EXE articles from January 2000

EXE archives from January 2000

Templates in excess.(Technology Tutorial)(Tutorial)
January 1, 2000... Every decade or so, a fashion in programming comes along and announces itself the successor to previously discredited paradigms. Again we believe that from now on software will be more reliable, cheaper to build, and more fun to make. (No one...

VisualCaf" 4 - the latest Java by adaption.(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2000... VisualCaf" 4 fully supports the new Java 2 platform standards from Sun, including multi-server EJBs, Java ServerPages, servlets, and multi-tier distributed debugging. Available in three Editions, the release of the Enterprise Edition will...

Digests.
January 1, 2000... Sun is withdrawing its proposal to formally standardise the Java 2 platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) from the standards body ECMA. The reason is to `protect the integrity of the Java technology and the investment made in it by the worldwide...

Beyond HTML with JViews.(Product Information)
January 1, 2000... ILOG JViews Component Suite builds on the company's ILOG JViews 2.0. It's delivered as a set of components: pre-built JavaBeans, class libraries, and editor applications, together with a full API. It enables you to construct...

SNiFF+ 3.2.(TakeFive CASE software)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2000... Greater efficiency at addressing large code bases is the key feature of SNiFF+ version 3.2, the source code engineering tool from TakeFive: multi-language code navigation, analysis, and management is available to projects involving millions of...

Digest.
January 1, 2000... e-TEST suite 4.0 tests large scale web applications. As well as the ServerStats and e-Reporter utilities, it is extensible through a programming interface and from Visual Scripts. The suite starts with e-Tester, which costs [pound]4,596. ...

HomeSite's collapsible XML.(version 4.5 of Allaire's HTML editing tool)(Product Information)
January 1, 2000... WYSIWYN (what you see is what you need) is the interface model followed by HomeSite, Allaire's HTML editing tool that has been upgraded to version 4.5. Aimed at professional Web developers, who are maintaining as well as developing sites, this...

Extending the web to PDAs.(AvantGo Internet access software)(Company Business and Marketing)
January 1, 2000... There you are, developing some great Internet site, problem is you want people on the move to be able to access it. They can always go to a cybercafe nearby, but that's not ideal. Another possibility is to make it accessible from palmtops and...

Visio's shapes.(Visio 2000 Professional Edition and Enterprise Edition)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2000... Visio 2000 Professional Edition has shipped and the Enterprise edition should be available when you read this. Improvements for Professional include database reverse-engineering, UML reverse-engineering from VisualStudio, advanced dataflow...

Let there be speech-enabling.(Dragon Systems NaturallySpeaking Developer Suite 4.0)(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2000... Developers can bestow upon their applications the power of being speech-enabled, courtesy of Dragon Systems and their Dragon NaturallySpeaking Developer Suite 4.0. Based on the Dragon NaturallySpeaking software, the suite includes an SDK with...

How stressed are you?(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2000... Check up on the health and performance of e-business applications with Segue Software's SilkMonitor. Setting system resource thresholds for checking performance and scalability, its monitoring functions work alongside Segue's load testing...

JaCC 2000.(Industry Trend or Event)
January 1, 2000... Make a note in your diary for the Spring JaCC, taking place at Oxford over 24 and 25 March - the C++ and Java experts are already lined up. On the Friday, James Coplien will present the keynote Teaching Design. For the C++ stream, `Guru of the...

A new visual studio; A quiet revolution is under way. Publishing, which had remained virtually unchanged for a hundred years, is presently being shaken to its roots. Nobody seems to have noticed but Jules.(Industry Trend or Event)(Column)
January 1, 2000... In Yorkshire there is a small town called Haworth. It's famous because it is the place where the Bronte sisters grew up, and wrote, and eventually died. You can visit the parsonage where they lived, read Emily's letters as she desperately...

MFC free.(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2000... Dear Sir, I have just discovered www.exe.co.uk, and I've been reading the articles for the past couple of hours. I've been really enjoying them. However, I have to comment about MFC - my favourite code (Mayhem, EXE, January 1999). I quote:...

Delphi.(Questions and Answers)
January 1, 2000... Dear Sir, I was unimpressed with Jules May's review of Delphi 5 (EXE, November 1999). As a committed Delphite I must take exception. I am not sure which version of Delphi 5 he used to review, but it could not be the trial version given...

Off site but still earning.(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2000... Dear Sir, I am writing in response to the letter that appeared under the title of Home alone in the December issue of EXE. For almost 7 of the last 8 years I have been able to work from home as a software engineer developing CAD/CAM...

A Sterling range; TI's Composer and Cayenne's ObjectTeam are just two of the tools swallowed by the ever expanding COOL product range. Ian Murphy investigates Sterling Software's application development tools.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
January 1, 2000... Lots of companies claim that their tools are all you will need for development. Some of them, such as Rational Software and Microsoft, actually have the depth and variety of products to make such a claim even if the quality sometimes falls...

Have toolkits will travel; Are you restricting yourself to Windows? Dave Jewell continues his excursion with portability toolkits by visiting the Open Source GTK+.(Product Information)
January 1, 2000... GTK+ is another interesting portability toolkit that deserves consideration. Unlike Qt, which I covered last month in GUIs to go, this isn't a commercial package but a purely Open Source phenomenon. And unlike Qt, GTK+ wasn't (as far as I know)...

GNU in an editing mode; There's coloured syntax highlighting for any language, multiple file edits, and customisable compile commands. And that's ignoring the browsing, emailing, and calendar management, too. Peter Collinson digs deeper into Emacs.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
January 1, 2000... I found that I didn't have a great deal of space to discuss the Emacs editor in my recent article on editors (The programmer's favourite, EXE, September 1999). It's a big program and a big topic. I am sure to only manage to scratch the surface...

The C++ Programmers' Book of 1999; Francis Glassborow reviews the ideal bookshelf for a C++ programmer before revealing which C/C++ title has won the `best of year' award.(Review)
January 1, 2000... Before giving my choice of C/C++ Programmers' Book of 1999, I think it is time that I once again did a more general survey. I have mentioned many of the following titles previously, but many of you may find it useful if I pull them all...

Use the (Team) Source; Mark Smith puts himself under the source code control of TeamSource, a tool found within Delphi 5 Enterprise. He compares it for use with Visual SourceSafe.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
January 1, 2000... Source code control. Every successful project has it. Many unsuccessful projects don't. As a contractor, I've had to get used to many different source code control (SCC) products over the past few years, including PVCS, MKS SourceIntegrity, and...

Exploring the performance of serialisation; Lou Grinzo finds a surprising performance benefit delivered by serialisation when dealing with complex objects.(Technology Information)
January 1, 2000... Performance is one of those distinctly fractal-like topics in programming - just when you think you've reached the bottom, you find out there are entire other levels of complexity to explore. If anything, Java amplifies this situation thanks to...

Visual Installer; Jon Perkins explores the Visual Studio 6.0 Plus Pack. Jon Perkins is a freelance Visual Basic developer and a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer. He is a contributing author of Advanced Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 by The Mandelbrot Set, published by Microsoft Press. Contact him at www.jonperkins.com.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
January 1, 2000... Last month I mentioned that the next version of Visual Studio was some way off yet. However, this doesn't mean that Microsoft isn't providing any new tools for Visual Basic developers. Far from it. The Visual Studio 6.0 Plus Pack CD was made...

Herb Sutter's Exceptional C++.(Review)
January 1, 2000... Walking into a bookshop these days (an increasingly rare event for the Internet enabled), and wandering over to the computing section, one might be forgiven for thinking (a) that the Web was the only concern of all software professionals, and...

The EXE Questionnaire; In the first of a new series we turn the spotlight on a well known figure within the world of software development. This month we feature Kevlin Henney, member of the BSI C++ standard panel, patterns enthusiast, conference speaker, and all-round good egg. Kevlin is also Principal Technologist at QA Training.(People)(Interview)
January 1, 2000... What was the first computer you worked on? The first computer I used was a UK101, but the first I used professionally was a Data General MV. What was the first computer language you worked in? The first computer language I learnt...

13 ways to loathe VB; Verity Stob has recently been press-ganged into a Visual Basic project. For the benefit of other programmers who may be brought down in this way, she has prepared an executive summary of her experience.(Product Support)
January 1, 2000... 1. Procedure and function call. This area of Basic has come on in leaps and bounds. Whereas in the bad old days you had to use GOSUB, these days you have subs (`subs' is the preferred baby-speak for what grown-ups call procedures or void...

Digests.
January 1, 2000... Raima Database Manager 5.0 is Centura's small-footprint, cross-platform embedded database, which is targeted at Information Appliances. V5.0 sees enhanced cache synchronisation, improvements in the Lock Manager for self-management, and the...