DevTopics is a high-level and sometimes satirical look at software development and computer technology. DevTopics is written by Tim Toady, the founder of Browserling Inc, a cross-browser testing company. When we occasionally dive into the details, it's usually about C# and .NET programming. (More)
Nobody knows better than Microsoft that programming can be a drag. Even with all of the amazing advances in software development, computer programming is still a relatively solitary process that requires deep expertise, logical and creative thinking, and lots of patience.
So Microsoft comes to the rescue with Small Basic, a project that’s “aimed at bringing fun back to programming.” Small Basic provides a small and simple programming language in a friendly development environment. Small Basic is targeted to both kids and novice adults, allowing them to “take the first step into the wonderful world of programming.”
The .NET development team at Microsoft has created a new .NET logo (shown above). Their goal was to create a logo “that was in sync with the key values that we want .NET to stand for: consistency, robustness and great user experiences. The result is a design we refer to as the ‘wave.’ The design is strong, simple and distinctive. The suggestion of the letter ‘N’ in the design will become instantly recognizable over time as shorthand for the .NET brand name.”
AC/DC is an interesting, anachronistic mix of classic rock and modern marketing. The band refuses to sell its extensive music catalog on iTunes or other music services because the band members feel the album is an art form that must be preserved. Yet the band released its new CD exclusively at Wal-Mart. This strategy apparently hasn’t hurt the band much, as it is one of the best-selling bands of all time with over 200 million albums sold.
Now AC/DC has released a new music video as ASCII art delivered in an Excel spreadsheet. It’s a strange but oddly compelling mix of old and new technology:
Mono is an open source implementation of the .NET framework for Linux, Windows, MacOS and other operating systems. Mono v2.0 was just released and represents a major milestone in the Mono project.
An unsubstantiated rumor posted on a CNN website caused a sharp drop in Apple’s stock price Friday. The early morning report caused Apple shares to plummet to their lowest point in a year. Apple denied the report as soon as they heard about it, and Apple’s stock recovered by the time CNN removed the false report, but Apple stock ended down 3 percent for the day due to the broader market slide.
This is part 5 in a series of articles on obscure programming languages.
Euphoria is a powerful yet simple interpreted programming language. “Euphoria” is an acronym for “End-User Programming with Hierarchical Objects for Robust Interpreted Applications.”
Euphoria was developed to be easier to learn and use than BASIC, but with high-level constructs. Euphoria supports both loose and strict variable typing. Euphoria functions are naturally generic and can operate on any type of data. Euphoria is not object-oriented, yet it achieves many of the benefits of OO languages in a simpler way.
Computerworld has published an in-depth interview with Microsoft’s leader of C# development, Anders Hejlsberg. A prominent Danish software engineer, Hejlsberg also wrote Turbo Pascal and was lead architect of the team that developed Delphi. Hejlsberg shared with Computerworld his thoughts on the development of C#, future programming trends, and his experiences putting out fires. Here is a brief excerpt:
Microsoft announced the next version of its developer platform, which will be named Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0. Microsoft said VS10 will focus on five key areas (in marketing-speak): riding the next-generation platform wave, inspiring developer delight, powering breakthrough departmental applications, enabling emerging trends such as cloud computing, and democratizing application life-cycle management (ALM).
As currently implemented in the United States, software patents suck. Microsoft’s recent patent of page up/down proves by example how flawed the system is. DevTopics supports the protection of intellectual property, but is against the current software patent system, which hinders innovation, rewards bureaucracy, and fails to protect the little guy.
