Programming

Specifications of Intuit's .QFX Format? 56

Posted by Cliff from the text-is-open-but-the-tags-are-proprietary dept.
mad.frog asks: "I recently upgraded my ancient version of Quicken to the latest (Macintosh) version, with the intention of being able to download my credit card transactions directly from my bank into Quicken, rather than entering all that stuff by hand. As it turns out, almost no banks support doing this for non-Windows platforms (not surprisingly, Intuit doesn't point this out on the package). But here's the weird part: the information downloaded is just an xml-like text file (.QFX). Anyone know how (or why) they would make such a generic file platform-specific -- what business advantage does Intuit (or my bank) have in restricting how I use this information? Also, does anyone happen to know details of this (apparently undocumented, Intuit-specific) format so that I can hack mine into submission and use this data anyway, even if it's not on my bank's Platform Of Choice?"
Programming

Genetic Algorithm Improves Shellsort 71

Posted by timothy from the branching-out dept.
gstover writes "As a personal programming project recently, I used a genetic algorithm to find a better sequence of increments for Shellsort. It found at least one sequence that out-performs the best previously known by about 5 percent. Here is an article about it (also here). I believe this is the first time a genetic algorithm has actually improved Shellsort."
Mozilla

Mozilla + CSS + XML = Structured, Formatted Content 28

Posted by timothy from the my-god-it's-full-of-standards dept.
Saqib Ali writes "Publishing XML content on the web requires some heavy processing on the server. There are many publishing framework (AxKit, Cocoon, etc) available in the market. However they are very CPU intensive. Apple's Internet Developer has a article on how to use CSS along with your XML content to render the formatted content in the Mozilla Web browser. It is very interesting read, especially for people who want to start creating content in XML, but don't want to invest in a expensive processing server/application. They have a nice example of RSS feed (XML) formatted for publishing in the browser."
Java

Java Gets Templates 121

Posted by timothy from the blanks-to-fill dept.
lastberserker writes "Call them all you want - generics, parametrized types, thingamagic mumbojumbo - but (tada!) Java gets templates in 1.5 release. Nice landing after 5+ years of dancing around a bush. Competition is good, pardon my pun."
IBM

IBM Buys Rational Software 309

Posted by timothy from the renaming-it-whimsical dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Rational Software is going to be taken over by IBM. More info on Rational's website. RIP Rational. This is what rational is sending it's customers: To our valued customers: We are delighted to tell you that IBM and Rational Software have announced a definitive agreement for IBM to purchase Rational. This is a very exciting time for both companies and builds on the extensive business relationship IBM and Rational have had for over 20 years. Most importantly, it will provide significant benefits to you." Other readers submit links to the story in InformationWeek and the Mercury News.
Debian

Debian-Installer Alpha Released 221

Posted by timothy from the soon-perfection dept.
robstah writes "An alpha release of the next generation Debian installer (Debian-Installer) has been announced. Debian-Installer is an actively developed replacement for the older and now rather delapidated boot-floppies installer. This alpha release is available for i386 only as ports to other platforms are not yet significantly mature. Volunteers are requested to test this new installer and help contribute to Sarge, the next release of Debian GNU/Linux." Now's the time to complain if you want to be heard.
Linux

2.4.20 ext3 Data Corrupting Bug Fixed 34

Posted by timothy from the does-not-fix-mind-corruption dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The ext3 data corrupting bug found in the latest stable Linux kernel and reported by Slashdot here and here has been fixed. In this interesting KernelTrap story Andrew Morton describes the problem and offers a working patch. Evidently the bug has its roots in a much bigger design issue, something that won't likely be fixed in the current 2.4 kernel series. In any case, with Morton's patch applied your data will not be corrupted."
Java

Interview with Ken Arnold on Design 12

Posted by timothy from the lots-of-words dept.
Bill Venners writes "Artima.com recently completed publishing a six-part interview with Ken Arnold on distributed systems, JavaSpaces, and design. In Perfection and Simplicity, Ken explains why there's no such thing as a perfect design and proposes the radical notion that programmers are people. In Taste and Aesthetics, Ken discusses the role of taste and arrogance in design, the value of other people's problems, and the virtue of simplicity. In Designing Distributed Systems, Ken addresses the concerns of distributed systems design, including the need to expect failure, avoid state, and plan for recovery. In Sway with JavaSpaces, Ken describes the basic idea of a JavaSpace, illustrates how decoupling leads to reliability. In Data, Decoupling, and Iteration, Ken explains how JavaSpaces lets you "throw in a grain and watch it grow." In Java Design Issues, Ken discusses whether to prohibit subclassing, whether to use Cloneable or copy constructors, and when to use marker interfaces."
Programming

SmartEiffel 1.0 Released 365

Posted by michael from the also-self-bugging dept.
Per Wigren writes "Today SmartEiffel, the GNU Eiffel-compiler finally reached 1.0! Eiffel is a very underrated language in the free software community for some strange reason.. Hopefully this will help to gain some interest in this extremely powerful, fast, easy-to-read, easy-to-learn, almost self-debugging language!"
Programming

Usability and Open Source Software 383

Posted by michael from the click-and-drag dept.
Martin Soto writes "This article by two user interaction researchers, discusses many of the usability problems in current open source projects. The nice part is that, unlike many /. readers, it doesn't stop there, but goes into suggesting novel (at least for the OSS community) approaches to cope with those problems in an open source compatible way. Worth a read to those that, like me, still think that OSS should find its way to every desktop computer."
Programming

The Poetry Of Programming 416

Posted by michael from the coding-in-iambic-pentameter dept.
Lumpish Scholar writes "Sun's Richard Gabriel (possibly the only person with both a Ph.D. in computer science and an MFA in poetry) talks about "the connections between creativity, software, and poetry": "People say, 'Well, how come we can't build software the way we build bridges?' The answer is that we've been building bridges for thousands of years, and while we can make incremental improvements to bridges, the fact is that every bridge is like some other bridge that's been built.... But in software ... we're rolling out -- if not the first -- at most the seventh or eighth version. We've only been building software for 50 years, and almost every time we're creating something new.""
Security

Secure Interaction Design 120

Posted by timothy from the touching-the-right-buttons dept.
Pingster writes "Next week, ICICS 2002 will take place in Singapore. Out of 40 papers at the conference, there will be just one paper that looks at human factors. Though many people know that usability problems can render even the strongest security useless, the security community has only recently started paying attention to usability issues. More serious thinking about usability and security is desperately needed. The paper proposes ten interaction design principles. Maybe you'll find them obvious; maybe you'll disagree with them entirely. Great! Let's have a discussion."
Java

Thinking In Java 3rd Edition Available Online 28

Posted by timothy from the free-books dept.
slothdog writes "Bruce Eckel has made the new 3rd edition of Thinking in Java (and other books) available online. This is a more introductory-level book, although there is a work in progress on Thinking in Patterns and one on the way entitled Thinking in Enterprise Java. All in all, an excellent book for someone not yet familiar with Java. Kudos to Bruce for making it available for download!"
Linux

A Reconfigurable High-Res Network Camera 117

Posted by michael from the peeping-tom dept.
An anonymous reader writes "This technical article describes the architecture and design philosophy behind the Elphel Model 313, an intelligent 1.3 megapixel network camera that delivers full-sized images at up to 15 frames per second. The design of the Model 313, which has an embedded Linux computer based on an Axis ETRAX 100LX RISC processor, makes use of a reconfigurable Xilinx FPGA for much of the camera's internal control logic. Because both the embedded software and FPGA hardware algorithms are released as open source technologies, developers can readily customize the Model 313's operation to meet specialized requirements."
Science

Oldest-Known Terrestrial Rocks Unearthed 20

Posted by timothy from the what-are-canadian-rocks-worth dept.
wdavies writes "There are various news reports (see this Google search) Oldest Rocks University Quebec that are reporting the discovery of the oldest sedimentary rocks ever found. There are older rocks, but they are extra-terrestrial, and apparently these Earth-local rocks will give a lot more information about the early stages of life on our planet. IANAG so I can't judge any more, but seems significant"
Linux

Interview With Linux Kernel Guru Ingo Molnar 22

Posted by timothy from the tux-is-interesting dept.
An anonymous reader writes "KernelTrap has posted an interview with Ingo Molnar, the Linux kernel guru who wrote the O(1) scheduler and improved threading enough to allow hundreds of thousands of threads to run in parallel. The interview covers a wide range of interesting topics, offering much insight into the latest and greatest improvements found in the Linux development kernel. From the new rmap VM, to BitKeeper, to TUX, to comparing Linux with FreeBSD, it's all there..."

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