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Application development news, tools, and how-tos for programmers

JRuby gets speedier in version 1.7

Posted May 27, 2012 - 7:45 am

JVM-based Ruby variant also features support for different character encodings
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Liquid solar cells: an innovative hazard

Posted May 26, 2012 - 7:46 am

As the race to find real renewable energy keep increasing its pace, some really innovative ideas have come out of some pretty poisonous materials. Take the University of Southern California's development with cadmium nanocrystals that are stable enough to conduct electricity and are able to float in a liquid solution, making them printable. This means "solar paint" is nearly within reach.
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Laser cut animatronics robot comes to maker faire, needs your help

Posted May 26, 2012 - 7:12 am

Meet Roy. He's a swell guy, really. He's also a robot made largely out of parts cut on a laser cutter, and with your help on Kickstarter, you can own a piece of Roy, or even your own whole Roy robot.
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New startup incubator: AOL's couches

Posted May 25, 2012 - 10:01 am

Young entrepreneur Eric Simons extended AOL's Imagine K12 incubator participation by hiding and sleeping on couches in AOL buildings.
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Mac app developer sells 6,700 copies of app in a day

Posted May 24, 2012 - 1:55 pm

If you are looking for a way to make your Mac application stand out from the 10,000-plus apps on the Mac App Store, a well publicised price cut may well do the trick.
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Google's Go programming language feedback

Posted May 24, 2012 - 10:26 am

If you can learn the basics of Go in a couple of hours, is that time well spent?
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Steve Blank says Facebook killing Silicon Valley

Posted May 22, 2012 - 10:54 am

Blank says Facebook has changed the equation of startups and venture capital for the worse.
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Coders: use ISO8601 for dates and time

Posted May 22, 2012 - 10:44 am

Exchanging dates between computer systems is tough, but it doesn't have to be if you follow ISO8601.
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How to advance lean software development (beyond the 'Toyota Way')

Posted May 21, 2012 - 8:35 pm

The Japanese word Muda loosely translates as waste. The core element of lean manufacturing is to eliminate waste--or, in more North American terms, to "cut the fat." While applying lean concepts to manufacturing may seem straightforward, there is little agreement on what that term even means for software, or if it applies.
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Are hackathons being hijacked by opportunists?

Posted May 21, 2012 - 10:07 am

Treehouse CEO Ryan Carson tells young developers ("monkeys in a cage") that hackathons are being organized by profiteers.
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Microsoft's Visual Studio 11 lineup adds Windows Phone, Azure tools

Posted May 21, 2012 - 6:11 am

Company claims system requirements will be the same as those of Visual Studio 2010 despite performance increases
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CERN automates application development with Electric Cloud

Posted May 20, 2012 - 7:08 am

The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) is using automation technology from Electric Cloud to accelerate the application development efforts of more than 10,000 users of its ROOT software.
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How to frustrate programmers

Posted May 18, 2012 - 11:03 am

Here's one way: take six days to change one line of code, even after the company president requests the change.
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Appsbar gives small businesses a simple (and free!) template for app building

Posted May 17, 2012 - 9:28 pm

If you've ever wanted to build a mobile app for your small business but have been intimidated by the cost of hiring developers, Appsbar has a proposition for you.
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'March Madness' of coding contests highlights two trends

Posted May 17, 2012 - 8:52 pm

If you're not familiar with the Association of Computer Machinery's (ACM)International Collegiate Programming Contes (ICPC) sponsored by IBM Corp., just think of it like the "March Madness" of computer programming.
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New tech advice: don't learn to code

Posted May 15, 2012 - 11:17 am

Jeff Atwood says "Please Don't Learn to Code," for a variety of reasons. Angry commentary erupted immediately.
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Xamarin adds Android designer to Visual Studio

Posted May 15, 2012 - 6:08 am

Mono for Android SDK offers app-designing for both Microsoft's and Xamarin's IDEs.
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What enterprise mobile apps can learn from mobile games

Posted May 14, 2012 - 3:43 pm

Enterprise mobile apps are shifting from small, narrowly task-oriented programs to larger, more complex ones. To design them well, enterprise developers can learn a lot from a surprising source: mobile games.
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Facebook developers: How to get admitted into the new App Center

Posted May 10, 2012 - 8:34 pm

Facebook yesterday announced the launch of its new apps directory, called the App Center . The App Center, says Facebook's Aaron Brady, "gives developers an additional way to grow their apps and creates opportunities for more types of apps to be successful." Facebook says people will be able to access the App Center on the Web and in the iOS and Adroid Facebook apps in the coming weeks.
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C keeps its lead over Java, but index's accuracy is questioned

Posted May 10, 2012 - 3:40 pm

An important PHP developer dismissed the validity of Tiobe's language survey, which has C continuing to displace Java as the most popular language
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'Old people' icons: why do we still use them?

Posted May 10, 2012 - 11:23 am

The save icon is a floppy disk, now gone for years. Carbon copy for emails, and reel to reel tapes for voice mail icons. Why do we still use these?
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Using pair programming practices in code inspections

Posted May 9, 2012 - 8:42 pm

If the dynamics of code inspections have changed in the past three decades, how should we inspect now? Matt Heusser suggests that pair programming principles could provide some, but not all, of the answers.
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Microsoft revamps UI on Visual Studio IDE upgrade

Posted May 8, 2012 - 8:32 pm

Based on feedback from February beta release, revisions affect coloring, icons, and Metro style
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Is this the right way to sell a website? 37Signals offers Sortfolio

Posted May 8, 2012 - 11:15 am

Sortfolio, a website to help you find website designers, will be closed by 37Signals unless someone ponies up $480,000.
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Formula One racing team speeds to agile development

Posted May 7, 2012 - 9:18 pm

You hear a lot about organizations that must make split-second decisions or risk losing to competitors. Split-seconds? That's usually an exaggeration, unless you're talking about Formula One racing.
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