frisket writes "The JIRA issue-tracking system has been around for seven years and has proved popular in commercial as well as open-source environments owing to its licensing arrangements (free of charge to certain classes of organizations, and source code available to developers). The release of v.4 in 2009 (now at 4.4) brought some major changes to the UI and searching, a new plugin architecture, and the ability to share project dashboards outside the system. Patrick Li's JIRA 4 Essentials is a comprehensive guide to the interface and facilities that both presents the material straightforwardly and avoids the trap of just being a guide to the menus. Although it is aimed mainly at the administrator, it will also be useful for the desktop user wanting a standalone system." Read on for the rest of Peter's review.

Michael J. Ross writes "For decades, programmers have written computer code in one language, and then programmatically translated that code into another, lower-level form (typically machine code that can be run directly by a microprocessor, or some sort of bytecode that can be interpreted by a virtual machine). For instance, source code written in C or C++ is compiled and assembled into machine code. In web programming, there are emerging languages and other tools for translating code into JavaScript. For instance, Google Web Toolkit allows the programmer to create web apps in Java. The latest addition to this category is CoffeeScript, a language that can be compiled into JavaScript, and is intended to reduce source code size and clutter by incorporating some of the best operators from other Web scripting languages, particularly Ruby. It is also the topic of a new tutorial, CoffeeScript: Accelerated JavaScript Development." Read on to learn what Michael thinks of this book.

scottbomb writes "Well, that didn't take long: 'After only a few months at Google, Java founder James Gosling has left the search engine giant to go to a small startup company specializing in ocean-based robotics.' In a brief blog post about his new company, Gosling says, 'They have a growing fleet of autonomous vehicles that roves the ocean collecting data from a variety of onboard sensors and uploading it to the cloud. The robots have a pile of satellite uplink/GSM/WiMax communication gear and redundant GPS units. They have a bunch of deployments. For example, one is a set of robots patrolling the ocean around the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico monitoring water chemistry. These craft harvest energy from the waves for propulsion and can stay at sea for a very long time. The longest that one craft has been out is 2.5(ish) years. They can cross oceans.... Slowly. They only move at 1-2 knots, which is a great speed for data collection.'"

littlekorea writes "Cables leaked by Wikileaks have revealed that the U.S. Government actively pressured the EU Competition Commissioner to approve Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems. The cable reveals that the U.S. went to great lengths to discover how the competition commissioner felt about the 'pro-competitive' nature of open source software and whether this would represent a threat to the US$7.4 billion deal."

After 14 years and over 15,000 stories posted, it's finally time for me to say Good-Bye to Slashdot. I created this place with my best friends in a run down house while still in college. Since then it has grown to be read by more than a million people, and has served Billions and Billions of Pages (yes, in my head I hear the voice). During my tenure I have done my best to keep Slashdot firmly grounded in its origins, but now it's time for someone else to come aboard and find the *future*. Personally I don't have any plans, but if you need to get ahold of me for any reason, you can find me as @cmdrtaco on twitter or Rob Malda on Google+. You could also update my mail address to be malda at cmdrtaco dot net. Hit the link below if you want to read some nostalgic saccharine crap that I need to get out of my system before I sign off for the last time.

GMGruman writes "After five years of a torturous political process and now under the new ownership of Oracle, Java SE 7 is finally out (and its initial bugs patched in the Update 1 release). So what does it actually offer? Paul Krill surveys the new capabilities that matter most for Java developers, from dynamic language support to an improved file system."

swandives writes "More in the Oracle/Google patent infringement saga. Oracle says no court has ever found that APIs for software like Java are ineligible for copyright protection. The claims were made in its objection to Google's request that the court make a summary judgment on Oracle's copyright allegations. In early August, Google asked the judge to rule that Google doesn't infringe Oracle copyright in its implementation of Android. In an objection to that request, Oracle asked the judge to let the charge go to trial. Earlier, Judge Alsup denied Google's attempt to get a potentially damaging e-mail redacted. Looks like this one could take a while."

snydeq writes with an editorial in InfoWorld about the resurgence of native code. From the article: "Modern programmers have increasingly turned away from native compilation in favor of managed-code environments such as Java and .Net, which shield them from some of the drudgery of memory management and input validation. Others are willing to sacrifice some performance for the syntactic comforts of dynamic languages such as Python, Ruby, and JavaScript. But C++11 arrives at an interesting time. There's a growing sentiment that the pendulum may have swung too far away from native code, and it might be time for it to swing back in the other direction. Thus, C++ may have found itself some unlikely allies."

ProgramadorPerdido writes "I have been a developer for 25 years. I learned Basic, VB, C, FoxPro, Cobol, and Assembler, but the languages I used the most were Pascal and Delphi. I then concentrated on a now-non-mainstream language for 11 years, as it was used at work. One day I had the chance to move into Project Management and so I did for the last 2 years. Now, at almost 40 years old, I'm at a crossroad. On one side I realized developing is the thing I like best, while on the other side, the languages I'm most proficient with are not that hot on the market. So I came here looking for any advice on how to advance my career. Should I try to learn web development (html, xhtml, css, php, python, ruby)? Should I learn Java and/or C#? Or am I too old to learn and work a new language? Should I go back to PM work even if I do not like it that much? Any similar experiences?"

snydeq writes "Neil McAllister sees Oracle's buggy Java SE 7 release as only the latest misstep in a mounting litany of bad behavior. 'Who was the first to alert the Java community? The Apache Foundation. Oh, the irony. This is the same Apache Foundation that resigned from the Java Community Process executive committee in protest after Oracle repeatedly refused to give it access to the Java Technology Compatibility Kit,' McAllister writes. 'It seems as if Oracle would like nothing better than to stomp Apache and its open source Java efforts clean out of existence.'"

mikejuk writes "The recent unsettling behavior at Microsoft concerning .NET makes it a good time to re-evaluate what the technology is all about. It may have been good technology, but with the systems guys building Windows preferring to stick with C++, the outcome was inevitable. Because they failed to support its way of doing things, .NET has always been a second-class Windows citizen unable to make direct use of the Windows APIs — especially the latest. .NET started out as Microsoft's best challenge to Java but now you have to ask: what has the excursion into managed code brought the Microsoft programmer, and indeed what good has it done Microsoft? From where we are now, it begins to look very much like an unnecessary forced detour, and Windows programmers are going to be living with the mess for years to come."

sfcrazy also noticed that Apple has officially removed MySQL from Lion Server, opting instead to include PostgreSQL, albeit in command line only form. The article speculates that the change is because MySQL is now Oracle property, and Apple is concerned about IP issues following all the legal issues surrounding Java.

itwbennett writes "When last we left the Oracle/Google patent infringement saga, Oracle had been ordered by Judge William Alsup to lower its claim for damages to $100 million, give or take. Today Judge Alsup denied Google's attempt to get a potentially damaging e-mail redacted. 'What we've actually been asked to do by Larry and Sergey is to investigate what technology alternatives exist to Java for Android and Chrome,' Google engineer Tim Lindholm wrote in the Aug. 2010 e-mail. 'We've been over a hundred of these and think they all suck. We conclude that we need to negotiate a license for Java.'"

mutetab writes "I recently wrote a Chrome extension called MuteTab that helps you narrow down which tab is making a sound by detecting which tabs contain plugins, HTML5 audio/video, and Java applets. It also gives you a right click menu that will mute tabs (via Javascript APIs when available, otherwise hiding them like FlashBlock does) and can automatically mute background tabs. Be sure to read the FAQ writeup to learn about some ways we can improve detecting which tab has sound and mute it." This really seems like stuff that should be a built in browser preference: like maybe an option to only allow audio out of the visible tab.

Lisandro writes "Lucid Imagination just posted an announcement about a severe bug in the recently released Java 7. Apparently some loops are mis-compiled due to errors in the HotSpot compiler optimizations, which causes programs to fail. This bug affects several Apache projects directly — Apache Lucene Core and Apache Solr have already raised a warning, noting that the bug might be present in Java 6 as well."

vivin writes "Oracle has announced the release of Java SE 7. This is the first release of Java under the stewardship of Oracle."

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet writes: 'If you believe Oracle's patent lawsuits against Google for its use of Java in Android, Google has stolen not just patented ideas but directly copied Java code. In short, Google is a red-handed thief and should pay Oracle over a billion in damages. There's just one little problem with this portrayal of Google as an intellectual property (IP) bandit. When Android first came out, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz, then Java's owner, greeted the news with 'heartfelt congratulations.' Whoops.'"

CWmike writes "Oracle has been ordered to lower its multibillion-dollar claim for damages in its patent infringement lawsuit against Google and its Android operating system, court papers show. Oracle's expert 'overreached' in concluding that Google owed up to $6.1 billion in damages for alleged infringement of Oracle's Java patents, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup said Friday in a sternly written order. The 'starting point' for Oracle's damages claim should be $100 million, adjusted up and down for various factors, he said. At the same time, Google was wrong to assert that its advertising revenue is not related to the value of Android and should therefore not be a part of Oracle's damages, the judge wrote. He also warned Google, 'there is a substantial possibility that a permanent injunction will be granted' if it is found guilty of infringement."

alphadogg writes "Sun Microsystems offered to license its Java technology to Google for $100 million, a Google attorney said Thursday, attempting to show that Oracle is out of touch as it seeks billions from Google for patent infringement. Oracle and Google were in court for a hearing in Oracle's lawsuit accusing Google of patent infringement in its Android OS. Judge William Alsup was in a feisty mood, warning Oracle that 'this court is not a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oracle Corporation' and telling Google that Andy Rubin, who runs its Android business, will be 'on the hot-seat' at trial. He also criticized both parties for taking unreasonable positions regarding the amount of damages owed for the alleged infringement."

An anonymous reader writes "JPC — the pure java PC emulator — has now been upgraded to JPC2, and can run WindowsXP inside the Java Applet sandbox."