News

Identifying Programmers From Executable Binaries   Wednesday 06 January

It's no surprise that programmers have different styles. What comes as a shock is that these are still evident when the code is compiled and you produce an executable binary. 

Insights Into Android Usage   Wednesday 06 January

A recent report from Vision Mobile shows that new versions of Android take time to spread around the globe and points up interesting ways in which geography influences the way users interact with their handsets.

PostgreSQL Version 9.5   Wednesday 06 January

With the new PostgreSQL version 9.5 about to be released, we take a look at the most anticipated upgrades it will bring, beginning with its new Upsert feature.

Ruby Added To Udacity Schedule   Tuesday 05 January

Udacity has announced three Ruby Nandoegrees, with the first one at Beginner level already open for enrollment. Unlike other Udacity content, the courses preparing students for the projects they need to build to earn the credential don't appear to be available for free.

Java TIOBE Top Language 2015   Tuesday 05 January

Java just keeps on giving. Since its introduction in 1996 it has constantly been in the top languages on the Tiobe index. It is certainly a language you cannot ignore no matter what your opinion of it is.

Windows 10 At 200 Million Devices   Monday 04 January

It's been a good holiday for Microsoft which claims that it has hit 200 million installed copies of Windows 10 and that activity in the Windows Store is up.

Dolphin Smalltalk Goes Open Source   Monday 04 January

Dolphin Smalltalk has been made open source following a long struggle to stay in the commercial sector. The source code is available for download on Github.

Peter Naur Dies Aged 87   Monday 04 January

The Danish computer scientist Peter Naur, best known for his contributions to Algol 60 and Backus-Naur form died on January 3, 2016. Ironically he disliked the concept "computer science" and instead coined the term "dataology".

Build Your Own Pixel Shader Snail   Sunday 03 January

How hard is it to create an animated 3D realistic snail? If you use ShaderToy and have lots of imagination it's not as difficult as you might think. See how it was made and try it out. 

Amazing Animated Sorting Demo   Saturday 02 January

Sorting is a key algorithm and something every programmer should understand. I Programmer has often taken an interest in new ways of displaying sorting in action, even extending to Hungarian Dances. Now we have another animation to add to our collection and it is very, very nice.

Ruby 2.3 Released   Friday 01 January

Ruby 2.3 has been released for the New Year packed with new features. 

Qualcomm Chips Make Drones Smart   Friday 01 January

The past year, 2015, has seen amazing advances in AI and it looks as if the experimental systems are ready to make it into consumer devices in 2016. Qualcomm is planning to release a new device that will make drones smarter and cheaper.

Programming Jobs To Decline?   Thursday 31 December

You might be panicked by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics forecast that jobs for computer programmers will decline by 8% over the coming decade. But the bigger picture is reassuring.

GoshawkDB   Thursday 31 December

A new database that's a distributed, transactional, fault-tolerant object store has been released. GoshawkDB stores data as persistent objects, and its creator avoids the term database to describe it.

Professional Programmer

2015 The Programmer's Year   Thursday 31 December

Another programming year is over and far too much has happened to cover it all. Here we have the highlights, the trends and the most important things that happened - in a personal view.

The Core

Exploring Edison - Life At 1.8V   Monday 04 January

One of the big problems with using the Edison, or so many believe, is that in its "raw" form it works with 1.8V logic. In practice this isn't as big a problem as you might imagine. Often you don't have to do anything and when you do it is an easy and cheap fix.