What's up at O'Reilly

O'Reilly is offering some deals for User Group members: Subscribe to MAKE or CRAFT and get 1 issue free, or buy books at 30% to 35% off with the new user group code DSUG. O'Reilly has a great selection of books you can choose from, including some interesting new ones (See bellow). O'Reilly is a great supporter of user groups too, which makes me a huge fan.

MAKE magazine is all about really cool and terribly geeky projects and cool hacks. They claim they are about DIY Technology projects. I say it is the resource if you really want to prove your geekiness for all to see. They have a whole community on their site where you can share your projects too. Check it out.

CRAFT is their new magazine that just came out this month. While MAKE is all about technology and science, CRAFT is about, well, crafts. As they describe it on their site, they are the first project-based magazine dedicated to the renaissance happening within the world of crafts.

Here are some new books that I think look really interesting, but you can check out their new releases and see what looks hot to you.

• Cryptography for Developers
• Hack the Stack
• Mapping and Modding Half-Life 2 Complete
• Process Improvement Essentials
• Programming Atlas
• WarDriving and Wireless Penetration Testing
• Web Scripting Little Black Book

I am planning to get the Process Improvement Essentials book. I'll let you know how good it is.

Technorati Tags: [Programming] [O'Reilly] [Crafts] [Books] [Technology] [DIY]

FireFox 2.0 release

This is good news: 1 week, 2 new browsers.

Today FireFox 2.0 was release. www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

A few days ago IE 7 was released. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie

Because of one week in the entire year we now have to go through every site we ever developed to make sure everything still looks like it is supposed to.

The programming gods are against us.

Technorati Tags: [Programming] [Software] [Browsers] [FireFox] [Internet Explorer]

Open Source is Contagious

No, this isn't a continuation of Microsoft's rant that Open Source licenses are viral (which is actually only true of some of them). Instead it is cool news about how QUALCOMM, makers of the fabulous Eudora mail program, will be basing future versions on Mozilla's Thunderbird email program. They will add all the cool features of Eudora, and then make the resulting program free and open source.

I am curious if they plan to offer support as a revenue stream. QUALCOMM also provides a number of wireless and cellular products, so they may have decided that they don't need the incomesteam from Eudora, and would instead of incredible brand recognition by improving their circulation.

Not so long ago Opera software made their lightening quick browser completely free, but not open source. Maybe they will join forces with Mozilla's Firefox and make an open source version of Opera. If they could give Firefox a huge speed improvement we would all be winners. I really like Opera, but I am hooked on the huge sellection of extensions for Firefox. It would be great to have both!

UPDATE: After reading thier FAQ on the announcement I found their motivation.

Why is Eudora moving to an open source development platform?

QUALCOMM has decided not to remain in the email market because it is not in alignment with the core business or strategic goals. By moving Eudora to an open source product, QUALCOMM can exit the Eudora business while still supporting Eudora users and advancing the Eudora e-mail client at a faster pace than before, through the power of the open source development community.

So in answer to my speculation, they are not offering support as a revenue stream, they are just taking an honorable exit from a specific market. I think it is great when companies do that.

Technorati Tags: [Software] [Eudora] [Open Source] [Thunderbird] [Mozilla] [Firefox] [Opera]

Language Bootstrapping

We were having a discussion about programming langauges and the concept of bootstrapping came up:

Each new version of Delphi is written in that version of Delphi too. The original compiler was written in C++ and Assembly. Once the compiler worked then it was used to rewrite the compiler in Delphi. I am sure much of the compiler is written in inline assemblier, which is a feature of the Delphi compiler. When a new version is under development, when they reach stable milestones they start developing in the milestone releases.

As I see it there are three benefits to writing a language in itself (if it is a general purpose language that this is applicable to)

1. Like Chris suggested it is the original unit test. At Microsoft they refer to this as "eating your own dog food" (I am not kidding). The idea is if you are using your product then you know it works or doesn't work, and you do a better job debugging it. For a general purpose programming language what better way then to write the language in itself.

2. This is really a side effect of the first benefit, but it is a instant testimonial for the language. If it is good enough to write itself in, then it must be good enough for project X. Like I said, this is a side effect.

3. As the language is improved then those improvements can be used to make the language better. This also explains how computers in general have an exponential growth - each new innovation is used to create the next. As Anders Hejlsberg put it ". . . .standing on the shoulders of giants," (maybe slightly out of context, but applies in principle). So if you decide to use language A to write language B then if you want to take advantage of a new feature then you must first update Language A to you can update Language B. You create twice as much work that way. So by putting in a little additional effort up front to bootstrap, you actually save work in the long run.

That is the way I see it at least.

Technorati Tags:[Programming][Software][Langauge][Bootstrapping][Delphi][Languages]

Learning Ruby and Ruby on Rails

We were having a great discussion about Ruby and Ruby on Rails and Mike Moore of the Boise Ruby Brigade suggested some great resources for learning Ruby and Ruby on Rails:

The main Ruby web site was updated recently. I believe there is some good info there, like this 20 minute introduction. The Ruby on Rails web site has alot of good information on it. You might want to start out with some of the screencasts. You will get a good sense of what Rails does and how you can use it there. You can also get to the APIs, online tutorials, and some of the many books written about Rails (and Ruby) at RubyOnRails.com. I prefer to do all my heavy learning with dead tree books, and the Pragmatic Bookshelf has the best offering of Ruby books so far, although other publishers are starting to catch up. The seminal Ruby book is the "pickaxe" book by Dave Thomas, named for its cover. My favorite Rails book is also by Dave Thomas. There is also a new beta version. ~Mike

I looked at Ruby a long time back, but there wasn't much documentation then. Looks like that is no longer the case. I guess it is time to look into Ruby again. Thanks for the resources Mike!

Technorati Tags:[Programming][Software][Ruby][Rails][RubyOnRails]

The software formerly known as Atlas

Thanks to Mike Cline for this tip about the software formally known as Atlas:

Microsoft has announced that is going to target the official release the Microsoft Ajax Library 1.0 (the software formerly known as Atlas) for the end of this year. Actually, Atlas will be split up into 3 products:

1. The client side Atlas Ajax library will be named “The Microsoft Ajax Library”,
2. The server side Atlas functionality will be called the “ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions”,
3. The Atlas Control Toolkit will be known as the “ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit”.

Splitting it up into 3 products makes it a bit confusing…

Given that there have been more than 250,000 downloads of the Atlas CTPs already, one wonders how much difference an “official release” will make.

I think this is great news. Ajax is the buzz word for web development - every ad for web tool kits now says something about being Ajax enabled. Microsoft is always a couple years behind everyone else before they support / embrace things, especially internet technologies (just the Internet in general, Web Browsers, Java, Web Services, Blogging, Instant Messaging, P2P, etc.). Maybe they are finally learning. I think Ajax is great and this is sure to really turbo charge people using it more, which I am excited for!

Subject Tags: [Programming][Software][ASP.NET][dotNet][Microsoft][Atlas]

But I just started using .NET 2.0 -- 3.0 RC1 Released

OK, I've been using 2.0 for over six months now. It just doesn't seem like that long. But, .NET 3.0 RC1 has just been released. .NET 3.0 RC1 Release Notes .NET 3.0 RC1 Framework Components .NET 3.0 RC1 SDK .NET 3.0 RC1 VS05 Tools (including Cider) .NET 3.0 RC1 SDK online

Subject Tags: [Programming] [Software] [.Net] [.Net 3.0]

Good Oracle DB Creation Resources

I recently found myself recreating an Oracle 10g database on Red Hat Linux remotely. Long story. I found these two resources to be very helpful:

• Creating an Oracle 10g database from the command line only
• Oracle 10.2 Database CREATE ALTER DROP

Here is what I mostly ended up with (I pieced it back together when I finally got it to work). I've removed paths, passwords, etc. or anything that is specific to the actual database I was working on. This is pretty much a combination of the above resources with a couple changes.

connect / as sysdba
shutdown abort
startup nomount

CREATE DATABASE oradb
controlfile reuse
  MAXINSTANCES 8
  MAXLOGHISTORY 226
  MAXLOGFILES 16
  MAXLOGMEMBERS 4
  MAXDATAFILES 1022
DATAFILE 'system01.dbf'
  SIZE 540M REUSE
  AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 10240K MAXSIZE UNLIMITED
  EXTENT MANAGEMENT LOCAL
SYSAUX DATAFILE 'sysaux01.dbf'
  SIZE 350M REUSE
  AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 10240K MAXSIZE UNLIMITED
  DEFAULT TEMPORARY TABLESPACE TEMP TEMPFILE 'temp01.dbf'
  SIZE 25M REUSE
  AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 1024K MAXSIZE UNLIMITED
  UNDO TABLESPACE "UNDOTBS1"
DATAFILE 'undotbs01.dbf'
  SIZE 100M REUSE
  AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 5120K MAXSIZE UNLIMITED
  CHARACTER SET UTF8
  NATIONAL CHARACTER SET utf8
LOGFILE
  GROUP 1 ('redo01a.log',
  'redo01b.log') SIZE 20M,
  GROUP 2 ('redo02a.log',
  'redo02b.log') SIZE 20M,
  GROUP 3 ('redo03a.log',
  'redo03b.log') SIZE 20M
USER SYS IDENTIFIED BY "password"
USER SYSTEM IDENTIFIED BY "password";


@?/rdbms/admin/catalog.sql
@?/rdbms/admin/catproc.sql


connect system/password
@?/sqlplus/admin/pupbld

Subject Tags: [Linux] [Database] [Oracle]

Conference Rankings

This is pretty cool. I found a ranking page for the conference sessions.

Currently my You Can't Do That In Visual Studio is tied for 1st in votes. In all I have 3 in the top 10 by vote and 5 in the top 10 by rating. Pretty exciting! Thanks for your votes! It will be interesting to see how this goes between now and August 21st. If you haven't voted yet then be sure to login and vote! If you don't have an account you need to create a new user account first.

I haven't figured how to create a single link so you can vote for my sessions automatically. Somehow Borland always manages to setup a link like that when they are up for reader choice awards. Although since I have 12 sessions, and you get 10 votes, you would still need to pick and choose which sessions to vote for.

Subject Tags: [Programming] [Software] [Mashups] [Delphi] [Development] [VisualStudio] [Cryptography] [Syndication] [Borland] [csharp] [conference] [dotnet]

Vote for the Borland 2006 US Developer Conference

Voting is open for the Borland 2006 US Developer Conference. You can rate them and vote for your Top 10 Favorites through QC. To save you from needing to search for my sessions I have listed them here:

1. You Can't Do That In Visual Studio
2. Coding Competition
3. Generics in Delphi
4. Template Development
5. Mashups - Combining Web Service Api's with Delphi
6. Content Syndication
7. Internet Protocols
8. Advanced Internet Protocols
9. Exceptional Exceptions
10. Implementing Cryptography
11. Understanding Cryptography
12. Oracle at Delphi

Personally, I would really like to attend the Coding Competition session, which is why I submitted it. I think it will be a lot of fun. It would appear my You Can't Do That In Visual Studio session is doing quite well - it has the most votes from what I have seen. That one will be fun as well!

Be sure to login and vote! Rating them is nice, but it would appear voting carries the most weight. If you don't have an account you can create a new user account first. Voting closes August 21st!

See you at the conference!

Subject Tags: [Programming] [Software] [Mashups] [Delphi] [Development] [VisualStudio] [Cryptography] [Syndication] [Borland] [csharp] [conference] [dotnet]