Languages and standards - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Google engineer: We need more Web programming languages

  Web applications may one day surpass desktop applications in function and usability -- if developers have more programming languages to choose from, according to a Google engineer.

• Apple unveils Swift, a new programming language for iOS, Mac

  With plans to slowly retire the long-used Objective-C, Apple has introduced a new programming language, called Swift, for designing apps and applications to run on Apple iOS devices and Apple Macintosh computers.

• PHP keepers plot radical revision of the language

  Inspired by Facebook's efforts to speed performance of PHP, the core development team behind the popular open-source Web programming language has embarked on an effort to redesign PHP for faster performance.

• R gets commercial support just in time for big-data boom

  To help organizations get a better handle on the R statistical programming language, which is enjoying a surge in use as a big-data analysis tool, Revolution Analytics has introduced a new support package.

• BMC automates the mainframe change ticket

  Mainframe operators using BMC software may now be able to enjoy the speedy, devops-style development pace that is quickly becoming the norm for customer-facing mobile applications and Internet services.

• 12 ethical dilemmas gnawing at developers today

  The tech world has always been long on power and short on thinking about the ramifications of this power. If it can be built, there will always be someone who will build it without contemplating a safer, saner way of doing so, let alone whether the technology should even be built in the first place. The software gets written. Who cares where and how it's used? That's a task for somebody in some corner office.

• Microsoft open sources Windows Library for JavaScript

  Potentially helping developers more quickly build cross-platform applications, Microsoft is releasing as open source its WinJS JavaScript library for building Windows-styled controls.

• Red Hat adds Nginx and MongoDB to Software Collections update

  The next version of Red Hat's Software Collections package includes Apache httpd and Nginx Web servers, Ruby 2.0, and NoSQL database MongoDB.

• Facebook's Hack programming language builds code safety into PHP

  Facebook has released a programming language called Hack, which marries the ease of PHP with the rigorous safety controls of older languages such as C++.

• Embarcadero unifies iOS and Android development within a single tool

  With a new integrated development environment (IDE), Embarcadero Technologies is hoping to ease the burden of application developers who must prepare their creations for more than one operating system (OS).

• Microsoft TypeScript graduates to Visual Studio

  TypeScript, a superset of the JavaScript programming language developed by Microsoft for creating complex applications, is now a full-fledged member of the company's flagship Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE).

• MIT's new algorithm could solve thorny optimization problems

  A group of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have devised a potentially more effective way of helping computers solve some of the toughest optimization problems they face.

• Microsoft preps Visual Studio for post-production duties

  Recognizing how organizations need to produce and update their software more quickly, Microsoft has added an array of services around its Visual Studio IDE (integrated development environment) to help developers update and manage their software after it goes into production.

• Oracle seeks Java performance boost, joins HSA Foundation

  Oracle has joined the industry consortium HSA Foundation, which is developing standards to make it easier for programmers to take advantage of GPUs and other processor types for faster code execution.

• Facebook networking chief: No more secret ASIC commands

  Facebook's head of network operations has great expectations for software defined networking (SDN), though he may not be relying on commercial hardware vendors to bring SDN to the social networking giant's own infrastructure.