Java Surpasses Visual Basic in Popularity Contest
The July edition of the TIOBE software study has found that Java is the most popular programming language among developers, surpassing Visual Basic that was the favorite a year ago.
The popularity measurement uses the simple metric of the number of relevant search engine queries. According to the results, the top ten are Java, C, Visual Basic, PHP, C++, Perl, C#, Python, JavaScript and Delphi.
The TIOBE Programming Community index simply ‘gives an indication of the popularity of programming languages’, the company says. The index is updated once a month and the ratings are based on the world-wide availability of skilled engineers, courses and third party vendors. It is observed that the TPC index is not about the best programming language or the language in which most lines of code have been written.
The changes in the popularity rating since the month of June place Visual Basic at the top of the gainers list. Search engine queries for ‘Visual Basic’ in July were nearly 5% more than during the previous month. 'Java' queries were up 2.19%.
Programming languages that lost popularity in July were C, C++, and Perl. All other changes in the top 10 were below 1%. The study does not include HTML, XML, SQL, or ASP.NET.
Watchfire Releases AppScan 6.5
Watchfire, provider of web application vulnerability assessment software and services, has released updated versions of AppScan and AppScan Developer Edition. AppScan 6.5 offers expanded security auditing coverage with integrated web services scanning, additional regulatory compliance reporting, including new PCI Data Security Standards and two new ISO reports. AppScan 6.5 also features improved accuracy capabilities to further reduce false positives and new advanced testing features to meet the unique needs of security auditors, consultants and penetration testers.
"Well publicized online security breaches and heightened concerns over regulatory compliance demonstrate the ongoing need for web vulnerability scanning, and more and more companies are standardizing on Watchfire as a result," said Michael Weider, CTO, Watchfire. "Regular vulnerability scanning of web applications is vital to catch issues earlier in the development lifecycle and to monitor to protect against new threats after application deployment. AppScan 6.5 builds on Watchfire's market leadership by addressing emerging customer needs, such as reducing false positives, Web Services scanning and new PCI and ISO compliance reporting. These features, and our commitment to the unique needs of penetration testers, are resonating with international and domestic customers and partners."
Key features of the new release include:
- New web services scanning: AppScan 6.5 delivers a Web Services Explorer which lets users examine the different methods incorporated in the Web Service, manipulate input data and examine feedback from the service. This new capability simulates application-to-application interactions, and provides the widest range of advanced SOAP tests resulting in broad coverage of the scanned application. AppScan 6.5 also supports JavaScript execution and parsing and Flash parsing to help ensure all web application technologies are tested.
- Complete regulatory compliance reporting: To help organizations identify security vulnerabilities that impact PCI compliance, AppScan 6.5 includes automated support for this mandatory data security standard.
- New automated capabilities for penetration testers: AppScan 6.5 includes a new set of advanced testing utilities that complement manual testing, offering pen testers more power, automation and efficiency. The new Token Analyzer provides various tests for web application session tokens to determine how secure the application is against session theft. Watchfire's new Authentication Tester is a brute force-like testing utility that detects weak username-password combinations that could be used to gain access to a web application.
- Improved reporting features: AppScan 6.5 further reduces false positives by letting users select specific tests from which it will extract, zip and encrypt non-proprietary information for e-mailing. This feature offers a quick and easy way to send Watchfire feedback directly about tests users believe are false positives. Additionally, this capability provides productivity benefits by enabling users to easily share test information for review with application developers or system managers.
- Security throughout the SDLC: Integrating AppScan and AppScan DE into the software development lifecycle will help organizations eliminate security vulnerabilities early, simplify the remediation process, establish better control and visibility, and save time by improving the productivity of the development, audit and QA teams. AppScan provides integration with testing tools including Mercury Quality Center. AppScan DE seamlessly integrates into the development environment including MS Visual Studio 2005, WebSphere, JBuilder and Eclipse to catch security issues in development.
AppScan 6.5 extends Watchfire's previous benchmark for web application testing with improved capabilities that not only identify critical application weaknesses but also provide intelligent fix recommendations, improving the ease and speed by which users are able to understand, prioritize and remediate critical web application security issues. AppScan 6.5 also further builds on previous user productivity enhancements with improved reporting accuracy, real time view of scan results, screenshots included in reports and enhanced scanning speed.
Apple with Mustang Developer Preview
Apple has released a developer preview update of its Java SE 6 Release 1. The new release is based on JDK 1.6.0_b85 and brings enhanced functionality to the Java SE platform on Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger. The preview supports both Intel-based and PowerPC-based Macintosh computers and is not removable.
The important features of the release include improved user control over /usr/bin/java and embedding support to set AWT frameworks in SWT applications.
Novell Ditches JBoss for Geronimo
Novell seems to have ditched the JBoss application server from its SUSE Linux Enterprise distribution following the acquisition of the open source application server vendor by Red Hat, writes Matthew Aslett over at Computerwire.
Novell announced the general availability of the server and desktop version of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, and both SLES and SLED are missing the JBoss Application Server. Instead, Novell is reported to have turned to Geronimo, the Apache Software Foundation project, which already has the backing of IBM Corp following its May 2005 acquisition of Geronimo supporter Gluecode Software. "The inclusion of Geronimo with SUSE Linux Enterprise is not a surprise," Matthew says. "Novell announced plans to do so in December 2005 as part of a strategic alliance with IBM - but the omission of JBoss is unexpected."
Novell had included JBoss 3.2.3 in both SLES 9 and Novell Linux Desktop 9, and in April maintained that it would continue to work with JBoss despite its acquisition by Red Hat. "We have a contract in place with JBoss and we plan to continue to honor that contract," said Novell spokesperson Bruce Lowry at the time.
SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 is the first major update of the company's Linux platform for two years and delivers a number of technological advancements on both the server and the desktop. The new SLED 10, meanwhile, features functionality that enables the OpenOffice.org productivity suite to cope with Microsoft Office macros, as well as technologies enabling Linux to take advantage of accelerated 3D rendering hardware, boosting the operating system's look and feel.
PHP-GTK 2 Alpha Released
The PHP-GTK team has released PHP-GTK 2.0.0alpha, writes Scott Mattocks in a new post over at crisscott.com. This is the first release of PHP-GTK 2. PHP-GTK 2 is a PHP extension that combines the power and flexibility of both PHP 5 and GTK+ 2 to allow developers to create stand-alone desktop GUI applications using PHP, Mattocks writes.
He warns that this is a preview release and that it should be used only with the understanding that the software may contain bugs and that certain minor features may need to be adjusted before the final release. The PHP-GTK team encourages testing and feedback via the PHP-GTK development mailing list.
PHP-GTK 2.0.0alpha can be downloaded here.
Callisto-based BEA Workshop Studio 3.2 Released
As the first enterprise vendor to deliver a commercial product on the Callisto release, BEA has unveiled the Workshop Studio 3.2 which includes the core Eclipse platform version 3.2 and the Web Tools Project 1.5.
Pieter Humphrey, Senior Product Marketing Manager for BEA’s Workshop Business Unit, said that the new release showcases exciting changes for Spring and BEA Kodo users. Workshop Studio will support auto-generation of Spring Service Beans and DAO objects from any existing Object-Relational Mapping for JPA (aka EJB3), BEA Kodo or Hibernate.
"In the last release, we made BEA Kodo a first class citizen for Workshop Studio, integrating a development license, and the Kodo ‘enhancer’ into the build process so it’s no longer a separate step to make classes BEA Kodo-friendly. In this release, it’s even easier to work with BEA Kodo and your existing development projects: using facets from Web Tools Platform (WTP) allows simple, GUI driven addition of BEA Kodo libraries and required configuration files to existing projects. We’re also adding a new Kodo tutorial,” Humphrey said.
For users with extremely large projects, AppXRay’s dependency database can be shared between developers, so that the next member of your development team can benefit from your last scan. In an effort to keep the product download size reasonable, BEA Workshop Studio now will download JARs for Hibernate, Spring, Kodo and Struts and example projects on first usage, also prompting for acceptance of the respective licenses.
Key features of the new release include:
- EJB and EAR project types.
- Web services creation.
- Graphical WSDL editing.
- Code completion for CSS and JavaScript in JSP/HTML files or in .css and .js files.
- Source code auto formatting and cleanup (see the Format menu in the source editor context menu).
- User defined code snippets for drag and drop from a special Snippets view (see Window > Show View > Other > Basic > Snippets).
- User defined JSP/XML templates (see Window > Preferences > Web and XML > JSP Files > JSP Templates and Window > Preferences > Web and XML > XML Files > XML Templates). The templates you create here can be used as new file templates or code completion proposals.
- XDoclet support.
- Extensive preferences settings.
BEA Workshop Studio also enhances what is available in the Web Tools Platform. Here are a few such examples:
- Project Creation: Workshop Studio adds the ability to create a WTP dynamic web project from existing source files. You use File > New > Dynamic Web Project From Existing Source. The creation process will automatically detect and configure the facets used in the application during the AppXRay analysis.
- JSP Debugging: Workshop Studio has its own JSP debugger which replaces the WTP debugger. Studio also adds the JSP Variables view to the Debug perspective.
- Server Deployment: In addition to WTP's WAR and EAR deployment, Workshop Studio adds exploded deployment to all servers (deployment directly from workspace). This enhances the development cycle by significantly speeding up server start time, and providing hot deployment for JSP and Java files (avoids lengthy manual republishing). For Tomcat, the Workshop Studio deployer also provides built-in support for Sysdeo used to include external libraries in a web application.
- JSP and XML editors: The Workshop Studio JSP and XML editors enhance the WTP editors by providing the AppXRay completion, validation and navigation.
Workshop Studio also enhances the WTP editing experience with fast and intuitive content validation and improved document navigation facilities. This release also adds a new tutorial on JPA and BEA Kodo, with some emphasis on JSF.
ClassFile Inspector 2.0 Now Available
The ClassFile team has released ClassFile Inspector 2.0 ClassFile Inspector is a plug-in that allows developers to understand Java performance issues in order to develop effective programs.
ClassFile Inspector is also a teaching tool for Java instructions. The .class file gives all the instructions and operations realized by the program and ClassFile Inspector offers the possibility to see and understand them.
Key features of ClassFile Inspector v2.0 include:
- Java 1.5 ready
- Graphical User Interface (GUI) to browse .class files
- Gives insight into compiler behaviour
- Code protection with the Copyright add-on
- Helps detection of API bottlenecks
- Makes classes decompilation proof
- Stripped binaries (roughly 450 KB)
- Eclipse IDE, v3.1 or higher
- Graphical User Interface (GUI) to browse and modify .class files
- Gives information about each line of your source code : all the Java instructions (as Assembler language)
Sun Brings No Sign of Thaw
Any prospect of a thaw between Sun and the Eclipse Foundation seems unlikely, judging by the remarks made to Tim Anderson at The Register by Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation.
Milinkovich described Sun’s relationship with Eclipse as ‘professionally courteous’, but added, "We don’t really have a relationship. I’ve made numerous entreaties to try to engage Sun with Eclipse, from Jonathan Schwartz down, and I’ve never had anything other than ‘thanks for calling’. Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, the ball is firmly in their court."
Tim talks about the differences between Sun and Eclipse regarding the Swing/SWT GUI Framework and the Eclipse Rich Client Platform. Milinkovich insists that SWT was never built to compete with Swing. "We’ve never tried to construct a scenario where developers using Eclipse were forced to use SWT. It was built because the Eclipse team wanted to build a platform which could compete with products from Microsoft and others where underlying platform fidelity really mattered to their consumers," he says.
Tim says that many developers find Swing good too, and its Model-View-Controller architecture is also well liked. "There is room for both, and while Sun can ignore Eclipse, it cannot make it go away. After all, a long list of organizations are standardizing on Eclipse for the application development tools, including IBM, BEA, Nokia and Compuware," he says.
Summit Design’s Vista IDE Enhances SystemC Debugging Capabilities
Summit Design, a provider of electronic system-level (ESL) and hardware description language (HDL) design solutions, announced important enhancements to its Vista Integrated Design Environment for SystemC. Vista 2006.1adds support for IEEE 1666, the standard for System C from the Open SystemC Initiative (OSCI), and extends platform support to include the Microsoft Windows Operating System. Vista 2006.1 also provides easier integration with third-party tools and SystemC design environments.
Vista 2006.1 also gives designers the option of integrating into an Eclipse-based design environment, or to continue to use Vista’s IDE project features stand alone. The Eclipse platform is an open-source development environment that provides a common framework for integration and management of software tools from multiple vendors. The optional integration permitted by Vista 2006.1 enables customers to use Vista for SystemC debug and simulation while remaining in their Eclipse environment for source control and editing.
"Customers requested this integration so that they could use Vista's debugging capabilities in the environment of their choice," said Emil Girczyc, president and CEO of Summit Design. "Summit recognizes the value of supporting standards and integrating with the best solutions from multiple sources. Vista is designed to easily integrate with other technologies. The additional capabilities in Vista 2006.1 increase Summit's support of standards and open-source solutions for SystemC design."
Other additions to Vista's debugging capabilities include enhanced transaction-level model (TLM) viewing with a transaction sequence viewer and improved support for local variable tracing in Vista's waveform and process status window.
Vista 2006.1 is currently available to select Beta customers, while the production version will be available in Q3 of 2006. Vista 2006.1 includes TLM support, the Eclipse interface, and Windows support, and will be provided to all current Vista customers. Vista is currently offered on the Linux and Solaris platforms. |
