Software application development
This blog is intended to provoke discussion and exchange between like minded software application developers, engineers, architects, project managers - and keen hobbyists too.
Wednesday 25 November 2009, 2:09 PM
Does 10x faster development dumb down programming?
If you’re in the business of reviewing software application development news, which coincidentally I am, then tenfold programming productivity claims tend to either raise my eyebrows or raise my hackles in equal measure.
Software development company Runtime Revolution Ltd has this week introduced its Revolution 4.0 product for application and web development – and it’s available in a free version too.
This outfit doesn’t seem to mess about when it comes to making big claims. The company’s product uses an English syntax that requires (and I quote) ‘90-per cent less code than traditional languages’. I suppose that adds up, 90 per cent less code equates to ten times faster. But it is of any substance?
Runtime Revolution says that its Rev programming language descends from natural-language technologies such as Apple’s HyperCard and, “Empowers people who would never have attempted programming to create successful applications,” and that this, ”Enables software construction for everyone.”
Oooh, sounds dangerous doesn’t it? Surely not everyone has the mind of a software programmer and the algorithmic logic that the application developer has command of is the foundation of the creativity and power that they themselves wield.
Of course I’m being deliberately difficult here, there are instances in modern business when a simple application may be all that’s needed and hiring a full-blown development professional might be out of budgetary limits. Further, there are arguments for creating customised tools inside the business by the people that will use them. I know these arguments will not water with requirements management gurus who already have a hard enough time getting customers to calm down and stop asking for stupid functionalities, but there you go.
“The last two years have seen the most impressive growth in our business, pointing to a correlation between a tough global economy and the resourcefulness of professionals who need to do more with less,” said Kevin Miller, RunRev CEO.
One might reasonably hope that this product inspires students in the appropriate way and gets them more interested in programming. If they can see real functionality happening sooner rather than later, then this may be the case. It does however jar with the fact that computer science students have been happy to chip away at the command line for most of the last half century keen to learn their trade from scratch.
Anyway, should you wish to try it Rev 4.0 is offered in three editions: the free revMedia edition, the revStudio edition which features 100 additional commands and keywords for professional functionality and revEnterprise with its enhanced security features.
Software development company Runtime Revolution Ltd has this week introduced its Revolution 4.0 product for application and web development – and it’s available in a free version too.
This outfit doesn’t seem to mess about when it comes to making big claims. The company’s product uses an English syntax that requires (and I quote) ‘90-per cent less code than traditional languages’. I suppose that adds up, 90 per cent less code equates to ten times faster. But it is of any substance?
Runtime Revolution says that its Rev programming language descends from natural-language technologies such as Apple’s HyperCard and, “Empowers people who would never have attempted programming to create successful applications,” and that this, ”Enables software construction for everyone.”
Oooh, sounds dangerous doesn’t it? Surely not everyone has the mind of a software programmer and the algorithmic logic that the application developer has command of is the foundation of the creativity and power that they themselves wield.
Of course I’m being deliberately difficult here, there are instances in modern business when a simple application may be all that’s needed and hiring a full-blown development professional might be out of budgetary limits. Further, there are arguments for creating customised tools inside the business by the people that will use them. I know these arguments will not water with requirements management gurus who already have a hard enough time getting customers to calm down and stop asking for stupid functionalities, but there you go.
“The last two years have seen the most impressive growth in our business, pointing to a correlation between a tough global economy and the resourcefulness of professionals who need to do more with less,” said Kevin Miller, RunRev CEO.
One might reasonably hope that this product inspires students in the appropriate way and gets them more interested in programming. If they can see real functionality happening sooner rather than later, then this may be the case. It does however jar with the fact that computer science students have been happy to chip away at the command line for most of the last half century keen to learn their trade from scratch.
Anyway, should you wish to try it Rev 4.0 is offered in three editions: the free revMedia edition, the revStudio edition which features 100 additional commands and keywords for professional functionality and revEnterprise with its enhanced security features.
Monday 23 November 2009, 8:30 AM
BlackBerry developer chief demos new services & prototype apps
Late last week I got to share milk and cookies with Mike Kirkup who is RIM’s director of developer relations. Mike was passing through London on the European leg of his 'press the flesh with press' tour 2009 after the recent RIM developer conference in the USA, which ZDNetUK has already reported on.
Keen to get some extra insight into what RIM's most recent announcements mean for developers, I asked him what he thought was really impacting and driving the commercial realities on the front line of BlackBerry application development.
Kirkup pointed to RIM's positive pro-partner business model as he called it. Having initially partnered so closely with the carriers to launch the product, the company identifies a symbiotic relationship with current RIM carriers or directly with developers themselves as key to the maximising sales channels for new applications and the future success of the company as a whole.
Current augmentations to the BlackBerry Application Platform include support for OpenGL ES for the development of 3D games and graphics; an upcoming Java GUI builder and BlackBerry Theme Studio for the creation of, you guessed it, themes for the BlackBerry.
“Our own application store front has always been an easy way for small developers to reach out to customers,” Kirkup told me. “But popular portals like CrackBerry seem to have developed quite a symbiotic relationship with us. If CrackBerry runs a positive feature on a new application (and they have their own store-front to sell it) the BlackBerry App Store downloads might also increase in a typical instance of this scenario.”
So RIM is all about choice now. Well, what corporate tech body out there doesn’t have “customer choice” hewn in stone among the first lines of their company mantra? So what does it really mean for BlackBerry developers?
In terms of day-to-day development, the company has pushed for choice of developer tools to be widened and says that the current plug-in selection supports Eclipse, Java and there is new support for Adobe tools too. There’s also a new developer support forum in Spanish to cater for the work being done by our South American cousins.
Hugo Chávez offers a $400 technology tax credit apparently and the Venezuelans regard the BlackBerry as a must-have status symbol. I’m going to take his word for it; I don’t feel I need to fly to Caracas to confirm that one for you.
The recent arrival of the drag and drop GUI builder is designed to allow hobbyist game developers to bring their ideas to life more easily. But I put it to Kirkup that while this is lovely and shiny and interesting, it’s not of much real value to the business world.
“Yes I agree, a lot of fairly average games might be created, but there is always the chance that one might just break the mould and something amazing could develop. Also, this makes it really easy to prototype a new application if you are looking for an investor,” said Kirkup.
RIM is also harping on and on about payment services and application monetisation at the moment. Under the new payment services structure (if you want them to) RIM will look after taxation and carrier billing issues. This currently runs at an 80:20 developer-RIM split if you use PayPal, but the wider strategy in this section of the business is yet to be fully laid out. In a related area, new advertising service APIs exist to optimise and localise advertisements to individual applications if they become successful.
So I’ll leave the last word with Kirkup himself. A programmer at heart, he’s clearly close enough to the corporate soul of the company to be able to preach the gospel according to RIM with some conviction. “We’re aiming for a higher level of services across the board from every aspect,” he said. Let’s hope it’s not all just talk, for the most part it appears to be real.
Keen to get some extra insight into what RIM's most recent announcements mean for developers, I asked him what he thought was really impacting and driving the commercial realities on the front line of BlackBerry application development.
Kirkup pointed to RIM's positive pro-partner business model as he called it. Having initially partnered so closely with the carriers to launch the product, the company identifies a symbiotic relationship with current RIM carriers or directly with developers themselves as key to the maximising sales channels for new applications and the future success of the company as a whole.
Current augmentations to the BlackBerry Application Platform include support for OpenGL ES for the development of 3D games and graphics; an upcoming Java GUI builder and BlackBerry Theme Studio for the creation of, you guessed it, themes for the BlackBerry.
“Our own application store front has always been an easy way for small developers to reach out to customers,” Kirkup told me. “But popular portals like CrackBerry seem to have developed quite a symbiotic relationship with us. If CrackBerry runs a positive feature on a new application (and they have their own store-front to sell it) the BlackBerry App Store downloads might also increase in a typical instance of this scenario.”
So RIM is all about choice now. Well, what corporate tech body out there doesn’t have “customer choice” hewn in stone among the first lines of their company mantra? So what does it really mean for BlackBerry developers?
In terms of day-to-day development, the company has pushed for choice of developer tools to be widened and says that the current plug-in selection supports Eclipse, Java and there is new support for Adobe tools too. There’s also a new developer support forum in Spanish to cater for the work being done by our South American cousins.
Hugo Chávez offers a $400 technology tax credit apparently and the Venezuelans regard the BlackBerry as a must-have status symbol. I’m going to take his word for it; I don’t feel I need to fly to Caracas to confirm that one for you.
The recent arrival of the drag and drop GUI builder is designed to allow hobbyist game developers to bring their ideas to life more easily. But I put it to Kirkup that while this is lovely and shiny and interesting, it’s not of much real value to the business world.
“Yes I agree, a lot of fairly average games might be created, but there is always the chance that one might just break the mould and something amazing could develop. Also, this makes it really easy to prototype a new application if you are looking for an investor,” said Kirkup.
RIM is also harping on and on about payment services and application monetisation at the moment. Under the new payment services structure (if you want them to) RIM will look after taxation and carrier billing issues. This currently runs at an 80:20 developer-RIM split if you use PayPal, but the wider strategy in this section of the business is yet to be fully laid out. In a related area, new advertising service APIs exist to optimise and localise advertisements to individual applications if they become successful.
So I’ll leave the last word with Kirkup himself. A programmer at heart, he’s clearly close enough to the corporate soul of the company to be able to preach the gospel according to RIM with some conviction. “We’re aiming for a higher level of services across the board from every aspect,” he said. Let’s hope it’s not all just talk, for the most part it appears to be real.
Thursday 19 November 2009, 9:17 AM
Microsoft PDC continues web developer momentum
Lamentably, it’s only the once that I’ve been to Microsoft’s PDC developer conference and that was back in 2004. I’ve never seen a keynote like it I promise you, the audience applauded every slide in certain sections – and this was the launch of Vista!
But for those of us left in poor old Blighty, as was the case last year, we’ll be meeting Microsoft’s developer and tools guru Mr Mark Quirk later this week for a low down from the developer show down in California. Jostling for top billing news wise is the beta version of Microsoft Silverlight 4 and the implications this will have for web developers and web designers.
Microsoft says that innovations in the Silverlight 4 web application framework have been “fuelled” by Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8. Surely they could have stopped that sentence after the 7 in Window 7 and not mentioned IE (unless I am wrong and there are people out there who like the browser) if they want to be taken more seriously by web designers who would rather ascribe to the single runtime environment on offer from Adobe. No surprise then perhaps to find that this week also saw the launch of Adobe AIR 2 and the Flash Player 10.1 beta.
At the show itself, Steven Sinofsky who is president of the Windows and Windows Live Division, has apparently showcased some of the early work under way on Internet Explorer 9. Microsoft says it’s all about ‘performance and interoperable standards’, oh and an extra splash of DirectX sauce too. Do the spokespeople strain themselves to get those words out? Probably not, they still believe in their position in the browser wars. Only the users can decide in the long term.
If all goes to plan, Silverlight will now command better control of cross-platform experiences and extended out-of-browser capabilities. Microsoft says that Silverlight 4 will also feature, “Enhancements for enterprise application developers, including full support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, providing access to Microsoft Office and Microsoft SharePoint Server. Richer web experiences, including new webcam and microphone capabilities, native multicast support for wide-scale media content delivery, and more than 60 customisable controls.”
Personally, I love some of the sites Microsoft demos when talking about Silverlight. DeepZoom (or is it called DeepEarth) just gets better all the time. Perhaps this is why Silverlight is supposedly installed on more than 45 per cent of Internet-connected devices worldwide if you believe the stats.
But for those of us left in poor old Blighty, as was the case last year, we’ll be meeting Microsoft’s developer and tools guru Mr Mark Quirk later this week for a low down from the developer show down in California. Jostling for top billing news wise is the beta version of Microsoft Silverlight 4 and the implications this will have for web developers and web designers.
Microsoft says that innovations in the Silverlight 4 web application framework have been “fuelled” by Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8. Surely they could have stopped that sentence after the 7 in Window 7 and not mentioned IE (unless I am wrong and there are people out there who like the browser) if they want to be taken more seriously by web designers who would rather ascribe to the single runtime environment on offer from Adobe. No surprise then perhaps to find that this week also saw the launch of Adobe AIR 2 and the Flash Player 10.1 beta.
At the show itself, Steven Sinofsky who is president of the Windows and Windows Live Division, has apparently showcased some of the early work under way on Internet Explorer 9. Microsoft says it’s all about ‘performance and interoperable standards’, oh and an extra splash of DirectX sauce too. Do the spokespeople strain themselves to get those words out? Probably not, they still believe in their position in the browser wars. Only the users can decide in the long term.
If all goes to plan, Silverlight will now command better control of cross-platform experiences and extended out-of-browser capabilities. Microsoft says that Silverlight 4 will also feature, “Enhancements for enterprise application developers, including full support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, providing access to Microsoft Office and Microsoft SharePoint Server. Richer web experiences, including new webcam and microphone capabilities, native multicast support for wide-scale media content delivery, and more than 60 customisable controls.”
Personally, I love some of the sites Microsoft demos when talking about Silverlight. DeepZoom (or is it called DeepEarth) just gets better all the time. Perhaps this is why Silverlight is supposedly installed on more than 45 per cent of Internet-connected devices worldwide if you believe the stats.
Tuesday 17 November 2009, 8:41 AM
The search for the true ‘Open PC’
I was fortunate enough this week to help conduct an interview with Frank Karlitschek who founded KDE-Look.org back in 2001, which has grown to become one of the biggest online communities for Linux. In 2007, Frank also went on to establish Open Desktop.org and its 35 communities and portals for desktop Linux.
What was most interesting about Frank was his take on the truly ‘Open PC’ as part of what he calls the ‘Social Desktop’ experience, another .org that he already has registered himself.
Frank’s stance on the current state of open source is that to his mind, the Linux and KDE community are not satisfied with the current Linux-based PCs from OEMs such as Acer or ASUS or Dell and so on.
“Users do not have influence on the hardware or software so they are basically getting a closed product and most of the pre configuration is not very user friendly. A lot of existing Linux PCs also rely on closed source drivers, which is not ideal,” said Stuttgart-based Frank.
… and you know I think he has a point, especially if you look at the super-scaled down iterations of Linux on netbooks shipping as recently as eighteen months ago.
You can’t install a whole lot on some of these smaller Linux boxes and if you do go looking for say Skype on Linux you had better be running a ‘popular’ flavour such as Ubuntu, Fedora etc. or you may just find yourself S out of luck.
Instead, Frank sees a broader ‘open PC world’ (a brand that will surely never make it to the high street!) where the community builds and designs its own open and Linux-based PC and all the software is available in a public repository and everybody can improve it.
As part of this concept, Frank says that, “We will only use hardware which is fully documented and which is fully supported by free device drivers. We will also bundle this with end user support and part of the income goes back to be used in free software projects like for example KDE.”
Success in this space according to community opinion will be largely down to effectively integrated online communities and the wider migration of web 2.0 principles into both desktop and mobile applications. So will the true open PC emerge in the next decade? Signs are that it will and it might not be long coming.
What was most interesting about Frank was his take on the truly ‘Open PC’ as part of what he calls the ‘Social Desktop’ experience, another .org that he already has registered himself.
Frank’s stance on the current state of open source is that to his mind, the Linux and KDE community are not satisfied with the current Linux-based PCs from OEMs such as Acer or ASUS or Dell and so on.
“Users do not have influence on the hardware or software so they are basically getting a closed product and most of the pre configuration is not very user friendly. A lot of existing Linux PCs also rely on closed source drivers, which is not ideal,” said Stuttgart-based Frank.
… and you know I think he has a point, especially if you look at the super-scaled down iterations of Linux on netbooks shipping as recently as eighteen months ago.
You can’t install a whole lot on some of these smaller Linux boxes and if you do go looking for say Skype on Linux you had better be running a ‘popular’ flavour such as Ubuntu, Fedora etc. or you may just find yourself S out of luck.
Instead, Frank sees a broader ‘open PC world’ (a brand that will surely never make it to the high street!) where the community builds and designs its own open and Linux-based PC and all the software is available in a public repository and everybody can improve it.
As part of this concept, Frank says that, “We will only use hardware which is fully documented and which is fully supported by free device drivers. We will also bundle this with end user support and part of the income goes back to be used in free software projects like for example KDE.”
Success in this space according to community opinion will be largely down to effectively integrated online communities and the wider migration of web 2.0 principles into both desktop and mobile applications. So will the true open PC emerge in the next decade? Signs are that it will and it might not be long coming.
Thursday 12 November 2009, 6:57 PM
Novell’s Mono Tools tunes up for stereophonic Linux, UNIX & OS X
Amidst news of job cuts, support for Moblin 2.1 and its enterprise collaboration platform called Pulse, Novell’s new Mono Tools add-in module for Microsoft Visual Studio seems to have slipped comparatively under the radar.
The company says that this is the first commercial development tool for the rapid creation of .NET applications for Linux, UNIX and Mac OS X within Visual Studio. A note of caution on that statement, the “industry first” element of Novell’s announcement appears to rather hazily refer to this product being the first “rapid and easy to use” tool, which is perhaps rather too subjective.
Regardless, Mono Tools for Visual Studio claims to allow Microsoft .NET developers to use their familiar Visual Studio environment to design, code and maintain multi-platform applications.
Novell’s curiously named “Mono” offering appears to very much play in multi-channel stereo, or at least multi-platform development. One can only speculate that the branding boys and girls decided to use the mono ‘one product for many’ label to signify the breadth of the product.
Microsoft has said that it backs Mono Tools, but then Microsoft would put their stamp of approval on products that integrate with its Visual Studio IDE (integrated development environment) as they “enrich the Visual Studio ecosystem” no less.
Prior to the arrival of products such as Mono Tools, .NET application porting did indeed require developers to invest in learning new programming tools and rewriting/re-architecting applications. Novell says that, “Mono Tools for Visual Studio is a commercial solution that enables C# and .NET developers trained in Microsoft Visual Studio to stay within their preferred IDE, and use their existing skills and extensive .NET ecosystem of code, libraries and tools to develop or port applications to Linux, UNIX or Mac OS X.”
Mono Tools has been built by many of the engineers who develop and support Mono, an open source project sponsored by Novell. The company further states that, “Through a pull-down menu and other integration points in Visual Studio, Mono Tools enables developers to leverage the multi-platform coding, testing and debugging functionality of the Mono platform, all while staying within Visual Studio.”
Miguel de Icaza is the Mono project founder and vice president of developer platforms at Novell. He is keen to bridge the gap (as he puts it) between Microsoft’s IDE and Linux. Only a cynic would argue that he also wants to build a bridge to connect to Microsoft’s extremely profitable .Net development channel, which is currently populated by over six million software engineers. But hey, Novell is a commercial entity so why the hell not I guess right?
The company says that this is the first commercial development tool for the rapid creation of .NET applications for Linux, UNIX and Mac OS X within Visual Studio. A note of caution on that statement, the “industry first” element of Novell’s announcement appears to rather hazily refer to this product being the first “rapid and easy to use” tool, which is perhaps rather too subjective.
Regardless, Mono Tools for Visual Studio claims to allow Microsoft .NET developers to use their familiar Visual Studio environment to design, code and maintain multi-platform applications.
Novell’s curiously named “Mono” offering appears to very much play in multi-channel stereo, or at least multi-platform development. One can only speculate that the branding boys and girls decided to use the mono ‘one product for many’ label to signify the breadth of the product.
Microsoft has said that it backs Mono Tools, but then Microsoft would put their stamp of approval on products that integrate with its Visual Studio IDE (integrated development environment) as they “enrich the Visual Studio ecosystem” no less.
Prior to the arrival of products such as Mono Tools, .NET application porting did indeed require developers to invest in learning new programming tools and rewriting/re-architecting applications. Novell says that, “Mono Tools for Visual Studio is a commercial solution that enables C# and .NET developers trained in Microsoft Visual Studio to stay within their preferred IDE, and use their existing skills and extensive .NET ecosystem of code, libraries and tools to develop or port applications to Linux, UNIX or Mac OS X.”
Mono Tools has been built by many of the engineers who develop and support Mono, an open source project sponsored by Novell. The company further states that, “Through a pull-down menu and other integration points in Visual Studio, Mono Tools enables developers to leverage the multi-platform coding, testing and debugging functionality of the Mono platform, all while staying within Visual Studio.”
Miguel de Icaza is the Mono project founder and vice president of developer platforms at Novell. He is keen to bridge the gap (as he puts it) between Microsoft’s IDE and Linux. Only a cynic would argue that he also wants to build a bridge to connect to Microsoft’s extremely profitable .Net development channel, which is currently populated by over six million software engineers. But hey, Novell is a commercial entity so why the hell not I guess right?
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