General Development Archive

Apache Geronimo On Grails

Submitted by IdaAshley 2008-07-10 General Development 4 Comments

Do you want to build your Web sites faster and cheaper, but still leverage industrial-strength technology? You can do just that using Grails and Apache Geronimo. In this article, you will see how easy Grails can make Web development and how easy Geronimo can make Grails deployment. Also see how a Grails application can leverage the resources and services provided by Geronimo.

Retrofit Websites with jQuery, Ajax Tabs, and Photo Carousels

Submitted by jmalasko 2008-07-10 General Development 2 Comments

This article walks you through the steps of retrofitting a Web 1.0 shopping site with Ajax techniques. In addition to Ajax techniques and best practices, you learn how Ajax can improve your user experience through principles of progressive enhancement, usability, and user experience design.

Scalable Highly Expressive Reasoner

Submitted by jmalasko 2008-07-08 General Development 3 Comments

Discover a tool that provides ontology analytics over highly expressive ontologies. The Scalable Highly Expressive Reasoner allows and reveals logical inconsistencies in the data, helps you eliminate these irregularities before issuing semantic queries and explains why a specific result set is an answer to the query.

Comparison: Nine Ruby on Rails IDEs

Submitted by snydeq 2008-07-08 General Development 3 Comments

InfoWorld's Martin Heller takes an in-depth look at nine Ruby on Rails IDEs and editors with Rails bundles, breaking down where each tool fits into a development strategy and how to mix and match tools for a complete set of functionality. Under review are Ruby in Steel, RadRails, Komodo, 3rdRail, NetBeans, TextMate, IntelliJ IDEA, E Text Editor, and Intype.

Getting Graphic With PHP

Submitted by jmalasko 2008-07-07 General Development 12 Comments

Imagine creating Web-page graphics dynamically using just code. Creating and manipulating images is yours for the doing with the power of PHP. This tutorial steps through using the GD library, showing you how to create and alter images on Web pages. It starts with the GD construct, and then builds on it to showcase graphics techniques.

Application development with Vala

Submitted by Pfeifer 2008-07-05 General Development 24 Comments

"Vala is, in some sense, a new programming language. It’s syntax and structure leans heavily towards C#. As Jurg Billeter, the mastermind behind Vala, likes to put it; Vala is an amalgam of different C inspired languages, mostly C++ and C#. An though there is no mercury in this mixture, you'll find many a gold nugget in Vala."

The A-Z of Programming Languages: INTERCAL

Eugenia Loli 2008-07-04 General Development 3 Comments

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.

Ten XML Schemas You Should Know

Submitted by jmalasko 2008-07-03 General Development 5 Comments

Learn XML schemas that provide solutions for all sorts of problems, from the basics of Web services to data description. Also, cover database-like solutions that involve contacts and invoices. The schemas in this article were chosen for their usefulness and utility, plus their impact on the XML community in how information is shared and exchanged using the XML format.

Build a High Performance Telephony System

Submitted by Kushal Sharma 2008-07-02 General Development 5 Comments

Building Telephony Systems with OpenSER is a new book from Packt, which acts as a step-by-step guide to building a high performance Telephony System. Written by Flavio E. Goncalves, this book teaches users how to develop a fast and flexible SIP server using OpenSER, an open-source VoIP server based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), an application-layer control (or signaling) protocol for creating, modifying, and terminating sessions with one or more participants, including internet telephone calls, multimedia distribution, and multimedia conferences. This book is a well illustrated, step-by-step guide to building a SIP based network using OpenSER.

In Defense of Reading the [Fine] Manual

Submitted by snydeq 2008-06-25 General Development 7 Comments

InfoWorld's Tom Yager speaks in favor of the RTFM approach to learning new skills, arguing that the knowledge gleaned from cracking a manual only in search of a specific answer is eroding software quality. "The reason is that developers don't allow themselves the time to look things up before they use them. Statement completion, context-sensitive help, generated code, unit testing, and automated analysis came about expressly to eliminate research and experimentation from the development cycle. The result, I think, speaks for itself. How many rookie coding blunders that lead to security vulnerabilities grow out of inadequately understood usage of a method or resource?"

The A-Z of Programming Languages: C++

Thom Holwerda 2008-06-25 General Development 11 Comments

Computerworld is undertaking a series of investigations into the most widely-used programming languages. Previously they 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, and Chet Ramey about his experience maintaining Bash. In the latest interview Computerworld chats with Bjarne Stroustrup of C++ fame about the design and development of C++, garbage collection and the role of facial hair in successful programming languages.

Describe REST Web Services With WSDL 2.0

Submitted by jmalasko 2008-06-18 General Development No Comments

At their core, Web services define a mechanism for machine-to-machine interaction using a network and XML. A key component of a Web service is a formal description with Web Services Description Language. This article introduces you to REST and WSDL 2.0, and walks you through creating a WSDL 2.0 description of a REST Web service.

Automation for the People: Pushbutton Documentation

Submitted by BlueVoodoo 2008-06-18 General Development 2 Comments

In this instalment of Automation for the people, automation expert Paul Duvall explains how you can use open source tools to automate the generation of Unified Modelling Language (UML) diagrams, build figures, entity-relationship diagrams (ERDs), and even user documentation.

Debugging PHP Using Eclipse and PDT

Submitted by IdaAshley 2008-06-18 General Development 3 Comments

The PHP Development Tools (PDT) plug-in, when installed with Eclipse Europa, gives you that ability to quickly write and debug PHP scripts and pages. PDT supports two debugging tools: XDebug and the Zend Debugger. Learn how to configure PDT for debugging PHP scripts and discover which perspectives you use when taking closer looks at your scripts.

Cocoa for Windows + Flash Killer = SproutCore

Adam Scheinberg 2008-06-15 General Development 35 Comments

RoughlyDrafted Magazine has posted an in-depth article that examines Sproutcore, an Apple-backed Javascript framework that approximates Cocoa on the web. The article examines why using HTML, Javascript, and CSS just may win the battle with Flash, Silverlight, and Java for rich internet application deployment. Sproutcore enables web developers to create full-featured cross-browser web apps an in a Model, View, Controller convention, much like Rails. The Sproutcore site has some great tutorials that show off the framework.

Using the Bourne Again Shell Effectively

Submitted by pkrumins 2008-06-13 General Development 3 Comments

Peteris Krumins has written a three-part article series on his blog about using Bash effectively. The three parts are Editing commands in Emacs editing mode, Editing commands in Vi editing mode, and Definitive guide to Bash command line history. All three articles come with 'cheat sheets' in .pdf and .txt format so you can memorise the commands and shortcuts easier.

The A-Z of Programming Languages: ASP

Submitted by fairynomo 2008-06-12 General Development 11 Comments

Computerworld is undertaking a series of investigations into the most widely-used programming languages. Previously they have spoken to Alfred v. Aho of AWK fame, Chet Ramey about his experience maintaining Bash, and S. Tucker Taft on the Ada 1995 and 2005 revisions. In this article they chat to Microsoft about its server-side script engine ASP and web application framework ASP.NET, used to build dynamic Web sites, applications and Web services.

The A-Z of Programming Languages: Ada

Submitted by fairynomo 2008-06-04 General Development 12 Comments

Computerworld is undertaking a series of investigations into the most widely-used programming languages. Previously they have spoken to Alfred v. Aho of AWK fame, and Chet Ramey about his experience maintaining Bash. In this article, they chat with S. Tucker Taft, Chairman and CTO of SofCheck. Taft has been heavily involved in the Ada 1995 and 2005 revisions, and still works with the language today as both a designer and user. Computerworld spoke to Taft to learn more about the development and maintenance of Ada.

From Win32 to Cocoa: Part III

Thom Holwerda 2008-06-02 General Development 106 Comments

Ars has just published part three in their series "From Win32 to Cocoa", in which Peter Bright explains why he thinks "Windows is dying, Windows applications suck, and Microsoft is too blinkered to fix any of it." Part one dealt with the history of both development platforms, part two dived into .Net, different types of programmers, and Windows Vista, and part three details the development platform and tools Apple has to offer, and in what ways they are superior or inferior to Windows'.

The A-Z of Programming Languages: BASH

Submitted by fairynomo 2008-05-30 General Development 31 Comments

Tuesday, we linked to an interview with one of the creators of AWK, over at ComputerWorld. From the same series comes an interview with Chat Ramney, maintainer of BASH, the Bourne Again Shell. BASH is the default shell on most UNIX systems, and has been ported to Windows, MS-DOS, the Amiga, and just about everywhere else.