msmoriarty writes "10 years ago this month, IBM open sourced an internal project focused on creating a common component framework for developers: Eclipse. In an interview with ADTmag.com, Eclipse Foundation director Mike Milinkovich remarks on what was, back then, a revolutionary move: 'You've got to give IBM a lot of credit...Ten years ago, the notion that open source might be the best way for software vendors to collaborate was really a novel idea... Eclipse demonstrated the advantages of collaboration in open source, even amongst fierce competitors.' The Eclipse Foundation is celebrating the anniversary with a kickoff party at its EclipseCon Europe 2011 conference, and if you're an Eclipse community member, the Foundation is also inviting you to add yourself to the Eclipse 10th Birthday Timeline."

An anonymous reader writes "Fast Company takes a look at the Apple App Store and concludes that it's a casino where most developers are making tragic losses and a tiny few are striking it filthy rich. The article discusses a new book exposing the App Store millionaires, called 'Appillionaires,' which compares the psychological effects of a hit app on a programmer to a gambler's high. One millionaire programmer explains the intense feeling of being in the top-ten: 'The App Store had established some kind of intravenous connection to my body and was pumping me full of Apple-branded heroin.' But, the piece warns, the majority of developers fail to make any return on their app."

RdeCourtney writes "The BBC is reporting that from 1 January 2012, Google will charge for the Google Maps API service when more than the limit of 25,000 map "hits" are made in a day. Google is rumoured to be charging $4 per 1,000 views in excess of the limit. Google maintains the high limit of 25,000 free hits before charging 'will only affect 0.35% of users.'"

theodp writes "James Hague has compiled a short list of things that the circa-1986 Turbo Pascal 3 for MS-DOS is smaller than (chart). For starters, at 39,731 bytes, the entire Turbo Pascal 3.02 executable (compiler and IDE) makes it less than 1/4th the size of the image of the white iPhone 4S at apple.com (190,157 bytes), and less than 1/5th the size of the yahoo.com home page (219,583 bytes). Speaking of slim-and-trim software, Visicalc, the granddaddy of all spreadsheet software which celebrated its 32nd birthday this year, weighed in at a mere 29K."

First time accepted submitter gmikeska07 writes "I have no computer science degree, but I took a Java class in college and greatly enjoyed it. I have some experience with Javascript and have done some perl programming as well. I would like to learn Google's forthcoming Dart language. My question is in three parts: a) Is there any chance that if I self-teach Dart, I can get a job in development without a CS degree, once companies begin using the language? b) Is it really worth installing Virtual Studio as per the dartlang docs, or should I wait for a dedicated IDE like the rumored 'Brightly'? Alternatively, are there any solid open development environments that are adding support? c) Do you know of any books that are out or on the way that I could buy? What programming series do you guys recommend? Hopefully I can learn in my spare time, and if I can't get a job in development I can at least have fun with it, and maybe make a few libraries for the Dart community!"

An anonymous reader writes "Two recent papers, one from Microsoft Research and one from University of Wisconsin (PDF), are providing a refreshing take on rethinking 'what a file is.' This could have major implications for the next-gen file system design, and will probably cause a stir among Slashdotters, given that it will affect the programmatic interface. The first paper has some hints as to what went wrong with the previous WinFS approach. Quoting the first paper: 'For over 40 years the notion of the file, as devised by pioneers in the field of computing, has proved robust and has remained unchallenged. Yet this concept is not a given, but serves as a boundary object between users and engineers. In the current landscape, this boundary is showing signs of slippage, and we propose the boundary object be reconstituted. New abstractions of file are needed, which reflect what users seek to do with their digital data, and which allow engineers to solve the networking, storage and data management problems that ensue when files move from the PC on to the networked world of today. We suggest that one aspect of this adaptation is to encompass metadata within a file abstraction; another has to do what such a shift would mean for enduring user actions such as "copy" and "delete" applicable to the deriving file types. We finish by arguing that there is an especial need to support the notion of "ownership" that adequately serves both users and engineers as they engage with the world of networked sociality. '"

BigSes writes "I had been in the amusement repair industry (video gaming, pinball, jukeboxes, etc) for more than a decade, but have recently taken a new career path. I still greatly enjoy tinkering with all the electronics, and collect many arcade games and pinball machines for my home. I always had access to EEPROM / PROM / PIC / GAL programmers on the job, but never owned one personally. I'm finding it difficult to work within my chosen hobby without one, and ordering pre-programmed chips can be cost prohibitive for some projects. I would love it if some of you professionals or other hobbyists out there could recommend a great programmer that supports a large number of chip formats for me to use. I'd like it to be something USB, more modern than Serial or Parallel port (usually what we had in the old days) and preferably sub-$300, new or used. There are tons of Chinese import types on eBay, but I'd hate to spend $80+ if I am unsure of the quality."

Ian Lamont writes "Patrick McKenzie has written about the do's and don't's of working as a software engineer, and some solid (and often amusing) advice on how to get ahead. One of the first pieces of advice: 'Don't call yourself a programmer: "Programmer" sounds like "anomalously high-cost peon who types some mumbo-jumbo into some other mumbo-jumbo." If you call yourself a programmer, someone is already working on a way to get you fired.' Although he runs his own company, he is a cold realist about the possibilities for new college grads in the startup world: 'The high-percentage outcome is you work really hard for the next couple of years, fail ingloriously, and then be jobless and looking to get into another startup.'"

eldavojohn writes "Stanford's OpenSim software is a human motion modeling package that is currently making the rounds at museums where 'visitors walk across a pressure-sensitive floor and are presented at the other side with color-coded print outs of their weight distribution, identifying even slight imbalances that might be putting undue stress on their limbs and joints.' This project can also help with planning surgery (video). The work has been published in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering (note that this is a different effort from the virtual world of the same name). Although Stanford's press release says it is now open source, I cannot find what license they are using, nor can I access their SVN browser after registering."

First time accepted submitter QuantumMist writes "Researchers from Southern Illinois University have published a paper comparing Perl to Quorum(PDF) (their own statistically informed programming language) and Randomo (a programming language whose syntax is partially randomly generated). From the paper: 'Perl users were unable to write programs more accurately than those using a language designed by chance.' Reactions have been enthusiastic, and the authors have responded."

angry tapir writes "The intellectual property lawsuit between Oracle and Google over the Android mobile OS won't go to trial until next year, according to a ruling made in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by the judge overseeing the case. The trial was initially set to begin Oct. 31 but was postponed last week by Judge William Alsup due to scheduling conflicts with a major criminal trial. The trial will be split into three stages heard by the same jury. In step one, 'liability on the copyright claims, including all defenses thereto, will be tried and determined by special verdict before going to Phase Two,' he wrote. The second phase will cover liability on the case's patent claims, he added. 'The jury will decide these issues before going to Phase Three.' In the final stage, 'all remaining issues will be tried, including damages and willfulness.'"

itwbennett writes "Eric Bloom, an IT leadership coach and former CIO, has answered that eternal question 'does working on old software hurt your professional marketability' with a somewhat surprising 'no.' But, Bloom adds, 'a techie's skill set from a marketability perspective has a two year half-life. That is to say, that the exact set of skills you have today will only be half as marketable two years from now.'"

The first of a few submitters, szo sent in an early report that John McCarthy passed early yesterday. Paul Graham (among others) confirmed: the news was true. And so, shortly after a fellow founder of countless language descendants, goes the founder of the Lisp tree at the age of 84.

An anonymous reader writes "Google's new language landed with a loud thud, causing lots of interesting debates about the best place to stick semicolons... An article [in InfoQ] ... looks at some of the less discussed features. Snapshots seem to bring something like Smalltalk images and allow instant startup of applications (something Java has spent the last 15 years not delivering). Isolates are like OS processes and communicate with message passing — and as the article suggests, can fix the problem of Garbage Collection pauses by splitting up the heap (sounds like Erlang). There's more, mostly about features that remove some dynamic behavior in order to make startup and code analysis easier. Maybe Dart is worth a second look?"

ozmanjusri writes "New smartphones may be lightweight, compact objects, but their OSs are anything but. Ice Cream Sandwich will need workstations with no less than 16 GB RAM to build the source code, twice the amount Gingerbread needed. It will take 5 hours to compile on a dual quad-core 2+GHz workstation, and need 80GB disk space for all AOSP configs. Android developers are also being warned to be cautious of undocumented APIs: 'In almost every case, there's only one reason for leaving APIs undocumented: We're not sure that what we have now is the best solution, and we think we might have to improve it, and we're not prepared to make those commitments to testing and preservation. We're not claiming that they're "Private" or "Secret" — How could they be, when anyone in the world can discover them? We're also not claiming they're forbidden: If you use them, your code will compile and probably run.'"

An anonymous reader writes "The Jumentum open source project has announced a single-chip programming system based on the NXP LPC1768 (the same as in the mbed) that can generate PAL/NTSC video and use a PS/2 keyboard, so it may operate as a standalone BASIC programmable computer, similar to many old BASIC computers (e.g. Apple ][ or C64) of yore. Projects such as the Raspberry Pi provide a multichip Linux solution, and the Humane PC uses three AVR microcontrollers, but the Jumentum system can provide a true one-chip solution. Video is generated by software, and only a few external resistors are required to interface to a composite video input. With the Jumentum system, you can take your tiny one-chip computer on-the-go, or use it as part of your own electronics projects (using for example, the mbed) to give it a convenient interface (along with Jumentum's Ethernet web and USB interfaces)."

First time accepted submitter koper writes "The new programming language Opa makes web programming easier by providing a one-tier one-language-for-everything approach. Now it goes one step further by providing a (very-minimalistic for now) web-based IDE that allows users to compile & deploy Opa programs in one click in your web browser. Give it a spin!"

First time accepted submitter lsllll writes "I got drawn (without my intention) into three 20 minute sessions, talking to high school students about computer science and programming, and am wondering what are some of the things I should talk to them about. I have previously done the same thing for a forty minute period, and all the students wanted to talk about game programming. My only game programming experience dates back to the late '80s and programming a few games (some which ran on top of Novell's network) in Turbo Pascal. Since then I have done lots of database design, web interface programming, and systems configuration and integration. I am pretty fluent with Windows and Linux, but my contemporary programming skills are somewhat limited to Coldfusion, PHP, Javascript, SQL and bash scripts. Should I talk to them about different aspects of computer science, what it's like to work full-time in the computer industry, or do I make the sessions just question and answer, since 20 minutes might not allow me to talk and do question and answer?"

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister sees Microsoft's Project Roslyn potentially reinventing how we view compilers and compiled languages. 'Roslyn is a complete reengineering of Microsoft's .NET compiler toolchain in a new way, such that each phase of the code compilation process is exposed as a service that can be consumed by other applications,' McAllister writes. 'The most obvious advantage of this kind of "deconstructed" compiler is that it allows the entire compile-execute process to be invoked from within .NET applications. With the Roslyn technology, C# may still be a compiled language, but it effectively gains all the flexibility and expressiveness that dynamic languages such as Python and Ruby have to offer.'"

Hugh Pickens writes "George Anders writes that companies like Facebook are finding that old-fashioned hiring channels aren't paying off fast enough and are publishing gnarly programming challenges and inviting engineers anywhere to solve them. 'We developed this theory that occasionally there were these brilliant people out there who hadn't found their way to Silicon Valley,' says Facebook engineer Yishan Wong who volunteered to draft puzzles so hard that he couldn't solve them. The problems aren't the superficial brainteasers that some companies use, like estimating the number of basketballs sold every year or why are manhole covers round, but developing sophisticated algorithms — like ways of automatically seating a clique of people in a movie theater, given that best friends want to be side by side and rivals need to be far apart. David Eisenstat has compiled an unofficial guide to the Facebook Engineering Puzzles. Our favorite: 'Liar, Lair,' seems particularly applicable to slashdot: 'As a newbie on a particular internet discussion board, you notice a distinct trend among its veteran members; everyone seems to be either unfailingly honest or compulsively deceptive,' says the description of the problem. 'You must write a program to determine, given all the information you've collected from the discussion board members, which members have the same attitude toward telling the truth.'"