General Development Archive

Microsoft announced the availability of its Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) software initiator package, including the Microsoft iSCSI initiator service and its driver.

REBOL Technologies recently released the source code for the REBOL/View Desktop to promote open source development of future versions. The Desktop module is the default user interface displayed when REBOL/View is started. The Desktop is essentially a non-web-based Internet browser that provides a simple method for users to execute REBOL applications distributed across systems the world over.

Extreme Programming (XP) founder Kent Beck likes to say he made up XP's fundamentals during a particularly troubled project in 1996. While strictly true, from talking to him you sense he'd really been formulating the process for quite some time. Find out what Kent thinks about the contribution of the Java platform to software development's success (or lack thereof). In this interview he explains how better applications can arise from the ashes of failure.

Multi-platform toolkit wxWindows 2.4.1 has been released. This contains bug fixes to 2.4.0, including improved behaviour on Windows XP.

Having written open source software myself, and being a subscriber to mailing lists, etc, there is a realization that the number one thing missing from smaller open source projects is feedback from users.

"These are syntactically interesting features, not life-changing events. Most programmers who've spent a few years in the industry learn large numbers of languages. C# is just a particularly interesting addition to the pack." Read the article at ZDNet.

Borland Software has legions of software coders to thank for its sometimes improbable survival over the past two decades. Once again the company is trying to change its colors, but this time executives promise not to forget their roots. Read the article at ADTMag.

SciTech Software, Inc. announced it has released SciTech MGL 5.0 R10 for multiple operating systems including Linux, under a dual-license structure. Developers can now use SciTech MGL under the LGPL, or through SciTech’s commercial software license for those seeking to offer closed source solutions. Both versions come complete with source code and more than 1600 pages of online documentation. SciTech MGL comes with direct support for VGA, VESA VBE and DirectX compatible graphics cards out of the box via the SciTech SNAP Graphics device driver architecture.

Python 2.2.3-final is a bug-fix release of Python. More information can be found here.

The MIM Visual Development Environment simplifies software programming by turning it into an intuitive visual environment for novice and experienced programmers. Maz Lab claims this is a huge innovation. They sent us --exclusively-- three mockups of their upcoming product (shot 1, shot 2, shot 3). Read more for the full press release.

Restructure your code for multiprocessor Macs and take advantage of SMP with the help of Cocoa. Elsewhere, you will find a tutorial of Real Basic under Mac OS X, the 21st in the long series.

"Rumors of a new .NET language have been circulating around the cyber-grapevine for the last year or so, but have picked up speed as of late. The fire was fed by Mary Jo Foley's (columnist, Microsoft Watch) recent news story Add F# To the Alphabet Soup. Strangely enough, there hasn't been a peep from Microsoft. The only published information I can find is hosted on the Microsoft Research (MR) site. So, I donned my thinking cap, and proceeded with reckless abandon. Here begins the tale…" Read the article at ExtremeTech.

The team released the new major version of their multi-platform compiler suite, GCC 3.3.
Update: In other development news, Squeak 3.5, an open, highly-portable Smalltalk-80 implementation whose virtual machine is written entirely in Smalltalk, is released.

The most powerful synergy in Microsoft Corp.'s technology portfolio is between its powerful platform services and its reasonably priced, highly capable tools. Wooing developers with seductive ease of use, Microsoft's tools then pave a path of least resistance toward the adoption of each new wave of Windows features. Read the review of Visual Studio.NET at eWeek.