2008, 3:57am CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

pbd points out a story discussing the challenges faced by NASA engineers in designing the code sent to operate the Phoenix Mars Lander. Quoting Computerworld: "On Wednesday, engineers sent up the code to run an actual analysis, but a satellite orbiting Mars, which transfers the data down to the Lander, was offline. Robinson explained that the satellite had been hit with radiation, knocking it into safe mode. 'Space is a harsh environment, and sometimes they just go into safe mode,' he noted. 'It's a minor problem. [The satellite] aborts whatever it was doing and waits for future commanding.' Engineers successfully resent the code on Thursday."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

'Extreme Programming' Controls Phoenix Mars Lander

Posted: June 7th, 2008, 3:57am CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

pbd points out a story discussing the challenges faced by NASA engineers in designing the code sent to operate the Phoenix Mars Lander. Quoting Computerworld: "On Wednesday, engineers sent up the code to run an actual analysis, but a satellite orbiting Mars, which transfers the data down to the Lander, was offline. Robinson explained that the satellite had been hit with radiation, knocking it into safe mode. 'Space is a harsh environment, and sometimes they just go into safe mode,' he noted. 'It's a minor problem. [The satellite] aborts whatever it was doing and waits for future commanding.' Engineers successfully resent the code on Thursday."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

Move Over AJAX, Make Room for ARAX

Posted: June 6th, 2008, 7:48pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

sasserstyl writes "eWeek reports that Microsoft's Silverlight platform will support Ruby client-side scripting, enabling ARAX — or Asynchronous Ruby and XML. Would be cool to have the option to script client-side in something other than Javascript. 'In essence, using ARAX, Ruby developers would not have to go through the machinations of using something like the RJS (Ruby JavaScript) utility, where they write Ruby code and RJS generates JavaScript code to run on the client, Lam said. "Sure, you could do it that way, but then at some point you might have to add some JavaScript code that adds some custom functionality on the client yourself," he said. "So there's always that sense of, 'Now I'm in another world. And wouldn't it be nice if I have this utility class I wrote in Ruby...' Today if I want to use it in the browser I have to port it to JavaScript. Now I can just run it in the browser."'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Drive-By Contributors to the Linux Kernel

Posted: June 4th, 2008, 10:41pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

eldavojohn writes "There's an interesting post over at the Kernel Trap that focuses on a man's attempt to find out how many one-time contributors Linux averages per release. Although imperfect due to some obvious unavoidable flaws, he got a few dirty numbers of 'never seen from agains' in the commits from patches 2.6.11 through 2.6.25 and the numbers are: {63, 148, 128, 92, 96, 122, 137, 140, 135, 95, 136, 153, 179, 179, 304}. This makes sense as another reader, Greg KH, pointed out that the distribution curve is tilted towards one-hit contributions, 'the distribution of all of our users are: 50% only contributed 1 patch; 25% contributed 2; 12% contributed 3; 6% contributed 4 and so on ...'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

Drive-By Contributors to the Linux Kernel

Posted: June 4th, 2008, 10:41pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

eldavojohn writes "There's an interesting post over at the Kernel Trap that focuses on a man's attempt to find out how many one-time contributors Linux averages per release. Although imperfect due to some obvious unavoidable flaws, he got a few dirty numbers of 'never seen from agains' in the commits from patches 2.6.11 through 2.6.25 and the numbers are: {63, 148, 128, 92, 96, 122, 137, 140, 135, 95, 136, 153, 179, 179, 304}. This makes sense as another reader, Greg KH, pointed out that the distribution curve is tilted towards one-hit contributions, 'the distribution of all of our users are: 50% only contributed 1 patch; 25% contributed 2; 12% contributed 3; 6% contributed 4 and so on ...'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

Next-Gen JavaScript Interpreter Speeds Up WebKit

Posted: June 3rd, 2008, 8:48pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

JavaScript is everywhere these days. Now WebKit, the framework behind (among others) Safari and Safari Mobile, as well as the yet-unreleased Android, is getting a new JavaScript engine called Squirrelfish, which the developers claim provides massive speedups over the previous one. The current iteration of the engine is "just the beginning," they claim; in the near future, six planned optimizations should bring even greater speed. With JavaScript surviving as a Web-page mainstay despite many early gripes, and now integral to some low-powered mobile devices, this may mean many fewer wasted seconds in the world.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Rails 2.1 Is Now Available

Posted: June 2nd, 2008, 1:36am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

slick50 writes "Rails 2.1 is now available for general consumption with all the features and fixes we've been putting in over the last six months since 2.0. We've had 1,400 contributors creating patches and vetting them. This has resulted in 1,600+ patches. And lots of that has made it into this release. The new major features are: time zones (by Geoff Buesing), dirty tracking, Gem dependencies, named scope (by Nick Kallen), UTC-based migrations, and better caching. As always, you can install with: gem install rails Or you can use the Git tag for 2.1.0."
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Havok Releases Free Version For PC Developers

Posted: June 1st, 2008, 1:14am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "Havok has released the free version of its widely-used physics and animation engine (but without source code), including tools that integrate with Autodesk 3ds Max and Maya. Developers may use Havok for free for non-commercial games, middleware, and academic projects. Here are the SDK and tools."
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Is UML Really Dead, Or Only Cataleptic?

Posted: May 31st, 2008, 8:56pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

danielstoner writes "Recently UML was pronounced dead as a tool for all programming needs by an article posted on Little Tutorials: 13 reasons for UML's descent into darkness. The author suggests UML was killed by, among other causes, greed, heavy process, and design-by-committee. Is UML really a fading technology? Is it useful beyond a whiteboard notation for designers? Is there any value in code generation?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Programming As a Part of a Science Education?

Posted: May 30th, 2008, 1:58am CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "I'm a fairly new physics professor at a well-ranked undergraduate university. When I arrived, I was surprised to discover there were no computer programming requirements for our majors. This has led to a series of fairly animated faculty curriculum conversations, driven by the question: to what extent should computer programming be a part of an undergraduate science education (in particular, physics)? This is a surprising line of questioning to me because in my career (dominated by research), I've never seriously even questioned the need. If you are a physics major, you learn to program. The exact language isn't so important as is flow control, file handling, basic methods/technique, basic resource management, and troubleshooting. The methods learned in any language can then be ported over to just about any numerical or scientific computational problem. Read on for the rest of the reader's questions and his experiences dealing with faculty who have their own ideas.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
What Makes a Programming Language Successful?

Posted: May 29th, 2008, 6:12pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

danielstoner writes "The article '13 reasons why Ruby, Python and the gang will push Java to die... of old age' makes an interesting analysis of the programming languages battling for a place in programmers' minds. What really makes a language popular? What really makes a language 'good'? What is success for a programming language? Can we say COBOL is a successful language? What about Ruby, Python, etc?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google To Host Ajax Libraries

Posted: May 28th, 2008, 4:23pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

ruphus13 writes "So, hosting and managing a ton of Ajax calls, even when working with mootools, dojo or scriptaculous, can be quite cumbersome, especially as they get updated, along with your code. In addition, several sites now use these libraries, and the end-user has to download the library each time. Google now will provide hosted versions of these libraries, so users can simply reference Google's hosted version. From the article, 'The thing is, what if multiple sites are using Prototype 1.6? Because browsers cache files according to their URL, there is no way for your browser to realize that it is downloading the same file multiple times. And thus, if you visit 30 sites that use Prototype, then your browser will download prototype.js 30 times. Today, Google announced a partial solution to this problem that seems obvious in retrospect: Google is now offering the "Google Ajax Libraries API," which allows sites to download five well-known Ajax libraries (Dojo, Prototype, Scriptaculous, Mootools, and jQuery) from Google. This will only work if many sites decide to use Google's copies of the JavaScript libraries; if only one site does so, then there will be no real speed improvement. There is, of course, something of a privacy violation here, in that Google will now be able to keep track of which users are entering various non-Google Web pages.' Will users adopt this, or is it easy enough to simply host an additional file?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A Bare-Bones Linux+Mono+GUI Distro?

Posted: May 27th, 2008, 5:10pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

nimble99 writes "I am a computer software engineer, focused mainly on the Windows platform — but most of my development time is spent in .NET. I would like to move my .NET development to Linux in the form of Mono, in an attempt at building a media-center type of device. All I require, is a base operating system with simple hardware support, Mono, and a window manager that (preferably) does nothing but act as a host for mono applications. Is this available? I dont know a lot about Linux, so I thought I would ask if there is already something like this available. Obviously a 'Mono Operating System' would be the cleanest solution, but a similar thing could be achieved with the barest minimum of Linux distros right?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Cisco To Open-Source New Messaging Protocol

Posted: May 24th, 2008, 1:21pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

Esther Schindler writes "Do you use SOAP, CORBA or EJBs? You might want to take a look at Etch, writes James Turner for CIO.com. It's language-, platform- and transport-agnostic, and Cisco is planning to release it as open source. Certainly, it offers some technical benefits: 'In addition to a simplified configuration, Etch also promises less overhead over the wire, compared to SOAP. In a testbed environment where SOAP was managing around 900 calls a second, Etch generated more than 50,000 messages in a one-way mode, and 15,000 transactions with a full round-trip, company officials stated.' And the open source part? Cisco is in the process of deciding what license to use. 'The intent is to use a less restrictive license than GPL, perhaps Apache or Mozilla. This is to allow commercial developers to incorporate Etch into products without licensing issues. A final announcement on the licensing decision will be available in the next month.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Getting Credit for Programming Accomplishments?

Posted: May 20th, 2008, 9:41pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "I am a college student new to corporate culture. For the last few weeks, I have been working on a very large project: revamping our customer service website with tons of new tutorials and information. Recently, I got an e-mail forwarded from my supervisor of improvements that HIS supervisor requested. I am fine with compliments and complaints about my work. However, I realized in the e-mail that my supervisor took credit for the development of this content. I have been under his direct supervision in this whole process; much of the new content was his idea that I ended up implementing. Is it out of line to request that in the future I get mentioned for my work?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Do Static Source Code Analysis Tools Really Work?

Posted: May 19th, 2008, 6:19pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

jlunavtgrad writes "I recently attended an embedded engineering conference and was surprised at how many vendors were selling tools to analyze source code and scan for bugs, without ever running the code. These static software analysis tools claim they can catch NULL pointer dereferences, buffer overflow vulnerabilities, race conditions and memory leaks. Ive heard of Lint and its limitations, but it seems that this newer generation of tools could change the face of software development. Or, could this be just another trend? Has anyone in the Slashdot community used similar tools on their code? What kind of changes did the tools bring about in your testing cycle? And most importantly, did the results justify the expense?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Code Quality In Open and Closed Source Kernels

Posted: May 16th, 2008, 5:53pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

Diomidis Spinellis writes "Earlier today I presented at the 30th International Conference on Software Engineering a research paper comparing the code quality of Linux, Windows (its research kernel distribution), OpenSolaris, and FreeBSD. For the comparison I parsed multiple configurations of these systems (more than ten million lines) and stored the results in four databases, where I could run SQL queries on them. This amounted to 8GB of data, 160 million records. (I've made the databases and the SQL queries available online.) The areas I examined were file organization, code structure, code style, preprocessing, and data organization. To my surprise there was no clear winner or loser, but there were interesting differences in specific areas. As the summary concludes: '..the structure and internal quality attributes of a working, non-trivial software artifact will represent first and foremost the engineering requirements of its construction, with the influence of process being marginal, if any.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

Code Quality In Open and Closed Source Kernels

Posted: May 16th, 2008, 5:53pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

Diomidis Spinellis writes "Earlier today I presented at the 30th International Conference on Software Engineering a research paper comparing the code quality of Linux, Windows (its research kernel distribution), OpenSolaris, and FreeBSD. For the comparison I parsed multiple configurations of these systems (more than ten million lines) and stored the results in four databases, where I could run SQL queries on them. This amounted to 8GB of data, 160 million records. (I've made the databases and the SQL queries available online.) The areas I examined were file organization, code structure, code style, preprocessing, and data organization. To my surprise there was no clear winner or loser, but there were interesting differences in specific areas. As the summary concludes: '..the structure and internal quality attributes of a working, non-trivial software artifact will represent first and foremost the engineering requirements of its construction, with the influence of process being marginal, if any.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

Recruitment Options For a Small-Scale FOSS Project?

Posted: May 12th, 2008, 2:54am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

thermian writes "I've been developing my open source project for several years now, and I've never found a solution to one fairly important issue. How can a small-scale project attract new members? My project is pretty specialist, (no URL, sorry, I can't afford to get my server nuked) and I find that while it gets a fair bit of use, most users come to my software out of a need to solve their problem, or use my tutorials to learn about the subject, and none seem inclined to stick around and help make the product better. This is a fairly serious problem for me now, because my software has recently been adopted by a university, and I'm just not in a position to manage the entire set of applications and update everything on my own. Just preparing a version for release to students has been especially hard. The open source maxim 'Many eyes make all bugs shallow' only works if those 'many eyes' are available. So do you have any suggestions as to how, and where, to find people who fancy joining open source projects?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
What Is the Oldest Code Written Still Running?

Posted: May 11th, 2008, 9:30pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

Consul writes "What is the oldest piece of code that is still in use today, that has not actually been retyped or reimplemented in some way? By 'piece of code,' I'm of course referring to a complete algorithm, and not just a single line." The question would have a different answer if emulation, in multiple layers, is allowed.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
In-Depth With Qt 4.4

Posted: May 7th, 2008, 12:26am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

QtPi writes "Trolltech has announced the availability of Qt 4.4, the cross-platform software development framework. Ars Technica has an in-depth look at the release, which include an integrated WebKit-based HTML rendering engine, the new Phonon multimedia framework, support for Windows CE, and significant improvements to the QGraphicsView system. 'Qt 4.4 brings a lot of rich new capabilities to the toolkit that are sure to please open source and commercial software developers. It sounds like Trolltech already has some nice plans for Qt 4.5, and we will hopefully get to hear more about the long-term roadmap after Nokia completes its acquisition.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Prototyping 50 Games in One Semester

Posted: May 6th, 2008, 5:53pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

StarEmperor writes "Gamasutra has a good feature about four grad students who created 50 games in one semester. The article presents their insights about game design, evaluating gameplay, and generally what makes for a fun game."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
How Microsoft Dropped the Ball With Developers

Posted: May 6th, 2008, 2:17am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

cremou writes "As part of an Ars Technica series on how one developer migrated from Windows to OS X (and why), this second article concentrates on how Microsoft bungled the transition from XP to Vista. The author looks at some unfortunate decisions Microsoft made that have made Windows an unpleasant development platform. 'So Windows is just a disaster to write programs for. It's miserable. It's quite nice if you want to use the same techniques you learned 15 years ago and not bother to change how you do, well, anything, but for anyone else it's all pain... And it's not just third parties who suffer. It causes trouble for Microsoft, too. The code isn't just inconsistent and ugly on the outside; it's that way on the inside, too. There's a lot of software for Windows, a lot of business-critical software, that's not maintained any more. And that software is usually buggy. It passes bad parameters to API calls, uses memory that it has released, assumes that files live in particular hard-coded locations, all sorts of things that it shouldn't do.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
MiniOn ARM Microcontroller Programming System

Posted: May 3rd, 2008, 9:46pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

profdc9 writes "For the past six months or so I have been working on the MiniOn, a network enabled microcontroller programming system, similar in idea to the Basic Stamp and Arduino hobbyists are fond of, but it is programmable and accessible through a Web browser and TELNET, requiring no installed development software. It uses the cheap, readily available LPC2000 ARM7TDMI micrcontrollers, and the easy to interface Microchip ENC28J60 for ethernet. The MiniOn firmware is written using only the free WinARM development tools (Linux tools work also) for those who wish to improve the MiniOn. I have already implemented an MP3 streaming server and a web-based graphical oscilloscope in MiniOnBasic. The MiniOn should hopefully lower the barriers and costs to getting started learning about embedded systems, and provide a non-proprietary method of data acquisition."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ajax Performance Analysis

Posted: May 3rd, 2008, 5:49pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

IBM Developerworks' latest was submitted to us by an anonymous reader who writes "Using Firebug and YSlow, you can thoroughly analyze your Web applications to make educated changes to improve performance. This article reviews the latest tools and techniques for managing the performance of Ajax applications along the life cycle of your application, from inception through production."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Threads Considered Harmful

Posted: May 2nd, 2008, 4:03pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

LBR9 writes "James Reinders compares native threads with the goto statement so famously denounced 40 years ago by Edsger Dijkstra. Paraphrasing Dijkstra, he says they both 'make a mess of a program,' and then argues in favor of a higher level of abstraction. A couple of people commenting on the post question whether or not we should be even be treading into the 'swamp of parallelism,' echoing the view recently espoused by Donald Knuth."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
On This Date in 1964, the First BASIC Program

Posted: May 1st, 2008, 6:39pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

palegray.net notes that on this day in 1964, the first BASIC program was run. From the Wired article:"Mathematicians John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz had been trying to make computing more accessible to their undergraduate students. One problem was that available computing languages like Fortran and Algol were so complex that you really had to be a professional to use them. BASIC is still alive and well these days, from Microsoft's VB.net to cross-platform variants like REALbasic. For the old-school among us, there's always Joshua Bell's Apple II BASIC emulator implemented in Javascript."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ruby and Java Running in JavaScript

Posted: April 28th, 2008, 9:11pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

John Resig is reporting on his blog that a recent trip to Tokyo opened up some very interesting JavaScript projects to him that haven't met with widespread popularity outside of Japan yet. "One project, in particular, really caught my eye. It's called Orto and is an implementation of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) in JavaScript. This means that you can take an existing Java application, compile it to bytecode, run it through Orto (which produces the JavaScript, and embed it in a web page. While it doesn't provide the full capabilities of most Java code it does provide enough to make for some interesting demos." In a separate post he also detailed how the HotRuby project is allowing a Ruby VM to run in a browser using JavaScript or even indirectly using ActionScript in Flash.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Malware Modification Contest Has Antivirus Vendors Upset

Posted: April 27th, 2008, 7:07pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

SkiifGeek writes "Race to Zero, a sideline competition being set up at this year's DefCon, already has some Antivirus vendors steaming over the objectives of the contest. They are upset because it is essentially a polymorphism exercise. Entrants are given a set of malware samples which they must then modify to pass through a battery of antivirus scanners without detection while still carrying a viable payload. Even if competitors ignore the published vulnerabilities and weaknesses affecting antivirus vendors, the competition should turn up some interesting results. It may provide technical insight and concepts for further research as similar competitions have done in the past."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Donald Knuth Rips On Unit Tests and More

Posted: April 26th, 2008, 6:46pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

eldavojohn writes "You may be familiar with Donald Knuth from his famous Art of Computer Programming books but he's also the father of TeX and, arguably, one of the founders of open source. There's an interesting interview where he says a lot of stuff I wouldn't have predicted. One of the first surprises to me was that he didn't seem to be a huge proponent of unit tests. I use JUnit to test parts of my projects maybe 200 times a day but Knuth calls that kind of practice a "waste of time" and claims "nothing needs to be 'mocked up.'" He also states that methods to write software to take advantage of parallel programming hardware (like multi-core systems that we've discussed) are too difficult for him to tackle due to ever changing hardware. He even goes so far as to vent about his unhappiness toward chipmakers for forcing us into the multicore realm. He pitches his idea of "literate programming" which I must admit I've never heard of but find it intriguing. At the end, he even remarks on his adage that young people shouldn't do things just because they're trendy. Whether you love him or hate him, he sure has some interesting/flame-bait things to say."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Are C and C++ Losing Ground?

Posted: April 24th, 2008, 10:33pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

Pickens writes "Dr. Dobbs has an interesting interview with Paul Jansen, the managing director of TIOBE Software, about the Programming Community Index, which measures the popularity of programming languages by monitoring their web presence. Since the TIOBE index has been published now for more than 6 years, it gives an interesting picture about trends in the usage of programming languages. Jansen says not much has affected the top ten programming languages in the last five years, with only Python entering the top 10 (replacing COBOL), but C and C++ are definitely losing ground. 'Languages without automated garbage collection are getting out of fashion,' says Jansen. 'The chance of running into all kinds of memory problems is gradually outweighing the performance penalty you have to pay for garbage collection.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google Announces Summer of Code 2008 Projects

Posted: April 22nd, 2008, 8:58pm CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "Google announced today it had accepted 1,125 students to work on 175 Free and Open Source Projects this summer. This represents an increase of almost 25% over last year. Nearly 7,100 applications were received. For those who weren't accepted, there is an offer to send Google Swag to any student who completes their project anyway."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
ExtJS 2.1 AJAX Library Switches To GPL

Posted: April 22nd, 2008, 3:21pm CEST by timothy

Tags: programming

Vandre writes "The popular AJAX library ExtJS released a new version today. There has been a huge controversy among the Ext community. Previously Ext had been accused of not being open source and trying to restrict its users' rights." It seems be boil down to whether the developers like or dislike the GPL, under which the library's new version is available -- the comments illustrate a long-standing divide when it comes to licensing. The foundation which oversees development explains why they've chosen dual-licensing at all.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Free Open Source Software Is Costing Vendors $60 Billion?

Posted: April 21st, 2008, 5:44pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

conan1989 writes to tell us that a recent report from the Standish Group is claiming that open source is costing the traditional software market somewhere in the neighborhood of $60 billion per year in revenue. "MySQL Marten Mickos has often spoken of 'taking a $10 billion market and making it a $3 billion market.' If you consider that open source has taken out $60 billion of traditional software revenues there will be a bloodletting in the proprietary world soon enough. It's a great time to be an open source company."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: Linux

Free Open Source Software Is Costing Vendors $60 Billion?

Posted: April 21st, 2008, 5:44pm CEST by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

conan1989 writes to tell us that a recent report from the Standish Group is claiming that open source is costing the traditional software market somewhere in the neighborhood of $60 billion per year in revenue. "MySQL Marten Mickos has often spoken of 'taking a $10 billion market and making it a $3 billion market.' If you consider that open source has taken out $60 billion of traditional software revenues there will be a bloodletting in the proprietary world soon enough. It's a great time to be an open source company."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot: IT

The Return of Ada

Posted: April 15th, 2008, 6:57pm CEST by Zonk

Tags: programming

Pickens writes "Today when most people refer to Ada it's usually as a cautionary tale. The Defense Department commissioned the programming language in the late 1970s but few programmers used Ada, claiming it was difficult to use. Nonetheless many observers believe the basics of Ada are in place for wider use. Ada's stringency causes more work for programmers, but it will also make the code more secure, Ada enthusiasts say. Last fall, contractor Lockheed Martin delivered an update to ERAM, the Federal Aviation Administration's next-generation flight data air traffic control system — ahead of schedule and under budget, which is something you don't often hear about in government circles. Jeff O'Leary, an FAA software development and acquisition manager who oversaw ERAM, attributed at least part of it to the use of the Ada, used for about half the code in the system."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Run Google App Engine Apps On Amazon's Cloud

Posted: April 15th, 2008, 1:30am CEST by kdawson

Tags: programming

jamie found a post laying to rest one potential criticism of Google's App Engine, that of the danger of lock-in to the platform. Waxy.org points out a hack called AppDrop, written by Chris Anderson, that provides a container for Google App SDK applications, running entirely on Amazon's EC2 infrastructure. Here's Anderson's AppDrop page and his blog post announcing it.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A Decade of OSS, 10 Years After the Summit

Posted: April 7th, 2008, 6:00pm CEST by CmdrTaco

Tags: programming

Jacob's ladder writes "Ten years ago this week, the Free Software Summit arguably marked the beginning of today's OSS movement. Ars Technica interviews many of those in attendance when the revolution began. John Ousterhout, creator of the Tcl scripting language and Tk toolkit and founder of Electric Cloud was there, and notes how much the landscape has changed. 'When I made my first open-source release in the early 1980s (VLSI chip design tools from Berkeley), there were probably less than five open-source projects in the world. By the time of the first O'Reilly conference, there were dozens; now there are probably thousands. Also, open-source software has received substantial mainstream acceptance. 10 years ago, people were suspicious or afraid of it; now it is widely embraced.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Inside Intel's $20M Multicore Research Program

Posted: April 3rd, 2008, 9:32pm CEST by Zonk

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader writes "You may have heard about Intel's and Microsoft's efforts to finally get multi-core programming into gear so that there actually will be a developer who can program all those fancy new multicore processors, which may have dozens of core on one chip within a few years. TG Daily has an interesting article about the project, written by one of the researchers. It looks like there is a lot of excitement around the opportunity to create a new generation of development tools. Let's hope that we will soon see software that can exploit those 16+core babies. 'The problem of multi-core programming is staring at us right now. I am not sure what Intel's and Microsoft's expectations are, but it is quite possible that they are in fact looking at fundamental results from the academic centers to leverage their large work force to polish and realize the ideas that come forth. It calls for a much closer collaboration between the centers and the companies than it appears at first sight.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Practical Experience As a Beginning Programmer?

Posted: March 30th, 2008, 6:18pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

LuckyLefty01 writes "I'm 21, going to college, and working part time doing odd jobs like math tutoring. In the past nine months or so, I've discovered and taken to programming (so far mostly C/C++/Obj-C). I am now looking seriously at something in this area as an eventual full time job. Since I don't have much scheduled this coming summer, it would be great to try to get a job of some sort at a tech-related company in order to get some practical experience in the field. Even if I don't have the background to get a job involving actual programming, I think that the knowledge of how such a company works would be valuable. Fortunately, I live in the SF Bay Area, so there should be plenty of companies around. I'm flexible about what I'm going to be doing, and very willing to learn just about anything anybody cares to teach me. If there's some (or even quite a bit of) boring grunt work involved, I can do that too. What type of job would benefit an aspiring but inexperienced programmer the most? What methods might I use to find such a job?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Stroustrup Says C++ Education Needs To Improve

Posted: March 30th, 2008, 3:15pm CEST by Soulskill

Tags: programming

simoniker writes "Over at Dr. Dobb's, C++ creator Bjarne Stroustrup has given an in-depth interview dealing with, among other things, the upcoming C++0x programming standard, as well as his views on the past and future of C++. He comments in particular on some of the difficulties in educating people on C++: 'In the early days of C++, I worried a lot about "not being able to teach teachers fast enough." I had reason to worry because much of the obvious poor use of C++ can be traced to fundamental misunderstandings among educators. I obviously failed to articulate my ideals and principles sufficiently.' Stroustrup also notes, 'Given that the problems are not restricted to C++, I'm not alone in that. As far as I can see, every large programming community suffers, so the problem is one of scale.' We've discussed Stroustrup's views on C++ in the past."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
More Interest In Parallel Programming Outside the US?

Posted: March 25th, 2008, 8:40am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

simoniker writes "In a new weblog post on Dobbs Code Talk, Intel's James Reinders discusses the growth of concurrency in programming, suggesting that '...programming for multi-core is catching the imagination of programmers more in Japan, China, Russia, and India than in Europe and the United States.' He also comments: 'We see a significantly HIGHER interest in jumping on a parallelism from programmers with under 15 years experience, verses programmers with more than 15 years.' Any anecdotal evidence for or against from this community?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Programmer Buys Original Ada Lovelace Painting On eBay

Posted: March 25th, 2008, 6:29am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

An anonymous reader sends the story of the rediscovery of an original painting of Ada Byron at about age 4, the girl who was to become Countess Lovelace and the world's first computer programmer. A US Army sergeant in Tajikistan caught wind of an eBay auction of a 180-year-old painting of Ada Byron, with provenance; he notified a programmer buddy in Texas, who won the auction.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The P.G. Wodehouse Method of Refactoring

Posted: March 23rd, 2008, 9:02am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

covertbadger notes a developer's blog entry on a novel way of judging progress in refactoring code. "Software quality tools can never completely replace the gut instinct of a developer — you might have massive test coverage, but that won't help with subjective measures such as code smells. With Wodehouse-style refactoring, we can now easily keep track of which code we are happy with, and which code we remain deeply suspicious of."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Web 2.0, Meet JavaScript 2.0

Posted: March 21st, 2008, 11:37pm CET by ScuttleMonkey

Tags: programming

Jeremy Martin writes "Well I suppose it's an undeniable fact about us programmer-types — every now and then we just can't help but get excited about something really nerdy. For me right now, that is definitely JavaScript 2.0. I was just taking a look at the proposed specifications and I am really, truly excited about what we have coming."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Visualizing the .NET Framework

Posted: March 19th, 2008, 1:55am CET by kdawson

Tags: programming

eldavojohn writes "If you're a Web developer, you should check out a quick post about the number of types, methods, & fields in the .NET framework. This was done using NDepend. The numbers are quite large — e.g. 39,509 types. The blogger went on to generate tree maps and a dependency matrix."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
What Programming Languages Should You Learn Next?

Posted: March 18th, 2008, 6:22pm CET by Zonk

Tags: programming

simoniker writes "Over at Dobbs Code Talk, Chris Diggins has been discussing programming languages beyond C++ or Java, suggesting options such as Ruby ('does a great job of showing how powerful a dynamic language can be, and leverages powerful ideas from Smalltalk, Perl, and Lisp') but suggesting Scala as a first choice ('Very accessible to programmers from different backgrounds.') What would your choice be for programmers extending beyond their normal boundaries?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Open Source News » Tags » programming

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315 items tagged "programming"

Posted: January 20th, 2012, 3:18am CET by samzenpus

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Posted: January 11th, 2012, 11:20am CET by Soulskill

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Posted: January 3rd, 2012, 1:10am CET by Unknown Lamer

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Posted: December 28th, 2011, 2:16am CET by Soulskill

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Posted: December 27th, 2011, 3:49pm CET by timothy

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Posted: December 1st, 2011, 2:08pm CET by samzenpus

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Posted: November 11th, 2011, 3:36pm CET by Soulskill

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Posted: September 15th, 2011, 12:15am CEST by samzenpus

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Posted: September 15th, 2011, 12:15am CEST by samzenpus

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Posted: September 3rd, 2011, 2:03am CEST by timothy

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Posted: August 23rd, 2011, 2:49am CEST by timothy

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Posted: August 23rd, 2011, 2:49am CEST by timothy

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Posted: August 11th, 2011, 12:30am CEST by samzenpus

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Posted: August 7th, 2011, 2:27pm CEST by timothy

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Posted: July 27th, 2011, 6:01am CEST by Soulskill

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Posted: July 1st, 2011, 3:31pm CEST by Soulskill

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Posted: June 21st, 2011, 2:22pm CEST by timothy

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Posted: June 1st, 2011, 5:48pm CEST by Roblimo

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Posted: May 25th, 2011, 9:57pm CEST by samzenpus

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Posted: May 7th, 2011, 12:55am CEST by timothy

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Posted: March 11th, 2011, 1:22am CET by timothy

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Posted: February 21st, 2011, 2:55pm CET by CmdrTaco

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Posted: January 14th, 2011, 12:20am CET by timothy

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Posted: November 30th, 2010, 6:18pm CET by CmdrTaco

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Posted: November 13th, 2010, 4:25pm CET by kdawson

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Posted: November 3rd, 2010, 1:18pm CET by timothy

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Posted: October 1st, 2010, 8:52pm CEST by samzenpus

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Posted: September 6th, 2010, 8:14pm CEST by Soulskill

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Posted: July 12th, 2010, 5:46pm CEST by CmdrTaco

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Posted: June 15th, 2010, 11:23am CEST by kdawson

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Posted: May 7th, 2010, 8:39pm CEST by Soulskill

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Posted: April 13th, 2010, 11:03pm CEST by kdawson

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Posted: April 13th, 2010, 11:03pm CEST by kdawson

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Posted: April 9th, 2010, 6:16pm CEST by samzenpus

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Posted: April 2nd, 2010, 11:09am CEST by timothy

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Posted: March 17th, 2010, 3:03am CET by kdawson

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Posted: March 11th, 2010, 2:15am CET by samzenpus

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Posted: March 11th, 2010, 2:15am CET by samzenpus

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Posted: December 31st, 2009, 5:45pm CET by CmdrTaco