Latest Features...

Building your own Language – without tears

Dermot Hogan looks at what’s required to build your very own computer language using two new – and remarkable – tools. Microsoft’s Dynamic Language Runtime and ANTLR3 by Terrence Parr from the University of San Francisco.

Monday 18 August 2008 by Dermot Hogan

It’s a been a couple of months since I last looked at the DLR and ANTLR3 – somewhat longer than I’d anticipated. There are two reasons really – one is that I’ve been busy (ok – that’s not a reason, it’s an excuse: the dog ate my homework, Miss). The other is that both ANTLR and the DLR have been evolving and, with the DLR, at a rapid rate.

First, ANTLR. This is now close to the final 3.1 release – as it has been for the last few months to be honest. But hopefully, by the time you read this, ANTLR 3.1 will be out in its full glory. The main changes have been in the syntax for tree grammars (tighter) and, no doubt, numerous (...)

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Learning Flex 3

Book Review

Thursday 14 August 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

$39.99 / £24.99
By Alaric Cole
Pages: 304
O’Reilly: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596517328
Book Web Site: http://www.greenlike.com/flex/learning
ISBN 10: 0-596-51732-7
ISBN 13: 9780596517328

Most programming frameworks of any complexity take time and effort to get to grips with - and Adobe's Flex is no exception to the rule! Comprising a massive class library and various tools such as the compiler and debugger, Flex not only requires that the developer should be at ease with the (...)

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Secure Your PC - Free eBook

Protect Your Privacy

Saturday 9 August 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

Howard Fosdick has just released the latest version of his excellent eBook, ‘How to Secure Your Windows Computer and Protect Your Privacy — with Free Software’.

The newly updated eBook has been substantially expanded, revised and illustrated. If you want to know how to keep your data secure, make sure that your deleted files really are deleted and prevent your PC from suffering the attacks of malicious software, this book will tell you what you need to (...)

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Add A Runtime Form Designer To Your Delphi Apps

How can you save and load different form layouts while a Delphi application is running? Huw Collingbourne didn’t know either. But he eventually figured it out…

Thursday 7 August 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

Following a couple of years of uncertainly, the venerable Delphi Pascal-based visual programming language/environment has finally found a new home. While Delphi may not have quite such a high profile in the development community as it once had, there is no doubting that it is still a powerful tool. In this article, I’ll explain how you can use Delphi For Win32 to create on-the-fly customizable user interfaces...

The Delphi 2007 IDE

It is always a nice feature to be able to customize the look and layout of an application. With a bit of work - and a few devious tricks - it is actually possible to let users alter the layout of a Delphi application at runtime. For example, they can drag buttons around on a form, resize them (...)

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Essential ActionScript 3.0

Book Review

Wednesday 23 July 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

$54.99 / £38.99
By Colin Moock
Pages: 946
O’Reilly: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596526948/index.html
ISBN-10: 0-596-52694-6
ISBN-13: 9780596526948

Lots of books call themselves ‘essential' but very few of them live up to that claim. This is an exception to the rule. ‘Essential ActionScript 3.0' is exactly what it says: whether you are a beginner who wants to learn ActionScript from the ground up or an old hand who needs an (...)

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Encapsulation, OOP and Sapphire

Modularity and Objects

Tuesday 22 July 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

I’ve just posted an article about some of the mysteries of encapsulation and why this means different things to different people.

In object oriented programming, the word ‘encapsulation' is used a great deal. But not everybody uses it to mean the same thing. In my article, I try to clarify what I mean by encapsulation. You'll find the article on the blog I write on my software company's web site: What is (...)

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The Essential Guide to Flex 3

Book Review

Friday 18 July 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

$54.99 / £33.99
By Charles E Brown
Pages: 600
Friends Of Ed: http://www.friendsofed.com/book.html?isbn=9781590599501
ISBN-10: 1-59059-950-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-950-1

Adobe's Flex 3 framework, for ‘rich internet applications' is becoming increasingly important for developing both Web-based and (when using the new AIR runtime) desktop applications. In order to master Flex you will need to be comfortable with quite a range of cooperating technologies (...)

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Get To Grips With Python

part one

Wednesday 2 July 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

Over the past few years I’ve been so involved with the Ruby language that I’ve been guilty of ignoring an important alternative, Python. The two languages have much in common - they are both dynamic, object oriented languages with a simple syntax far removed from the ‘curly-bracket’ C-like languages which are so dominant. In this new series, I plan to explore the basics of the Python language. If you are interested, you may want to follow my progress...

First you will need to grab a copy of a Python interpreter and an IDE or editor. The main Python site is here: http://www.python.org/. Here you can navigate to the download page and choose a version of Python for your operating system. Alternatively, you can download ActiveState's ActivePython (...)

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Microsoft Office Word 2007 - Essential Reference for Power Users

Book Review

Tuesday 17 June 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

$74.95 / £39.95
By Matthew Strawbridge
Pages: 628
Software Reference Ltd: http://www.swref.com
ISBN: 978 0 9554614 1 5

Word 2007 is both a powerful and an exceptionally annoying word processor. Its huge range of features combined with an eccentric user interface make it hard work - even for a long-time Word user like me - to find half the things you are looking for. Add into this mix the odd inscrutable bug and (...)

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Practical Artistry: Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers

Book Review

Thursday 12 June 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

$29.99 / £18.50
By Harold Davis
Pages: 176
O’Reilly http://www.oreilly.com
ISBN 10: 0-596-52988-0 | ISBN 13: 9780596529888

A long time ago I used to take photographs professionally with cameras that contained (rather quaintly!) spools of actual film. I had some pretty serious kit in those days and I took things like lighting an exposure with due seriousness. These days I use a digital camera and I generally let its (...)

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Latest Features...

Building your own Language – without tears

Learning Flex 3

Secure Your PC - Free eBook

Add A Runtime Form Designer To Your Delphi Apps

Essential ActionScript 3.0

Encapsulation, OOP and Sapphire

The Essential Guide to Flex 3

Get To Grips With Python

Microsoft Office Word 2007 - Essential Reference for Power Users

Practical Artistry: Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers

More...

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