e8johan writes "The KDevelop team has released the first beta of KDevelop 3.0 a.k.a. Gideon (download here). The GUI has been completely rewritten, support has been added for more languages, auto-completion, etc. Plus a bundle of improvements, the change overview can be found here. Judging from the screenshots ( 1, 2 and 3) it looks even more promissing than I dared to hope for!"

An anonymous reader submites: "You can read it from their development page if you like to get the word from the horses mouth. 'The current version is 1.0. Feedback welcome.' Hey, if you can't revive a dead horse, whip it some more, yeah?" All the better to run programs on their "old Commodore(TM) A1000, A500, A2000, A1200, A3000(T) and A4000(T) systems as efficiently as possible." Everyone has different uses for time.

bbum writes "Today, Ronald Oussoren and I patched the PyObjC (PythonObj-C) bridge to allow for completely standalone Cocoa applications that are implemented in Python. My 11-Oct-2002 weblog entries provide more detail and includes a link to a PyObjC Cocoa app that can be downloaded and hacked upon (with the app, you can actually create other apps without using the dev tools at all!). As the days pass, I'll be updating the 'blog with new software, updates, etc. A Fink package will be submitted shortly. (In reality -- Ronald did the hard stuff in that he figured out how to subclass ObjC classes in Python!!)" Nifty. Note there is also a PerlObjCBridge module included with Jaguar, and there's also CamelBones for Perl-Cocoa; what other scripting frameworks for Mac OS X are out there?

paul.dunne writes "Looks like we are finally well on the way to getting a replacement for the old Linux configuration tools. Details in a thread on the linux-kernel mailing list. Basically, Linus likes it; it's written in C, so there are no "language issues"; and feedback on the mailing list so far seems positive and constructive."

format writes "distcc is a distributed front-end for GCC, meaning you can compile that big project across n number of machines and get it done almost n times as fast. The machines don't have to be identical or be running the exact same GCC version, but having the same OS is helpful." With the advent of faster hardware, I can't complain about kernel compile times anymore, but larger source trees could definitely benefit from this.

GonzoJohn writes "There are always difficult jobs to do as a GNU/Linux system administrator. Sometimes the difficulty lies in finding out how to do a particular job, not necessarily the job itself. This can be particularly true in the open source world where documentation can often take a back seat to implementation. But once in a while, you can stumble on a real gem that simplifies even the most difficult administration tasks. One such gem is the Jail Chroot Project. Linux Orbit introduces you to creating chroot-ed environments in this article."

HealYourChurchWebSit writes "BurningBird's "The Parable of the Languages" offers a delightfully playful answer to the the question, "[what] if programming languages could speak, really speak, not just crunch bytes and stream bits, they would have much to say that is both wise and profound.""

CitizenC writes "New computer-monitoring software designed to second-guess the intentions of individual system users could be close to perfect at preventing security breaches, say researchers. Read more." The paper (pdf) is online as well.

lars-o-matic asks: "I work at a small (dozen people) company doing quite well building small-to-medium sized sites on the ColdFusion platform and the Fusebox architecture (which also has PHP and JSP versions). With our growth, increasing demand for Flash apps, new features of CFMX, and wanting to take on larger projects, we are researching methodologies. We like Fusebox3 for CF but worry it does not leverage the new object-like CF Components, web services, Flash remoting etc. and wonder if some kind of model-view-controller approach would help separate presentation from business logic. And there's structured documentation, re-usability, maintenance and yes, performance to consider. We're happy with the platform, which suits our project scale. We're not (yet) building a Google or an Amazon.com. It's methodology we need. How have the Slashdot CF users out there scaled from 2 to several coders and from little sites to larger ones?"

Scott Snell asks: "I have inherited the C code for an embedded system project that has run out of code space. The source code is highly fragmented and the compiler doesnt generate efficient code for stack handling. Ideally I would direct the compiler to 'inline' a lot of the functions but unfortunately it doesnt support the inline keyword. Using macros is dangerous and manually inlining is driving me crazy! What I need is a tool that will take the source files, look for the 'inline' keyword and generate new source files that are inlined. Any ideas?"

oxgoad writes "Need a closed-form algorithm to derive square roots? Stymied by strange and scary results from your favorite compiler's math library? Math Toolkit for Real-Time Programming by Jack W. Crenshaw attempts to shed some numerical light. Read on for the goods." Oxgoad's review continues below.

tarkin writes "Sven Van Caekenberghe just finished a tutorial article, 'Tuning Java Swing applications for Mac OS X', that explains how to tune standard Java Swing applications to conform to the Mac OS X User Experience and make them virtually indistinguishable from native Mac OS X applications. Topics include handling basic Apple events, packaging applications, adding a custom icon, file dialogs, about boxes, preferences, customizing the menu bar, supporting Finder drag-and-drop, standard help, and basic multi-document support, as well as using MRJToolkit and MRJAppBuilder. The PDF of the article, as well as a Mac OS X disk image with a binary version of the two demo applications and the source code can downloaded from his home page."

Nice2Cats writes "Python is something of a programmer's dream and an author's nightmare. What started life as a scripting tool for the Amoeba operating system has matured into a full-blown programming language with such speed that every book seems to be outdated in a year or two. To make matters worse for publishers, the crew around Python's creator Guido van Rossum keeps adding higher-level constructs such as iterators with every new release, reducing reams of code to single-line idioms at half-year intervals. Because not everybody has been able to keep up -- RedHat 7.3 infamously still ships with version 1.5.2 as the default, while SuSE 8.0 is hanging in there with version 2.2 -- authors are forced to cover stone age variants as well as modern forms. Python is cross-platform (Unix/Linux, Mac, Microsoft), has two underlying languages (C for Python, Java for Jython) and works with various GUIs (Tkinter, wxWindows, Qt, GTK, curses, Swing). Given this breadth of material, the idea of writing that most fragmented form of a programming book, a 'Cookbook,' seems as crazy as, say, nailing a dead parrot to its perch." Read Nice2Cats's review below of The Python Cookbook to see how well O'Reilly deals with dead parrots.

jrmbadger writes "I just purchased a BREW enabled phone (a Motorola T720...very cool) from Verizon Wireless. BREW is sort of a competitor to J2ME, but I won't bore you with the details. I was very encouraged that Qualcomm (BREW's developer) has put the SDK on the web for free. However, to compile for the mobile, you need an ARM compiler, which runs $1,500. I think it would be really cool to be able to develop apps for my phone, but I'm not going to spend $1,500 on the compiler alone! Does anyone know how you can create BREW apps on the cheap?"

Master Kai writes "Looks like Australia's thinking about implementing ENUM, an internet protocol that will convert a simple phone number into a URI. The benefits are obvious, use one number to contact you on any communications medium. Your website, fixed phone, fax, mobile (cell) and email address. But at what cost to our privacy? I know that personally I prefer to give out my email address, because I can change it at the click of a button. And what about spam? Not only would spamers have your email address, but your contact numbers too. Eeeep! Anyway. It looks good nonetheless. Check out the news article , and for the Australian Communications Authority Discussion Paper. "

jgeelan writes "The original glorious premise behind a J2EE container was to abstract multithreading issues, server memory management, wire protocols, and so on, from Java programmers and allow them to focus on implementing solutions, not server infrastructure. Yet in the current issue of Java Developer's Journal, the director of technology at Personified Technologies, Jason Weiss, has lit a flame under J2EE, the jewel of the Java specification crown. The spec, writes Weiss, is too complex. As a community Java developers must pay attention to the beleaguered JCP process and realign it with creating solutions, like those routinely released by the Apache Software Foundation. Weiss argues that by taking steps now, Java developers would be investing in the future both of Java and the community that has grown up around Java. 'The entire JCP process must thematically reflect our desire to build solutions that simplify complex technologies for programmers,' Weiss continues. 'In fact, the JCP process should continue to use the JSR acronym, but with new meaning: "Java Solution Request," he adds. 'Somewhere during this journey the JCP has shifted from its solution-oriented roots to merely implementing specifications. This trend must be reversed ... for the sake of our community.'"

GonzoJohn writes "Linux Orbit reviews the Phoenix 0.2 web browser: 'I've never been a huge fan of the Mozilla web browser. It's too big and too slow in my opinion. I like the Opera web browser a lot, but it is closed source, ad supported (for the free version) or costs money (if you want to get rid of the banner ads). Opera is almost exactly what I'm looking for in a web browser as far as features are concerned: fast, browser window tabs, mouse gesturing, and I can configure the interface a little. It has its problems, no doubt. Java and Javascript are big tripping points for it to name just a few. But speed is what I'm looking for. Then along comes Mozilla's Phoenix web browser. Phoenix still uses a lot of the Mozilla code. In fact, Phoenix code is based completely on Mozilla code, so the development should move rather quickly. Here is a link to a road map for what it's developers think is a close time-line for its development. Although still in heavy development, I have found Phoenix quite useable and stable even in the early 0.2 release and I continue to download the nightly release every day.'"

Sergei Egorov writes "Good people at Fidelis Security Systems developed SNORTRAN, an optimizing compiler for Snort rules. By combining several compilation techniques, SNORTRAN is able to translate a set of Snort rules into a high-performance intrusion detection engine. SNORTRAN-generated engines are 4 to 6 times faster than Snort's own detection engine; this translates into 3 to 5 overall speedup factor for a complete Snort system (benchmarks are here)."

Satya writes "Big Linux expo coming up in Southern California. Big names, big companies, lots of people. SCALE press release says: 'We are bringing businesses, academic institutions and the Linux community together in a way that no other conference does! The first annual Southern California Linux Expo, presented by the USC, UCLA , and Simi-Conejo Linux User Groups will be held November 2nd at USC. This event will provide new insight in the growing technological Linux community and where it is headed. This operating system created by a grass roots effort has grown robust enough to be embraced by companies such as Sun and IBM. The Southern California Linux Expo will contain a blend of business leaders and technical experts that are required to truly understand where Linux is at and where it will be in 5 years.'" Time and place information below.

rochlin writes "Looks like The Perl Journal might not make it up for air after all. This blurb is on their website. 'Time is running short and we need your help if The Perl Journal is to get another chance at being the real deal. As of a couple of minutes ago, we only have 881 subscriptions and the deadline is fast approaching. Please subscribe now. It only costs 3 cents per day to get the best Perl coverage anywhere.'" They need 3,000 subscribers to move forward.