Google

Google Takes the Fight With Oracle To the Supreme Court 146

Posted by timothy from the by-the-power-your-black-robe-we-beseech-thee dept.
whoever57 writes Google has asked the Supreme Court to review the issue of whether APIs can be copyrighted. Google beat Oracle in the trial court, where a judge with a software background ruled that APIs could not be copyrighted. but the Appeals court sided with Oracle, ruling that APIs can be copyrighted. Now Google is asking the Supreme Court to overturn that decision. (Also of interest.)
Google

Google Code-In 2014 and Google Summer of Code 2015 Announced 15

Posted by samzenpus from the all-things-google dept.
d33tah notes the announcement of Google Code-In 2014 and Google Summer of Code 2015. A call to all students: if you have ever thought it would be cool to write code and see it make a difference in the world, then please keep reading. We are excited to announce the next editions of two programs designed to introduce students to open source software development, Google Summer of Code for university students and Google Code-in for 13-17 year old students.
Businesses

Fortune.com: Blame Tech Diversity On Culture, Not Pipeline 342

Posted by Soulskill from the opposing-view dept.
FrnkMit writes: Challenging a previous Code.org story on tech diversity, a Forbes.com writer interviewed 716 women who left the technology field. Her conclusion: corporate culture, and the larger social structure, is the primary cause for these women leaving the industry and never looking back. Specific issues include a lack of maternity policies in small companies, low pay which barely covers day care, "jokes" from male coworkers, and always feeling like the "odd duck." In reality, there are probably many intertwined causes: peer pressure at the high-school and college level, female-unfriendly geek culture, low pay, a lack of accommodations for pregnant/nursing mothers, the myth of "having it all," stereotype threat, and repeated assertions that women aren't biologically suited to writing software and therefore there's no problem at all.
Windows

Possible Reason Behind Version Hop to Windows 10: Compatibility 349

Posted by timothy from the damn-you-autocomplete dept.
First time accepted submitter ndykman (659315) writes The Independent reports that a MS developer has suggested a real reason behind the Windows 10 name: old code. More specifically, code that looks for "Windows 9" to determine the Windows version. Fine for Windows 95 or Windows 98, but not so great for a new operating system. The article includes a link that shows that yes, this would be a problem.
Programming

Code.org: Blame Tech Diversity On Education Pipeline, Not Hiring Discrimination 227

Posted by Soulskill from the maybe-fix-both dept.
theodp writes: "The biggest reason for a lack of diversity in tech," says Code.org's Hadi Partovi in a featured Re/code story, "isn't discrimination in hiring or retention. It's the education pipeline." (Code.org just disclosed "we have no African Americans or Hispanics on our team of 30.") Supporting his argument, Partovi added: "In 2013, not one female student took the AP computer science exam in Mississippi." (Left unsaid is that only one male student took the exam in Mississippi). Microsoft earlier vilified the CS education pipeline in its U.S. Talent Strategy as it sought "targeted, short-term, high-skilled immigration reforms" from lawmakers. And Facebook COO and "Lean In" author Sheryl Sandberg recently suggested the pipeline is to blame for Facebook's lack of diversity. "Girls are at 18% of computer science college majors," Sandberg told USA Today in August. "We can't go much above 18% in our coders [Facebook has 7,185 total employees] if there's only 18% coming into the workplace."
Programming

Object Oriented Linux Kernel With C++ Driver Support 365

Posted by Soulskill from the redesigned-tux dept.
An anonymous reader writes: An effort underway called BOSS-MOOL, the Minimalistic Object Oriented Linux, is designing the Linux kernel with OOP and C++ driver support. Linus Torvalds' opinions on C++ have long been known while developers at the DOS Lab IIT Madras and CDAC Chennai feel redesigning the kernel with object oriented abstractions and C++ driver support will increase maintainability while reducing complexity of the kernel. It doesn't appear though the group will try to mainline these changes.
Bug

Xen Cloud Fix Shows the Right Way To Patch Open-Source Flaws 81

Posted by timothy from the steady-as-she-goes dept.
darthcamaro writes Amazon, Rackspace and IBM have all patched their public clouds over the last several days due to a vulnerability in the Xen hypervisor. According to a new report, the Xen project was first advised of the issue two weeks ago, but instead of the knee jerk type reactions we've seen with Heartbleed and now Shellshock, the Xen project privately fixed the bug and waited until all the major Xen deployments were patched before any details were released. Isn't this the way that all open-source projects should fix security issues? And if it's not, what is?
Open Source

Linux Foundation Announces Major Network Functions Virtualization Project 40

Posted by Soulskill from the building-future-tech dept.
Andy Updegrove writes: The Linux Foundation this morning announced the latest addition to its family of major hosted open source initiatives: the Open Platform for NFV Project (OPNFV). Its mission is to develop and maintain a carrier-grade, integrated, open source reference platform for the telecom industry. Importantly, the thirty-eight founding members include not only cloud and service infrastructure vendors, but telecom service providers, developers and end users as well. The announcement of OPNFV highlights three of the most significant trends in IT: virtualization (the NFV part of the name refers to network function virtualization), moving software and services to the cloud, and collaboratively developing complex open source platforms in order to accelerate deployment of new business models while enabling interoperability across a wide range of products and services. The project is also significant for reflecting a growing recognition that open source projects need to incorporate open standards planning into their work programs from the beginning, rather than as an afterthought.
Facebook

Interview With Facebook's Head of Open Source 29

Posted by timothy from the complete-transparency dept.
Czech37 writes Facebook may be among the world's most well-known tech companies, but it's not renowned for being at the forefront of open source. In reality, they have over 200 open source projects on GitHub and they've recently partnered with Google, Dropbox, and Twitter (among others) to create the TODO group, an organization committed to furthering the open source cause. In an interview with Opensource.com, Facebook's James Pearce talks about the progress the company has made in rebooting their open source approach and what's on the horizon for the social media network.
Programming

Building Apps In Swift With Storyboards 69

Posted by samzenpus from the build-it-better dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes Apple touts the Swift programming language as easy to use, thanks in large part to features such as Interface Builder, a visual designer provided in Xcode that allows a developer to visually design storyboards. In theory, this simplifies the process of designing both screens and the connections between screens, as it needs no code and offers an easy-to-read visual map of an app's navigation. But is Swift really so easy (or at least as easy as anything else in a developer's workflow)? This new walkthrough of Interface Builder (via Dice) shows that it's indeed simple to build an app with these custom tools... so long as the app itself is simple. Development novices who were hoping that Apple had created a way to build complex apps with a limited amount of actual coding might have to spend a bit more time learning the basics before embarking on the big project of their dreams.
Open Source

How To Find the Right Open Source Project To Get Involved With 57

Posted by samzenpus from the get-going dept.
An anonymous reader writes Writing on Opensource.com, Matt Micene shares his thoughts on getting started with an open source project. "I came back from OSCON this year with a new fire to contribute to an open source project. I've been involved in open source for years, but lately I've been more of an enthusiast-evangelist than a hands-on-contributor to an open source community. So, I started some thinking about what to do next. When I was involved in projects before, it was due to a clear progression from user to forum guru to contributor. It's a great path to take but what do you do if you just want to jump into something?" Matt goes on to lay out several steps to help new contributors get started.
Businesses

Ask Slashdot: Software Issue Tracking Transparency - Good Or Bad? 159

Posted by samzenpus from the to-show-them-or-not-to-show-them dept.
First time accepted submitter Mike Sheen writes I'm the lead developer for an Australian ERP software outfit. For the last 10 years or so we've been using Bugzilla as our issue tracking system. I made this publicly available to the degree than anyone could search and view bugs. Our software is designed to be extensible and as such we have a number of 3rd party developers making customization and integrating with our core product.

We've been pumping out builds and publishing them as "Development Stream (Experimental / Unstable" and "Release Stream (Stable)", and this is visible on our support site to all. We had been also providing a link next to each build with the text showing the number of bugs fixed and the number of enhancements introduced, and the URL would take them to the Bugzilla list of issues for that milestone which were of type bug or enhancement.

This had been appreciated by our support and developer community, as they can readily see what issues are addressed and what new features have been introduced. Prior to us exposing our Bugzilla database publicly we produced a sanitized list of changes — which was time consuming to produce and I decided was unnecessary given we could just expose the "truth" with simple links to the Bugzilla search related to that milestone.

The sales and marketing team didn't like this. Their argument is that competitors use this against us to paint us as producers of buggy software. I argue that transparency is good, and beneficial — and whilst our competitors don't publish such information — but if we were to follow our competitors practices we simply follow them in the race to the bottom in terms of software quality and opaqueness.

In my opinion, transparency of software issues provides:

Identification of which release or build a certain issue is fixed.
Recognition that we are actively developing the software.
Incentive to improve quality controls as our "dirty laundry" is on display.
Information critical to 3rd party developers.
A projection of integrity and honesty.

I've yielded to the sales and marketing demands such that we no longer display the links next to each build for fixes and enhancements, and now publish "Development Stream (Experimental / Unstable" as simply "Development Stream") but I know what is coming next — a request to no longer make our Bugzilla database publicly accessible. I still have the Bugzilla database publicly exposed, but there is now only no longer the "click this link to see what we did in this build".

A compromise may be to make the Bugzilla database only visible to vetted resellers and developers — but I'm resistant to making a closed "exclusive" culture. I value transparency and recognize the benefits. The sales team are insistent that exposing such detail is a bad thing for sales.

I know by posting in a community like Slashdot that I'm going to get a lot of support for my views, but I'm also interested in what people think about the viewpoint that such transparency could be bad thing.
Programming

Microsoft Co-opts Ice Bucket Challenge Idea To Promote Coding In Latin America 96

Posted by Soulskill from the i-challenge-all-of-you dept.
theodp writes: Microsoft is aiming to offer free programming courses to over a million young Latin Americans through its Yo Puedo Programar and Eu Posso Programar initiatives ("I Can Program"). People between the ages of 12 and 25 will be able to sign up for the free online courses "One Hour Coding" and "Learning to Program," which will be offered in conjunction with Colombia's Coding Week (Oct. 6-10). The online courses will also be available in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Puerto Rico. "One Hour Coding" (aka Hour of Code in the U.S.) is a short introductory course in which participants will learn how the technology works and how to create applications, and it offers "a playful immersion in the computer sciences," Microsoft said in a statement. In the virtual, 12-session "Learning to Program" course, students will discover that "technical complexity in application development tools is a myth and that everyone can do it," the statement added. Taking a page from the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge its execs embraced, Microsoft is encouraging students to complete the Hour of Code and challenge four other friends to do the same (Google Translate).
Programming

Ask Slashdot: Swift Or Objective-C As New iOS Developer's 1st Language? 316

Posted by timothy from the two-roads-diverge-but-do-they-loop dept.
macs4all (973270) writes "I am an experienced C and Assembler Embedded Developer who is contemplating for the first time beginning an iOS App Project. Although I am well-versed in C, I have thus-far avoided C++, C# and Java, and have only briefly dabbled in Obj-C. Now that there are two possibilities for doing iOS Development, which would you suggest that I learn, at least at first? And is Swift even far-enough along to use as the basis for an entire app's development? My goal is the fastest and easiest way to market for this project; not to start a career as a mobile developer. Another thing that might influence the decision: If/when I decide to port my iOS App to Android (and/or Windows Phone), would either of the above be an easier port; or are, for example, Dalvick and the Android APIs different enough from Swift/Obj-C and CocoaTouch that any 'port' is essentially a re-write?"
Databases

PostgreSQL Outperforms MongoDB In New Round of Tests 147

Posted by Soulskill from the there-can-be-only-lots dept.
New submitter RaDag writes: PostgreSQL outperformed MongoDB, the leading document database and NoSQL-only solution provider, on larger workloads than initial performance benchmarks. Performance benchmarks conducted by EnterpriseDB, which released the framework for public scrutiny on GitHub, showed PostgreSQL outperformed MongoDB in selecting, loading and inserting complex document data in key workloads involving 50 million records. This gives developers the freedom to combine structured and unstructured data in a single database with ACID compliance and relational capabilities.
United States

Microsoft On US Immigration: It's Our Way Or the Canadian Highway 365

Posted by timothy from the adventures-in-quasi-capitalism dept.
theodp writes Even as it cuts about 14% of its workforce, Microsoft is complaining that the company might be denied some of the "roughly" 1,000 H-1B visas for foreign workers it intends to seek, and made it clear that the company could shift some work to Canada or overseas if it can't get talent on its terms. "If I need to move 400 people to Canada or Northern Ireland or Hyderabad or Shanghai, we can do that," said William Kamela, a senior federal policy lead at Microsoft, who later explained that about 60% of Microsoft's workforce is in the U.S., yet it makes 68% of its profits overseas (where it also stashes its cash out of IRS reach). Kamela made the statements on a panel at a two-day conference on high-skilled immigration policy, where he sat next to Felicia Escobar, special assistant to President Barack Obama on immigration. The day before the conference, Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC — which counts Bill Gates as a Founder and Steve Ballmer and Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith as Major Contributors — posted its "MythBusters" video on H-1B visas.
Programming

Rosetta Code Study Weighs In On the Programming Language Debate 165

Posted by Soulskill from the fresh-ammunition dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Rosetta Code is a popular resource for programming language enthusiasts to learn from each other, thanks to its vast collection of idiomatic solutions to clearly defined tasks in many different programming languages. The Rosetta Code wiki is now linking to a new study that compares programming language features based on the programs available in Rosetta Code. The study targets the languages C, C#, F#, Go, Haskell, Java, Python, and Ruby on features such as succinctness and performance. It reveals, among other things, that: "functional and scripting languages are more concise than procedural and object-oriented languages; C is hard to beat when it comes to raw speed on large inputs, but performance differences over inputs of moderate size are less pronounced; compiled strongly-typed languages, where more defects can be caught at compile time, are less prone to runtime failures than interpreted or weakly-typed languages."
Programming

Ask Slashdot: Finding a Job After Completing Computer Science Ph.D? 479

Posted by timothy from the I'm-a-people-person-dammit dept.
An anonymous reader writes I recently completed my PhD in computer science and hit the job market. I did not think I would have difficulty finding a job esp. with a PhD in computer science but I have had no luck so far in the four months I have been looking. Online resume submittals get no response and there is no way to contact anybody. When I do manage to get a technical interview, it is either 'not a good match' after I do the interviews or get rejected after an overly technical question like listing all the container classes in STL from the top of my head. I had worked as a C++ software developer before my PhD but in the past 6 years, software development landscape has changed quite a bit. What am I doing wrong? Has software development changed so much in the last 6 years I was in school or is my job hunting strategy completely wrong? (The PhD was on a very technical topic that has very little practical application and so working on it does not seem to count as experience.)
Programming

The Site That Teaches You To Code Well Enough To Get a Job 131

Posted by timothy from the tab-a-slot-b-memory-array-structure-q dept.
HughPickens.com writes Wanna be a programmer? Klint Finley reports that software developer Katrina Owen has created a site called Exercism.io where students can learn to craft code that's both clear and efficient and get a lot of feedback on what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong. Exercism is updated every day with programming exercises in a variety of different languages. First, you download these exercises using a special software client, and once you've completed one, you upload it back to the site, where other coders from around the world will give you feedback. Then you can take what you've learned and try the exercise again. The idea was to have students not only complete the exercises, but get feedback. Exercism.io now has over 6,000 users who have submitted code or comments, and hundreds of volunteers submit new exercises or translate existing ones into new programming languages. But even Owen admits that the site is a bit lacking in the usability department. "It's hard to tell what it is just by looking at it," she says. "It's remarkable to me that people have figured out how to use it."

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