Programming Forum

People who know me know that Python has always been one of my favorite languages. And over the years, I've been pleased with the array of development tools that have been created for it, including the different IDEs. I also do a lot of work in .NET, primarily with C#. …

Every year or so for the past couple of decades I've seen new products appear that claim to let you create software without having to know how to code. And every time the next one comes out, I roll my eyes, because they always fail to deliver as promised. Usually …

[ATTACH=RIGHT]22389[/ATTACH]CodeToGo is, essentially, an API wrapper around the Ideone.com online compiler and debugger that enables you to use it to compile and run code in around 50 different programming languages on your iPhone or iPad. It has been around for a while but has always been somewhat tarnished with the …

[COLOR="Red"][B]UPDATE: see author's comments after article[/B][/COLOR] When you develop for mobile devices these days, you pretty much have two paths you can take: You can use the OS manufacturer's SDK and develop native apps, or you can create an application that runs in the device's web browser. Developing for the …

This special edition of the Guinness World Records book will appeal to geeks and nerds the world over. Not just because it is packed full of the kind of trivia that we all thrive on in social situations, but also because that trivia is firmly based in the realm of …

IE9 is on the horizon, and there has been plenty said about it. But what about its web development aspects? In this article I look at its web developer tools, and decide whether I'll start using it in my own web development. Like most web developers, I abandoned IE several …

Netbeans is a free, open source IDE for developing software in Java. It's been around for almost 15 years, having gotten its start around the time Java began. Version 7.0 is about to be released, and I got my hands on the Beta release of this new version. In the …

A couple weeks ago, Microsoft Research made available a project that had been under development for a while called Debugger Canvas. This is a visual tool for debugging applications where your functions appear as bubbles, similar to a database diagram or UML diagram. It only works on Visual Studio 2010 …

Back around 2004 and 2005, I had embarked on a web project that included the ability for my users to draw on a web page—or at least, that was one of the requirements. At the time, most of my web development had been server-side, with very little JavaScript. Long story …

This past Summer, Microsoft announced the beta of a new product called WebMatrix. Two weeks ago, the third beta came out. But before I talk about it, I have to ask: Is this a new product? Or am I having déjà vu?[ATTACH]18093[/ATTACH]WebMatrix (one word) is, in fact, a brand new …

I've been using jQuery for a few years now, and the more I use it, the more I like and appreciate it. It seems like I'm always finding new ways to use it, and usually those new techniques result in me writing less code and ultimately being more productive. On …

When I first started working on this article, I was originally planning on reviewing a different product, a new project from Eclipse called Orion. However, it turns out that project just isn't ready for prime time. It's still in a very early stage, and I don't feel I would do …

Last week, I took a look at Node.js, a powerful server-side implementation of JavaScript. But one thing I found lacking was the way to easily create a web server. Essentially, Node is an implementation of CommonJS, which adds operating systems features to JavaScript. But Node is not a web application …

[ATTACH=RIGHT]19350[/ATTACH]In the past, the word "JavaScript" usually triggered notions of buttons changing when you float your mouse over them, and images flashing, and silly animations happening in the web browser. Today, however, most programmers recognize that JavaScript is actually much more than that; it's a powerful language that runs in …

[ATTACH=right]19321[/ATTACH]If you're serious about developing Android apps, there's only one platform to build and test them on, and that's the Samsung Nexus S. Why? Because first and foremost, the Nexus S runs pure Android. Not only is Samsung's Nexus S, released in December, one of the most beautiful phones on …

Last week, Microsoft released a set of tools for developing software for the new Windows Phone 7 using Visual Basic. In order to use the tools, you have to have Visual Studio 2010 Professional or better (right now the Express versions don't work, although I've heard that will change). But …

How do you create a mission-critical website providing exceptional performance yet at the same time being flexible, reliable and scalable? That's the question that Kyle Loudon, a software developer and manager of a user interface development group at Yahoo!, sets out to provide the answers to in his book: Developing …

The other day Google announced a new API console to simplify working with their various APIs. These APIs are basically REST-based calls into the Google servers where you connect through a URL, passing different parameters in the URL itself, and get back a response. The response comes back as either …

[ATTACH=RIGHT]17350[/ATTACH]Since the release of the second edition of Parallel Studio this month, I've spent a good amount of time with it, trying out the new features. First, what's Parallel Studio? It's an add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio that gives you a large set of features for writing parallel code that …

I will admit that I didn't stumble upon Steven Levy's classic tale of how the IT west was won, for want of a better phrase, until 1993 when it was republished some 10 years after the original book but with the addition of a handful of new pages to celebrate …

Have you ever wanted to write your own code to create software for the Mac, iPhone or even the iPad but have never actually programmed on a Mac platform? Great, then this new book by Tim Isted is for you. Tim has been coding for the Mac for 15 years, …