SD Times Issue 262

2011·14.5 MB·English

by  BZ Media

A BZMediaPublication
PROGRAMMING’S PAST
ON DISPLAY page 20
FEBRUARY 2011 •ISSUE NO. 262
www.sdtimes.com
New tools for the
.NET trade
Ads in the applications:
Make money off mobile
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Contents
ISSUE 262 • FEBRUARY 2011
FROM THE EDITORS FEATURES
8 Letters
Programming’s past on display
8 Open codecs are important
8 Mobile ads in the applications
NEWS
13 Tearing down the silos at Microsoft
14 HTML5 codec wars flare up again
14 FSF throws support behind WebM
16 Investigating augmented reality
18 Eclipse is readying a brand-new Web-based IDE page 20
24 Mining for ad gold in mobile apps Rise of the Androids
26 Rightware goes heavy-duty for smartphone
GUI testing
26 Electric Cloud buttresses cloud development
28 From Roddenberrytoreality: Progress in UX
30 COBOL getting up to speed for the modern day
32 NASA Apache project goes to the top
34 Executiveshakeup at Google
38 Flexerasuitetargets embedded devices page 44
New tools
41 Component Watch
of the trade Cybercriminals
COLUMNS for .NET will thrive in 2011
75 INTEGRATION WATCHby Andrew Binstock
The slow death of text editors
77 WINDOWS & .NET WATCHby Larry O’Brien
Driving at what really works
78 GUEST VIEWbyRaja Bavani
Ten influences on software product engineering
81 ANALYST VIEWby Dave West
Agile adoption requires understanding
82 INDUSTRY WATCHbyDavid Rubinstein
Tech points way to brighter economy
page 53 page 65
Software Development Times (ISSN 1528-1965) is published 12 times per year by BZ Media LLC, 7 High St., Ste. 407, Huntington, NY 11743. Periodicals postage paid at Huntington, NY, and additional offices.
SD Times is a registered trademark of BZ Media LLC. All contents © 2011 BZ Media LLC. All rights reserved. The price of a one-year subscription is US$179 for subscribers in the U.S., $189 in Canada, $229
elsewhere. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to SD Times, PO Box 2169, Skokie, IL 60076. SD Times subscriber services may be reached at [email protected] or by calling [phone].
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makers of
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OPINION
8
SD Times February2011 www.sdtimes.com
LETTERS FROM THE EDITORS
Scripting languages Open codecs are important
are here to stay
Technology trends have shown that Open standards are good. Open codecs are essential. That’s why SD Times sup-
Python is getting more popular than ports the efforts of some big players in the industry—most notably Google
Ruby the past two years (re: “Outlook for and the Free Software Foundation—to rally video producers around the WebM
dynamic languages: Not so good,” Janu- (VP8) codec.
ary, p. 20). Both are great languages, but H.264, with support from Apple and Microsoft, was thought to be the leading
I think that Python is more syntax-friend- candidate for codec standardization in HTML5, the in-development next iteration
ly, more efficient and has a very mature of the Web markup language that supports the playing of video in applications. But
community (libraries and frameworks). H.264 is constrained by patents held under the MPEG-LA consortium, and it
The argument that Ruby on Rails (or comes with restrictive fees. So, for now, HTML5 remains codec-agnostic, which
other similar Web frameworks) are not does not help to clarify the muddied waters.
really improving productivity because Google promises WebM will be open, and several organizations already have
they only work with toy applications is joined the effort, including Mozilla, Opera and Adobe. (For now, only Firefox, Opera
fallacious. Web frameworks are not the and Chrome support WebM; Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Apple’s Safari do not.)
main point here; no one forces you to At least one critic believes Google’s openness argument is disingenuous; after all,
use one for Web development. it’s looking to commoditize technology in an area where the competition (Apple) clear-
Scripting languages are more produc- ly has an advantage, at least for now. For its part, Apple doesn’t mind paying the roy-
tive than former languages such as Java. alty fees for H.264, because that guarantees it won’t have to face an injunction because
On top of that, they are powerful for something in the iPad or iPhone violates some patent of which it was unaware.
refactoring and testing, a perfect match But no matter. We believe software developers should not have to pay to be able
for Web development and even desktop to read or write data, including video, in a specific file format—or to sign a license
applications. The future is with scripting agreement. Nor should they have to choose between codecs because certain
languages, and companies are realizing browsers support certain codecs, or dual-encode their videos to play properly on
it. Even the Java world is seeing changes the different supported codecs.
with new languages that build on the So, if Google, the FSF and others indeed keep WebM an open, unconstrained
JVM, such as Groovy, Scala and Closure. project, SD Times sees this as technology upon which the industry should stan-
This is a trend that will keep growing. dardize. It will benefit developers, who can write applications using video to one
Alex specification, and it will benefit application users, who will get a consistent video
Canada experience regardless of browser or device. (cid:2)
Microsoft’s Silverlight Mobile ads in the apps
conundrum
SD Times has been writing about “Ads in the applications” since our very first
(Re: “Android, iOS or Windows Phone 7:
issue in February 2000. At the time, of course, there were no mobile ads; we
Place your bets,” January, p. 43): Nobody
were studying the short-lived trend toward embedding advertisements inside desk-
but Microsoft supports Silverlight, while
top software. At the time, we editorialized:
Microsoft is showing how noble and
But the bad news is: Your employees are trying to do a job. To protect them,
business-minded they are by supporting
your company doubtlessly stops salespeople at the door and won’t allow them to
Flash on the phones licensed for the
canvass your busy employees while they’re working. Should embedded advertisers
Windows Phone OS. Giving Microsoft
be afforded special privileges and 24x7 access to your staff? Of course not. If you’re
back some of its own medicine (so to
developing consumer applications, embedded advertising for your freely distrib-
speak) is crippling on emerging tablet
uted software is a good idea, and can provide a valuable source of additional rev-
and HDTV platforms as well, but in the
enue for hot products. But please don’t inflict ads on your enterprise customers
end, it only kills jobs for developers and
because, frankly, they won’t stand for it. Would you?
limits customers buying the devices.
The world has changed since then. Ads are accepted everywhere an enterprise
Clinton Gallagher
user goes, including, in many cases, Web applications. There’s no reason why
virtualCable TV
mobile apps should be any different. If it’s a tool that you and your employees need,
if embedded ads make it financially viable for the developer and affordable for you,
Letters to SD Times should include the
and if the ads aren’t too obnoxious, there’s little to complain about.
writer’s name, company affiliation and
And if you’re an enterprise developer or a commercial software writer, advertising
contact information. Letters become
the property of BZ Media and may be is the way to go. It seems that customers will put up with both paying for software and
edited. Send to [email protected]. seeing ads. If they’re happy, you should be too. (cid:2)
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More than 1133
data quality tools EDITORIAL
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF David Rubinstein
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COPY EDITOR Adam LoBelia• [email protected]
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COLUMNISTS Andrew Binstock, Larry O’Brien
Address Validation
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Correct, validate, standardize
Tina Gasperson, Robin Miller,
U.S. and global addresses
Lisa L. Morgan, Alexandra Weber Morales
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Phone Verification
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emails with easy customization ADVERTISING TRAFFIC Sabrina Adler
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Append lat/long and census
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