http://developers.slashdot.org/ News for nerds, stuff that matters en-us Copyright 1997-2008, SourceForge, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 2008-05-10T04:40:52+00:00 SourceForge, Inc. help@slashdot.org Technology hourly 1 1970-01-01T00:00+00:00 http://images.slashdot.org/topics/topicslashdot.gif http://developers.slashdot.org/ http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~3/286944143/article.pl Manfre writes "On his birthday, John Resig (creator of jQuery) has given a present to developers by releasing Processing.js. This is a Javascript port of the Processing Visualization Language and a first step towards Javascript being a rival to Flash for online graphics content. His blog post contains an excellent writeup with many demos."<p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/09/1514208&amp;from=rss"><img src="http://developers.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&amp;op=image&amp;style=h0&amp;sid=08/05/09/1514208"></a></p><p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/09/1514208&amp;from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?a=8cwqzs"><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?i=8cwqzs" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~4/286944143" height="1" width="1"/> kdawson 2008-05-09T16:24:00+00:00 graphics time-to-buy-stock-in-noscript developers 140 140,138,122,91,33,22,16 http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/09/1514208&from=rss http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~3/286932384/article.pl sciurus0 writes "As the open source version control system Subversion nears its 1.5 release, one of its developers asks, what is the project's future? On the one hand, the number of public Subversion DAV servers is still growing quadratically. On the other hand, open source developers are increasingly switching to distributed version control systems like Git and Mercurial. Is there still a need for centralized version control in some environments, or is Linus Torvalds right that all who use it are 'ugly and stupid'?" The comments on the blog post have high S/N.<p><a href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/09/1528250&amp;from=rss"><img src="http://developers.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&amp;op=image&amp;style=h0&amp;sid=08/05/09/1528250"></a></p><p><a href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/09/1528250&amp;from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?a=cBkeJH"><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?i=cBkeJH" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~4/286932384" height="1" width="1"/> kdawson 2008-05-09T16:03:00+00:00 software had-a-good-run tech 133 133,129,109,91,35,21,12 http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/09/1528250&from=rss http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~3/286418939/article.pl jcatcw points out a blog entry by Scott McPherson, CIO for the Florida House of Representatives. McPherson condemns the state of data sharing and data mining in law enforcement, saying that the US causes itself a great deal of trouble by focusing more on "antiterror armor and nuke-sniffing devices" than a useful information distribution network. He discusses a few such projects, and how they could have directly affected the events of 9/11. Quoting: "One of those ingenious things that actually worked, Seisint founder Hank Asher's brilliant MATRIX system, remains mired in controversy and politics. Hank showed me MATRIX just a few short weeks after the 9/11 attacks. Using law enforcement data and commercial data, all of the commercial data available in the public domain, Asher's query produced [hijacker Mohamed] Atta's photo -- and about 80 others, many of them fellow 9/11 hijackers, many of them associates of the 9/11 hijackers. It was simple data mining and algorithms, and none of the information was obtained illegally."<p><a href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/08/2222254&amp;from=rss"><img src="http://developers.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&amp;op=image&amp;style=h0&amp;sid=08/05/08/2222254"></a></p><p><a href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/08/2222254&amp;from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?a=5BVcSE"><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?i=5BVcSE" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~4/286418939" height="1" width="1"/> Soulskill 2008-05-08T23:05:00+00:00 usa can't-they-just-google-it news 138 138,132,105,82,29,19,10 http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/08/2222254&from=rss http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~3/285509646/article.pl Sean0michael writes "OpenOffice.org has announced their 3.0 Beta is ready for testing. The new version includes some great enhancements, including MS Office 2007 import filters, an improved notes feature, a built-in Solver component, and an Aqua interface for Macs. The site has a complete list of Beta features. Download your beta release from their site."<p><a href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/07/1710202&amp;from=rss"><img src="http://developers.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&amp;op=image&amp;style=h0&amp;sid=08/05/07/1710202"></a></p><p><a href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/07/1710202&amp;from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?a=Rcvesd"><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?i=Rcvesd" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~4/285509646" height="1" width="1"/> timothy 2008-05-07T17:11:00+00:00 software better-each-time-mostly tech 387 387,382,331,261,88,47,27 http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/07/1710202&from=rss http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~3/284949788/article.pl QtPi writes "Trolltech has announced the availability of Qt 4.4, the cross-platform software development framework. Ars Technica has an in-depth look at the release, which include an integrated WebKit-based HTML rendering engine, the new Phonon multimedia framework, support for Windows CE, and significant improvements to the QGraphicsView system. 'Qt 4.4 brings a lot of rich new capabilities to the toolkit that are sure to please open source and commercial software developers. It sounds like Trolltech already has some nice plans for Qt 4.5, and we will hopefully get to hear more about the long-term roadmap after Nokia completes its acquisition.'"<p><a href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/06/2142252&amp;from=rss"><img src="http://developers.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&amp;op=image&amp;style=h0&amp;sid=08/05/06/2142252"></a></p><p><a href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/06/2142252&amp;from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?a=LQqcIG"><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?i=LQqcIG" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~4/284949788" height="1" width="1"/> kdawson 2008-05-06T22:26:00+00:00 programming cute-and-brainy-with-it tech 252 252,244,204,164,48,26,15 http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/06/2142252&from=rss http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~3/284923581/article.pl krow writes "I am very happy to be announcing that MySQL will be forgoing close sourcing portions of the MySQL Server. Kaj has the official statement in his blog. No portion of the server will be closed source including backup, encryption, or any storage engines we ship. To quote Kaj 'The encryption and compression backup features will be open source.' This is a change from what was previously posted here on Slashdot. I've posted some additional thoughts on my own blog concerning how we keep open source from becoming crippleware. Word has it that we will also have a panel at this year's OSCON discussing this topic. Contrary to the previous Slashdot discussion, this shows Sun's continued commitment to Open Source."<p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/06/2125235&amp;from=rss"><img src="http://developers.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&amp;op=image&amp;style=h0&amp;sid=08/05/06/2125235"></a></p><p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/06/2125235&amp;from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?a=uivOyL"><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?i=uivOyL" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~4/284923581" height="1" width="1"/> kdawson 2008-05-06T21:40:00+00:00 sun good-on-them developers 157 157,149,128,98,38,28,19 http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/06/2125235&from=rss http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~3/284741907/article.pl StarEmperor writes "Gamasutra has a good feature about four grad students who created 50 games in one semester. The article presents their insights about game design, evaluating gameplay, and generally what makes for a fun game."<p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/06/1516228&amp;from=rss"><img src="http://developers.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&amp;op=image&amp;style=h0&amp;sid=08/05/06/1516228"></a></p><p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/06/1516228&amp;from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?a=KFfLih"><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?i=KFfLih" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~4/284741907" height="1" width="1"/> timothy 2008-05-06T15:53:00+00:00 programming espresso-subscription developers 71 71,69,52,32,14,10,7 http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/06/1516228&from=rss http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~3/284712692/article.pl An anonymous reader writes "Krugle, a software search company, had some time on its hands &mdash; it compared frequency of mentions in open source code of presidential candidates, Beelzebub and yes, Britney Spears." I wish they'd link to a nice long list of the other terms this revealed &mdash; there are probably a lot of subtler funny references and asides.<p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/06/1449203&amp;from=rss"><img src="http://developers.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&amp;op=image&amp;style=h0&amp;sid=08/05/06/1449203"></a></p><p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/06/1449203&amp;from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?a=xP7TTC"><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?i=xP7TTC" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~4/284712692" height="1" width="1"/> timothy 2008-05-06T15:15:00+00:00 humor knuth-beats-satan developers 182 182,181,146,108,40,30,24 http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/06/1449203&from=rss http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~3/284693474/article.pl RyoShin writes "A List Apart, an excellent resource for web development and related aesthetics, has put together an article based on original research by Jessica Enders into 'zebra striping.' From the article: 'Zebra striping [coloring alternate rows] is used when data is presented in an essentially tabular form. The user of that table will be looking for one or more data points. Their aim is to get the right points and get them as quickly as possible. Therefore, if we set a task that uses a table, and zebra striping does make things easier, then we would expect to see improvements in two things: accuracy and speed.' The conclusion of the peer reviewed paper? It's a wash. Striped tables offered only a slight increase in accuracy and speed overall. The article notes a few other benefits to using Zebra striping, so it's all up to the individual."<p><a href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/06/148206&amp;from=rss"><img src="http://developers.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&amp;op=image&amp;style=h0&amp;sid=08/05/06/148206"></a></p><p><a href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/06/148206&amp;from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?a=Si1KWC"><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?i=Si1KWC" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~4/284693474" height="1" width="1"/> timothy 2008-05-06T14:34:00+00:00 gui they-seem-to-help-the-zebras tech 232 232,230,188,137,44,28,24 http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/06/148206&from=rss http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~3/284281679/article.pl cremou writes "As part of an Ars Technica series on how one developer migrated from Windows to OS X (and why), this second article concentrates on how Microsoft bungled the transition from XP to Vista. The author looks at some unfortunate decisions Microsoft made that have made Windows an unpleasant development platform. 'So Windows is just a disaster to write programs for. It's miserable. It's quite nice if you want to use the same techniques you learned 15 years ago and not bother to change how you do, well, anything, but for anyone else it's all pain... And it's not just third parties who suffer. It causes trouble for Microsoft, too. The code isn't just inconsistent and ugly on the outside; it's that way on the inside, too. There's a lot of software for Windows, a lot of business-critical software, that's not maintained any more. And that software is usually buggy. It passes bad parameters to API calls, uses memory that it has released, assumes that files live in particular hard-coded locations, all sorts of things that it shouldn't do.'"<p><a href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/05/2335252&amp;from=rss"><img src="http://developers.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&amp;op=image&amp;style=h0&amp;sid=08/05/05/2335252"></a></p><p><a href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/05/2335252&amp;from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?a=T3vniw"><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?i=T3vniw" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~4/284281679" height="1" width="1"/> kdawson 2008-05-06T00:17:00+00:00 programming new-vistas tech 804 804,795,675,531,131,77,57 http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/05/2335252&from=rss http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~3/282922384/article.pl wchatam writes "After a long delay, Apple has finally released a version of Java 6 for OS X. 64-bit Intel Macs are starting to see this pushed out via Software Update, but there has not been an announcement for when 32-bit Intel and PowerPC Mac users will get their versions."<p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/03/1929212&amp;from=rss"><img src="http://developers.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&amp;op=image&amp;style=h0&amp;sid=08/05/03/1929212"></a></p><p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/03/1929212&amp;from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?a=wP3j4y"><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?i=wP3j4y" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~4/282922384" height="1" width="1"/> timothy 2008-05-03T20:11:00+00:00 java hot-x-rated-java developers 131 131,124,105,83,15,7,4 http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/03/1929212&from=rss http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~3/282910041/article.pl profdc9 writes "For the past six months or so I have been working on the MiniOn, a network enabled microcontroller programming system, similar in idea to the Basic Stamp and Arduino hobbyists are fond of, but it is programmable and accessible through a Web browser and TELNET, requiring no installed development software. It uses the cheap, readily available LPC2000 ARM7TDMI micrcontrollers, and the easy to interface Microchip ENC28J60 for ethernet. The MiniOn firmware is written using only the free WinARM development tools (Linux tools work also) for those who wish to improve the MiniOn. I have already implemented an MP3 streaming server and a web-based graphical oscilloscope in MiniOnBasic. The MiniOn should hopefully lower the barriers and costs to getting started learning about embedded systems, and provide a non-proprietary method of data acquisition."<p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/03/1743244&amp;from=rss"><img src="http://developers.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&amp;op=image&amp;style=h0&amp;sid=08/05/03/1743244"></a></p><p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/03/1743244&amp;from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?a=uIeoVb"><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?i=uIeoVb" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~4/282910041" height="1" width="1"/> timothy 2008-05-03T19:46:00+00:00 programming software-you-can-touch developers 75 75,71,62,43,12,6,2 http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/03/1743244&from=rss http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~3/282804580/article.pl IBM Developerworks' latest was submitted to us by an anonymous reader who writes "Using Firebug and YSlow, you can thoroughly analyze your Web applications to make educated changes to improve performance. This article reviews the latest tools and techniques for managing the performance of Ajax applications along the life cycle of your application, from inception through production."<p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/03/1432247&amp;from=rss"><img src="http://developers.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&amp;op=image&amp;style=h0&amp;sid=08/05/03/1432247"></a></p><p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/03/1432247&amp;from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?a=GdIMV1"><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?i=GdIMV1" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~4/282804580" height="1" width="1"/> CmdrTaco 2008-05-03T15:49:00+00:00 programming everybody-likes-faster developers 36 36,36,26,18,8,3,0 http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/03/1432247&from=rss http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~3/282659263/article.pl An anonymous reader writes "NVIDIA's CUDA system, originally developed for their graphics cores, is finding migratory uses into other massively parallel computing applications. As a result, it might not be a CPU designer that ultimately winds up solving the massively parallel programming challenges, but rather a video card vendor. From the article: 'The concept of writing individual programs which run on multiple cores is called multi-threading. That basically means that more than one part of the program is running at the same time, but on different cores. While this might seem like a trivial thing, there are all kinds of issues which arise. Suppose you are writing a gaming engine and there must be coordination between the location of the characters in the 3D world, coupled to their movements, coupled to the audio. All of that has to be synchronized. What if the developer gives the character movement tasks its own thread, but it can only be rendered at 400 fps. And the developer gives the 3D world drawer its own thread, but it can only be rendered at 60 fps. There's a lot of waiting by the audio and character threads until everything catches up. That's called synchronization.'"<p><a href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/03/0440256&amp;from=rss"><img src="http://developers.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&amp;op=image&amp;style=h0&amp;sid=08/05/03/0440256"></a></p><p><a href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/03/0440256&amp;from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?a=d9YRlv"><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?i=d9YRlv" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~4/282659263" height="1" width="1"/> ScuttleMonkey 2008-05-03T09:37:00+00:00 graphics best-discoveries-made-by-accident hardware 154 154,154,120,77,24,13,7 http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/03/0440256&from=rss http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~3/282371276/article.pl Engadget recently grabbed a few minutes with Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz. They were able to get some great information on the JavaFX Mobile platform as well as Java on the iPhone and how the struggle against Microsoft is going with respect to open source.<p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/02/1916218&amp;from=rss"><img src="http://developers.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&amp;op=image&amp;style=h0&amp;sid=08/05/02/1916218"></a></p><p><a href="http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/02/1916218&amp;from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?a=0rjx4E"><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers?i=0rjx4E" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers/~4/282371276" height="1" width="1"/> ScuttleMonkey 2008-05-02T21:34:00+00:00 sun fireside-chats developers 75 75,71,58,42,13,5,1 http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/02/1916218&from=rss Search Slashdot stories query http://developers.slashdot.org/search.pl