Feature

Aspect-Oriented Programming and You

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:30:00 EDT

One of the coolest parts of the new SproutCore View layer is its ability to use aspect-based programming to add behaviors to views. Aspect-based programming is built on the premise that often objects that don’t follow from the same class hierarchy may in fact need similar behaviors. This is especially true in GUI programming when designers come to you and say something like “I came up with this new widget - it looks kind of like a progress bar but it acts like a button when you click on it”.

Using a Perl Debugger with Server Side Triggers

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 09:30:00 EDT

This article describes a method to use a perl debugger on trigger scripts without advanced interprocess debugging tools. Using a perl debugger with a V4.x server side trigger launched by the server is very difficult and encounters two known obstacles: The server will fire the trigger and the debugger will run in a thread of the detached server process; the debugger will start but will probably not communicate with you. However, if you manually started the server via a shell command then the perl debugger will start, accept input from the keyboard, then you will loose contact with the debugger; it does not have exclusive access to the keyboard because it is running in the context of the detached server process. The next command you type will go to the shell, not the debugger. It gets messy from there.

Rating JRuby, Jython, and Groovy on the Java Platform

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:15:00 EDT

Open source software, while not synonymous with Java, may often be seamlessly integrated with Java code to produce a versatile synthesis that makes developers' lives much easier. In recent years, developers have taken some open source dynamic languages, commonly referred to as 'scripting languages,' and adapted them to the more mainstream Java platform.

Engelbart's Usability Dilemma: Efficiency vs Ease-of-Use

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:15:00 EDT

The mouse was the original idea of Doug Engelbart who was the head of the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at Stanford Research Institute. Engelbart's philosophy is best embodied, in my opinion, in the design of another device that he invented, the five-finger keyboard - with keys like a piano, used by one hand. The problem was, Engelbart's five-finger keyboard and mouse combination was very difficult to learn.

Virtualization, SaaS & SOA: Introducing Service Oriented Programming

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 10:15:00 EST

The advent of SOA and standard-base Web services together with Internet based delivery models has provided the essential base for facilitating new software platform innovations. One of these innovations is a breakthrough software componentization technique that we have coined Service Oriented Programming (SOP). While SOA focuses on communication between systems using 'service operations,' SOP provides a new technique to build agile application modules using in-process, native service operations as the 'units of assembly.'