Programming

Windows losing out to Web-centric development?

Google's Chrome operating system isn't the only thing threatening Windows these days. In a recent New York Times story, VMware CEO Paul Maritz highlighted how dynamic Web frameworks and languages are fundamentally shifting our understanding of the operating system. He said, "If you are in Ruby on Rails, you have to work really hard to tell what the operating system is, it is so far removed."

I spoke with Engine Yard's Yehuda Katz, a member of the Ruby on Rails core team, who said that open-source platforms like Ruby on Rails are changing the game by giving power to the developer to make decisions. "The freedom that comes with open standards and open-source software like Rails will ultimately make software applications better. We believe the replacement of the traditional desktop with application-centric development will benefit everyone."

These comments bring to light the changing nature of application development. A decade ago, if you were writing an application, chances were you were writing it for Windows. Today, there's a good chance you're writing it for the Web as a platform. A new generation of applications are both Web-centric and OS neutral thanks to open-source development platforms.

Importantly, the language and underpinning architecture for Web applications doesn't matter to the end-user (though it has serious impact on the development and operations teams). What matters is the ability to add new features quickly and affordably. … Read more

CentOS Linux developers threaten mutiny

Offering a free clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux turned out not to be such a simple matter after all.

The CentOS project aims to reproduce Red Hat's tested, supported, and certified version of the operating system, without its per-server subscription fees. Because RHEL is open-source software, it's theoretically possible for an outsider to select the same software packages, apply the same patches, and produce a version of the Linux product that works the same.

But several lead programmers in the project went public on Thursday with complaints that CentOS founder Lance Davis is threatening the project with … Read more

Mozilla starts preparing developers for Firefox 3.6

Brace yourself for the vanishing menu bar because Mozilla has published an official feature list for Firefox 3.6 in the form of a guide for programmers who need to know about the changes.

The Firefox 3.6 developer guide mentions an ability to automatically hide the menu bar, a change that dovetails with sparer Firefox user interface designs that Mozilla has begun exploring for Firefox versions 3.7 and 4.0. That's important for plug-in developers and others who use the menu bar to control their add-ons.

For those developing Web applications, there's a feature for adding … Read more

Single misplaced '&' caused latest IE exploit

A security hole in Internet Explorer that opened the browser to hackers since early July was caused by a single typo in Microsoft's code.

An errant ampersand ("&") took the blame for the exploit, admitted Microsoft in a blog published Tuesday at its Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) Web site.

Michael Howard, a security program manager at Microsoft, explained in his blog that the typo corrupted the code of an ActiveX control used by the browser. The control was created by Microsoft using an older library of code, which Howard admitted has flaws. Because of those flaws, the … Read more

Google building 3D hardware boost into Chrome

Departing significantly from what other browsers offer, Google has begun building its O3D plug-in for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics into its Chrome browser.

"The O3D team is working on getting O3D integrated into the Chromium build, and we're close to being able to complete our first step towards integration," said programmer Greg Spencer in a mailing list announcement Wednesday about Chromium, the open-source project that underlies Chrome itself. "I'll be making the Windows build of Chromium be dependent upon building O3D as part of the build process."

By helping to pave the way for high-powered Web-based games, the move furthers Google's ambition to speed the transformation of the Web from a static medium into a foundation for applications. Another piece of the work is Google Native Client, which is designed to let Web applications take advantage of a computer's native processing power. … Read more

Adobe rolls out new open-source projects

Web developers should appreciate two of Adobe's latest open-source initiatives announced Tuesday, both designed to help media companies and other publishers build richer Flash applications.

The first project, Open Source Media Framework (OSMF), lets designers create more sophisticated media players to run Adobe Flash presentations. The second, Text Layout Framework (TLF), helps developers add more advanced typography and font layouts to their Flash apps.

Both OSMF and TLF are available for free as open-source applications.

OSMF is the open source piece of the Adobe project formerly known by the codename Strobe, a framework for Flash media players. Using OSMF, … Read more

Adobe: why Lightroom image export isn't faster

Updated 3:04 p.m. PDT with further Adobe remarks. I misunderstood the company's position: Lightroom's export behavior reflects engineering priorities.

Earlier this month, I encountered an Adobe Photoshop Lightroom analysis by consultant Lloyd Chambers that expressed surprise with a facet of the image editing and cataloging software: it didn't export photos as fast as possible.

Chambers found that if a photographer wants to produce JPEG or TIF images from the originals in the program, the fastest way is to divide the batch into thirds and export each third separately. Using a modern Mac Pro system, exporting a test set of photos took 351 seconds as one batch and 189 seconds divided into three batches running at the same time.

"The big disappointment is the sluggish performance importing and exporting files, which are tasks that are key to efficient workflow--tasks one has to do over and over. Most of the 'juice' of a Mac Pro goes untapped," Chambers concluded. "You have to load it up with more than one job to force more of the available CPU cores to be used. Lightroom should do this automatically!"

The study caught the attention of others, including Scott Kelby, head of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. I was intrigued, too, because although many programming chores are difficult to spread across multiple processor cores, exporting photos is trivially easy since it breaks conveniently into independent bite-sized pieces. So I thought I'd see what Adobe had to say for itself. … Read more

Google updates Gears for new Firefox 3.5

For those who use Firefox 3.5 but also want to use Gmail with no network connection, Google has an answer: a new version of its Gears plug-in.

Gears endows browsers with some new abilities, including accessing some Web applications even while a computer is offline and juggling multiple simultaneous tasks more effectively. And using Gears, Google last week began letting people see their location on Google Maps by clicking the small circle below the navigation controller and above the zoom controller.

Major updates to Mozilla's open-source browser often break add-on compatibility, and the earlier version of Gears wouldn'… Read more

Mozilla calls on coders for Web-tool index

Mozilla Labs has set up the Open Web Tools Directory, a bid to build a comprehensive list of the open-source developer tools available.

The open-source browser project issued a call this week to the programmer community to help with the construction of the new central database.

"As we've explored different tools we could create here as part of the Developer Tools Lab, we've come to the opinion that in addition to creating new tools, one of the best things we could do is help developers understand the broad universe of tools that already exist and expose some … Read more

An epitaph for the Web standard, XHTML 2

XHTML 2, we hardly knew you.

XHTML 2, a technology intended to build a more powerful Web from the ground up, met a quiet end last week, spotlighting the difficulties of standardization in a fast-moving Internet. Introduced in 2002, XHTML 2 was a centerpiece of standards work at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

But incompatibility with the existing Web and a direction at odds with Web developers' desires doomed it to a slow demise. On Thursday, after a long reconciliation with browser makers who'd struck off in a different direction, the W3C announced that it will wind down … Read more