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I use it. Just released a game written in it: http://aggravation.codeplex.com/

Oh, by the way, apparently someone has made a patch to get the icons back as well - at least some of them.

Visual Studio offers all of these natively built-in. It is also easily extensible and can support any language. There is even open source Python tools available at CodePlex.

- Supports CPython and IronPython
- Python editor with intellisense and signature help
- Find all references and goto definition
- Local and remote debugging
- Refactoring: Rename, extract method
- Profiling with multiple views
- Integrated REPL window with inline matplotlib graphics
- Support for HPC clusters and MPI and debugging
- Interactive parallel computing via integrated IPython REPL
- Object browser

Try it!

here you go - HTML 5 web apps for WinPhone7

What are you talking about? Microsoft has contributed tons of patches and other stuff to, for example, Linux. They have actively worked to make it more compatible with Windows.

Hell, they have an open source project hosting at CodePlex.

At least try to get your facts straight instead of the pure hate. But I saw what happened when Microsoft guys reached out and asked for comments about their open source offering on Slashdot. You can still read it too, Microsoft Wants Your Feedback On Its New Python IDE.

Google is breaking the Java "contract" with developers: portability.

I'd be much more (read: nonzero) sympathetic to that position if Google didn't explicitly state that their binaries run on Dalvik, and not the JVM:

Android includes a set of core libraries that provides most of the functionality available in the core libraries of the Java programming language.

Every Android application runs in its own process, with its own instance of the Dalvik virtual machine. Dalvik has been written so that a device can run multiple VMs efficiently. The Dalvik VM executes files in the Dalvik Executable (.dex) format which is optimized for minimal memory footprint. The VM is register-based, and runs classes compiled by a Java language compiler that have been transformed into the .dex format by the included "dx" tool.

The Dalvik VM relies on the Linux kernel for underlying functionality such as threading and low-level memory management.

But seeing as how cross-platform compatibility isn't a stated goal or feature of Java The Language on Android, that's all totally irrelevant to the situation at hand. Suppose someone implemented Python on a non-CPython VM. Your logic would imply that the Python Software Foundation should be able to sue them for breaking cross-platform .pyc compatibility. That's ludicrous.

Finestra is my preferred option - it has most of the features you mention (not sure about #3), plus a few:
  * Sticky windows
  * The ability to automatically put spawned windows onto a specific desktop
  * A "switcher" view that shows all virtual desktops by shrinking them to fit on one desktop, and allows you to reorganize windows there
  * Numerous ways to represent (and switch) virtual desktops from he taskbar

Additionally, it's free/open source (not sure how many of the others are too; I haven't used VirtuaWin for example): http://vdm.codeplex.com/

You mean this: http://www.codeplex.com/wikipage?ProjectName=MsSqlSpatial ?

The prerequisites to making the switch is first and most importantly having an appropriate business case for OLAP. The second prerequisite is that you've tried doing analytics in a traditional RDMS, perhaps jumped on to the NoSQL bandwagon, and you've failed at it (i.e. success for a little while but then your data eventually brings your queries down to its knees). Don't worry, failure isn't necessarily wrong, it's just you and your team needed the experience before you could make the next leap.

The risks are a knowledge jump in to an OLAP mindset from a traditional SQL mindset. Invest in you and your fellow developer's knowledge. Push back on management and sales when they want more immediate results and let them know that it will take 3-5 months to replace your current system. Do your proper technology evaluations. Learn FoodMart and Adventureworks and let them guide you down the path of good fact and dimension design. Don't snub your nose at Microsoft as they absorbed the company in the 80's that basically pioneered this stuff and made billions, but also don't take their stuff too literally as there are several products out there and some that do things better.

Read The Data Warehouse Toolkit thoroughly and practice using Mondrian which is an open source Java OLAP engine that can sit on top of PostgreSQL, MySQL, and others. Find a good ETL tool rather than trying to write your own at first and don't be afraid to force your internal users to use this tool to create their facts. Don't worry if you don't get it the first time, but keep trying and keep discussing with your fellow developers as it takes a team to work out all the kinks. Later on you'll probably end up seeing how you did things wrong, but hopefully you can get most things right in the beginning.

Sorry about the broken link, here is a clickable one http://poshconsole.codeplex.com/

Let me guess, a copy-paste from Firefox 9, which hides the http:/// part but sticks them in pastes? I hate that too.

Sorry about the broken link, here is a clickable one http://poshconsole.codeplex.com/

As for the reasoning behind this big about-turn, it could be down to Microsoft trying to soften the blow of its Android patent litigation — or maybe Redmond is just trying to differentiate itself from Apple, which famously restricts open source-licensed apps from being sold in its iOS and Mac App Stores.

Or what about if Microsoft just doesn't have anything against open source projects? They have several ones themselves, have helped writing some Linux code and in every other way have softened themselves about open source.

Microsoft has never really locked down their desktop OS either. It has always been open in a way that it lets you run anything you want. Be it open source or proprietary code. Microsoft doesn't care - they're primarily selling their OS, and their OS has always came with the promise of you're being able to run anything you want. That is also why Windows has such a large market place for all kinds of applications and games. Being able to run anything you want, from any vendor you want, has always been one of the largest selling points of Windows.

Allowing open source programs isn't really problem for Microsoft..
- Linux still cannot compete on desktop. Much larger competitor to MS is OSX, and even then MS does programs for Mac too.
- As far as mobiles go, Microsoft already gets lots of money for every Android device sold. Microsoft wins in either case, be it Android or Windows Phone that is selling better.
- OpenOffice is a toy compared to MS Office. It's missing lots of features, isn't user friendly, it's slow and generally just works badly.
- Visual Studio is much better programming IDE than open source ones, especially when you add visualAssist to it.
- There isn't any open source competitors for Xbox 360. None.

It isn't about "softening the blow" or anything to those lines. Microsoft has just seen that open source really cannot compete with quality products.

Is IronScheme good enough for you?

I think you should be able to use any .Net language to write Metro apps. The tooling (like work with XAML) won't be as great as in C# or VB, but it should work.

They all play by the Open Source License rules. You make a change to FOSS code, AND RE-RELEASE THE PROGRAM, you must provide the source code when requested.

When have Microsoft not adhered to the license terms for releasing the source code?

That's why they have always treated FOSS like the Gods Damned Plague.

Yes, there is no doubt that they have done scare tactics against FOSS, but then they have also done things like create http://www.codeplex.com/ to host open source projects (which they contribute a great many themselves).

I would love to have MS come play with Linux. As long as they follow the rules and play in good faith.

And yet Microsoft do contribute to Linux. I imagine a lot of those changes were to fix interoperability with their products, but it still does show that they do contribute and play by the rules.

http://terminals.codeplex.com/

Portable, open sources tool

I don't see how it's any more intuitive to recognize whether every component in a pipe chain is backed by a win32 exe or a cmdlet versus memorizing some commands strip out color codes when piped

I'm not saying it's more intuitive, I'm saying it's possible. If you don't remember whether something is an exe or a cmdlet, you can find that out easily. If you want to know whether a program behaves differently when piping or attached to a console, there's no way to figure that out. Maybe it says in the man page. Maybe you can test it (but will one test be representative, or will that very depending on your command line flags and environment variables?). The only real way to know is go look at the code.

I can't think of an example that does something more drastic than stripping color codes

Personally I think that ls displaying columns (dir /w style) or not is more drastic, but that's just me. I actually have aliases that force color codes on for ls and grep so that they aren't stripped out and I can pass them around, so having to work around commands that do this mode switching isn't just some theoretical problem for me. (I also have less aliased to less -R and a decolor script to strip the escapes when I don't want them.)

Even the most recent PowerShell terminal is restricted in silly ways (won't let me make it wider than a certain bound, and I have no idea why).

Because the Windows terminal is an awful piece of software. You might take a look at PoshConsole. In a quick experiment, that seems to behave better on that front. I haven't used it enough to thoroughly evaulate though, but it seems to have some features that I think should be picked up my more terminals. (I like some of the thinking that went into this, though I'm not sure if I agree with many of the specific choices he made.)

(You do know that you can actually change the screen buffer size in preferences though, right? I am still limited to 210 characters, but it's better than 80.)

Something to help you get started could be to try to clean up the code, add comments, and try to create documentation. There is a nice utility for generating developer documents here: http://shfb.codeplex.com/

The describe it (IL2CPU) here http://cosmos.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Technology&referringTitle=Home , but I'm not sure it it's available as a seperate package.

I think calling it dead may be a little premature. The git repository has checkins as recently as yesterday, so I assume it is still actively being worked on. I'm guessing they're not bothering much with the web page because the thing is still effectively at the stage of being a technology demo, not ready for any actual real use yet. For a system that can only run processes written in a language that uses automatic garbage collection, this implementation of GC isn't going to get you very far. Unless you want a system that crashes almost as soon as you start trying to do any serious work with it.

From their FAQ

Q: What works?
A: Console apps.

From their Technical FAQ

Q: How do I write to a file in COSMOS
A: You can't, yet.

Q: Can I use screen resolutions higher than 640x480?
A: Not yet, that would require individual device drivers writing.

Q: What doesn't work
A: Interfaces (In the programming sense and the graphical sense)
Foreach - Requires interfaces, so use for instead for now

I admire their attempt at doing something fresh, but how can you call this an OS when it can't write to files? And currently it only runs console mode apps. Sorry, but a 25 year old DOS box can do more than this.

From their FAQ

Q: What works?
A: Console apps.

From their Technical FAQ

Q: How do I write to a file in COSMOS
A: You can't, yet.

Q: Can I use screen resolutions higher than 640x480?
A: Not yet, that would require individual device drivers writing.

Q: What doesn't work
A: Interfaces (In the programming sense and the graphical sense)
Foreach - Requires interfaces, so use for instead for now

I admire their attempt at doing something fresh, but how can you call this an OS when it can't write to files? And currently it only runs console mode apps. Sorry, but a 25 year old DOS box can do more than this.

From the Cosmos FAQ:

Starting with Milestone 5, Visual Studio Express will no longer be supported. We are investigating how we might support Visual Studio Express again in the future for at least basic development. To further the features of Cosmos development we rely on extending Visual Studio, and Visual Studio Express does not support any add ins.

Which basically shows some of the incompetence (IMO) since Visual Studio 2010 C# Express does support extensions.

It's hard to tell what, if anything, this thing does. The "documentation" is a mostly empty wiki. There's a useless FAQ and a useless technical FAQ. Neither answers basic questions like "what does this run on" and "what is the API for programs which run on it". I can't even figure out whether it runs on a bare machine or on Windows or Linux or what. ("Your search for 'installation' has returned 0 results").

What this seems to be is some kind of scheme for running Microsoft .NET on a bare machine. Except that it doesn't, apparently, really boot on a bare machine; it's normally run as a Windows application under Visual Studio. I think.

It's hard to tell what, if anything, this thing does. The "documentation" is a mostly empty wiki. There's a useless FAQ and a useless technical FAQ. Neither answers basic questions like "what does this run on" and "what is the API for programs which run on it". I can't even figure out whether it runs on a bare machine or on Windows or Linux or what. ("Your search for 'installation' has returned 0 results").

What this seems to be is some kind of scheme for running Microsoft .NET on a bare machine. Except that it doesn't, apparently, really boot on a bare machine; it's normally run as a Windows application under Visual Studio. I think.

AC - PyCharm is an awesome Python IDE. big thumbs up from us. If you require a cross-plat IDE, it's a great choice.

Regarding responding to stuff quickly - I can't speak for other projects, but that's been one of our goals. You can easily check by looking at our bugs & discussion pages & replies (note that we are a small team & don't have support staff). We usually respond within a day or two, usually much less:

http://pytools.codeplex.com/discussions

http://pytools.codeplex.com/workitem/list/basic

AC - PyCharm is an awesome Python IDE. big thumbs up from us. If you require a cross-plat IDE, it's a great choice.

Regarding responding to stuff quickly - I can't speak for other projects, but that's been one of our goals. You can easily check by looking at our bugs & discussion pages & replies (note that we are a small team & don't have support staff). We usually respond within a day or two, usually much less:

http://pytools.codeplex.com/discussions

http://pytools.codeplex.com/workitem/list/basic

You tell us what the catch is? IronPython is open source, so if you don't like it you can change it yourself. This IDE works with multiple implementations of Python, so you are not locked into using Microsoft's preferred solution. So where is the lock in? How will Microsoft extinguish the language? Is there any specific reason for not using this, other than the standard Microsoft hatred?

"Note: PTVS does not install into VS Express Editions". It needs some sort of Visual Studio Shell, which is separate from VS Express for some odd reason.

And has Microsoft added the necessary pieces to the version of the .NET Compact Framework for Xbox 360 Indie Games and Windows Phone 7 to allow DLR languages such as IronPython to work in applications for those platforms?

And while I'm here I'll send some props to a cool project trying to bring easy WPF GUIs to Powershell: http://showui.codeplex.com/

Yeah, luckily, we've had this sort of graphical console on Windows for years from PoshConsole. http://poshconsole.codeplex.com/

Apple and MS built on the entry cost of computing or the lack of low cost options in many areas.
Google offered a vision of been more open to set itself apart and draw in mindshare.
Now the code stops in one area. What will be closed next and why...
http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/directory.aspx http://www.codeplex.com/ MS is trying ;)

Note that you don't need C# to deal with .NET and related stuff. IronPython can use anything from .NET directly just as well, but also has many stock Python modules available. And it might be more familiar to someone with Unix background, and its dynamic nature is better suited for scripting tasks typical of automation.

There's also IronRuby if you prefer the language.

Note that you don't need C# to deal with .NET and related stuff. IronPython can use anything from .NET directly just as well, but also has many stock Python modules available. And it might be more familiar to someone with Unix background, and its dynamic nature is better suited for scripting tasks typical of automation.

There's also IronRuby if you prefer the language.

Singularity is open-source, available for download today for free. http://singularity.codeplex.com/

Mind you, it has no real compatibility with Windows user-mode code, much less drivers (despite what people seem to think, even Vista could run ~95% of XP drivers without a hitch). It is best run in a VM, where the "hardware" is simple and it's easy to mess with things without breaking everything or needing another machine on hand. Remember, it's a research project, not a production OS.

Midori... nobody outside of Microsoft seems to know anything about it, but most of the speculation could be succintly described as "stupid" because it just doesn't make sense to have on OS that is going to break backward compatibility so hard when that same compatibility is one of Microsoft's greatest assets. There's nearly 2 decades of work in the NT kernel, and despite what Slashdot likes to have to say about MS software in general and Windows in particular, most of the core of NT is very, very good. Throwing all that away for something that wouldn't be able to run the majority of Windows software would be silly.

Aw hell, if you can't beat them, join them:

Hotmail is one of the first "cloud" applications ever. Microsoft's experience with "cloud computing" is therefore top-notch! I'm sure HTTPS being shut off had more to do with ongoing enhancements to the Azure platform than anything else. Even Gartner Group agrees that Azure marks Microsoft's beginning of their inevitable cloudscape dominance.

It's possible that Microsoft is working on a replacement for HTTPS, and that the Azure platform is being rolled out in these despotic nations as a humanitarian gesture. Microsoft's committment to Open Source Software and top-notch development tools really overcomes any possible negative press or stock valuation that might arise from this minor mishap.

He asked what could go wrong, not what did go wrong. ~

Feh - I hit submit instead of continue editing. My apologies. I didnt address your comment "in whos universe". In the vast majority of these cases, nobody could quit their job and pursue their moonlighting work. This is especially true of for ad-hoc mobile app development. They only reason most people can do this kind of thing is because they have a day job.

In most moonlighting situations (not just at Microsoft), the moonlighter cannot just quit their day job and pursue their dream.

I think the moonlighting policy at Microsoft is more than fair - its excellent. As I said, it is very likely the most liberal of any high tech company. I know it is much more liberal than Google and Apples polices.

Remember, the 20% time thing at Google has nothing to do with moonlighting - its time spent on projects for Google. Its also worth noting that while Microsoft doesnt have an official delineated 20% time policy, that kind of time is common for many people. But, its different than Google. For example, when my team is in the middle of a Windows development cycle - we focus on that 100%. But, when we are not focused on finishing a coding, integration or stabilization milestone, we very often have time to work on 20% kind of things - often way more than 20%. We call this prototyping. It is quite common for prototype code to productized and used in products. Ive done this several times. So have many others I know. This is true for minor things and some big things. For example Superfetch was heavily prototyped. So where some key cold boot optimizations. We could not have included these things (and many others) in Windows without considerable prototyping time. Note that prototypes are very often the idea of a single person, or a small group of people. Program mangers often come up with great prototyping ideas. Prototyping ideas almost never come from management saying "Hey guys, go prototype this thing" (but that does happen sometimes).

As further illustration, many of the projects on Codeplex.com are from Microsoft people and are great examples of moonlighting and 20% time kinds of things. Heck, Cineplex itself started out (long ago) as an internal side project.

-Foredecker

It's not just operating systems, if the application does reporting or comparisons involving date ranges it most likely will need to implement the Tz database which is available in many languages (ex. Ruby, .NET.)

You mean like this? It's already been done.

Ha ha. I don't use the PrtSc key. I use Cropper.

Don't think the Wii can really use external storage at all. Maybe for GameCube games.

Wii uses SD and USB just fine. You can even boot game backups off a USB drive, if your wii is modded.

Strangely, Nintendo disabled SDHC support, which can be re-enabled via hacked firmware. They might have fixed this via their official firmware update at somepoint.

Actually, I believe mono includes Microsoft's implementation of the Dynamic Language Runtime, so mono does include some Microsoft code. I'm not sure how this affects the patent situation - the DLR is licensed under the Apache license, which does include a patent grant, but I don't know how much this would cover. The Apache license grants rights to use any patents "necessarily infringed" by the software; I'm not sure whether or not the fact that the DLR runs on top of the CLR means that it "necessarily infringes" any patents Microsoft might have on the CLR (in which case the patent grant in the license would apply to all of MS's patents on the CLR).

It isn't WebResource.axd... its ScriptResource.axd that has the file download vulnerability.
The purposes of this (mis)feature is to allow the ScriptManager to prevent clients from using stale versions of a script from cache. The problem is that ScriptResource.axd doesn't sanity check what kind of files it is serving up. Furthermore, since this behavior is out in the field it is impossible for MS to know if anyone is using it, so "fixing" it might break some unknown customers' sites in a way that is non trivial to fix. This will obviously piss people off.

I wrote a module that uses a user configurable white list of file types that are permitted for download through the ScriptManager which is more rational behavior IMO. Of course, depending on what MS pushes tomorrow this may or may not still be relevant.

and do some reading on "inversion of control"

Yeah, I forgot to mention that one. Inversion of Control is among the more useful concepts to come out of the software development community in recent years and it goes hand-in-hand with TDD and with modular programming and loose coupling with respect to software development in general. Personally, I use and like the Structure Map IoC framework (I especially like the assembly scanning and convention definition features), but Castle Windsor is also popular and even the Microsoft entry (late as usual) into this field, Unity, is fairly decent and getting better. The only caution I would give about using IoC is to take time to properly understand it before using it (it tends to be a bit of a mind-bender or an inversion, if you'll pardon the pun, the first time through) and learn to recognize where the boundaries are in your libraries and where IoC can help you achieve the goals of modularity and loose coupling.

At least the second link I get when I search IronPython on Google still works.

Couple points:

1. You have to get your mind in the 'programming' mindset. Learning programming isn't necessarily purely about being a techie. You need to have solid logic skills. Much of programming is spent just getting logic right. Check out Boolean Logic for an launch point. The knowledge you gain from briefing this area will carryover into many, many programming languages. Programming *is* logic.

2. Learn what you want to program for. Pick a startup project. Is it a website you want to make? HTML & CSS is very different than learning C or C++, likewise, SQL is very different than assembly. Not that certain concepts don't carry over, but much of being a jack of all trades is simply having the ability to have good conditional logic skills, and the ability to Google things quickly and learn to apply them as you go. You don't have to become a master of all languages, or hell, even one language, but if you are truly *interested* (thats the keyword, if your not interested, its just not going to happen), and you have done a little programming in a couple of simple languages, then you will be in a good position to progress to more difficult projects.

3. Learn what you want to program for. Again. Repeated point. There are hundreds of programming languages, platforms, architectures, styles, libraries, etc. Pick something you are interested in, read about it a little bit, and if it looks like the learning curve isn't too ridiculous, start there. Perhaps a simple text based JavaScript browser game. At the end of the day you will know a bit of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript if you put your mind to it. But thats just one example.

4. W3C. This website is a good starting point for all things web.

5. Chrome Experiments If you really like web, check out the future of browser bling. Heavy JavaScript and HTML5

6. Databases. Not the most mentally entertaining, but you will need the knowhow to connect, select, insert, update, and delete data if you are doing anything with data. I am a Microsoft guy, and I can tell you that the Express Editions of Visual Studio are a greating starting point for a newbie, at zero price-point, and bundled with SQL Express, thats a good place to begin.

7. Also, places like CodeProject, StackOverflow, and CodePlex are great tools for questions ranging from the most basic to the most advanced of topics, and downloading sample code and live projects for tinkering around with.

Well there is plenty of FOSS on codeplex I actively use to develop on their platform, and before you say that they don't allow GPL v3 ... well here:

http://restarts.codeplex.com/

I think they have been playing nicer with FOSS in recent years and they have been producing better OSs, but as usual YMMV.

To be fair: their motives are certainly not altruistic.

"You claim the .pst format is open and documented? I'd very much like to see the method (from Microsoft, no reverse engineered solution allowed) to get your emails out of .pst and into another format."

What you mean like the file format specification here?:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff385210.aspx

and the reference implementation here?:

http://pstsdk.codeplex.com/

GP is right, contrary to popular belief Microsoft have just as many "open" formats as Apple, if not more. The problem isn't the formats being "open" for interoperability purposes though, it's the ones that aren't open at all, or the license restrictions / patents attached to usage of the formats, and this includes many of Apple's formats that you listed.

So are there NDAs required by any of the various CodePlex things? Or are there other equivalent "agreements" that have other euphemistic names? That would tell us a lot about their actual intentions.

I wouldn't be able to say anything about CodePlex Foundation, but then I don't know what you would do there in the first place.

As for CodePlex - no, you don't need any NDAs. It's really just your typical project hosting website, except that it's targeted at the audience that uses MS development technologies (though doesn't exclude other stuff).

CodePlex (http://codeplex.com) hosts over 4500 projects licensed under GPLv2 or LGPL (the majority of which are under GPL). Ironically, one of those projects is a Linux distro.

CodePlex Foundation - a different thing (http://codeplex.org) - doesn't mention GPL at all on the website - which, admittedly, raises a brow for an OSS-centric organization - but I still don't see how it makes it "GPL hostile". It looks more like an awkward silence to me.