Today I'm going to talk about why software - any software, all software - actually matters, what the different types of software are, and why you should care about its properties (no matter who you are, or what you do).
Scott Long announced the availability of FreeBSD 4.10-BETA for i386. 4.10-BETA for alpha will be following shortly as they work out some problems. 4.10 is the next step in the 4-STABLE branch, and as such contains primarily bug fixes and incremental functionality improvements. One significant new feature is the merging of the USB stack and drivers from 5.x.
The HTML procedure that will be included on the Amiga OS4 developer pre-release CD for the AmigaOne has been given to Amigaworld.net. The procedure is simple to follow and will walk users of all experience levels through the painless task of installing the developer pre-release on to an AmigaOne. Elsewhere Amiga Forever 6.0 is now available.
This paper was written by Ken Thompson around August 1984. Ken Thompson is the co-father of UNIX: "You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code. In demonstrating the possibility of this kind of attack, I picked on the C compiler. I could have picked on any program-handling program such as an assembler, a loader, or even hardware microcode. As the level of program gets lower, these bugs will be harder and harder to detect. A well installed microcode bug will be almost impossible to detect."
This article by Mark Fussell provides an in-depth overview through a climax-building top ten countdown of the best features of the core XML classes in System.Xml in the forthcoming .NET Frameworks Beta 1 release. These enable you to read, write, manipulate, and transform XML. With improvements in performance, usability, typing, and querying the XML support in the V2.0 release continues to lead the industry in innovation, standards support, and ease of use.
While Linux is by no means complete, the broad strokes have been filled in: the operating system, the server software, the database. But at the same time, the stereotype of the lonely programmer working in the wee hours is seriously outdated. The second generation of open source projects responds to specific business demands, and the people building these applications are getting paid -- even if the code they write will be free.
No OS is perfect, but by combining the ease of use that Windows users expect, and the eminent hackability of the *NIX platforms, OS X makes a great case for a one-size-fits-all solution.
Now that you made the necessary preparation to migrate from Windows to Linux in Part I, you are ready to complete the move. THG offers a step-by-step Linux installation how-to, complete with screenshots and videos, to guide you on your path to Windows independence.
Eirik Eng, CEO of Trolltech, and Matthias Ettrich, founder of the KDE project and CTO of Trolltech, were interviewed by Philippe Fremy, KDE enthusiast. This interview was conducted in August 2003.
On time and in-sync, gtkmm 2.4 is now here. gtkmm provides a C++ interface to GTK+, with comprehensive documentation. gtkmm 2.4 wraps additional API in GTK+ 2.4. gtkmm 2.4 installs in parallel with gtkmm 2.2, so you can have both installed at the same time. glibmm is now a separate module, for use in non-GUI software.
While Microsoft is pleased with robust sales of new PCs that come loaded with Windows XP, the company has been less than satisfied with the rate at which large companies are installing its latest operating system.
This essay is a manifesto about software for collaboration -- why the world's future depends on it, why the current crop of tools isn't good enough, and what programmers can and must do about it.
A month ago, a trial version of a little-known Linux application called "CoLinux" was released that is the first working free and open source method for optimally running Linux on Microsoft Windows natively. It's the work of a 21 year-old Israeli computer science student and some Japanese open source programmers; in Israel, analysts are already saying it could help transform the software world.
In this installment, David looks at Python's two standard modules for unit testing: unittest and doctest. These modules expand on the capability of the built-in assert statement, which is used for validation of pre-conditions and post-conditions within functions. He discusses the best ways to incorporate testing into Python development, weighing the advantages of different styles for different types of projects.
This is an article about my experiences with Slackware 9.1, a distribution of Linux that I find enjoyable, along with programs that I find useful and enjoyable.
Javalobby founder Rick Ross wrote the commentary "Where is Java in the settlement?" while Richard M. Stallman replies on his own commentary asking developers to develop the GNU Classpath instead of hoping on a Free Java.
If it's a good idea to learn proper memory management skills, as Cameron Laird has suggested in his series, then you'll need to gain skill at using the tools that help you do so. In this article, you'll learn how to use a free memory debugging utility and find out how easily it can help you solve memory problems.
JAR files are ubiquitous to Java users and programmers. But just how much do you know about them? Learn the ins-and-outs of Java archive files, including their innate support for indexing, programmatic creation and manipulation, security, and data integrity.
This technical overview by veteran real-time instructor David Kalinsky examines a number of design patterns used to architect high-availability embedded systems that utilize a real-time operating system. The design of high availability systems is based on a combination of redundant hardware components and software to manage fault detection and correction, to achieve "five-nines" (99.999%) or greater availability, equivalent to less than 1 second of downtime per day.
"You ever tried Linux?" my wife's Uncle Toby asked me as I sat in his home office that cold winter day. We had been discussing the rise and fall of the BeOS and he mentioned that he had tried a few different *nixes on his home server/firewall. "Here let me show you," he said as he flicked the switch on the monitor next to his Windows XP box.
