News

The Evolution Of Programming Languages   Wednesday 22 July

If you know a few computer languages and a little history you probably have some ideas about how they relate to one another. If informal ideas aren't quite what you want, how about a full taxonomy derived as if the languages were species?

Improve Your Hiring Prospects With Computer Science   Wednesday 22 July

A survey of students and recent graduates indicates that majoring in computer science greatly enhances your chances of landing a job and commanding a good salary.

JavaScript Has A Problem   Wednesday 22 July

JavaScript has come from being a nothing much language to the top dog - the native language of the web. Anyone using it will tell you that it has lots of problems, but perhaps its real problem is its do-anything nature. 

Visual Studio 2015 Launched - Any App Any Developer   Tuesday 21 July

The launch of Visual Studio 2015 kicked off with the keynote "Any App Any Developer". This might just be a claim too far for many a developer.

Go 1.5 In Beta   Tuesday 21 July

The second beta version of Go 1.5 has been released with the compiler and runtime written entirely in Go.

Microsoft Android Emulator Standalone For Android Studio   Tuesday 21 July

One of the strange but welcome spin offs from the Visual Studio 2015 launch is that the Microsoft Android emulator is now available as a standalone download. It works with Visual Studio and Eclipse.

RC4 Stream Cypher - 75 Hours To Crack   Monday 20 July

There has been speculation that the well known RC4 cypher can be broken by state agencies. Now we have a new result which indicates that it is possible to crack in 75 hours, which make it a practical method in some cases. 

First PHP 7 Beta Released   Monday 20 July

The first beta of PHP 7 has been released, marking the next version as feature complete.

Wear Your Favourite Cellular Automaton As A Scarf   Sunday 19 July

KnitYak is a KickStarter with the aim of bringing you your very own custom cellular automata scarf. You select the 1D automaton and the machine knits it for you. 

EDSAC The Inner Workings   Saturday 18 July

Understanding how EDSAC works isn't just of historical interest. It illustrates fundamental principles of computing.

Windows SDK for Facebook   Friday 17 July

Microsoft has announced a new open source library for integrating Facebook into Windows apps.

Amazon Web Services Adds API Gateway   Friday 17 July

Amazon has announced new developer tools and services aimed at making it easier to develop APIs.

The Truck Factor Revealed   Thursday 16 July

Don't take this too seriously, but if 90 programmers working on the Linux kernel were to be hit by a truck then the project, and hence Linux, would be toast. If a truck score of 90 seems good what about other projects?

jQuery 3.0 In Alpha   Thursday 16 July

The JQuery team has announced alpha versions of both variants of jQuery – and both are version 3.0.

TurboFan For Enhanced JavaScript Performance   Thursday 16 July

TurboFan is Google's latest new optimizing, just-in-time, compiler for speeding up JavaScript execution  in Chrome.

The Core

C Pointer Declaration And Dereferencing   Monday 20 July

Pointers and pointer declarations in C cause beginners all sorts of strange problems that experienced C programmers find hard to understand. It all possibly comes from one small misunderstanding. 

History

Donald Knuth & The Art of Computer Programming   Thursday 16 July

Donald Knuth has been described as the Euclid of computer science. The first draft of his epic "The Art of Computer Programming" was completed as a 12-chapter manuscript in 1965. Fifty years later TAOCP is still an on-going project and Knuth has achieved many other things along the way.