Simple image manager/uploader - another image picker, but much simpler. Maybe a better basis (integrate into the upload!)
programmierung - 28.2.2006 - 12.10.2006
TinyMCE Javascript Content Editor - GUI editor for HTML textareas with plugin interface
Geonames - maps names of cities, mountains etc. to geographic information (and vice versa). Plus a web service to use this data. The whole thing as a community project with data content under CC license. Very cool.
3D-Scanner aus Webcam und Laser für jedermann - wow, cool!
6502asm.com - 6502 compatible compiler and emulator in javascript - completely crazy. I love it.
The GPL is not a compromise - a point that is missing in the current discussion about GPLv3: the GPL is a community license. It's not about the rights of the producer, the central core is the right of the user. The excitement of Linus and some others is therefore quite amusing: because Linus is a producer here. Producers have always been upset about the GPL. The question is: do users need protection against DRM? Yes, otherwise the GPL will only be waste paper in the DRM-infested future that threatens us.
Strongtalk: A High-Performance Open Source Smalltalk With An Optional Type System - now completely open source, including the VM (which provided essential impulses for the Java Hotspot technology).
KETTLE - Data warehousing with open source. Here is a data transformer with GUI job editor and batch job executor. Sounds quite nice.
Basic mit Come From - written in Lisp. Insane.
DM's Esoteric Programming Languages - Piet Samples - Sample programs in the Piet programming language, whose source code looks like Mondrian paintings. Insane.
O'Reilly's list of the most popular programming languages - absurd, how a publisher, who has long been facing competition in its core area from others (e.g. apress and manning), still acts as if they could provide some definitions. And not just trying to boost their own sales and define the market by selecting the topics published.
Introducing Django 0.95 - new Django release out. Magic removed.
New in JavaScript 1.7 - exciting to see what's being added to JavaScript. Given the slow pace of IE's development, we can expect to use these features in 2010 - or earlier, if Microsoft's browser embarrassment is simply pulled from the market ...
WPHP - Call PHP from Python via a FastCGI server. This could, for example, integrate PHP into Django.
TLS Lite - a nice small Python-only lib for SSL, TLS and low-level X509 handling. Quite useful for quick-off projects and for larger systems it integrates with other PKI libraries for Python.
CLPython - an implementation of Python in Common Lisp - ok, that's already crazy.
Exploring Cocoa with F-Script - interesting article about the object system of OS X
Python Cheatsheet : saprfc 0.08 - another SAP-RFC module for Python.
DrScheme - the best Scheme implementation in the world now has a new version 350. This version includes, among other changes, a Just-in-Time-Compiler for Intel and PPC.
Generic Table Relations for Django. Very interesting, this makes things like tags in data models much easier. I should be able to get rid of a lot of stuff from my Stuff-Library with this.
Allegro Common Lisp Express - the current free (as in free beer) version 8.0 of it is out now.
Automatic Pickle Serialization and Deserialization with PostgreSQL - very interesting, automatic pickle/unpickle when using PsycoPG2.
StepTalk(GNU Scripting Framework) - now available in a version for Mac OS X!
The source code for UCSD-Pascal is free - for fans of old languages and old operating systems. Oh man, that was the first Pascal environment I hacked on at school almost 24 years ago ...
Feedjack - A Django+Python Powered Feed Aggregator (Planet) - could perhaps be used as a replacement for the rather outdated WordPress at metaowl.de?
PL/1 for GCC - for fans of old languages.
PyCells and peak.events - Phillip J. Eby on Cells and what they mean for event-oriented programming. Particularly interesting, as one of the projects in the Google Summer of Code is a Python implementation of the Cell concept.
Are you generic? - Wilson Miner describes how he, as a non-programmer, can create applications himself without programmer assistance using Django and its simple generic view functions.
Debunking Linus's Latest - Shapiro also has a few thoughts to share about Linus's latest misstep.
Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate, Part II - Tanenbaum's counterarguments to Linus' Microkernel-stupid claim ...
HashCaml - an extension of Objective Caml, which allows type-safe data to be serialized and deserialized. Basis for example for remote function calls.
Django for non-programmers - Django from a web designer's perspective.
Django Weblog "magic-removal" branch merged - gaaaah. Work. Crap.
Workbench: Settlement Reached with Dave Winer - and now Dave Winer has lost his last advocate that one could still take seriously. Well. Will Dave now taste his own medicine? So far, he was the one who has put others down in blogs ...
Oberon Script. A Lightweight Compiler and Runtime System for the Web - an Oberon compiler in JavaScript. Now that's weird.
Metasploit: Exploit Development: GroupWise Messenger Server - those who still convince themselves that the time from the discovery of a software vulnerability to an exploit is correspondingly long: forget it. Here someone shows an example development of a complete exploit one day after a hole in the GroupWise Messenger Server became known ...
Virtual Worlds and Attack Scenarios
What do you get when you have virtual worlds with scriptable objects? Cracker attacks, of course. In this case, a user in Second Life built objects that, via script, produce further objects. This is a classic attack scenario in such worlds - overloading servers through high load, i.e., a classic DOS from within. What was interesting about this attack was that these objects catapulted every avatar a few million meters into the air - possibly to hinder cleanup efforts.
Cleanup efforts? Yes. The system of Second Life is a virtual world with many scripted objects - so you can't just throw everything away, as this would destroy the users' content. Instead, all regions (in principle, a region is a server in a large server farm) that were attacked had to be cleaned of exactly the affected objects. To do this, the Lindens (the employees of the operator) first approached these objects inworld (i.e., within the simulation environment) to examine them. Presumably, the operator will have tools for mass cleanup of malicious objects, but nevertheless, the entire work took several hours!
Well, one might say that this is trivial - after all, it's just a virtual world on a server cluster, nothing more. But Second Life is more - among other things, it is a micropayment system. And a lot of money is transacted there - thousands of US dollars per hour (and not just to the operator, but also among the users themselves!). There is therefore direct economic damage from the downtime. Not to mention the interactions of users in the system and events taking place - for example, on that evening, there were two major openings of new clubs with live music. The musicians were completely disconnected from the system by the events, as they no longer received any feedback, they did not know whether they were still live or not (although the streams usually continued to run) and of course, a lot of people's party was ruined. And the club owners certainly had a different idea of their opening party.
All in all, of course, predictable - because any system with influence possibilities will be misused by people, even if it is out of sheer malice - but nevertheless extremely annoying.
Get A-Life: Core Wars / Tierra - a researcher lets a few Core-Wars algorithms loose in a digital primordial soup with simple mutation and simple death - and finds evolution and parasites shortly thereafter.
Bundesrat considers software patents - and who cares about the Mittelstand and open source software. Certainly not the Prolethicians in Düsseldorf ...
Eiffel development environment becomes Open Source - yes, there was another object-oriented language.
Python 3000 - Adaptation or Generic Functions?
Python 3000 - Adaptation or Generic Functions? Wow. GvR sees the light! Generic functions in Python 3000! Hell freezes over, third time ...
python-constraint - had I already seen this? Doesn't matter, there's a new link and everything is repeated on TV anyway. Constraint solver in Python. Could definitely be interesting for projects.
Merquery, Text Indexing and Search with a Focus - a full-text search engine in Python specifically for RAD frameworks? Let's see what comes out of this.
The Spider of Doom - ouch. Destructive GET and "security" through JavaScript, cookies, and redirects. You have only yourself to blame, one might say.
Naked Objects in Virtual Life
Stupid title, I know. But that's exactly what the Linden Script Language (LSL) is - the programming language used to control objects in Second Life. Every virtual object is also a program object with its own methods that react to external events. Somehow, I can imagine that Second Life would be well suited for introducing event-oriented programming, as you can directly interact with the objects.
The physics simulation in the game is also exciting - because scripts also have access to it. This way, it directly offers an experimental platform for virtual robotics experiments and the visualization of simulations (or even directly experiential visual simulations - a complete virtual world).
One does wonder why a game developer has such ideas, and why many simulation environments for "serious" research come across as so boring. Perhaps scientists should make contact with game designers to liven up classrooms and labs a bit? Dealing with such topics is certainly much easier to convey in a playful way, especially because students might actually listen then ...
Gosling Didn’t Get The Memo - and gets wonderfully roasted. Comment and link collection on the latest "they're just scripting languages" comment by James Gosling.
Waterfall 2006 - International Conference on Sequential Development - the Waterfall development model is back!
MP3 Python Module - simple lib for accessing MP3 information.
aspectes.tigris.org - Aspect Oriented Programming for JavaScript.
BranchBasedDevelopment - interesting list of points on how to work with branches in Subversion in a meaningful way.