The Insider News

John Graham-Cumming[^]:

Last February myself, Professor Darrel Ince and Professor Les Hatton had a paper published in Nature arguing for openness in the code used for scientific papers.... Recently, an important paper in economics has been in the news because its conclusions turn out to be inaccurate for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is a programming error using the popular Microsoft Excel program. This error, in an unreleased spreadsheet, highlights just how easy it is to make a mistake in a 'simple' program and how closed programs make reproducing results difficult.

Ars Technica[^]:

One of the best things about travelling to shows like PAX East and the Game Developers Conference is the chance to check out titles from off-the-beaten-path, independent developers. While shows like E3 are overwhelmed by the presence of multi-million dollar booths from huge publishers, the early-in-the-year shows make a point of highlighting some of the most original and promising game ideas from game makers without big contracts or salaried positions behind them. Freed from the financial responsibilities of the major AAA publishers, these are the titles that are most likely to truly break new ground in gameplay, aesthetics, and subject matter.

GitHub[^]:

It's fairly new and very much a work in progress, so not all games run yet and not all features are implemented.

GigaOm[^]:

Vint Cerf, VP and chief internet evangelist at Google has a few regrets about the original design of the internet, but he’s hoping software defined networking may help right those wrongs. Cerf spoke at the Open Networking Summit Tuesday in Santa Clara, Calif., where he juxtaposed the creation of the internet and the evolution of the world wide web with the development of software defined networking. He began with a rueful acknowledgment that back in the early 70s, when creating the addressing scheme for the internet, 32 bits were enough....

TIME.com[^]:

It’s one of the blogosphere’s favorite tech topics. Every new nugget of competitive information is fodder for an avalanche of coverage. Oftentimes, a story will declare that Android is beating iOS or that iOS is beating Android. Really, though, it’s silly to obsess over any one data point. If what you’re after is a clear idea of how the world’s two dominant mobile operating systems are doing — rather than an excuse to make bold proclamations and/or cheer for your favorite — you want to consider lots of data points.

CodeProject[^]:

Welcome to our continuing series of CodeProject interviews in which we talk to developers about their backgrounds, projects, interests and pet peeves. In this installment we talk to Mike Meinz.

Scott Hanselman[^]:

It's lovely, isn't it. It's the Windows 8 on-screen keyboard, except I don't need or want to see it. I have a Lenovo X1 Carbon Touch and it already has a keyboard. I will never ever want to use the Windows 8 touch keyboard. Unfortunately there is no checkbox or "just turn it off" way to disable the keyboard with a supported option. However, there is a way to effectively disable the keyboard by stopping the service that controls it....

O'Reilly Radar[^]:

A probabilistic programming language is a high-level language that makes it easy for a developer to define probability models and then “solve” these models automatically. These languages incorporate random events as primitives and their runtime environment handles inference. Now, it is a matter of programming that enables a clean separation between modeling and inference. This can vastly reduce the time and effort associated with implementing new models and understanding data.

Tech.Pro[^]:

This is the first part of a series of tutorials on C#. In this part we are introducing the fundamental concepts of the language and it's output, the Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL). We will take a look at object-oriented programming (OOP) and what C# does to make OOP as efficient as possible to realize in practice.

All this[^]:

My relationship with spreadsheets is long and complicated. In the early days, they simply didn’t have the power to do the kinds of calculations I needed. In the late 80s, though, that changed,2 and I got very good at using Excel. Soon, though, I began to hate Excel as Microsoft made the Mac version more like the Windows version. Still, I kept using it. When I switched to Linux in the late 90s, there were no decent spreadsheets available, so I went back to more traditional programming/scripting. I found it superior to working with spreadsheets and haven’t looked back.

GitHub[^]:

This document gives you an overview of F#'s goodies for DSL development. It assumes you are familiar with F# syntax; the features are introduced in the order of their encounters by the author. This is by no means a complete reference of F#'s DSL-friendly functionalities. Most of the features are introduced in the context of internal DSLs; however, some of them are helpful in making external DSLs as well.

PCWorld[^]:

What's the most difficult thing you did in the last year? Now stop. Before you answer, can it compare to creating a full-fledged indie game—slated to be approved on Steam—created entirely with QBASIC? Probably not.... But why QBASIC when there are so many other powerful tools out there that would probably be simpler to use? Lance McDonald, the game's creator, hearkened back to when he made games as a kid with QBASIC and wanted to make a love letter to the great games of the '90s.

The Official Microsoft Blog[^]:

More than a year ago, we began bringing two-step verification for certain critical activities, like editing credit cards and subscriptions at commerce.microsoft.com and xbox.com, or accessing files on another one of your computers through SkyDrive.com. For these scenarios, two-step verification is required 100 percent of the time for everyone, given the sensitive nature of these tasks. With this release you can choose to protect your entire account with two-step verification, regardless of what service (or device) you are using with your Microsoft account. It’s your choice whether you want to enable this, but for those of you that are looking for ways to add additional security to your account, we’ve worked hard to make set-up really easy.

Wired.com[^]:

We know what Moore’s Law is and how it works, but not many people reflect on why it exists. Because inventors, visionaries, engineers — whatever you want to call them — have to arrive at each level before they can even imagine a way to the next one.. and then create it. That’s how Pixar and its first film Toy Story — the first feature-length computer-animated film — became a reality. The secret was Moore’s Law, and not just in the technical way one would think. The enabling idea of our vision was computation, of course, but the idea of computation alone would not have gotten us far.... Because we — Catmull, I, and our colleagues — conceived the notion of the first completely digital movie almost four decades ago. It took 20 years to realize that dream with Toy Story, but Moore’s Law is what gave us the confidence to hang on for those two decades.

Network World[^]:

Windows 8 has been out for a while, featuring an interface that's as cool as it is annoying . . . until you get the hang of it. But, like any computer operating system, it can fall over. Luckily, there is an easy way to solve the cause of most crashes; just call up WinDbg, the Windows debugger; a free tool to diagnose the most common causes of Windows crashes -- misbehaved third party drivers.

Nettuts+[^]:

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a protocol, created in 1988, and was meant to help facilitate group discussions, via various channels. The channels served to identify different discussion topics you could pop in on.... What I've noticed in the last couple of years is a resurgence in using IRC as a primary means of communication, especially for open source projects. While there have been group-based services for a while no (Skype, Campfire, Google Hangouts, etc.), the relatively open nature of IRC makes it easy for large groups of people to hop on a channel and collaborate easily.

Julio's Blog[^]:

I’ve been getting a handful of emails offering me front-end jobs recently. Probably about time I admit that I like spending most of my time doing that, even though I ♥ my Rubies and I still believe developers who specialise end up worse off. So I’ve decided to put down in words some thoughts that I had as I read through the job ads. This isn’t another post on how to hire developers in general (much), but on how to hire front-end developers specifically, and at the same time, get you to understand what sort of statements you’re putting out there when you say certain things in a job ad.

amazedsaint's #tech journal[^]:

Recently I was doing a bit of R&D related to finding a viable, low cost platform for client nodes. Obviously, I came across Raspberry Pi, and found the same extremely interesting. Now, the missing piece of the puzzle was how to get going using C# and .NET in the Pi. C# is a great language, and there are a lot of C# developers out there in the wild who are interested in the Pi. In this article, I’ll just document my findings so far, and will explain how develop using C# leveraging Mono in a Raspberry Pi. Also, we’ll see how to write few minimal Windows Forms & ASP.NET applications in the Pie as well.

Medium[^]:

Everyone learns differently. There are absolutely people who use jQuery who don’t want to learn to program and just throw plugins at their problems. However, those are the same people who would be terrible programmers because they don’t want to solve programming problems, they want to solve design or client problems. So, instead of telling a new programmer playing with jQuery to stop and learn “real” JS first, offer them some book suggestions on vanilla JS or be there when they have those stupid questions. Even better, give them some project ideas with jQuery like making a plugin that involves those boring things like math such as a slideshow.

Google[^]:

Glass is always there when you need it and out of the way when you don't. The software that you build for Glass, called Glassware, should draw from the same inspiration to give your users the best experience possible. To build the next great mobile computing experience, you'll use the Google Mirror API, a set of RESTful services that transmit information to and receive notifications from Glass devices. If you're new to Glassware development, the following information goes over what you need to get started with the Google Mirror API.

Gamasutra[^]:

My name is Thomas Steinke, if you are not aware of me; I am the owner of DigitalDNA games, arguably the most successful Xbox Indie Developer, and the creator of the all time best selling Xbox Indie Game CastleMiner Z. In this article I wanted to spend some time and give advice to people that have aspirations of being full time Indie game developers like me.

ZDNet[^]:

What if Microsoft relented and granted users who are lukewarm about Windows 8 two of their biggest requests: Allow those who want to boot straight to the desktop, and bring back the Start button with Windows Blue, a.k.a. Windows 8.1? Though supposedly not part of the original plan for Blue, these two UI options are looking more likely.

Binpress[^]:

To progress, an open-source project needs the same resource as every software development project – developer time. You need dev time to fix bugs, you need dev time to add features, you need dev time to write documentation. If the donation stream is not regular and dependable enough to allow project team members to either quit their jobs (if working full-time) or reduce contracted hours (if working freelance), then donations are not going to add more dev time to the project. If you can’t depend on funds from donations, they are relegated into the “nice-to-have” category. You can use it to pay off some external costs like hosting or running some ads (if it makes sense), but you can’t use it for anything important like salaries.

PCWorld[^]:

It’s easy to wax nostalgic about old technology--to remember fondly our first Apple IIe or marvel at the old mainframes that ran on punched cards. But no one in their right mind would use those outdated, underpowered dinosaurs to run a contemporary business, let alone a modern weapons system, right? Wrong! While much of the tech world views a two-year-old smartphone as hopelessly obsolete, large swaths of our transportation and military infrastructure, some modern businesses, and even a few computer programmers rely daily on technology that hasn’t been updated for decades.

SIAM Connect[^]:

For many of us, maple syrup is an essential part of breakfast—a staple accompaniment to pancakes and waffles—but rarely do we think about the complicated and little-understood physiological aspects of syrup production. Each spring, maple growers in temperate regions around the world collect sap from sugar maple trees, which is one of the first steps in producing this delicious condiment. However, the mechanisms behind sap exudation—processes that trigger pressure differences causing sap to flow— in maple trees are a topic of much debate. In a paper published today in the SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, authors Maurizio Ceseri and John Stockie shed light on this subject by proposing a mathematical model for the essential physiological processes that drive sap flow.