Government

Is Buying Cuban Software Legal In the US? The Answer is Hazy (blogspot.com) 75

Posted by timothy from the natural-leaf-apps-from-havana dept.
lpress writes: The Treasury Department recently issued new regulations authorizing "the importation of Cuban-origin mobile applications and the employment of Cuban nationals by persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction to develop such mobile applications." Great, but that is ambiguous, so I asked Treasury some follow-up questions: why is the rule restricted to mobile apps, what is the definition of a mobile app and can the Cuban developer work for a Cuban cooperative or government enterprise or must it be an individual? The answers were mostly "no comment" so the best way to clarify the situation is to try it and see what happens.
Education

Despite $30M Tech Push, Half of US States Had Fewer Than 300 AP CS Test Takers 152

Posted by Soulskill from the you-can-lead-a-horse-to-C++ dept.
theodp writes: As President Obama was 'taught to code' last December, Politico reported that the $30 million tech-financed campaign to promote computer science education was a smash success. And indeed it has been, at least from a PR standpoint. But Code.org and its backers have long spun AP Computer Science test metrics as a true barometer of CS education success, and from that standpoint, things don't look quite so rosy. The College Board raved about "massive gains in AP Computer Science participation (25% growth) AND scores" in a June tweetstorm and at its July conference, where AP CS was declared the '2015 AP Subject of the Year.' But a look at the recently-released detail on 2015 AP CS scores shows wide differences in adoption and success along gender and ethnicity lines (Asian boys and girls, in particular, set themselves apart from other groups with 70%+ pass rates). And, for all the praise the NSF lavished on Code.org for 'its amazing marketing prowess', half of the states still had fewer than 300 AP CS test takers in 2015, and ten states actually saw year-over-year declines in the number of test takers (if my math is correct — scraped data, VBA code here).
Programming

Coding Academies -- Useful Or Nonsense? (techcrunch.com) 132

Posted by Soulskill from the useful-nonsense dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Stephen Nichols, CEO of a platform that helps non-coders create simple video games, thinks that so-called coding academies are essentially snake oil. "In 20+ years of professional coding, I've never seen someone go from novice to full-fledged programmer in a matter of weeks, yet that seems to be what coding academies are promising, alongside instant employment, a salary big enough to afford a Tesla and the ability to change lives." His point is reminiscent of Peter Norvig's in "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years."

Nichols also thinks coding tools will become powerful enough in the next decade that the demand for actual, dedicated coders will diminish (perhaps not surprising, given his business). But he's probably right that the people likely to go to a coding academy are likely to be the ones using those tools, when they arrive. "Put succinctly, coding is writing text files in foreign languages containing instructions suitable for an absolute idiot to follow. ... For a little while, spending tens of thousands of dollars on a coding academy might feel like a good way to surmount the intimidation. ... More likely, it is just a new pathway into debt."
Programming

Mimic, the Evil Script That Will Drive Programmers To Insanity (github.com) 246

Posted by Soulskill from the let-the-hate-flow-through-you dept.
JustAnotherOldGuy writes: Mimic implements a devilishly sick idea floated on Twitter by Peter Ritchie: "Replace a semicolon (;) with a Greek question mark (;) in your friend's C# code and watch them pull their hair out over the syntax error." There are quite a few characters in the Unicode character set that look, to some extent or another, like others – homoglyphs. Mimic substitutes common ASCII characters for obscure homoglyphs. Caution: using this script may get you fired and/or beaten to a pulp.
Education

Google, Facebook, Microsoft Deliver K-12 CS Demands To Congress (politico.com) 120

Posted by Soulskill from the our-way-or-the-information-superhighway dept.
theodp writes: Politico reports that just one day after Facebook launched TechPrep, a highly-publicized initiative to attract more minorities and women to coding, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Code.org quietly sent a letter to top education lawmakers in the House and Senate insisting that computer science "must" be added to the list of "core academic subjects" and states be given resources to improve STEM education programs. "Computer science is marginalized throughout K-12 education," reads the letter. "We need to improve access for all students, particularly groups who have traditionally been underrepresented." Echoing the last point at this month's Grace Hopper Women in Computer Celebration, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki called for mandatory computer science in schools, suggesting that boys — like her own son — are monopolizing the family computer across America, leaving girls — like her own daughter — out of the conversation when it comes to technology (video @38:33). The new round of hand-wringing comes as tech companies face the deadline for filing their 2015 EEO-1 surveys and seek more tech-friendly U.S. visa and OPT STEM policies, so it's probably worth remembering that Microsoft proposed tech could turn workforce diversity lemons into H-1B visa lemonade by connecting tech immigration to K-12 CS education.
Open Source

Government Team Experiments With Paying For Small Open Source Tasks (gsa.gov) 90

Posted by Soulskill from the your-tax-dollars-at-actual-work dept.
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. General Services Administration has a team within it called 18F. They describe themselves as an open source, digital services delivery team. In other words, they create software for use by citizens and other government agencies, and the software they produce is open source. Starting next Monday, October 26, they're trying out an interesting new experiment for procuring open source code. Like any other agency, they have a budget, and they're allowed to contract out work when it makes sense to do so. But there's a difference between big projects and small ones.

If their purchase doesn't exceed $3,500, they have the authority to just do it. Higher than $3,500, and they (not to mention the contractors) have to deal with a bunch of extra red tape. This brings us to their experiment. They're developing a system that will let developers bid on small software projects the GSA needs. It starts at the cap for "micro-purchases," $3,499, and developers can bid it down if they feel it's easier. Once a bid is selected, the developer(s) have 10 working days to send back functioning code with a specific set of acceptance criteria. 18F isn't sure how well it'll work, but it's a cool way to try and make it easier for the open source community to build things for the government.
Bug

Microsoft To Pay Up To $15K For Bugs In Two Visual Studio Tools (microsoft.com) 43

Posted by timothy from the many-eyes-shallow-bugs dept.
itwbennett writes: Yesterday, Microsoft started a three-month bug bounty program for two open source tools that are part of Visual Studio 2015. The program applies to the beta versions of Core CLR, which is the execution engine for .NET Core, and ASP.NET, Microsoft's framework for building websites and web applications. Bounties range from $500 to $15,000, although Microsoft will reward more 'depending on the entry quality and complexity.' The highest reward will go to researchers who've found a remote code execution bug with a functioning exploit and an accompanying, high-quality white paper. On the low end, cross-site scripting or cross-site request forgery bugs with a low-quality report will get $500.
Oracle

Oracle Fixes Java Vulnerability Used By Russian Cyberspies (itworld.com) 126

Posted by samzenpus from the protect-ya-neck dept.
itwbennett writes: Oracle said that it has fixed 154 security flaws in Java and a wide range of its other products, including one that Russian cyberespionage group Pawn Storm used to launch stealthy attacks earlier this year. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2015-4902, was being used by the Pawn Storm attackers to enable the execution of a malicious Java application without user interaction.
Facebook

Facebook Launches Initiative To Attract More Minorities and Women To Coding (thestack.com) 281

Posted by samzenpus from the come-together dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Facebook has launched TechPrep, a new initiative to attract more minorities and women into coding. The project draws a very strong analogy between the learning of computer coding skills and the learning of spoken languages, a field which is important to people whose first language is not English, and which engages with the popular understanding that women are better at learning languages. TechPrep is seeking to engage with parents and guardians to get its target audience into coding earlier in life.
Programming

Bad Programming Habits We Secretly Love (infoworld.com) 497

Posted by Soulskill from the when-you-don't-care-about-the-person-who-has-to-fix-this-code dept.
snydeq writes: Breaking the rules can bring a little thrill — and sometimes produce better, more efficient code. From the article: 'The rules are more often guidelines or stylistic suggestions, not hard-and-fast rules that must be obeyed or code death will follow. Sure, your code might be ridiculed, possibly even publicly, but the fact that you're bucking conventions adds a little bit of the thrill to subverting, even inadvertently, what amounts more often than not to the social mores of pleasant code. To make matters more complex, sometimes it's better to break the rules. (Shhhh!) The code comes out cleaner. It may even be faster and simpler.' What bad programming habits can't you (or won't you) break?
Google

The Google Employee Who Opted For a Truck Over Bay Area Rents (dice.com) 492

Posted by timothy from the work-from-home dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes: A little over a year ago, Google employees on a Quora thread announced they'd discovered an interesting way to live in the ultra-expensive Bay Area: Rather than pay for conventional housing, they resided in trucks and RVs parked near (or on) the company's campus, and took advantage of corporate perks—including free food, gym facilities, and dry cleaning—to get by on a day-by-day basis. Now one Googler, Brandon S., has taken to his blog to describe how he engaged in a little off-grid living within sight of Google's high-tech headquarters. First he spent $10,000 of his Google signing bonus on a 2006 Ford truck with 128 square feet of room in the back, which he filled with a bed, dresser, and coat rack. Google pays for his phone, and he uses the company's gym and cafeterias to eat and shower. For those Bay Area tech pros who think Brandon's lifestyle sounds appealing, his list of drawbacks includes "social suicide," the inconvenience of not having a bathroom or fridge in close proximity, stress, insect infestations, and the upfront costs of purchasing a large-enough vehicle. On the other hand, he's also using the cash savings to rapidly pay down his student loans.
Programming

Fullstack Launches Coding School For Women (sdtimes.com) 373

Posted by timothy from the hopper-under-pressure dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Fullstack is tackling technology's diversity problem in its latest venture. The coding schooling has announced a new coding school dedicated to women. Named after computer science pioneer Grace Hopper, the Grace Hopper academy aims to provide women with high-quality coding education, and won't ask for tuition until the student finds a job post-graduation. "Technology has become intrinsic in our daily routines, regardless of gender, but the tech industry remains exceedingly male-dominated," said David Yang, cofounder of Fullstack Academy. "We have always been inspired by innovation and it seems peculiar that an industry revolutionized by a pioneer like Grace Hopper would remain so divided along gender lines."
Businesses

More Tech, STEM Workers Voluntarily Quitting Their Jobs (dice.com) 167

Posted by timothy from the spend-time-with-family dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes: New data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) suggests that more tech professionals are voluntarily quitting their jobs. In August, some 507,000 people in Professional and Business Services (which encompasses tech and STEM positions) quit their positions, up from 493,000 in July. It's also a significant increase over August 2014, when 456,000 professionals quit. Voluntary quits could be taken as a sign of a good economy (Dice link), hinting that people feel confident enough about the market to jump to a new position (likely with better pay and benefits), if not strike out on their own as an independent. For tech pros, things are particularly rosy at the moment; according to the BLS, the national unemployment rate among tech pros has hovered at under 3 percent for the past year, although not all segments have equally benefitted from that trend: Programmers, for example, saw their unemployment rate dip precipitously between the first and second quarters of this year, even as joblessness among Web developers, computer support specialists, and network and systems engineers ticked upwards during the same period. If there's one tech segment that hasn't enjoyed economic buoyancy, it's manufacturing, which has suffered from layoffs and steady declines in open positions over the past several quarters.
IOS

New iOS 9 Features Mean System-Wide Tor Is In the Works For the First Time (dailydot.com) 34

Posted by samzenpus from the on-the-down-low dept.
Patrick O'Neill writes: At a time when privacy and encryption on mobile devices are the subject of political storm, last month's iOS 9 release means that Apple devices will finally get what Android has had for years: System-wide Tor anonymity. A handful of security experts recently set to work on projects to bring more powerful anonymity to iOS. “There are a bunch of pieces in the works,” Tor developer and Guardian Project leader Nathan Freitas told the Daily Dot. “We just started to work on it and think about it. Tor knows we can’t ignore all the iOS 9 users in the world.”
Programming

Walmart Open Sources Its Cloud Platform To Take On Amazon (walmartlabs.com) 83

Posted by samzenpus from the new-player-in-town dept.
Mickeycaskill writes: Walmart is effectively open sourcing its OneOps cloud platform, with the source code set to be uploaded to GitHub at the end of 2015. By making the cloud platform open source, Walmart is taking the fight to Amazon Web Services by giving developers a chance to avoid vendor lock-in. Walmart argues that OneOps has four main advantages: cloud portability, continuous lifecycle management, faster innovation, and great abstraction of cloud environments. The company says that the move should increase competition between cloud service vendors. "We're enabling any organization to achieve the same cloud portability and developer benefits that Walmart has enjoyed,"said Jeremy King, CTO of Walmart Global eCommerce and head of WalmartLabs.
Oracle

Beware of Oracle's Licensing 'Traps,' Law Firm Warns (scottandscottllp.com) 136

Posted by timothy from the how-much-ya-got? dept.
itwbennett writes: Slashdot readers are no strangers to Oracle's aggressive licensing practices, practices that have earned them notoriety over the years. This week, Texas law firm Scott & Scott wrote a blog post warning enterprises about the 'traps' in Oracle software licensing. One of the biggest problems with Oracle software is how difficult it is for companies to track internally what they're using and how they're using it, said Julie Machal-Fulks, a partner with Scott & Scott, in an interview with Katherine Noyes. 'They may use just one Oracle product and think they're using it correctly, but then Oracle comes along and says, 'no, you're using it wrong — you owe us a million bucks.'
Programming

Ask Slashdot: Is it Practical To Replace C With Rust? 437

Posted by timothy from the a-b-rust-d-yep-works-fine dept.
interval1066 writes: I've heard of rust from various sources around the net for a few years and never paid it much mind, there are so many new languages out now since my early days doing C programming, which what I've stuck to and made me my career. Now I'm heading a project that uses a RoR application to control a large series of sensors and controls in a manufacturing process. Naturally I want to talk to the hardware using a GEM extension written in C, as I've done before.

But another engineer who is not a fan of C (seems few younger engineers are) said he could write the extensions needed easily in Rust. Seems like this is a thing. I took a closer look at rust and it looks to me like another attempt at "C" without pointers, except rust does have a kind of pointer, it appears. I like its ranking on a list of fastest languages, and it seems pretty simple with an initial tool footprint that is quite small.

But what are the trade offs? Another language, and one that few engineers know (much like Vala, which I like very much but has the same small user base). What if I need another engineer to work on the code? I pretty much know what I can expect from C/C++, rust is a huge unknown, what if I run onto a roadblock? The engineer pushing for rust is emphatic, should I bulldoze him or take the plunge?
United Kingdom

Big Data Attempts To Find Meaning In 40 Years of UK Political Debate (thestack.com) 44

Posted by samzenpus from the reading-between-the-lies dept.
An anonymous reader writes: International researchers have analyzed 40 years of political speeches from the UK Parliament in an effort to move the study of political theory from social science towards the quantitative analysis offered by Big Data analytics techniques. The group used Python to crunch publicly available data from theyworkforyou.com, comprising 3.7 million individual speeches. A few strange trends emerged in this initial experiment, such as the decline of 'health care' as a trending Parliamentary topic, with 'welfare' consistently on the rise, and the decrease of fervent interest in any particular topic during the more pacific years under Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.
Businesses

Why Developers Are Important To the Drone Industry (sdtimes.com) 122

Posted by samzenpus from the flying-code-monkeys dept.
dmleonard618 writes: There is a new market that industry leaders think developers should take advantage of: Drones. While drones are becoming more and more popular, the industry is just opening up and it needs developers to take it to the next level. "Drones are the next mobile," said Thomas Haun, a VP from PrecisionHawk. Haun went on to explain that like mobile, drones are going to completely change how we go about our lives. And if that doesn't attract developers, COO from Skyward added: "How often do you get to invent a new industry?"
Programming

"Are Games Art?" and the Intellectual Value of Design (timconkling.com) 153

Posted by samzenpus from the eye-of-the-beholder dept.
itwbennett writes: Tim Conkling is an independent game developer whose current project, Antihero, is a strategy game about running a thieves' guild in a Dickens-inspired Victorian city. Recently he had the opportunity to talk to (i.e., was held captive by) an elderly and 'accomplished playwright, set designer, and painter' who quickly dismissed game design as 'not art.' The question of games being art or not isn't a new one. Roger Ebert was on the 'games are not art' bandwagon in 2010. More important to Conkling, who wrote about this interaction in a recent blog post, is the notion that any 'intentionally designed' piece is worthy of intellectual respect. "Nobody would ever seriously write off, for example, an Eames chair or a Gehry building; whether these objects fit some random definition of 'art' is inconsequential to their perceived cultural value." writes Conkling.

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