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Open Sourcery
: Open Source BlogWe Want You: Join the SitePoint Community’s bbPress Theme Project!
On the SitePoint Forums, our community has cooked up a fun new project: we’re building a new theme for bbPress, the groovy, open source forum by the creators of WordPress, and it’s time for you to get involved!
Has Microsoft Killed the Linux Netbook?
Netbooks now account for 20% of all laptop sales. Whilst they may have begun as simple low-powered Linux devices, are they now evolving into high-specification Windows-only PCs?
The Future of Flash and the Return of ColdFusion
With 46 sessions over two days, the recent WebDU conference delivered the goods for developers working with Flash, Flex, AIR and ColdFusion. Kay penned a few thoughts after the first day.
A Solution to VirtualBox 2.2.2 Upgrading Problems
Sun released version 2.2.2 of VirtualBox shortly after Craig’s glowing review. Unfortunately, several people have experienced upgrading problems, so Craig is back with a solution…
Add this Flex 3 Pocket Guide to Your Library … for Free!
Our latest Adobe-sponsored giveaway is live, and up for grabs this time are 100 copies of the excellent book, Getting Started with Flex 3, delivered to your door.
Google Chrome Leaves Beta
Just 100 days after launching their Chrome browser, Google has removed the beta label, declaring the browser stable enough and fast enough. Though Chrome still lacks some key features that modern web browsers need, it is nonetheless an important part of Google’s Web OS strategy.
Sun Buys MySQL For $1 Billion
Reprinted from the Tech Times #182.
Open source enthusiasts were reeling this week when Sun Microsystems announced that it will be purchasing MySQL AB, the company behind the development of the popular MySQL database software, for US $1 billion.
The spin from both camps was positive, but what does the deal mean for web developers? And what impact is it likely to have on other open source projects?
To attempt to answer these questions, we need to look at a number of factors, including Sun’s history with open source technologies, its competitors, and the success of other open source technologies that have been commercialized.
While it’s not without its detractors, there’s no denying that Sun has a pretty solid history when it comes to involvement in the open source world. The company claims to be the biggest contributor to the open source community, a claim that, based upon its release of the Solaris source code in 2005, and the Java programming language in 2006, is difficult to refute.
But there is other evidence of Sun understanding the value of keeping software open source and free: projects like OpenOffice.org and NetBeans have healthy communities and promising road maps. In …
OSCON 2007: People Hacks
Adam Keys is a software developer and writer. His blog is at therealadam.com.
In this talk, Adam presented a number of methods for effective advocacy and for getting along with other developers. In other words, interacting with people is as important as interacting with hardware or software. Problems in this sphere have no technical solution — they require a social one. Thus, the idea of ‘people hacking.’
People hacking is not rooted in nefarious black-hat hacking, but simply in using tools of social jujutsu (sometimes on yourself, even) to gain traction for ideas you’re trying to advocate. Paying more attention to the people side of things can help you build the kind of integrated, smoothly functioning team capable of executing (to borrow a basketball metaphor) the “no-look pass.”
A few sample ideas included:
- Simply smiling — makes yourself and people around you feel more positive
- Avoid negativity — try the ABBA Method (see the slides for details)
- Avoid criticism
- Compliment before criticizing
Some ideas followed about how to deal with jerks in your organization, including the simple-but-effective “No Asshole Rule” (from the book of the same name) that encourages a zero-tolerance toward asshole behavior in your group — even from so-called superstar programmers.
Adam also encouraged a little …
OSCON 2007: Managing Technical Debt
Andy Lester is with the Perl Foundation, and maintains a blog at petdance.com.
Andy’s talk gave practical advice for catching up on all the tasks you put off until some later date (that inevitably never comes) — stuff like postponed docs, fixing broken tests (or just writing tests at all), backup regimes, TODOs in your code, etc.
He had a very simple and straightforward formula:
- Identify your debts
- Determine the costs
- Pay the most profitable
- Stop incurring new debt
- Repeat as necessary
The most important takeaway for me was the idea that you don’t try to fix all your problems at once. You figure out what fix will give you the most bang for your buck — not the easiest thing to fix, not the biggest problem. You fix whatever it’s the most profitable to fix.
There was also a lot of good discussion during this talk on how to convince a manager to allow you to begin reducing technical debt with things like refactoring, increasing test coverage, adding documentation, or actually testing your disaster-recovery plan. The best advice was the idea of putting it in terms that the manager can understand (often with a manager either in money or time).
For example, if managers know that investing …
OSCON 2007: The Holistic Programmer
Adam Keys is a software developer and writer. His blog is at therealadam.com.
The days of one guy putting together all the hardware and software together by himself in his garage are long gone — working with computers increasingly means doing something very specialized in one of the layers between the hardware and the end-user.
Adam made a good case for the idea that despite this specialization people working with computers should develop at least a passing familiarity with the layers other than their own — e.g., a guy working in the database learning typography, and a Web designer learning about compilers.
Many developers may not have the interest (or the discipline) to spend time learning about subjects so far removed from their little piece of the pie, but a couple of the benefits to doing so that Adam described seemed pretty compelling:
- The ability to converse with the people you work with and understand better how your work interfaces with theirs.
- Gaining a new perspective that allows you to find unexpected or creative solutions to problems in your own domain.
Adam spent the end of his talk going over the two example layers just mentioned — CSS/layout/typography, and compilers. That might not have …
