As a homeschooling parent, I’m a big fan of educational software and I’ve written quite about about various programs in the past. But, as a programmer, I’m also a big fan of any program that makes computer programming more approachable by younger children. So, when I heard about Scratch, I was pretty enthusiastic.

Really nice program to get kids interested in programming with over a million projects turned in it sounds as if a lot of folks like it , Baldy

Programming with Scratch

It seems fair to say that the relationship between programmer and platform is in many ways like a romantic one, characterized by mutual respect and a balanced exchange of give and take on both sides. Just as so many of us love and respect Linux, for instance, so it surely loves us back with all its many virtues — no strings or price tags attached! So happy are many in the Linux community with their favorite OS, in fact, that it was difficult not to feel mortally wounded by a recent accusation that Linux does less for programmers than Microsoft does.

Humm this is getting to be a regular subject these days, Baldy

Does Linux Do Enough for Programmers?

Much as I hate to admit it, Microsoft does some things better, much better, than Linux. Number one with a bullet is how Microsoft helps programmers and ISVs (independent software vendors). MSDN (Microsoft Software Developer Network) is a wonderful online developer resource. Linux has had nothing to compare. True, there is the Linux Developer Network, which, when it began, looked like it would be the Linux equivalent of MSDN, but it hasn’t lived up to its promise. And, I can’t overlook the Linux Foundation’s Linux training classes. But, if I’m an ISV and I want to write software for Linux, I’m still going to need to piece together a lot of it by myself.

I could not have said it better myself, Baldy

Linux needs to do more for programmers

WordPress is the most widely used content management system amongst bloggers for many reasons. Not only does it make site management seem like a walk in the park, but it also uses a type of shared hosting, which means that most users can afford it. It has plug-ins for any occasion and desire and finally, it has themes. For many WordPress users, finding the right theme is a long process that often leads to endless tweaking in the code and stylesheets. However, only a few ever consider learning how to create their own. If you are one of them, this tutorial will help you learn how to built and start your own theme.

Good read for those who love to play with themes in WordPress, Baldy

 

Creating Your Own Theme – A WordPress Tutorial

In many cases, adding a graphical interface to Python scripts means getting your hands dirty with TKinter or other GUI programming kits. This exercise is usually reserved for users who have already acquired decent Python programming skills, as it requires some serious code wizardry. Thankfully, the EasyGui module allows you to add some GUI goodness to your Python scripts without going through coding rigmarole. Using EasyGui, you can add visual elements with just a few lines of code.

Handy little tool I just tried it and darn it is easy! Baldy

 

Dress up your Python scripts with EasyGui

More and more, open source projects are either integrating with the web or are developed entirely for on-demand use. This requires strong web development skills–or at least good enough tools to rescue you if any of your web development skills are weak. The good news is that there are many free open source tools to help you with your web project, and given the costs of web development environments and the like, they can save you a lot of money. Here are more than five good examples.

Read the Entire Article

Technorati Tags: Programming, Software

“DDJ: Which language has moved to the top of the heap, so to speak, in terms of popularity, and why do you think this is the case?

“PJ: If we take a look at the top 10 programming languages, not much has happened the last five years. Only Python entered the top 10, replacing COBOL. This comes as a surprise because the IT world is moving so fast that in most areas, the market is usually completely changed in five years time. Python managed to reach the top 10 because it is the truly object-oriented successor of Perl. Other winners of the last couple of years are Visual Basic, Ruby, JavaScript, C#, and D (a successor of C++). I expect in five years time there will be two main languages: Java and C#, closely followed by good-old Visual Basic. There is no new paradigm foreseen…”
Read the Rest of the Interview

Technorati Tags: News, Programming

Recently I looked in on the project Web site for a small application I use, only to find the wiki completely filled with spam. The project itself was clearly in disrepair, and the code abandoned for six months or more. I wondered: how many other apps that I use have halted development without my realizing it? I decided to look back at the projects I’ve written about over the past year to see which ones are no longer with us.

A really good article on the quandaries of programming and the trials of keeping a project alive and well in the cyber world, Baldy

 

In memoriam: free software projects of 2007

Have you ever peeked into one of those bazillion .el files in your Emacs installation’s lisp folder and wondered what it meant? Or have you ever looked at a GIMP script .scm file and scratched your head over all the parentheses? Lisp is one of the oldest programming languages still in common use, and Scheme is a streamlined dialect of Lisp. Many universities use Scheme as the language to introduce students to the Computer Science curriculum, and some of their teaching methods are based on the assumption that Scheme is the one language they can count on their students knowing. Even so, many active programmers and system administrators are unfamiliar with Scheme. This article will get you on your way to adding this tool to your developer or sysadmin toolkit.

It’s time to learn Scheme

The immense popularity of sites like YouTube has unexpectedly turned Flash Video (FLV) into one of the de facto standards for Internet video. The proliferation of sites using FLV has been a boon for remix culture, as creators made their own versions of posted videos. And thus far there has been no widespread DRM standard for Flash or Flash Video formats; indeed, most sites that use these formats simply serve standalone, unencrypted files via ordinary web servers.

Ah jeesh! Is there no end to this DRM stupidity!?

Source: EFF

Technorati Tags: Adobe, DRM, Flash