General Development Archive

The U2 SystemBuilder Extensible Architecture for UniData and Universe (SB/XA) 6.0.0 introduces new application architecture for SystemBuilder applications. One of the features provided by the changes in the architecture is the ability to modify the presentation of your applications without modifying the underlying business logic. In this article, learn how to present a traditional SystemBuilder menu as a Tree View menu.

The proposed new standard for the C++ programming language, C++0x, has reached feature completeness. "This is 'it', feature-complete C++0x, including the major feature of 'concepts' which had its own extensive set of papers for language and library extensions (if you get the impression that concepts is a big feature, well, it is indeed easily the biggest addition we made in C++0x)."

Peter Wayner examines the platforms and passions underlying today's popular dynamic languages, and though JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Groovy, and other scripting tools are fast achieving the critical mass necessary to flourish into the future, 10 forces in particular appear to be driving the evolution of this development domain. From the co-optation of successful ideas across languages, to the infusion of application development into applications that are fast evolving beyond their traditional purpose, to the rise of frameworks, the cloud, and amateur code enablers, each will have a profound effect on the future of today's dynamic development tools.

Several up-and-coming scripting languages--some open-source--are gaining popularity among software developers. These dynamic programming languages, including Groovy, Scala, Lua, F#, Clojure and Boo, deserve more attention for your enterprise software development, even if your shop is dedicated to Java or .NET. Here's why.

Python 2.6 has been released on October 1st. The major theme of this release is preparing the migration path to Python 3.0, a major redesign of the language. Whenever possible, Python 2.6 incorporates new features and syntax from 3.0 while remaining compatible with existing code by not removing older features or syntax. See the what's new docs for more details.

Microsoft's leader of C# development, writer of the Turbo Pascal system, and lead architect on the Delphi language, Anders Hejlsberg, reveals all there is to know on the history, inspiration, uses and future direction of one of computer programming's most widely used languages - C#. Hejlsberg also offers some insight into the upcoming version of C# (C#4) and the new language F#, as well as what lies ahead in the world of functional programming.

Professor Roberto Ierusalimschy offers an in-depth examination of what he believes to be the most successful programming language not born in a developed country.

jQuery is emerging as the JavaScript library of choice for developers looking to ease their creation of dynamic Rich Internet Applications. As browser-based applications continue to replace desktop applications, the use of these libraries will only continue to grow. See jQuery in action, its easy syntax, how to use jQuery correctly in your own JavaScript code in your browser app, and how to avoid any pitfalls when using it with other libraries.

XML is a communication format for exchanging structured documents and data. Too often, an XML format is chosen arbitrarily during development, without much planning or design. Learn how to design a format less likely to require change and agile enough to incorporate new requirements with the simple addition of new extensions instead of full changes.

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 the 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).

You thought Tcl/Tk stands for 'obsolete GUI'? You define the looks of Tk as 'prehistoric'? Or do you visualize ugly interfaces when reading this? I certainly do. Mats Bengtsson writes: "Tcl's windowing toolkit, Tk, has been 'known' to be ugly and outdated. With the 8.5 release last December the tile package, now named ttk (Themed Tk), is included in the core which brings true native widgets on Windows (yes, Vista too) and Mac." But what about Linux? Mats points at tileqt and the new tilegtk and notes: "Imagine that you can switch theme, and toolkits, on the fly without any program restart." Finally, he mentions progresses in both tkpath and support for WebKit. He concludes: "When all this comes together it will make Tk a very competitive toolkit."

For a technology that has been in stable release since May 22, 2000, PHP 4 has finally reached the end of its official life. With the release of PHP 4.4.9, official support has ended and the final security patch for the platform issued. With PHP 5 offering a viable upgrade path for the last few years, the recommendation is for addministrators and developers is to move to the PHP 5 platform (if they haven't already done so), which is currently at 5.2.6. For those who are not able to migrate their systems to the new version of PHP noted PHP security expert, Stefan Esser, will continue to provide third party security patching for the PHP 4 line through his Suhosin product.

Computerworld is undertaking a series of investigations into the most widely-used programming languages. This time we chat with Guido van Rossum, best known as the author of Python, and currently working for Google, CA where he gets to spend at least half his time developing the language.

JavaScript creator and current CTO of Mozilla Corporation Brendan Eich provides a detailed history of JavaScript, including some of the more interesting programs written with JavaScript, right up to how JavaScript has been essential to the Ajax or Web 2.0 revolution.Eich started work on JS in 1995 and says he's been surprised by how popular it has been: "I was resigned for a long time to JS being unpopular due to those annoying popups, but more: due to its unconventional combination of functional and prototype-based object programming traditions."And with multicore/massively-parallel computers upon us, Eich talks about the future of JavaScript: "JS has its role to play in addressing the multicore world, starting with relatively simple extensions such as Google Gears' worker pools -- "shared nothing" background threads with which browser JS communicates by sending and receiving messages."