Slashdot Mirror

darthcamaro writes "Remember back in the day when we all used CVS? Then we moved to SVN (subversion) but in the last three yrs or so everyone and their brother seems to have moved to Git, right? Well truth is Subversion is still going strong and just released version 1.8. While Git is still faster for some things, Greg Stein, the former chair of the Apache Software Foundation, figures SVN is better than Git at lots of things. From the article: '"With Subversion, you can have a 1T repository and check out just a small portion of it, The developers don't need full copies," Stein explained. "Git shops typically have many, smaller repositories, while svn shops typically have a single repository, which eases administration, backup, etc."'" Major new features of 1.8 include switching to a new metadata storage engine by default instead of using Berkeley DB, first-class renames (instead of the CVS-era holdover of deleting and recreating with a new name) which will make merges involving renamed files saner, and a slightly simplified branch merging interface.

gkunene writes "Oracle has put Java 7 and 8 features up for Java Community approval, providing a clear indication of what the next two major versions of Java are likely to include. (Java 7 contents, Java 8 contents.) From the article: 'The JDK 7 and 8 JSRs represent Oracle's 'Plan B' approach for separating JDK 7 into two separate releases, splitting up features that were all originally intended for the Java 7 release. This approach is intended to help expedite new Java releases. Among the key components of the original Java 7 plan that are now set for inclusion in Java 8 are the Lambda and Jigsaw efforts. At JavaOne this year, Thomas Kurian, executive vice president, Oracle Product Development, explained that Lambda is all about bringing closures to the Java language. Kurian noted at the time that Lambda is intended to provide a more concise replacement for inner classes, as well as support automatically parallel operations on collections. Jigsaw is all about building modularity into the Java Virtual Machine.'"

darthcamaro writes "More than 60 bugs were reported in PHP over the last 30 days by the Month of PHP Security project. Most of the flaws, however, are ones that developers themselves can protect against with proper coding practices, according to Andi Gutmans, CEO of commercial PHP vendor Zend. He argues that PHP security is a matter of setting expectations. In his view, PHP — like all development languages — is only as secure as the code developers write with it. 'People should not expect PHP to be able to enforce security boundaries on a developer [who] has permissions to run custom PHP code,' Gutmans said. 'It's an inherently flawed scenario — and it's the wrong layer to protect in. People must rely on properly configured OS-level permissions for securing against untrusted developers.' Gutmans also praised the MOPS effort for elevating the profile of PHP security throughout the community, and for responsibly alerting the PHP project first with the bugs they found."

darthcamaro writes "As expected, Facebook today announced a new runtime for PHP, called HipHop. What wasn't expected were a few key revelations disclosed today by Facebook developer David Recordan. As it turns out, Facebook has been running HipHop for months and it now powers 90 percent of their servers — it's not a skunkworks project; it's a Live production technology. It's also not just a runtime, it's also a new webserver. 'In general, Apache is a great Web server, but when we were looking at how we get the next half percent or percent of performance, we didn't need all the features that Apache offers," Recordon said. He added, however, that he hopes an open source project will one day emerge around making HipHop work with Apache Web servers.'"

With the recent release of Firefox 3.6, Mozilla has also decided to try out a new development model dubbed "Lorentz." A blend of both Agile and more traditional "waterfall" development models, the new methodology aims to deliver new features much more quickly while still maintaining backwards compatibility, security, and overall quality. Only time will tell if this is effective, or just another management fad. "If the new approach sounds familiar, that's because Unix and Linux development has attempted similar kinds of release variations for iterating new features while maintaining backwards compatibility. HP-UX, for example, is currently on its HP-UX 11iv3 release, which receives updates several times a year that add incremental new functionality. The Linux 2.6.x kernel gets new releases approximately every three months, which include new features as well."

gkunene writes in with the plaint of a veteran mobile application developer who vents his frustration with a list of 10 things he loves to hate about Android. "1. Open Source. Leave it to Google to place all the code for their handset platform in the hands of the masses. Not only does this mean anyone can download and roll a new version of their phone firmware, but it also means absolutely any maker can roll its own Android device. ... After all's said and done, I really must admit that Android, despite its relatively few flaws, is one of my favorite platforms to work with. Quite honestly, if my complaint about how the word 'Intent' makes for awkward grammatical constructions ranks in the top 10, I'd say the Android platform is doing pretty well for itself."

theodp writes "On the Malaysian leg of a whirlwind Asian tour, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates voiced his concerns over the growing goodwill towards open source, especially in Asia, emphasizing how damaging open source software can be. 'If you don't want to create jobs or intellectual property, then there is a tendency to develop open source. It is not something you do as a day job. If you want to give it away, you work on it at night,' he said. Gates, who apparently has never contended with the horrors of a VB upgrade, when on to say that '[Open source] doesn't guarantee upward compatibility.'"

AArnott writes "Ximian has just released beta 1 of its open-source implementation of Microsoft .NET platform. Mono allows .NET applications to run on Linux, Mac OS X, Unix, Windows. Mono 1.0 is slated for release on June 30, 2004." sjanes71 adds "The first 'beta' always gets heaps of attention, and this is the first of three planned for the Mono project. Some of the new features touted for this release that updates Mono v0.31 include a faster interpreter, a global assembly cache, support for the StrongARM and HPPA platforms, generics support in the VM and C# compiler and an early alpha of System.Windows.Forms. C# and .NET is Microsoft's answer to Sun Microsystem's Java platform and Project Mono aims to create the Open Source, cross-platform version of Microsoft's new development environment."

cconnell writes "In my last article, I presented the idea that all commercial source code should be open. In other words, part of the delivery package for any software purchase should be a copy of the source files. If everyone saw software vendors' design and coding, the vendors might stop shipping us such lousy programs. The article generated a fair amount of controversy. My latest piece follows up on this idea and includes a few adjustments that respond to reader feedback."

cconnell writes "In my last article, I presented the idea that all commercial source code should be open. In other words, part of the delivery package for any software purchase should be a copy of the source files. If everyone saw software vendors' design and coding, the vendors might stop shipping us such lousy programs. The article generated a fair amount of controversy. My latest piece follows up on this idea and includes a few adjustments that respond to reader feedback."

Landley writes "Here's an introductory article from developer.com about Gecko and NGLayout. Mentions Linux and Apache in passing, tries to comprehend "Open Source" but calls it "public domain" at least once, bit of speculation about the Netscape/AOL merger and future use of the technology... Not a lot new here, but worth a quick look anyway. " Gecko still seems to be crashing on my box. Ah well, Officially I want to make Slashdot work right with it- but really I just want gtk themes *grin*.

opus writes "According to a report at developer.com, Caldera has announced that it will split into two companies: Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., specializing in network computers; and Caldera Systems, Inc., selling Linux. "

opus writes "According to a report at developer.com, Caldera has announced that it will split into two companies: Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., specializing in network computers; and Caldera Systems, Inc., selling Linux. "

ToddC writes "An influential Republican congressman involved in the encryption debate says that there's no way that Congress will let the government gain the keys to private, encrypted communication."

Christopher Blizzard writes "There's an interesting interview with Richard Stallman on the developer.com web site about Open Source (TM) software and the differences between Richard and Eric Raymond. "

Ben Williams writes "There's an article on developer.com that claims "The decision [to open the Navigator source], heavily influenced by Eric Raymond's article "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," was quickly reached just a few days after the idea was first broached on the slashdot.org site." " I'm sure we didn't hurt matters, but I don't really think we deserve that much credit. In anycase, the article is a fairly nice summary of the whole Mozilla source thing with a few interesting tidbits that make it worth a read.

Jon Peterson writes "I've just come across a page with some of the best quotes in the industry. Example: "Linux is a superior operating system. Unfortunately, the only people who seem to know about the reasons why are college students like me, or people who were college students like me." (Andrew Gardner, All kidding aside...) "

Jon Peterson writes "I've just come across a page with some of the best quotes in the industry. Example: "Linux is a superior operating system. Unfortunately, the only people who seem to know about the reasons why are college students like me, or people who were college students like me." (Andrew Gardner, All kidding aside...) "

Sixty4Bit wrote in to tell us about an article at ZDNet's Developer.com about Java Video games. The cool part is that apparently I got some write in votes for Java Invaders. Thanks guys.

Well, I noticed today on ZDNet that Netscape has killed the Javagator plans for now.. They are looking for support from the likes of Sun or IBM. I don't know about you guys but I hope Sun gets busy supporting this project with some of their HotJava brain power. I think that the Javagator was a good idea. Of course the HotSpot technologies would have to be on platforms like linux and BSD to make this worth the effort. What do you think?