General Development Archive

Linus Torvalds On Managing Developers

In an "as told to" article for CIO.com, Linus Torvalds explains how he keeps the Linux people and software on-track. Arguably the most surprising facet of Linus' management style is that he's perfectly willing to flame people when he thinks they're wrong--though he's also happy to be corrected himself. "Part of that, by the way, is not feeling shy about saying impolite things or showing some emotion. So I'd rather flame people for doing stupid things and call them stupid, rather than try to be too polite to the point where people didn't understand how strongly I felt about something." That's particularly interesting in light of several OSCON presenters who believe that the way to grow the open source community is to make projects more welcoming to would-be contributors. Do these attitudes actually contradict one another?

The A-Z of Programming Languages: JavaScript

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."

Developer Trivia Test

InfoWorld has put together a 20-question test of your programming knowledge. Questions range from 'What is the best way to preserve type safety in assembly language?' to 'Why are race conditions a problem in modern software development?' and they touch on your knowledge of the history of programming languages, how best to develop easily maintainable and secure code, and your game plan for overcoming a lack of energy drinks, Jolt Cola, and Mountain Dew at the local supermarket - in other words, your commitment to programming as a way of life. Editor's Note: Think of it as your midnight distraction (*cough* Grad Students) rather than news, you might actually enjoy it ;).

The A-Z of Programming Languages: D

Walter Bright talks about D and his desire to improve on systems programming languages. Many successful concepts from other languages like JavaScript, PERL, Ruby, Lisp, Ada, Erlang, Python, etc., have had a significant influence on D, he says. He adds: "D 1.0 was pretty straightforward stuff, being features that were adapted from well-trod experience in other languages. D 2.0 has ventured into unexplored territory that doesn't have a track record in other languages. Since these capabilities are unproven, they generate some healthy skepticism. Only time will tell."

The A-Z of Programming Languages: Modula-3

Computerworld is undertaking a series of investigations into the most widely-used programming languages. Luca Cardelli is a member of the Modula-3 design committee. Cardelli is a Principal Researcher and Head of the Programming Principles and Tools and Security groups at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, and is an ACM Fellow. Here he chats to Computerworld about the origins of Modula-3, including how the most exciting Modula-3 design meeting ever, was abruptly interrupted by the San Francisco 7.1 earthquake.

Avoid Latency While Editing Remote Files Using bcvi

The ability to run both console and graphical programs securely on a remote system using SSH brings you a great deal of freedom. When the communications link to that remote system has high latency, however, running interactive programs such as a text editor on the remote machine can become a real test of your patience. The bcvi project lets you edit files on a remote system using gvim (or another editor) on your local desktop machine to avoid the latency.

The A-Z of Programming Languages: YACC

Computerworld interviews Stephen C. Johnson, the brains behind YACC Yet Another Compiler Compiler: The compiler was developed some 35 years ago and is still going strong today through various incarnations. Asked what he is proudest of in terms of YACC's development and use, Johnson said: "I think computing is a service profession. I am happiest when the programs that I have written (YACC, Lint, the Portable C Compiler) are useful to others. In this regard, the contribution YACC made to the spread of Unix and C is what I'm proudest of." And would he do anything differently? "I'd try harder to find a notation other than $1, $2, $$, etc. While simple and intuitive, the notation is a source of errors as grammars evolve."

The A-Z of Programming Languages: INTERCAL

Computerworld is undertaking a series of investigations into the most widely-used programming languages. Previously we have spoken to Alfred v. Aho of AWK fame, S. Tucker Taft on the Ada 1995 and 2005 revisions, Microsoft about its server-side script engine ASP, Chet Ramey about his experience maintaining Bash, Bjarne Stroustrup of C++ fame, and to Charles H. Moore about the design and development of Forth. is interview, Computerworld ventures down a less serious path and chats to Don Woods about the development and uses of INTERCAL.