Slashdot Mirror

RobotRunAmok writes "Before there was Outlook, or Evolution, or The Brain, there was Lotus Agenda, a DOS-based Personal Information Manager created by Mitch Kapor. Wired is reporting that Kapor is throwing 5 Million USD at the Open Source Applications Foundation to create an open-source resurrection of this PIM-Of-The-Gods in the form of Chandler, available now as an alpha for Windows, Linux, and Mac. For the Agenda hardcore among us, it's as though Atlantis is rising..."

RobotRunAmok writes "Before there was Outlook, or Evolution, or The Brain, there was Lotus Agenda, a DOS-based Personal Information Manager created by Mitch Kapor. Wired is reporting that Kapor is throwing 5 Million USD at the Open Source Applications Foundation to create an open-source resurrection of this PIM-Of-The-Gods in the form of Chandler, available now as an alpha for Windows, Linux, and Mac. For the Agenda hardcore among us, it's as though Atlantis is rising..."

RobotRunAmok writes "Before there was Outlook, or Evolution, or The Brain, there was Lotus Agenda, a DOS-based Personal Information Manager created by Mitch Kapor. Wired is reporting that Kapor is throwing 5 Million USD at the Open Source Applications Foundation to create an open-source resurrection of this PIM-Of-The-Gods in the form of Chandler, available now as an alpha for Windows, Linux, and Mac. For the Agenda hardcore among us, it's as though Atlantis is rising..."

An anonymous reader writes "Mitch Kapor, Lotus co-founder and president and chair of the Open Source Applications Foundation, says open-source advocates should be relatively cautious and avoid making claims and predictions despite the huge success of Firefox. He also briefly touches on Chandler in a ZDNet interview. Chandler is OSAF's personal information manager which will offer e-mail, calendaring, address and task management. The goal for Chandler, Kapor says, is to make it as successful and popular as Firefox."

An anonymous reader writes "Mitch Kapor, Lotus co-founder and president and chair of the Open Source Applications Foundation, says open-source advocates should be relatively cautious and avoid making claims and predictions despite the huge success of Firefox. He also briefly touches on Chandler in a ZDNet interview. Chandler is OSAF's personal information manager which will offer e-mail, calendaring, address and task management. The goal for Chandler, Kapor says, is to make it as successful and popular as Firefox."

jesus_X writes "We at MozillaNews have discovered that the Mozilla Foundation is now officially 501(c)(3) approved by the IRS, meaning you can now deduct donations made directly to Mozilla.org from your income tax returns. This is separate from, and obviates the Open Source Applications Foundation donation method mentioned in August on MozillaZine."

Ursus Maximus writes "Eagerly awaited by many, this book reached bookstores just after Christmas, and updates the 1999 edition. Learning Python is O'Reilly's introduction to Python programming and at 591 pages, this is a major upgrade to the 366 page original. Furthermore, the Python language has undergone extensive improvements and additions in the last five years, and the new book does a good job of covering these changes." Learning Python 2nd Edition author Mark Lutz & David Ascher pages 591 publisher O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. rating 10 reviewer Ursus Maximus ISBN 0596002815 summary An introduction to Python programming

Python is a dynamic, interpreted, object oriented language used for both scripting and systems programming. Python is known for being easy to learn and use, while also being powerful enough to be used for such projects as Zope and the Chandler project. Its growing popularity is also based on its reputation for fostering programmer productivity and program maintainability. One drawback sometime cited is its relatively slow execution speed compared to compiled languages such as C.

For myself, I have probably read too many books about Python, but that is because I am an amateur hacker who learns programming slowly, and I find that reading several books about the same topic, covering the subject matter from different angles, allows me to better absorb the material. For me, this was a good review of the core language and a welcome refresher course on the newer aspects introduced in versions 2.2 and 2.3. For anyone who is new to Python and wants to learn from the ground up, this book would be a great place to start.

Mark Lutz is an authority on Python and one if its leading teachers, with both Learning and O'Reilly's Programming Python to his credit, as well as the courses and seminars he teaches professionally. In updating the original version, which was already very good, Mark has polished the chapters on the core language to a nearly perfect level, while his co-author David Ascher has done the same on the more advanced aspects of the book. In addition, Mr Lutz has benefited from extensive feedback from students and readers, and his explanations therefore anticipate common misunderstandings. Each chapter is accompanied by a problem and exercise section and answers are included at the back of the book.

A major addition to the new edition is a chapter on "Advanced Function Topics," including list comprehensions, generators and iterators. Python is sometimes used with a functional programing style almost similar to Lisp, although to List purists that may sound like heresy. The recent versions of the language have significantly upgraded Python's support for the functional style. Functions cover three chapters in the 2nd edition instead of just one.

Another major change since the first edition is extended coverage of Modules, which now occupies four chapter instead of just one. Python modules are a high level package structure for code and data, and they help facilitate code reuse. Yet another addition is coverage of Python's "new style classes." Coverage of classes and object oriented programming has been greatly expanded and now includes five whole chapters and almost 100 pages. Coverage of exceptions now is expanded to three chapters.

If you have been considering learning Python, now would be a great time since this new book is the perfect introductory text. If you already know Python and have read the first edition of Learning Python or another introductory text, then this book may not be essential since the new language features are covered pretty well on the web in various places, and you might be better advised to read one of the other fine books on non-introductory aspects of Python. But this book is about as good an introduction to the language as you are likely to find. The book does not cover all of the Python libraries nor many other topics, but it does briefly touch on the major libraries, frameworks, gui toolkits, and community resources.

If you want to learn the core Python language quickly, this may be your best bet. Learning Python only covers the basics, but it is deep in information on what it does cover. Well written, understandable, and in a very logical arrangement, this book is densely packed with info.

I have often found myself returning to the original book, and the new book will now fill this role. It is deep in information, well written, and a joy to read. For an experienced programmer who is just learning Python, it may be possible to thoroughly learn everything about the core language in one reading of this book. For relative newbies, it will be an often-used resource.

To read more reviews of books about Python, visit the Python Learning Foundation. You can purchase the Learning Python, 2nd Ed. from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

nnorwitz writes "PyCon 2004 is coming to Washington, DC at the end of March. It's a great place to meet lots of smart people and learn new things. Many interesting discussions go far beyond Python into other programming languages and topics. We should find out more about the Pie-thon, the OSAF since Mitch Kapor is the keynote speaker. There may even be a few surprises. The price is only $175, but early bird registration ends soon. It's not too late to submit a presentation either. I hope to see lots of new faces this year! I want to talk to some Perl and Ruby zealots^Wconverts^Wprogrammers. :-)"

briandonovan writes "World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Director Tim Berners-Lee and his compatriots would like to transform the current Web into a 'Semantic Web' where 'software agents roaming from page to page can readily carry out sophisticated tasks for users' using 'structured collections of information and sets of inference rules.' The Resource Description Framework (RDF), designed as a language for expressing information about resources on the Web, and allied technologies are the result to date of ongoing efforts at the W3C to furnish Semantic Web proponents with the requisite tools. While it's far too early to predict whether TimBL's grand vision will be realized, RDF/XML (the XML serialization of RDF) is already in widespread use, having been incorporated into a surprising array of applications." Read on below for briandonovan's link-stuffed review of O'Reilly's Practical RDF. Practical RDF: Solving Problems with the Resource Description Framework author Shelley Powers pages 331 publisher O'Reilly & Associates rating 9/10 reviewer Brian Donovan ISBN 0596002637 summary Great introduction to RDF, an assortment of tools and utilities for working with RDF, and some real-world applications.

RDF first hit my radar screen a couple of years ago while I was working on a barebones tool to manage my personal website. I was writing the code to generate RSS feeds ("What is RSS?") for my site and had to choose whether to support RSS 0.9x (non-RDF) or RSS 1.0 (RDF-based) or both. Long story short: I went with RSS 1.0 and was able to implement the feeds, but never got any further into RDF afterwards. I couldn't make headway through the RDF-related working drafts rapidly enough to justify the time that I was spending, there weren't any worthwhile-looking books available at the time, and the few online tutorials that I found were sorely lacking -- possibly because the specs themselves were still evolving as the RDF Core Working Group hashed out some remaining issues.

Fast forward a few years: the dust in RDF-land seems to be settling a bit (although new working drafts of all of the current RDF specs were released on September 5th, most of the changes from previous versions appear to be relatively minor) and, with the publication of Shelley Powers' Practical RDF: Solving Problems with the Resource Description Framework, there's finally a good book available on the subject.

Overview After an introductory chapter that touches on the history of RDF and some applications of RDF/XML (the preferred, W3C-blessed serialization of RDF), the book is divided into three broad sections. In the first, the reader is guided through the raft of documentation produced by the RDF Core WG, including : Resource Description Framework (RDF): Concepts and Abstract Data Model, RDF/XML Syntax Specification, RDF Model Theory (formerly Semantics), and RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0: RDF Schema. Before moving on to Part II, where she surveys programming language support and tools available for working with RDF (with code snippets where appropriate), Powers spends a chapter developing an RDF vocabulary, "PostCon," that's used throughout the remainder of the book for demo purposes.

Chapter 7, the first in the tools-focused portion of Practical RDF is dedicated to (mostly Java-based) editors, parsers, validators, browsers, etc. for desktop use. Next, she dives into Jena, the Java RDF toolkit that began life as the labor of love of HP Labs researcher Brian McBride before being elevated to the status of a formal HP Labs project under their Semantic Web Research umbrella. Another HP Labs Semantic Web project, Damian Steer's BrownSauce, a slick little Java-based RDF browser, was introduced back in Chapter7. Means for manipulating RDF/XML in Perl (RDF::Core, part of Ginger Alliance's PerlRDF project), PHP (RAP, the RDF API for PHP), and Python (RDFLib) are addressed in Chapter 9. RDF query engines/languages are taken up next -- rdfDB QL, the query language of R.V. Guha's rdfDB (written in C); SquishQL, implemented in the Java-based Inkling query engine (built atop PostgreSQL); RDQL, used within Jena; and Sesame, a JSP/Servlet querying engine that supports both RDQL and its own query language, RQL, and can be deployed atop MySQL or PostgreSQL. Powers rounds out this part of her book with a chapter that deals briefly with the leftovers. Drive, an RDF API for C#, is briefly discussed along with RDF APIs for less fashionable programming languages : Nokia's Wilbur for CLOS, XOTcl for Tcl, and RubyRDF for Ruby. Redland, an RDF toolkit written in C with Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl wrappers, is covered at some length (about half a dozen pages) and a couple more are given over to Redfoot, a Python RDF framework consisting of RDFLib (mentioned earlier in the Perl/PHP/Python chapter), a small-footprint HTTP server (according to the changelog at redfoot.net, they're using Medusa), and a native scripting language called Hypercode that lives within CDATA blocks in RDF/XML (example).

The last third of Practical RDF is devoted to uses of RDF and begins with a chapter on the OWL Web Ontology Language, an extension to RDF that's designed to supply more constraints for RDF vocabularies than can be provided by RDF Schema alone. This chapter would have been better situated after Chapter 5, which addresses RDF Schema, and feels a bit out of place here. RSS 1.0, the RDF-based syndication format, gets a chapter all of its own, beginning with a short synopsis of the evolution of RSS and the rift between the RSS 0.9x/2.0 and RSS 1.0 camps, progressing through descriptions of the RSS elements, some discussion of the use of modules, RSS autodiscovery, and aggregators (Amphetadesk, Meerkat, and NetNewsWire are mentioned), and finishing with an example RSS file (a syndicated list of book recommendations), producing RSS 1.0 using the Informa RSS Library (a set of Java classes), and merging two RSS 1.0 files using the XML::RSS Perl module. Two "Applications Based on RDF" (commercial and noncommercial) chapters top off the book. Noncommercial applications of RDF are visited first : Mozilla, where history and bookmarks, among other classes of information, are stored in RDF; the Creative Commons licensing scheme, whose proponents encourage content creators to embed RDF snippets into their documents and applications to provide information about the work itself and the restrictions placed on its reuse under the particular CC license that they've chosen; a Java and PostgreSQL based digital library system jointly developed by MIT and HP that uses RDF; and FOAF (Friend-of-a-Friend), an RDF vocabulary designed to express personal information and interpersonal relationships. Among the list of commercial applications utilizing RDF that comprises the final chapter in the book is Chandler, the same as yet very-alpha personal information manager that's managed to garner multiple mentions on this site.

The Verdict

The real meat of Practical RDF, for me, was in Chapters 1 through 6 (plus the OWL chapter, Chapter 12). This is not to say that the material in the last 2/3 of the book isn't useful or interesting. The section on RDF software tools is a great annotated survey of what's out there right now ... and I would imagine that installing and testdriving each of the software applications featured in those chapters must have been an extremely time-consuming process. The chapters describing real-world applications of RDF could be useful to someone trying to convince a manager that RDF is a viable, widely-used technology. Given a choice, though, I would rather have seen those pages spent on additional coverage of RDF, RDFS, and OWL with more example RDF vocabularies developed (like PostCon, which the author formulated, then refined through RDFS and OWL). The displaced material could have been made available online at the author's site for the book. A lot of that information will become less accurate over time as the software evolves and people come up with more applications for RDF anyway.

All nitpicking aside, though, if you're looking for a book on RDF, then you can't go wrong with Shelley Powers' Practical RDF.

You can purchase Practical RDF from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

securitas writes "eWEEK has two related articles on the growth of open source software. The first article is about the growth of desktop Linux, featuring Lotus and the Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF) founder Mitch Kapor, who says (among other things) that call centers will be where the next wave of growth for desktop Linux happens and that 10 percent of global desktops will be Linux in a few years. He bases his statements on a report by Eazel and GNOME Foundation co-founder Bart Decrem entitled 'Desktop Linux Technology and Market Overview' (PDF) mentioned last week. The second story is about open source software growth in the government sector where government agencies like the U.S. Census Bureau have embraced OS software for projects like the State and County QuickFacts site. Based on Perl, Apache, MySQL and Linux, the site gets 200,000 page views a day."

securitas writes "eWEEK has two related articles on the growth of open source software. The first article is about the growth of desktop Linux, featuring Lotus and the Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF) founder Mitch Kapor, who says (among other things) that call centers will be where the next wave of growth for desktop Linux happens and that 10 percent of global desktops will be Linux in a few years. He bases his statements on a report by Eazel and GNOME Foundation co-founder Bart Decrem entitled 'Desktop Linux Technology and Market Overview' (PDF) mentioned last week. The second story is about open source software growth in the government sector where government agencies like the U.S. Census Bureau have embraced OS software for projects like the State and County QuickFacts site. Based on Perl, Apache, MySQL and Linux, the site gets 200,000 page views a day."

securitas writes "eWEEK has two related articles on the growth of open source software. The first article is about the growth of desktop Linux, featuring Lotus and the Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF) founder Mitch Kapor, who says (among other things) that call centers will be where the next wave of growth for desktop Linux happens and that 10 percent of global desktops will be Linux in a few years. He bases his statements on a report by Eazel and GNOME Foundation co-founder Bart Decrem entitled 'Desktop Linux Technology and Market Overview' (PDF) mentioned last week. The second story is about open source software growth in the government sector where government agencies like the U.S. Census Bureau have embraced OS software for projects like the State and County QuickFacts site. Based on Perl, Apache, MySQL and Linux, the site gets 200,000 page views a day."

webmaven writes "Mitch Kapor's Open Source Application Foundation just released a 34 page report on the Desktop Linux market, written by Bart Decrem, who has discussed desktop Linux previously. The OSAF is working on Chandler, which the press have generally described as an 'Outlook Killer', but it's really intended to be in a completely new application category, more similar to Lotus Agenda in some ways than what currently consider a PIM (email + contacts + appointments). The report goes into some detail about the current state of desktop Linux, trends, and various limiting factors, and concludes that while a revolution is not immediately in the wings, a trend can definitely already be discerned, and they expect adoption of desktop Linux to increase over the next few years, and identifies leverage points to accelerate the process."

webmaven writes "Mitch Kapor's Open Source Application Foundation just released a 34 page report on the Desktop Linux market, written by Bart Decrem, who has discussed desktop Linux previously. The OSAF is working on Chandler, which the press have generally described as an 'Outlook Killer', but it's really intended to be in a completely new application category, more similar to Lotus Agenda in some ways than what currently consider a PIM (email + contacts + appointments). The report goes into some detail about the current state of desktop Linux, trends, and various limiting factors, and concludes that while a revolution is not immediately in the wings, a trend can definitely already be discerned, and they expect adoption of desktop Linux to increase over the next few years, and identifies leverage points to accelerate the process."

webmaven writes "Mitch Kapor's Open Source Application Foundation just released a 34 page report on the Desktop Linux market, written by Bart Decrem, who has discussed desktop Linux previously. The OSAF is working on Chandler, which the press have generally described as an 'Outlook Killer', but it's really intended to be in a completely new application category, more similar to Lotus Agenda in some ways than what currently consider a PIM (email + contacts + appointments). The report goes into some detail about the current state of desktop Linux, trends, and various limiting factors, and concludes that while a revolution is not immediately in the wings, a trend can definitely already be discerned, and they expect adoption of desktop Linux to increase over the next few years, and identifies leverage points to accelerate the process."

webmaven writes "Mitch Kapor's Open Source Application Foundation just released a 34 page report on the Desktop Linux market, written by Bart Decrem, who has discussed desktop Linux previously. The OSAF is working on Chandler, which the press have generally described as an 'Outlook Killer', but it's really intended to be in a completely new application category, more similar to Lotus Agenda in some ways than what currently consider a PIM (email + contacts + appointments). The report goes into some detail about the current state of desktop Linux, trends, and various limiting factors, and concludes that while a revolution is not immediately in the wings, a trend can definitely already be discerned, and they expect adoption of desktop Linux to increase over the next few years, and identifies leverage points to accelerate the process."

kolchak writes "Very promising news is Chandler 0.1 (the Open Source PIM) has finally been released. 'While we are still very early in the design and implementation process, we intend for this 0.1 release to make us a more fully open project. We have made the release available for download, opened up our bug tracking database, and opened our source code repository.'" This is Mitch Kapor's attempt to offer an alternative to Microsoft Outlook, especially to small (under 100-person) organizations, last mentioned in December.

kolchak writes "Very promising news is Chandler 0.1 (the Open Source PIM) has finally been released. 'While we are still very early in the design and implementation process, we intend for this 0.1 release to make us a more fully open project. We have made the release available for download, opened up our bug tracking database, and opened our source code repository.'" This is Mitch Kapor's attempt to offer an alternative to Microsoft Outlook, especially to small (under 100-person) organizations, last mentioned in December.

Kent Brewster writes "In the San Jose Mercury this morning: 'For more than a year, [Mitch] Kapor and his small team have been working on what they're calling an open-source "Interpersonal Information Manager." The software is being designed to securely handle personal e-mail, calendars, contacts and other such data in new ways, and to make it simple to collaborate and share information with others without having to run powerful, expensive server computers.'" Kapor explains his intent in his own words.