News

Talking About Language   Wednesday 27 August

An analysis of data from programming language subreddits reveals some insights into how programmers feel about the languages they use and the overlap between languages.

Visual Studio CTP 3 – With EF7   Wednesday 27 August

Microsoft has released Community Technology Preview 3 of the next version of Visual Studio, along with an early build of the .NET Framework vNext, which brings with it an early version of Entity Framework 7.

Introducing Moziila Rec Room   Wednesday 27 August

If you are wondering what tools to use to build a client side web app, Mozilla's new Rec Room has a set of recommendations and a tool that attempts to integrate them for you. This is described as "work in progress" and devs are being encouraged to try it out.

Windows 9 Coming Soon   Tuesday 26 August

At the moment what we know about Windows 9 is mostly rumor, but it is fairly reliable rumor. It seems that Microsoft has something to announce on September 30th and we can start to prepare for the changes.

JavaOne Free to Students   Tuesday 26 August

This year's JavaOne takes place in San Fransisco from September 28 to October 2 and if you are a student you can attend if for free.

Beautiful Open   Tuesday 26 August

Beautiful Open is a website built and curated by Trek Glowacki as a showcase of well designed sites for open source projects.

White House - Programmers Don't Have To Wear Suits   Monday 25 August

The recently formed US Digital Service is aimed at making digital interaction with the government less like going to the dentist. Part of the change that the new head brings is the relaxed attitude towards dress code. 

This Year's Not-To-Miss AI Movie   Sunday 24 August

A new robot movie will be released soon and it provides a much deeper look at the robot future we are building for ourselves. It is worth seeing the trailer and tracking it down when it comes out.

The Raspberry Pi Gets A HAT   Saturday 23 August

The latest version of the Raspberry Pi single board computer has a new feature that allows it to use expansion cards more intelligently. The new boards are called HATs, Hardware Attached on Top, and they might just revolutionize things you can do with a Pi.

Blockly Games Introduce Kids To Code   Friday 22 August

Google has launched a set of games where instead of just playing you write the code. Using Blockly requires little or no typing and lets young or novice programmers discover core coding principles in an intuitive way.

C++ 14 Approved   Friday 22 August

The ISO C++14 draft international standard has been approved and will be published later in the year.

Java JDK 9 Proposals   Friday 22 August

Oracle has announced the first set of proposed improvements for inclusion in Java 9.

Xamarin Mac Updates   Thursday 21 August

Xamarin has announced a Unified API for Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Mac which  allows developers to support both 32-bit and 64-bit applications with the same source code (as well as binaries) on both Mac and iOS.

SharePoint Conference Deadline   Thursday 21 August

If you want to attend the SharePoint Connect conference this November in Amsterdam, there are just ten days left to qualify for the Early Bird discount.

Robots That Can See Through Walls   Thursday 21 August

Using WiFi signals a pair of robots can detect unseen features behind thick solid walls and can differentiate between materials, giving the ability to detect the presence of humans.

Professional Programmer

No Exceptions - Ever!   Tuesday 26 August

Don't raise an exception EVER!

Exceptions are, in practice the lazy programmer's way out of a hole. It would be better not to dig the hole in the first placen but if you do find yourself in such a hole then the advice is to stop digging and climb out - not drop someone else into the hole by throwing an exception..

The Core

Just JavaScript - Object Construction   Thursday 21 August

Object creation is fundamental to all object-oriented languages, but in JavaScript is is left to the programmer to work out how best to do it and often the practice that you encounter isn't the best because it's borrowed from other languages.