In 1996, Sun Microsystems released the Java platform. Although it was yet another programming language entering a landscape already populated by the likes of older languages like Perl, C++, and C, Java had an ace up its sleeve: While older languages required recompilation for every different platform, Java was cross-platform. Older languages also needed special tweaks to handle the issues they encountered when running on different platforms. From the start, Java ran on any operating system without the need for recompilation or operating system-specific tweaking.
WORA does it again: HTML 5 has the signs of following Java’s winning strategy
August 21st, 2011 Posted in Programming Tools
Aug, 21 2011
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Google releases Go runtime version for App Engine
August 14th, 2011 Posted in Programming, Programming Tools
Aug, 14 2011
Google announced the launch of a runtime version of Go for the Google App Engine. Go is a platform-as-a-service specialized programming language in the same category as Java and Python. Both these latter languages have runtimes already available for theGoogle App Engine.
According to Google engineer Andrew Gerrand’s post on the Go Programming Language Blog, “This means you can take that Go app you’ve been working on (or meaning to work on) and deploy it to App Engine right now with the new 1.5.2 SDK.”
Well, not exactly “right now.” You’d have to get the SDK first by downloading it. The developer kit has 2 versions, 64-bit and 32-bit, forMac OS X and Linux. If you need to get up to speed on Google App Engine and Go, you might want to first check out Google’s docs on getting started.
Oracle releases first big update to Java language platform since buying Sun Microsystems
August 6th, 2011 Posted in Programming
Aug, 06 2011
When Oracle bought Sun Microsystems in 2010, it gained control of one of Sun’s mammoth contributions to computing – the Java platform. With the release of Java SE 7, Oracle has produced the first key update to the ubiquitous open-source platform in several years. In fact, it’s been five long years since Java had a major update. SE 7 packs some goodies that are sure to please many developers– support for Javascript, Python, and Ruby, simplified common tasks, and an application programminginterface that is ready for multicore processors.
Based on Oracle’s numbers, Java runs on the vast majority of enterprise desktops (over 97%!) and over three billion computing/communication devices run on Java technology.
In addition to formally releasing SE 7, Oracle also announced that it is planning to work on the next version of the platform, Java SE 8. This is all in keeping with Oracle’s long-term plans. According to Oracle Fusion Middleware and Java Products senior vice president, Hasan Rizvi, “Oracle has a strong vested interest in the success of the Java platform and is firmly committed to delivering a consistent, high-performance, high-quality Java SE implementation and will be supporting the Java SE 7 release across the Oracle FusionMiddleware product portfolio.” In fact, Oracle is increasing the amount of resources it is investing in the platform. Based on an Oracleblog entry, Oracle’s senior VP of app server development, Steve Harris, said the company’s goals regarding Java are to keep Java’s features and offerings “vibrant” as well as “free and open,” and to boost support for the platform’s developer community.
Ten years ago, the open source stack of platforms, languages, scripts, and procedures of Python/PHP, MySQL, Apache, and Linux (also known as LAMP) ushered the flowering of low cost start ups. Due to the free infrastructure LAMP provided, startups easily and economically got their web presences up. The low-cost hardware needed for a LAMP set up triggered an avalanche of startups since the barrier to entry in terms of web presence and application development was significantly lowered by this open source stack. Given the huge user base some of these start ups generated, LAMP setups dramatically lowered scaling and upgrade costs. However, there was a major problem – a possibly missed opportunity – that such large user bases using open source infrastructure created. Read the rest of this entry »
Jul, 16 2011
When you hear about a “little project” coming out of the MIT media lab, you can be sure that it will completely blow your mind. Its no revelation that whoever gets to work there is wicked smart and if you needed any proof, here it is: Cody Sumter and Jason Boggess, the two heroes of this story, have developed Minecraft.print, a pretty amazing little tool that lets you print three-dimensional objects previously created in Minecraft, from a simple cube to a model of the Starship Enterprise. The way it works is simple and made possible by Python. Read the rest of this entry »
The 2011 PyCon AU
June 28th, 2011 Posted in Python, Python Events
Jun, 28 2011
Just read about this on ITWire, a must for Python enthusiasts “down under”: More than 250 users and developers, mostly from Australia and New Zealand, will get together at Sydney’s Masonic Center on August 20 and 21 and what they will probably talk about is web programming, business applications, game development, science and mathematics, education, testing, databases, documentation and all that good stuff. There will be presentations and workshops as well as a series of keynote lectures. The speakers include Raymond Hettinger, a core Python developer and experienced presenter, Mary Gardiner, doctoral candidate at Macquarie University with a specialty on computational linguistics, and Audrey Roy, a designer, developer and artist who apparently describes herself as the “world’s #1 orange and rainbow specialist”. Read the rest of this entry »
The Future is Now
June 15th, 2011 Posted in Programming, Python
Jun, 15 2011
I am sure all of you know about Python’s use in Dropbox (which runs not only on Windows and Mac but also on Linux) and other successful projects. You also might have heard that last month D-Wave Systems (out of Burnaby, B.C., Canada) announced the sale of the world’s first commercial quantum processor, the D-Wave One, which uses a 128-qubit chip they decided to name “Rainier” (anyone know why?). The thought of that monster makes me a little giddy, especially since they sold that thing to Lockheed Martin and I can’t necessarily say I like that corporation’s development history. The price tag, by the way, is $10M.
Jun, 08 2011
Imagine you are in an accident and the paramedics find you unconscious in your car. They need to save your live yet know nothing about your medical history, blood type or allergies, pre-existing conditions, all that stuff. Can they use their latex gloves, they wonder, or are you allergic to latex? But then they find this little card in your wallet right next to your organ donor’s card (which now, they will never have to look at): Your MyCare-card. Via USB, they plug it into their board computer and recognize immediately: Yep, latex allergy…
Credit: Image courtesy of EPSRC
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Malissa Schweyen: Python Cookbook: Portable, powerful, and a breeze to use, Python is the popular open source object-oriented prog... http://t.co/33rxNR8g
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Toshiharu KUDOH: svnリポジトリからgeany-plugin-{addons,gdb,latex,vc}とpython-pocketlintを削除した。いずれも別にパッケージがあって既に更新もしていなかったので。 #VineLinux
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Guido van Rossum: This is my last tweet. The Twitter for Android app just sent my entire address book to Twitter without confirming. See you on Google+.
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Guido van Rossum: NDB 0.9.5 released: http://t.co/zewBqzMI