Programming

Freya Reaches 2.0 Beta Release 50

Posted by Zonk from the you-think-you-can-do-better?-prove-it dept.
mandrake*rpgdx writes "Freya, a game programming environment for the Lua programming language, reaches 2.0 beta this week. Freya allows you to program cross platform games in the programming language Lua. It sports speeds 2x-10x faster than PyGame, and contains a built in map engine, pixel perfect collision detection, support for many graphics and sound formats including Ogg Vorbis and different MOD formats. Right now the beta release is looking for people to test the Linux version."
Christmas Cheer

2004 Perl Advent Calendar Begins 12

Posted by timothy from the hum-the-charlie-brown-song dept.
JeffMagnus writes "In another sign of the rapid approach of Christmas, Mark Fowler has posted the first entry in his 2004 Perl Advent Calendar. Each day until December 25, Mark will post a review of some Perl module he finds useful. This marks the fifth year for this Perl Christmastime tradition."
KDE

Introducing KDevelop TechNotes 11

Posted by timothy from the from-the-field dept.
adymo writes "Yesterday I have started a series of KDevelop IDE related articles. I called them "KDevelop TechNotes" and I plan to publish all useful information about the IDE - tips and tricks, use cases, tutorials, etc. Everyone is welcome to share KDevelop knowledge by writing their own issues of technotes. I will be pleased to publish them on the project website www.kdevelop.org.
The first issue should be a matter of no little interest to all free software developers. Read on to learn more about KDevelop Assistant - an advanced API documentation viewer." A second issue is out, too, demonstrating a quick (two-minute) GUI app built with Qt.
Programming

Developing Applications With Objective Caml 243

Posted by timothy from the watering-hole dept.
Fahrenheit 450 (William D. Neumann) writes "Developing Applications With Objective Caml was originally published in French by O'Reilly, and later translated into English by a group of volunteers (note that the reviewer was a volunteer proofreader during the translation effort), and graciously made available online as HTML or PDF at the Caml website. For those not familiar with Objective Caml (or OCaml, as it is commonly called), it is a strongly, statically typed (but don't be thinking about Pascal-style typing), eagerly evaluated language with a functional core that also offers many imperative programming features. OCaml also has full support for object-oriented programming that fits in completely with OCaml's strong type system. On top of that, OCaml code can be interpreted for simple scripting, compiled to bytecode for portability, or compiled to native code for speed and resource utilization that rival even that of Intel's C++ compiler. Intrigued?" If so, read on for the rest of Neumann's review.
Programming

Open Source Geeks Considered Modern Heroes 361

Posted by michael from the i-need-a-hero dept.
loconet writes "The BBC reports that a report by Demos says that the all-consuming passions of geeks and nerds may actually be beneficial for society. The UK think tank's report published today, underlines the importance of 'Pro-Ams' -- amateurs who pursue a hobby or pastime, in many cases an all-consuming passion, to a professional standard. The report says Pro-Am astronomers have made 'significant contributions' to the knowledge of the universe, while Pro-Am computer programmers are providing the only serious challenge to Microsoft's dominance of personal computing."
Programming

Python 2.4 Final Released 359

Posted by CmdrTaco from the watch-out-for-the-teeth dept.
Eventh writes "The final release of Python 2.4 was just released. Python 2.4 is the result of almost 18 month's worth of work on top of Python 2.3. New features are, but not limited to, function decorators, generator expressions, a number of new module and more. Check out Andrew Kuchling's What's New In Python for a detailed view of some of the new features of Python 2.4. "

Top Ten Persistent Design Flaws 1067

Posted by Hemos from the good-ideas-to-consider dept.
jlouderb writes "Bruce Tognazzini former human interface evangalist at Apple, and currently a principal at web design firm Neilsen Norman Group has begun cataloging the top ten design computing flaws that we just live with with, but shouldn't have to. Only seven are found at his article, and (not surprisingly) three are Mac related. My favorite: the mysteriously dimmed menu options. Why are those darned things grey anyway?"
Privacy

3D Biometric Facial Recognition Comes To UK 157

Posted by timothy from the are-you-ready-for-your-closeup? dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "In the UK, where the recent Queen's speech about national identity cards generated lots of -- mostly negative -- coverage, another potentially invasive technology is being tested with very few criticism. For example, several police departments are now testing a 3D biometric facial recognition software from Aurora, a company based near Northampton. The use of facial recognition 'is rapidly becoming the third forensic science alongside fingerprints and DNA,' according to a police officer who talked to BBC News for 'How your face could open doors.'" (More below.)
Graphics

Open Source Graphic Card Project Seeks Experts 370

Posted by timothy from the will-more-cooks-help dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Could this dream of many open source developers and users finally happen? A 100% open sourced graphic card with 3D support? Proper 3D card support for OpenBSD, NetBSD and other minority operating systems? A company named Tech Source will try to make it happen. You can download the preliminary specs for the card here (pdf). The project, though a commercial one, wants to become a true community project and encourages experts and everyone who have good ideas to add to the development process to join the mailing list. You can also sign a petition and tell how much you would be willing to pay for the final product."
Programming

The Economist Tackles Complexity in IT 270

Posted by michael from the feeping-creaturitis dept.
yfnET writes "In recent weeks, The Economist has run a number of articles addressing the ever-increasing complexity of software systems. The magazine, with typical Economist wisdom, casts an eye towards past human endeavors for lessons on how today's IT industry can succeed in dealing with complexity. As part of last month's extensive survey of information technology (see Related Items sidebar), the magazine offers insight on the limits of real-world metaphors, the perils of managing a rat's nest of obsolescent systems, and the need for 'disappearing' technology. And hitting newsstands just today is an overview of development models for increasingly large and unwieldy software projects. Among other things, this article compares the open source model to Microsoft's efforts using a quasi-open license. It also describes the 'agile' programming movement and its potential to keep even the most gigantic of projects under control."
Java

Java-Centric Grid Computing: Ibis 1.0 Released 18

Posted by michael from the run-everywhere dept.
rvannieuwpoort writes "Ibis 1.0 has been released. Ibis is a flexible and efficient Java-based programming environment for Grid computing. Ibis improves Java's serialization and RMI performance up to a factor of 10. It also extends Java with a range of communication paradigms, including group communication, divide-and-conquer and collective communication. An additional nice feature of Ibis is that it can communicate through firewalls, without opening ports, using TCP. Ibis is free software (BSD-style license). It runs on any platform that has a Java 1.4 or higher JVM."
Programming

Source SDK Released Soon, HL2 High in Gamerankings 137

Posted by Zonk from the gift-for-the-community,-gift-for-the-developers dept.
Biomemetic writes "Valve announced yesterday that they'll be releasing the Source SDK next week, along with a "surprise for the community". Incidentally, the sound stuttering bug (actually three bugs, to do with texture loading problems), has been solved and an update released through Steam." Relatedly, Highpriest writes "According to gamerankings.com, Half Life 2's average review is higher than Halo 2's. Half Life 2 has recieved a 96.6% overall rating wheras Halo 2 came in with a 95.1%."
Communications

Interview With Asterisk Creator Mark Spencer 28

Posted by timothy from the so-did-you-always-want-to-be-a-comedian? dept.
ZX81 writes "We've just completed an interview with Mark Spencer AKA Markster, the creator of Asterisk (an Open Source PBX replacement running on Linux). He details the start of the Asterisk project and the direction for the future."
Hardware

Sony Products That Run Embedded Linux 12

Posted by timothy from the run-linux-run dept.
tbirdsaw writes "I was browsing for information on how to run Linux on the PS2 without a Linux Kit (they've stopped selling them in the U.S., AFAIK). While searching, I stumbled across Sony's Open Source Code website. They have quite a few products that run an embedded linux system, including some professional video switchers (MVS8000?) and at least several of their relatively new XDCAM disc-based video format decks. Might make for some hardware/firmware hacking in the near future?"
Graphics

Splashscreen for OpenOffice.org 2.0 Wanted 68

Posted by michael from the dead-or-alive dept.
An anonymous reader writes "From the OOo site: 'OpenOffice.org 2.0 is coming fast and it needs a new splashscreen. You can help. Send us your best by 10 December and it might be seen on the desktops of tens upon tens of millions next year.' For more information, visit the OpenOffice.org website."
GUI

User-centric GUI Design Explained to All 355

Posted by michael from the bears-repeating dept.
TuringTest writes "The webzine User Instinct carries an article on Usable GUI Design showing that good user interfaces are not beyond the means of free and open software development: 'This article presents five key points of user interface design [...] that any software developer should be able to use.' In related news, The Economist writes against software complexity in an interview to MIT's John Maeda, PhD in interface design. See also OpenUsability, a project for testing user interfaces in a bazaar-like model. The specifics of UI design in Open Source projects has been previously debated on Slashdot."

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