Software

Articles on the software industry, offshore outsourcing, open source, ...etc.

Support the move to PHP5

Submitted by Khalid on

Contents: 

The bulk of web hosts are still on PHP4, despite PHP5 being out for years. PHP5, and specially PHP5.2, offers a lot of features that make developing in PHP far better than being held back with PHP4's feature set.

So, a bunch of activists in the Drupal community started talking to other PHP based applications to say enough is enough, and push for more adoption of PHP 5.2 by web hosts and projects alike.

Go ahead and Digg the story, and click the banner below for more information.

Support GoPHP5.org

New MySQL Transactional Engine: PrimeBase XT (pbxt), with benchmarks

Submitted by Khalid on

Contents: 

A new GPL licensed transactional engine for MySQL is now available.

It is called PrimeBase XT (pbxt). It provides all the benefits of transactional engines such as InnoDB. This includes referential integrity (RI) and multiversion concurrency control (MVCC).

The benchmarks are good for this engine.

IT Projects and The Swing Cartoon

Submitted by Khalid on

Contents: 

Software projects are by definition people centric: software can only be produced by humans, and therefore all it requires is human capital and what goes with it (budget, communication, ...etc.).

Since people are the main component, communication is crucial. Like every project involving humans, communication can break down, and the results are suboptimal to say the least.

In IT projects, this was immortalized using the Tire Swing Cartoon. I recall first seeing this cartoon in the late 1980s. It depicts how each stakeholder in the project envisioned the product, or delivered his part.

Christian Linux? Fact and Humor

Submitted by Khalid on

Contents: 

Ubuntu is a very popular Linux distribution. There are many variants, including Kubuntu (Ubuntu with a KDE desktop), Edubuntu (education oriented Ubuntu), ...etc.Now there is a new edition: Christian Ubuntu. No, it is not a joke. It is real. It includes the Bible, as well as web parental control software. Here is the announcement on the Ubuntu Forums.Of course, something like that would always invoke jokes, such as this blog called Ubuntu Christian Edition Facts. It clearly says that it is a joke.

Ruby On Rails Content Managment Systems

Submitted by Khalid on

Contents: 

Ruby as a "quick and easy interpreted scripting language for object oriented development" did not really pick up until the Ruby On Rails (RoR) platform started taking off.It was only a matter of time for full-fledged Content Management Systems  (CMS) based on Ruby on Rails to emerge.Here is a list of a few I found out, still the early stages.

  • RadiantCMS, licensed under the MIT License. It seems at a very early stage though, but has a small library of "third party behaviors" (modules/plugins), and templating is via special markup (check the demo).
  • RailsFrog is another RoR CMS in the early stages as well. They need programmers, and Drupal's Ber Kessels is on board there.

Drupal Gets 14 Projects For Google's Summer Of Code

Submitted by Khalid on

Contents: 

It is official: Drupal has 14 Summer of Code projects for 2006.

This is amazing, since Drupal came out #8 in the list, ahead of other open source projects, such as Joomla, Gentoo, Gaim, Mozilla, Eclipse, GNU and Debian.

This also means that Google will be investing $70,000 in Drupal.

Last year, I co-mentored three students, and got a Summer of Code 2005 T-Shirt. Two of last year's students that I co-mentored (The Amazing Angela and Fabulous Fabiano) are mentors in their own right this year!

Oracle Is Becoming Too Powerful After Open Source Shopping Spree

Submitted by Khalid on

Contents: 

Oracle Corporation has been on a shopping spree.

In 18 months they are spending $18 billion, including many open source companies.

First, it was InnoBase, the company that makes the InnoDB for the MySQL database. Then rumor has it that SleepyCat will follow, which makes the Berkley Database Base. Following that is Zend, maker of the PHP accelerator, and the PHP development environment, Zend Studio. Finally, it is JBoss, a Java application server.

The first two worry me the most. Although the source code of both products is available, the proprietary license for each allows MySQL AB, the company that makes MySQL, to offer non-free versions with suitable licensing for clients who need it.

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