SE News

Version 2.0 of Copper –a software model checker that can be used to verify whether a concurrent C program satisfies its safety, reliability, or security requirements– is now available for download for both Windows and Linux platforms. Copper enables software developers to find bugs in programs –particularly those that are deep and concurrency related. Version 2.0 of Copper includes an improved format for specifying claims, as well as improved command line options and underlying algorithms.

Copper incorporates advanced techniques such as “predicate abstraction” and “counterexample-guided abstraction refinement” to check the validity of its target claims in an exhaustive (i.e., by considering all possible program executions) and fully automated manner. The input to Copper comprises C program files and files that describe the safety claims (such as assertions) and security claims to be checked. The output for each claim is either verification that it holds or a program trace (also called a counterexample) that shows why the claim is violated. Copper has a textual interface and comes with a detailed manual and tutorial.

http://www.sei.cmu.edu/pacc/copper.html

Het Landelijk Architectuur Congres (LAC) is het platform waar gebruikers, leveranciers en vertegenwoordigers uit het onderwijs en wetenschap op het gebied van architectuur elkaar ontmoeten.

Voor de 14e keer organiseren het Nederlands Architectuur Forum (Programmacomité Landelijk Architectuur Congres) en Sdu Uitgevers fonds ICT in samenwerking met JACQUARD het LAC. Het LAC vindt plaats in het NBC zakencentrum van Nieuwegein van woensdag 21 november tot donderdag 22 november 2007.

http://www.lac2007.nl

Some of the most interesting features of modern web sites are based on Geographical Information System (GIS) technologies. GIS techniques essentially give you a way to manage and show geographical data in your systems. For example, a manufacturing company can display a map showing every building it occupies, every office in a building, or the location of every sale it makes –worldwide– or a cab company can use GIS data to track the position of its cabs nearly in real time.

Not too long ago, the expense and rarity of the maps themselves hindered the use of GIS data in applications, but today, full-featured maps are available through Google Maps, Google Earth, and Microsoft Virtual Earth (among others) that you can use to display your GIS data in web applications. The advent of such mapping systems is one of the most exciting technologies to emerge in the last few years –and they’re still undergoing constant and rapid evolution. Today, you can easily collect geographical data, analyze and filter that data, and merge it with a mapping provider to create maps that display the data to your users. This article gives you a launch point by exploring what GIS data is, how to collect it, and how to manage it.

Bruno Zambetti

http://www.devx.com/webdev/Article/35662

With Ajax still one of the industry’s hottest buzzwords, more and more applications are being built with Ajax technologies. However, it’s not always easy to build a good application. This article focuses on how to build intuitive, easy-to-use Ajax-driven applications.
Ajax is not about technology. Most developers will try to convince you that it is, using languages like XML and JavaScript to prove their points. However, that’s a very limited view. More than that, it ignores the person who pays your bills: your customer, whether that’s a consulting client or a boss (who, in turn, only gets paid if you have a satisfied user base).

Customers don’t care about technology; they care about how the application feels, how it works underneath their hands via a mouse and keyboard. You can have all the technology in the world built into an application that fails. Likewise, you can have a simple HTML application that works great. The goal is to marry technology and usability, and this is particularly true in the case of Ajax applications.

Brett D. McLaughlin, Sr.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-aj-frontend/

Het kwantificeren van de toegevoegde waarde voor de klant van IT is minstens zo belangrijk als het vaststellen van de total cost of ownership. Door IT als investering te beschouwen en investeringstechnieken te gebruiken is de eenzijdige nadruk op kosten te vermijden.

http://www.informatie.nl/artikelen/2007/10/

In this comprehensive introduction to software measurement, Ebert and Dumke detail knowledge and experiences about the subject in an easily understood, hands-on presentation.

The combination of methodologies and applications makes the book ideally suited for both professionals in the software industry and for scientists looking for benchmarks and experiences. Besides the many practical hints and checklists, readers will also appreciate the large reference list, which includes links to metrics communities where project experiences are shared. Further information, continuously updated, can also be found on the Web site related to this book: http://metrics.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/.

Christoph Ebert
Reiner Dumke

http://www.springer.com/dal/home/generic/search/results?SGWID=1-40109-22-173740676-0

Embedding XML islands inside HTML documents is an old idea, and lately the debate about how to standardise this in HTML5 has been heating up again. As someone working on an HTML to PDF converter with strong XML support, I have a keen interest in the outcome of this debate. It would be very helpful if HTML and XML could be mixed and matched as necessary. So let me throw my five cents into the ring. (It would be two cents, but in this decimal age that would round down to zero).

Michael Day

http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2007/10/another_proposal_for_xml_in_ht.html

Five factors will change the way that IT organizations operate, according to Gartner Inc. The points of change cited by the research firm include Web 2.0-style applications, software as a service (SaaS), global-class computing, the “consumerization” of IT and open source software.

The five factors will have a synergistic effect, according to Tom Austin, Gartner’s vice president, who refers to them as “discontinuities.”

Will Kraft

http://www.adtmag.com/article.aspx?id=21462

Wicket, a lightweight, component-oriented web application framework in plain Java and XHTML, stresses separation of concerns, testability, and good object-oriented design practices. Check out Wicket’s approach to common implementation scenarios.

The web application frameworks available today offer a wealth of development styles. Well-known web development technologies such as JavaServer Faces, ASP.NET, and the Google Web Toolkit use event-driven, component-oriented designs that resemble traditional GUI programming. This approach makes sense as web applications become more like desktop applications in sophistication and functionality all the time. However, many of these frameworks can be unwieldy, requiring heavy tool support and having steep learning curves. Also, the mingling of code and markup often challenges testability, refactoring, and separation of concerns. A Java web application framework called Wicket takes a lightweight approach to the component-oriented model to overcome these and other challenges.

Daniel Carleton

http://www.devx.com/Java/Article/35620

Ruby Quiz is a weekly programming challenge for Ruby programmers in the spirit of the Perl Quiz of the Week. A new Ruby Quiz is sent to the Ruby Talk mailing list each Friday. After a 48 hour no-spoiler period has passed, everyone is invited to contribute solutions and/or discussion back to the list. The following Thursday a Summary will be sent to the list, discussing the quiz, solutions and discussion. The next day, the cycle begins again.

http://www.rubyquiz.com

High Scalability tries to bring together all the lore, art, science, practice, and experience of building scalable websites into one place so you can learn how to build your system with confidence.

When it becomes clear you must grow your website or die, most people have no idea where to start. It’s not a skill you learn in school or pick up from a magazine article on a plane flight home. No, building scalable systems is a body of knowledge slowly built up over time from hard won experience and many failed battles. Hopefully this site will move you further and faster along the learning curve of success.

http://www.highscalability.com/

OpenUP is a lean Unified Process that applies iterative and incremental approaches within a structured lifecycle. OpenUP embraces a pragmatic, agile philosophy that focuses on the collaborative nature of software development. It is a tools-agnostic, low-ceremony process that can be extended to address a broad variety of project types.

Per Kroll

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/sep07/kroll/

I’ve written numerous articles and books on XML and XML-related topics by now, and as I spent a little time looking back over them, I was surprised at what I found. […] the general trend of my articles and tips and books has been less and less about XML itself and more and more about APIs that manipulate XML, and the APIs that wrap those APIs, and the other APIs that allow you to never touch XML at all.

So the end result of all that is a general concern: have we forgotten how to actually write good XML? Do we even know what good XML is anymore? In this short article, I want to review a few XML 101 tips, and make sure that, with all the tools we have, we don’t forget basic principles along the way.

Brett McLaughlin

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-xjavaforum6.html

In 2007, Distributed Version Control Systems (DVCS) are all the range among the alpha-geeks. They’re thrilled with tools like git, mercurial, bazaar-ng, darcs, monotone… and they view Subversion as a dinosaur. Bleeding-edge open source projects are switching to DVCS. Many of these early adopters come off as either incredibly pretentious and self-righteous (like Linus Torvalds!), or are just obnoxious fanboys who love DVCS because it’s new and shiny.

And what’s not to love about DVCS? It is really cool. It liberates users, empowers them to work in disconnected situations, makes branching and merging into trivial operations. […] No matter how cool DVCS is, anyone who tells you that DVCS is perfect for everyone is completely out of touch with reality. Why? Because (1) DVCS has tradeoffs that are not appropriate for all teams, and (2) DVCS completely blows over the head of the 80%.

Ben Collins-Sussman

http://blog.red-bean.com/sussman/?p=79