As a homeschooling parent, I’m a big fan of educational software and I’ve written quite about about various programs in the past. But, as a programmer, I’m also a big fan of any program that makes computer programming more approachable by younger children. So, when I heard about Scratch, I was pretty enthusiastic. Really [...]
It seems fair to say that the relationship between programmer and platform is in many ways like a romantic one, characterized by mutual respect and a balanced exchange of give and take on both sides. Just as so many of us love and respect Linux, for instance, so it surely loves us back with [...]
Much as I hate to admit it, Microsoft does some things better, much better, than Linux. Number one with a bullet is how Microsoft helps programmers and ISVs (independent software vendors). MSDN (Microsoft Software Developer Network) is a wonderful online developer resource. Linux has had nothing to compare. True, there is the Linux Developer [...]
WordPress is the most widely used content management system amongst bloggers for many reasons. Not only does it make site management seem like a walk in the park, but it also uses a type of shared hosting, which means that most users can afford it. It has plug-ins for any occasion and desire and [...]
In many cases, adding a graphical interface to Python scripts means getting your hands dirty with TKinter or other GUI programming kits. This exercise is usually reserved for users who have already acquired decent Python programming skills, as it requires some serious code wizardry. Thankfully, the EasyGui module allows you to add some GUI [...]
More and more, open source projects are either integrating with the web or are developed entirely for on-demand use. This requires strong web development skills–or at least good enough tools to rescue you if any of your web development skills are weak. The good news is that there are many free open source tools to [...]
“DDJ: Which language has moved to the top of the heap, so to speak, in terms of popularity, and why do you think this is the case? “PJ: If we take a look at the top 10 programming languages, not much has happened the last five years. Only Python entered the top 10, replacing COBOL. [...]
Recently I looked in on the project Web site for a small application I use, only to find the wiki completely filled with spam. The project itself was clearly in disrepair, and the code abandoned for six months or more. I wondered: how many other apps that I use have halted development without my [...]
“Chip vendor AMD wants to help developers produce applications that are faster than ever before. To do that AMD has open sourced its AMD Performance Library (APL) as the Framewave open source project. “AMD claims that it has been working on APL (now Framewave) for almost three years and that over 3200 performance routine optimizations [...]
Black Duck Software announced today the availability of Black Duck Code Center software to help manufacturers accelerate software development through the managed use of open source and third-party code. Code Center manages software component selection, project approval and license tracking designed to maximize benefits to organizations from their reuse of open source and other [...]