Bitwise Magazine

The Book Of Ruby - A Heretical Text?

The book they don’t want you to read!

Friday 22 July 2011

Ruby is a nice, friendly programming language that goes out of its way to let you program in whichever way suits you. The same cannot be said of The Ruby Community.

The ‘Ruby Community' is a loose grouping of Ruby programmers, many of whom consider themselves to be initiates into the secrets of something known as the ‘Ruby Way'. In recent times, some of the guardians of the Ruby Way have decided to attack my newly published Ruby book, The Book Of Ruby. Their campaigns against the book have been organised on Ruby discussion sites and launched on blogs and on Amazon. I get the impression that few (if any?) of the negative reviews of my book have been written by people who've actually read it. At least one Amazon reviewer openly states that he has not. Now, I don't want to tar all Ruby programmers with the same brush. There are a lot of very honest and decent Ruby developers who would not, I am quite sure, consider reviewing a book they (...)

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Programming 30 Years On

Back To the Future

Wednesday 20 July 2011

There are two sorts of programming languages – those that hit you in the face ‘Kaboom!’ and fly around the room whizzing sparks all over the place, and those that sit glaring mournfully at you from the computer screen. Or to put it another way, there are languages with Big Ideas and languages that just get on with the job.

At the (Kaboom!) end of the spectrum there is Smalltalk: beautiful, elegant, innovative and sexy. At the other end there is GW-BASIC, the sort of boring, mundane BASIC interpreter that used to come stuffed away in a dark corner of the MS-DOS floppy disk. Recently, due to the fact that people keep asking me, I've been reminded of the fact that I've now been programming for around three decades. I started in the early '80s. Since then, I've used all kinds of languages from GW-BASIC to Smalltalk. But most of the time, I've been working somewhere between the two extremes with languages such as C#, Java, ActionScript or Pascal which, while they aren't exactly breathtaking in terms of their beauty or innovation, do what they do well enough and, well, get the job done. Some languages, such (...)

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Ruby Style Wars

Names, newlines and parentheses...

Wednesday 20 July 2011

Over the 30 years in which I’ve been writing about programming, there have been many occasions when readers or reviewers have criticised what I’ve written. Often it comes down to elements of coding style (I remember one reader of ‘PC Plus’ magazine rebuking me for failing to use the letter ‘T’ as the start of a Delphi Pascal type declaration - I still don’t understand why he felt so strongly about this). Suffice to say that, in those thirty years I’ve developed a pretty thick skin and I don’t generally feel any compelling need to defend myself against criticism.

However, a recent review of my book, The Book Of Ruby, by Peter Cooper, contains a few assertions and omissions that I think are misleading and I'd like to take the opportunity to correct these. Peter has also made one or two statements that seem to have been inserted for humorous effect at the expense of accuracy. I should first make it clear that Peter are I not unfamiliar to one another. While we have never met, we have, over the years, exchanged dozens of emails on a variety of topics: Ruby in general, my company's software, the business of technical writing and Peter's own Ruby book, ‘Beginning Ruby'. Peter once recommended my Little Book Of Ruby as a “cool” eBook. In 2007, he emailed me to ask for my endorsement of his book on Amazon and, as I liked the (...)

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Corel Painter 12 Review

Image editing for artists

Friday 15 July 2011

$429 / £274 (£142.80 upgrade from Painter 11 or Painter X)
30 day free trial available
http://www.corel.com

Corel Painter is a sort of more artistic alternative to Adobe's Photoshop. While the functionality of Photoshop and Painter overlap to some extent, the Adobe product is probably best thought of as an image processing program that also does some artistic stuff. In Painter, the emphasis is the other way around. Painter specialises in creating digital art that looks a lot like the sort of thing you would paint or draw using watercolours, oils, pen and ink or pencils. It has all kinds of tools for applying realistic media effects and its digital inks and paints even interact with one another and with the ‘paper' onto which they are applied to blend and fade just like the ‘real thing'. Painter 12 can be used to enhance photographic images by sharpening and smoothing, (...)

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Programming With Style

Idioms and Standards....

Thursday 14 July 2011

Over the years I have written articles, tutorials and books on a wide variety of different programming languages – everything from Pascal to Prolog. These days, as my company programs IDEs for Ruby and the Flash Platform, my programming is largely restricted to three languages: Ruby, ActionScript (for Flash) and C# for the development of Visual Studio tools.

So, when I switch from one programming language to another do I change my coding style to fit the language? The answer is: up to a point. Or, to put it another way: as little as possible. Obviously, a language such as Ruby is syntactically very different from a language such as C#. To take a couple of simple examples: Ruby does not require typed variable definitions, C# does; Ruby uses keyword..end pairs to delimit many language constructs whereas C# uses curly braces, and so on. But beyond that, what about the specific ‘idioms' applicable to specific languages? I came across this (largely negative) review of my Ruby programming book recently, which reminded me of just how fiercely devoted to language-specific idioms some programmers are. The truth of the matter is, I am not. (...)

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Learn Ruby with The Book Of Ruby

My new book

Sunday 10 July 2011

My hands-on tutorial to all the twisty little highways and byways of Ruby programming is published this week.

I first released a free PDF edition of The Book Of Ruby back in 2009. Over the last six months I've been working on a new paperback edition for No Starch Press. This substantially revises the original text and expands the coverage to include Ruby 1.9 in addition to Ruby 1.8. Download the code archive for the revised paperback edition of The Book Of Ruby from No Starch Press: http://www.nostarch.com/boruby.htm Buy the paperback Book Of Ruby from Amazon (US) Buy the paperback Book Of Ruby from Amazon (UK)

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Amethyst Flash IDE in Visual Studio 1.5 launched

Now supports Flex 4.5 and mobile

Tuesday 28 June 2011

If you want to develop for Adobe Flash but you don’t want to use Eclipse, what can you do?

Answer: use Visual Studio! Amethyst 1.5 is SapphireSteel Software's Visual Studio IDE for developing Flash and Flex-based applications for the desktop, the web or mobile devices. It includes a drag-and-drop Designer, IntelliSense, refactoring and a multi-process debugger that can debug between .NET and Flash (C# or VB and ActionScript) in a single debugging session. Note: Huw Collingbourne (editor of Bitwise) is Director of Technology for SapphireSteel Software and, much as he'd like to review Amethyst, he feels he might not be totally impartial.... But you can read more about it on the SapphireSteel Software web site: (...)

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Boots, Reboots and Bootstraps

Not to mention Baron Munchausen...

Friday 24 June 2011

Jargon terms that were once used only by computer programmers and techies are now increasingly becoming part of everyday language. As they do so, their meanings often become obscured. One such example is to "boot" or "reboot" a computer.

It seems that many people do not know that “boot” is a shortened version of “bootstrap”. The idea being that a computer's operating system starts itself by, well, starting itself – an odd idea that is analogous to picking yourself up by your bootstraps. What I didn't know is that the origin of this phrase can be traced back to the 18th Century adventures of Baron Munchausen and that, among computer folk, it was probably popularised by a 1950s' Robert Heinlein science fiction story. That I do know this now can be attributed to the fact that I follow the tweets of Michael Quinion, the man who writes the articles on word origins and meanings for the ever fascinating ‘World Wide Words' site. Read the full story on bootstrapping here: (...)

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Alien Skin Snap Art 3 on its way

New version of artistic plugin

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Alien Skin Software has announced Snap Art 3, the new version of its natural media plug-in for Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Photoshop Lightroom.

“I think our Snap Art fans will be impressed with how much more natural the results are in version 3,” said Tom Welsh, the designer of Snap Art. “The new interface makes it extremely easy to create custom artistic effects.” Pricing and Availability Snap Art 3 will be available in August 2011 through www.alienskin.com for $199 USD. Owners of Snap Art 1 or 2 may upgrade for $99 USD. Free upgrades will be automatically sent to everyone who purchased Snap Art 2 directly from Alien Skin Software in April 2011 or later. Host Requirements Snap Art 3 is a plug-in and requires one of the following host applications: • Adobe Photoshop CS4 or later • Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 or later • Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 or (...)

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ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming University

Book Review

Saturday 11 June 2011

ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming University (2nd Revised Edition) $44.99 / £32.99
by : Gary Rosenzweig
ISBN-13 9780789747327
ISBN-10 0789747324
QUE: http://www.quepublishing.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0789747324
Computer Manuals: http://www.computermanuals.co.uk/scripts/browse.asp?ref=201542
Book’s Web Site: http://flashgameu.com/

If you want to start programming games written in ActionScript and rendered in Flash, this book will get you on the right track. It deals with a broad range of games – from quizzes to fast action races, games with 3D graphics and even games deployed on iPhone. It explains fundamental principles such as frame-based and time-based animation, adding mouse listeners, collision detection and storing game data in XML format. All in all, it's a sound introduction. But, be warned, the book assumes that you will be using Adobe's Flash CS5 IDE. This is a good IDE for timeline based development with graphics but it's not so great for heavyweight programming. In brief, if you are looking for a guide to developing games in Flash CS5, this book can be recommended. If you are not a CS5 user (...)

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Windows 8 Goes on the Attack!

A First Look

Saturday 4 June 2011

For a while, it’s seemed as if Microsoft OSes have been a case of "once more, with feeling".

Windows XP was fine. Windows Vista was, um, well, somewhat less than impressive. Windows 7 was what Vista should have been. In short, the last three versions of Windows have been functional but rather mundane operating systems that have tweaked and retweaked but not exactly set the world ablaze... Windows 8 is different. The first thing to say about it is that it doesn't even look like Windows. The second thing to say is that Microsoft is clearly aiming to bridge the gap between the desktop and mobile devices. At this early date, I have no view on whether or not they will succeed and whether or not Windows 8 will be a great new OS. All I can say for sure is that it certainly looks interesting. See what you (...)

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Ryan Giggs Scores an Internet Revolution

The Twitterati Are Revolting, M’Lud

Tuesday 24 May 2011

In case you failed to notice, a revolution has just happened. It happened in Britain but its after-effects will be felt globally. It started out rather trivially – the sort of stuff that you would normally expect to be gossip today and forgotten tomorrow. It was the story of a philandering footballer’s ex-marital relationship with a Reality TV star. About as banal as you can get – or so you might think.

That all changed when the footballer decided to take legal action to prevent the story being printed in the British newspapers. The newspapers were told that they could only identify the footballer using the (apparently meaningless) initials, CTB. In theory, ordinary members of the British public were also covered by the gagging order. But many of them took no notice and pretty soon tens of thousands of tweets identified the footballer as Ryan Giggs. This widespread public disobedience caused some confusion in the British legal profession. If so many tweeters were ignoring the law, what was to be done? Probably the most stupid thing that could possibly be done was to try to take legal action against Twitter itself. And that, indeed, is what Giggs's legal team did next. They wanted to (...)

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Prime Minister’s computer-generated staff!

Virtually bonkers

Wednesday 11 May 2011

This is a very odd story.

According to a report on the BBC, the British Prime Minister uses 'computer generated', non-existent people to answer his letters. Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman received a reply to a letter sent to the Prime Minister's office signed by a "Mrs E Adams". But when he phoned to speak to Mrs Adams, he was told she didn't exist. The name was, in fact, "computer generated". ‘Raising a point of order in the Commons he said: "What extraordinary events are taking place in 10 Downing Street whereby they send letters from somebody who doesn't exist and expect one to accept this?" Commons Speaker John Bercow said it seemed "peculiarly unfortunate" that the MP's query had been dealt with in this way.' So does that mean that it's OK to have non-existent people communicate with members of the (...)

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Outsmarting Google

Book Review

Friday 6 May 2011

Outsmarting Google: SEO Secrets to Winning New Business $24.99 / £17.99
by Evan Bailyn and Bradley Bailyn
QUE Publishing
http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/product/Outsmarting-Google-SEO-Secrets-to-Winning-New-Business/9780789741035.page
Computer Manuals
http://www.computermanuals.co.uk/scripts/browse.asp?ref=208062
ISBN-10: 0789741032
ISBN-13: 9780789741035

If you have a web site or a blog you will be waging a constant war against Google. In order that your site can gain readers, people have to know it exists. And in order to know it exists, people who use Google need to see it close to the top of the links returned from a search for a relevant subject. The art of making a web site climb up to the top of search engine results is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and mastering this art is the subject of ‘Outsmarting Google'. According to the blurb, this book will help you: Uncover SEO myths and outdated techniques that no longer work; Leverage Google's deep knowledge of how and why people search; Integrate five core SEO ingredients: keywords, links, meta page title, URL structure, and time; Understand what's really involved (...)

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YouTube for Business (2nd Edition)

Book review

Wednesday 20 April 2011

YouTube for Business: Online Video Marketing for Any Business, 2nd Edition $24.99 / £17.99
By Michael Miller
QUE: http://www.quepublishing.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=078974726X
Computer Manuals: http://www.computermanuals.co.uk/scripts/browse.asp?ref=200432
ISBN-10: 0-7897-4726-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-7897-4726-6

This book provides an easy-reading introduction to making, uploading and promoting YouTube movies. It starts out with some simple guidance on how to decide what type of videos might be most effective then it gets down to the nitty-gritty details of the software and hardware you might need to make them, how to upload them and how to let the online world know they are there. While the author does a good job of explaining the fundamentals of YouTube marketing, don't get too excited. There is no ‘magic bullet' here so don't expect to find some special secret that's going to make your videos the next big YouTube sensation. Much of the advice is, in fact, pretty much ‘common sense': determine who your ‘target customer' is, entertaining videos can be more effective than (...)

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Oops! Blackberry Blunder on BBC

How NOT to inspire confidence

Wednesday 13 April 2011

I’m afraid that if I were a potential Blackberry user in the Middle East or India, the BBC’s interview with Mike Lazaridis, the co-chief executive of Research In Motion (RIM), the firm behind Blackberry would not give me a nice, warm feeling...

Lazardis refuses to answer the BBC correspondent's perfectly legitimate questions, ends the interview and insists the camera be turned off. Really, this is not a good way to conduct an interview. The interviewer has the right to ask any question and the interviewee should answer them all with politeness and grace. Refusing to answer a question gives the impression that you don't like the answer you'd be forced to give. It remains to be seen if this BBC video will be a minor embarrassment or deeply damaging. Watch on the BBC site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9456798.stm

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Android, Flash, Visual Studio

Yes, they really do go together!

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Here’s a short video that I just recorded. It shows some of the stuff my company is doing to support mobile app development (edit, design, deploy and debug) for Adobe Flash and Flex projects on mobile Android, Blackberry and iOS devices...

Cybercrime and Espionage

Book review

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Cybercrime and Espionage $59.95
By Will Gragido, John Pirc
Syngress: http://www.syngress.com/digital-forensics/Cybercrime-and-Espionage/

“Cybercrime and Espionage provides a wealth of knowledge related to the realities seen in the execution of advanced attacks, their success from the perspective of exploitation and their presence within all industry. This book will educate you on realities of advanced, next generation threats, which take form in a variety ways.” That's what the publisher says. All I can say is that I am less than impressed. I was expecting this book to provide a fairly in-depth analysis of the methodologies used in the perpetration of criminal and subversive attacks and ways in which those attacks may be resisted. Accordingly, I began by checking the index for information on commonly used tools and techniques such as Rootkits, SQL-injection and Rainbow tables. None of these have an index (...)

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Android Development in Visual Studio

Latest on Amethyst

Thursday 7 April 2011

As regular readers will know, I also have a ’day job’.

Here is a screen shot to give you some idea of what I've been up to recently. This is an Adobe Flash (ActionScript) project in Visual Studio, but deploying and debugging for Android. This is pretty good stuff (if I do say so myself!) - you can find more information over on my software company's web site: http://www.sapphiresteel.com/Blog/article/android-development-with-amethyst

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Corel VideoStudio Pro X4

Video Editing Software

Friday 25 March 2011

VideoStudio Pro X4
$99.99 / £79.99
http://www.corel.com

If you are looking for a simple, low cost way of editing your own videos, you should definitely consider Corel's VideoStudio X4. VideoStudio X4 has a fairly traditional video-editing user interface which provides you with a timeline containing multiple tracks on which to place video and audio clips. You can apply transitions such as fades and wipes between video clips and you can also add titles and captions. Your video clips can be stored in a Library area and this also contains a number of preset titles, transitions and special effects. To use one of the library items you just drop it onto the timeline. You can preview the tracks one at a time or all together and, when you are happy with the results, you click the ‘Share' tab to pick a file format for the output video or (...)

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