The Insider News

Bjarne Stroustrup[^]:

C++11 feels like a new language. I write code differently now than I did in C++98. The C++11 code is shorter, simpler, and usually more efficient than what I used to write. This poses challenges: How do you present C++? What techniques do you recommend? What language features and libraries do you emphasize? Presenting C++11 as a layer on top of C++98 would be as bad as representing C++98 as a layer on top of C. C++ must be presented as a whole, as the powerful tool for design and implementation that it is, rather than a set of independent features. The Fourth Edition of The C++ Programming Language attempts that and should become available in a few months.

ReactOS Project[^]:

Most people understand that Windows is used by a variety of people who have a variety of needs, ranging from corporate server to workstation to POS terminals to home PC and beyond. Most people accept that whenever Microsoft updates Windows, it has to balance the competing requirements to find some kind of workable compromise. There is however another set of competing requirements that many do not really register, even those that call themselves power users or are IT admins. It is a conflict between developers/programmers and Microsoft itself. Developers are ultimately the ones who write applications used by users whereas Microsoft develops the OS these applications run on. A common shared goal between the two is the desire that applications previously written continue to work.

GameDev.net[^]:

As many programmers gain experience, they start to learn more and more about what happens behind the facade, about Garbage Collecting and overall memory management. Sadly, I see many programmers filled with half right knowledge and wrong conclusions especially in the field of Garbage Collection and Performance. I saw attempts to "optimize" C# code, which did, if anything, slow down the program. So let us take a closer look at the modern Garbage Collectors, how they work and what problems they want to solve. I am going to explain the specific Java implementation, but don't worry, most of them work fairly similar.

AnandTech[^]:

Google allegedly assigns version numbers late in the process, but what is known is that this next release will implement upcoming API level 18. If you follow the progression there’s a likelihood this will be Jelly Bean MR2 (Management Release 2), where Android 4.2 was management release 1. Based on some other discussions and sources I also suspect this might be Jelly Bean MR2. All of that is really just semantics however, what really matters are what specific features are coming and which of those Google touched on during I/O.

Visual.ly Blog[^]:

Let’s try to find all possible ways to visualize a ludicrously small data set of two numbers. Afterwords, let’s try to pick the best visualization. With such a tiny dataset, you would think we would complete both exercises in less than 5 minutes. Yet, we spent more than two hours without having actually accomplished either of the two tasks. Not only was the number of possible ways to visualize two values far higher than expected, but also each single visualization method admitted multiple and interesting variations and opened new questions and discussions.

The Verge[^]:

Three months ago, celebrated video game publisher Valve did something completely out of character: it fired up to 25 workers, in what one employee dubbed the "great cleansing." At the time, co-founder Gabe Newell quickly reassured gamers that the company wouldn't be canceling any projects, but it just so happens that one project managed to get away. Valve was secretly working on a pair of augmented reality glasses... and those glasses are still being built by two Valve employees who lost their jobs that day.

Justin Williams[^]:

With WWDC just a few weeks away, I thought it’d be beneficial to the Internet at large to compile a working list of everything that is expected of Apple during their Keynote and subsequent “State of the Union” addresses in order to appease the Internet. Failure to introduce each and every one of these features and updates will result in another stock price plummet, calls for Tim Cook’s ouster and an infinite amount of comments on tech blogs decrying that Android is superior to Apple’s iOS.

BBC News[^]:

A $15m computer that uses "quantum physics" effects to boost its speed is to be installed at a Nasa facility. It will be shared by Google, Nasa, and other scientists, providing access to a machine said to be up to 3,600 times faster than conventional computers. Unlike standard machines, the D-Wave Two processor appears to make use of an effect called quantum tunnelling. This allows it to reach solutions to certain types of mathematical problems in fractions of a second. Effectively, it can try all possible solutions at the same time and then select the best.

CodeProject[^]:

I am an ASP.NET MVP, author of an O'Reilly title "Building a Web 2.0 portal with ASP.NET 3.5". I have written 48 articles on CodeProject.

Tech.Pro[^]:

In this series of articles, I'm going to go through some of the mistakes I frequently see people making who are attempting to write benchmarks in C#.... If you reward people for making a measurable improvement in memory usage, don't be surprised if time performance gets worse, and vice versa. If you reward improvement rather than achieving a goal then you can expect that they'll keep trying to make improvements even after the goal has been achieved (or worse, even if it is never achieved!)

James Golick[^]:

A memory allocator's responsibility is to manage free blocks of memory. If you've never read a malloc implementation, you may have assumed that calling free simply causes memory to be released to the operating system. But acquiring memory from the OS has a cost, so allocators tend to keep free chunks around for a while for possible re-use before deciding to release them.

Michael Feathers[^]:

Today I got caught up reading a back and forth in twitter about a proposed assertion syntax for Ruby testing frameworks. It was interesting, but yet again it was about how to make tests 'read well.' It's hard to disagree with that, right? Well, I don't in principle, I just think about the amount of time we spend trying to warp programming syntax into English and I wonder whether it is really worth it.... The thing I wanted to blog about is the clash between this natural language style of programming and the other sorts of programming we do.

Honza Pokorny[^]:

In this post, I’m going to show you how I made a Lisp to Javascript compiler. I really enjoy programming in Clojure but have often thought that the JVM isn’t always the best platform for scripts due to the slow JVM start-up. So, I decided to implement a simple version of Clojure that compiles to Javascript and can be run on top of nodejs. Compilers are notoriously hard to understand and therefore make for great mind-bending exercises. Exactly my idea of weekend fun.

mike.mainguy[^]:

As a die hard refactorer, but also pragmatic programmer, I often have a tough time articulating to other developers when a refactor is important and when it is gratuitous. I can imagine many people look at decisions I've made about when it is and isn't appropriate and think it's simply a whim or "when I feel like it". To clarify this for both myself and any future victims/co workers involved with refactoring decisions I may make, I submit this 10 item checklist.

Wired.com[^]:

Google delivered some news for users of its Cloud Platform stable of services at its I/O event on Wednesday. Its Compute Engine service — which competes with Amazon Web Services — will now be available to all users, not just those willing to shell out $400 for support. But it also announced the addition of the most commonly requested feature for its App Engine platform cloud: support for the PHP programming language.

anthonyvanderhoorn.com[^]:

Open source software simply wouldn’t exist without the countless volunteers who give of their time to contribute to projects. These volunteers are the maintainers, contributors and advocates that make the OSS world go round.... While it may appear that its up to these contributors to take the initiative to put themselves out there, it’s important to remember that its also up to the project creators and maintainers to help pave the way.

Source: An OpenNews project[^]:

The plans for Strongbox started nearly two years ago. Kevin Poulsen, investigations editor at Wired magazine, described how he built the tool with Aaron Swartz, who took on the coding for the project. Strongbox runs on the open-source DeadDrop. Through Strongbox, sources can securely and anonymously contact the New Yorker by accessing the New Yorker’s network on the Tor Project.

Clark's Tech Blog[^]:

I find Google’s evolution quite intriguing. While I think there’s always a danger to judge Google (or Apple) in terms of rumors, I think it fair to try and infer their product strategy from their actions and announcements.... Here are a few thoughts from the announcements at Google IO so far. Note that I’m just going by the announcements. It may be that when these are released as actual products to the public some of my concerns may already be addressed.