emmastory writes "The Nutshell series includes some of the most well-worn and useful technical books I own, and Cocoa in a Nutshell is one of the newer Mac-related additions to the collection. If you're familiar with the format of the series, probably the biggest question you'll have is whether or not this book is as good as the other Nutshell handbooks - the short answer is Yes, it's just as good as its predecessors." Read on to see the logic underlying that conclusion, in the rest of Emma's review.

rkeene517 writes "11 years ago I did a simulation of 29 billion photons in a room, that got published at SIGGRAPH 94. The 1994 image, called Photon Soup is here . Now computers are 3000 times faster and I am doing it again only much better, with a smaller aperature, in stereo, with 3 cameras, and with some errors fixed, and in Java. The 1994 image took 100 Sparc Station 1's a month to generate. I need volunteers to run the program for about a month in the background and/or nights. The program is pure Java." Read on for how you can participate in the project.

An anonymous reader writes "A month ago, a trial version of a little-known Linux application called 'CoLinux' was released that is the first working free and open source method for optimally running Linux on Microsoft Windows natively. It's the work of a 21-year-old Israeli computer science student and some Japanese open source programmers; in Israel, analysts are already saying it could help transform the software world." (CoLinux is short for Cooperative Linux; we mentioned this project in January as well.)

bmsleight writes "The UK Mirror Service sadly announces that Lancaster University and the University of Kent have lost the Joint Information Systems Committee contract to jointly provide mirroring services. The mirror service is to shut down from 1st August. This could effect many, many GNU projects mirrored using this service, even before August."

jlp2097 writes "There is a great and lengthy interview at the The Dot with Eirik Eng, CEO of Trolltech, and Matthias Ettrich, founder of the KDE project and CTO of Trolltech. They talk about the recent X(Free86) trouble, accessibility in QT, Trolltech's finances, Qtopia, the OS X Port and a GPL'd Windows QT - it's probably not going to happen. And, did you know that Qt is pronounced 'Cute' by its creators?"

An anonymous reader writes "This article looks at Python's two standard modules for unit testing: unittest and doctest. These modules expand on the capability of the built-in assert statement, which is used for validation of pre-conditions and post-conditions within functions. The author discusses the best ways to incorporate testing into Python development, weighing the advantages of different styles for different types of projects."

Joe Barr writes "NewsForge is running a pair of excellent commentaries on the plight of Java and the Java development community following the recent "settlement" between longtime rivals Sun and Microsoft. One is by Rick Ross, the articulate leader of JavaLobby, entitled "Where is Java in the settlement?" The second is "Free but shackled: The Java trap" by Richard Stallman. Good reading. Both commentators put their finger on the heart of the problem, albeit from different perspectives." Yes, Newsforge and Slashdot are both owned by OSDN.

CowboyRobot writes "Queue has a couple of articles about UML: Death by UML Fever by Boeing software architect Alex Bell describes the problems that can result from over-reliance on modeling tools, with lighthearted lessons for the software development process in general and numerous illuminating quotations, such as: "Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment. - Jim Horning." Then, one of the developers of UML, Grady Booch of IBM, follows with The Fever is Real, in which he explains the motivations for creating the language, how it's used today, and where he expects it to go soon."

Eugene Eric Kim writes: "A few months ago, I wrote an essay entitled, "A Manifesto for Collaborative Tools," outlining a vision for how we can and should be making collaborative tools more interoperable. The article was published in the May issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal and is now available on the web." This manifesto is a good one, particularly if you aren't as a familiar with Doug Engelbart as you should be. There's also some interesting links to learn more about the Semantic Web, and social networks, well worth checking out as well.

jaybonci@d.o writes "Congratulations to Martin Michlmayr on his re-election to Debian Project Leader (his platform). Another year of service, one that will hopefully see the release of Sarge."

Thomas Delaet writes " This article is a short evaluation of Eiffel as a language for developing the core gnome desktop platform. Last month, there has been a heavy debate about a successor for C/C++ as the language of choice for developing the core gnome desktop components in. The debate has mostly focussed around C#/Mono and Java. This article tries to summarize the different requirements for a gnome development language and shows how Eiffel fits in these criteria."

drquizas writes "Embedded RTOS provider Green Hills recently delivered an address where they raised the question of whether Linux can be considered secure enough to be used in defense applications. Much of the usual FUD is present in the remarks, although an interesting question is raised regarding what defense and other government contractors are required to do in testing code (in this case anyway): is the closed code here being held to a higher standard than its open-source equivalent, and does this change the 'security through obscurity' argument?"

Glenn Holmer writes "The long-awaited beta of Sun Java Studio Creator (the IDE formerly known as Project Rave) has been released. This is the product that is supposed to make Java development easy (especially for web apps) by using drag and drop technology. It is based on NetBeans and uses JavaServer Faces technology."

An anonymous reader writes "LocalAreaSecurity.com has released a new version of their live-CD Linux distribution for information security professionals. It contains over 200 security tools including all the usual suspects (Nmap, Nessus, etc.) as well as many other great tools less well known. The ISO images are meant to be burned on 185MB and 210MB miniCDs which they update around twice a month. L.A.S. also publishes many papers on how to use the tools as well as research docs on *nix security. Their latest papers include: Securing Mambo Open Source CMS, Doing More With Less: Nessus, and L.A.S. Security Tool Review and Howto: kismet."

CowboyRobot writes "No longer vapor, but a true 3D-embedded engine, OpenGL is on the move. Pixar and others would love to be able to render their movies in realtime, and that desire has prompted the intended release of OpenGL 2.0, due in a few months. Khronos is now in charge of further extending OpenGL to cellphones and handheld gaming devices."

Struan Robertson writes "With all the controversy surrounding SCO's allegations that its Unix code was copied into Linux, we're running a survey with ZD Net to gauge industry practice on code copying. Do you keep a code library? Do you take it from one employer to another? These are the questions we're asking. All answers will be anonymous. The results - with expert legal analysis - will be published free - we're not doing this to sell reports etc. If you're a developer and happy to help, see our questions on SurveyMonkey.com."

Rich writes "Ian Geiser of SourceXtreme has released an interesting HOWTO showing how you can use KDE's embedded JavaScript tool to write quick-and-dirty apps. The apps can use the features of Qt and KDE to pack a lot of punch for a small amount of code. You can find it on his website."

An anonymous reader asks: "I'm a developer and have been given a task of creating documentation, for fellow developers, on how the system (a CMS) I have implemented, and adapted, works and how to develop for it. On the surface it doesn't seem too complicated but the amount of information I need to get down on paper, and the level of detail needed on some parts, is great. What's the best way to approach this task when there's so much information bouncing about in your head you don't know where to start?"

rocketjam writes "According to InternetNews.com, Apple Computer is seeing large numbers of UNIX, Java and Open Source developers moving to its Mac OS X platform. Apple Vice President of Worldwide Developer Relations Ron Okamoto mentions that, in the three years since the introduction of OS X, 'people who have experience in those areas are showing a great interest in our OS. We're seeing a lot of first timers. It's really impressive.' The company said it has recently surpassed the 300,000 member threshold of registered developers. Apparently, the increase in enterprise code writers has prompted Apple to add more sessions focusing on enterprise and IT to its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference."

Decaffeinated Jedi writes "As reported by News.com, Microsoft quietly launched Channel 9, a blog/discussion forum aimed at improving communication with outside developers, on Tuesday. Named for the audio channel that many airlines use to let passengers listen in on crew conversations during flight, Channel 9's creators state the following in a welcoming message: 'Five of us in Redmond are crazy enough to think we just might learn something from getting to know each other...Join in, and have a look inside our cockpit and help us fly the plane.'"