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Check out stackoverflow.com

October 10th, 2008 Posted in Software Development | 3 Comments »

Quite simply stackoverflow.com is a question and answer site for programmers.

From the about page:

Stack Overflow is a programming Q & A site that’s free. Free to ask questions, free to answer questions, free to read, free to index, built with plain old HTML, no fake rot13 text on the home page, no scammy google-cloaking tactics, no salespeople, no JavaScript windows dropping down in front of the answer asking for $12.95 to go away. You can register if you want to collect karma and win valuable flair that will appear next to your name, but otherwise, it’s just free. And fast. Very, very fast.

We don’t run Stack Overflow. You do. Stack Overflow is collaboratively built and maintained by your fellow programmers. Once the system learns to trust you, you’ll be able to edit anything, much like Wikipedia. With your help, we can build good answers to every imaginable programming question together. No matter what programming language you use, or what operating system you call home — better programming is our goal.

Stack Overflow is as frictionless and painless to use as we could make it. We believe finding the right answer to your programming questions should be as easy as falling into the pit of success. And maybe even a little fun along the way.


I coulda had a Google V8

October 3rd, 2008 Posted in Software Development | No Comments »


So I’ve been playing with Google’s new V8 JavaScript engine that was released along with Google’s Chrome browser. V8’s big claim to fame is that it compiles JavaScript code to machine language instead of interpreting it. This gives a nice speed improvement over other JavaScript engines.

I was interested in V8 for use in a scripted server application that I’ve been kicking around for a while. The idea is basically to create a core C++ app that exposes database and communication functionality to JavaScript. You then implement your business logic in JavaScript and rarely have to touch C++ code. You can add C++ code in the form of shared libraries that the server dynamically links so if you do need C++ code you don’t have to touch the core server.

It seemed like V8 would be a great choice for this application until I started getting into it. The problem is that V8 was created with Chrome in mind. Chrome uses separate processes for each browser tab so each tab has it’s own instance of the V8 engine. The V8 engine was designed so that there can only be one instance of the engine per process. In other words, the V8 engine is a singleton. The engine can only be executing a single script at any given time. If you want to create an application with multiple worker threads then you have to use a V8 Locker object to serialize your script execution. If you don’t then the scripts running in different threads will step on each other since they are accessing static member variables within V8. This makes using V8 in my server less desirable because it isn’t going to scale very well.

V8 does have the ability to create multiple contexts that will allow you to have isolated script environments but still only one script can execute at a time. There also appears to be a way to time slice script execution on multiple contexts. I haven’t played with this feature yet but I still don’t think it would address the scalability issue.

V8 would be ideal for a server application that uses worker processes instead of worker threads. I’m not sure I want to go down that path considering the complexity required.

I’m not knocking V8 in any way. It’s an awesome piece of work and the price is great!

I’ll post my V8 test code in a future article.


Wordpress Update in Progress

October 2nd, 2008 Posted in General | No Comments »

The blog could go down for a while…Please stand by…

Update complete…carry on…


Link to a good Cocoa Touch getting started tutorial

October 2nd, 2008 Posted in General | No Comments »

Here’s a link to a nice little “getting started” tutorial on the Cocoa Is My Girlfriend blog.

Cocoa Touch Tutorial: iPhone Application Example


What do they mean by “Released Software”?

October 2nd, 2008 Posted in iPhone | 2 Comments »

Ok, I took the statement by Apple about dropping the NDA to mean we just wouldn’t be able to talk about features in iPhone SDK and OS beta releases. You know, the new stuff they are adding and don’t want anyone else to rip off.

I’m seeing other blog posts out there suggesting that it means only people that have apps up on the App Store being able to talk about what they’ve created. That just doesn’t make sense to me.


Apple dropping the iPhone NDA!

October 1st, 2008 Posted in iPhone | 1 Comment »

See it here.

To Our Developers

We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.

We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.

So we can now talk about release software. I take this to mean we cannot discuss new stuff in the betas.


What I’ve Been Up To Lately

September 29th, 2008 Posted in General | No Comments »

I haven’t been posting much lately. It seems I never have enough time. Plus a four year old and a new baby don’t help matters.

Anyway, I’ve been playing with a lot of cool stuff but just haven’t had time to write about yet. Here’s some of the stuff I’ve been doing and you can look forward to hearing about.

  • Working on an iPhone card game
  • Playing with Google App Engine
  • Open game lobby on Google App Engine for use by the above mentioned iPhone card game and other projects.
  • Playing with Google V8 javascript engine that was released with Chrome.
  • Lua integration
  • Boost C++ library
  • dtl - Database Template Library.
  • Generic scriptabe server - I’m toying with the idea of creating a core C++ server application that exposes generic database access and networking to a scripting language. I have a prototype using the V8 currently. I’d like to turn this into an open source project eventually.
  • Metaplace - I’m in the beta!
  • Google maps - Toying with the idea of creating an online game with aspects of Civilization, M.U.L.E. etc. Using the Google maps API as the renderer with Google App Engine handling the back end.
  • Silverlight

iPhone SDK and OS version 2.2 Beta 1 available

September 25th, 2008 Posted in General | No Comments »

Version 2.2 Beta 1 of the iPhone SDK and OS is available for download.

From the readme:

Beta 1 is a bug fix release to begin testing for compatibility


My wife is walking to help end Alzheimer’s!

September 2nd, 2008 Posted in General | No Comments »

My wife’s mother died of Alzheimer’s back in December and she is doing a walk to raise money for Alzheimer’s research. If anyone wants to donate use the link below. Thanks!

Did you know that in a Gallup poll commissioned by the Alzheimer’s Association, one in 10 Americans said that they had a family member with Alzheimer’s, and one in three knew someone with the disease. The number of Americans with this fatal disease will continue to grow and could total 16 million people by 2050.

Funds raised through Memory Walk help support scientific investigations into better treatments and a possible cure for Alzheimer’s. And for the millions already affected by the disease, Memory Walk donations help to provide local care, support and education programs.

Please help me make a difference by supporting me with a donation.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Follow This Link to visit my personal web page and help me in my efforts to support Alzheimer’s Association Heart of America Chapter


Apple removes notifications from iPhone SDK beta 4

August 16th, 2008 Posted in iPhone | 2 Comments »

Looking at the iPhone SDK beta 4 API change log reveals that the following API calls have been removed from UIApplication.h:

Removed -[UIApplication registerForRemoteNotificationsFromPublisher:]
Removed -[UIApplication registeredRemoteNotificationPublishers]
Removed -[UIApplication remoteNotificationSystemIdentifier]
Removed -[UIApplication remoteNotificationsAreActive]
Removed -[UIApplication unregisterForRemoteNotificationsFromPublisher:]
Removed -[UIApplicationDelegate
application:didReceiveRemoteNotificationFromPublisher:userInfo:]
Removed UIApplication(UIRemoteNotifications)

Also some properties have been removed from CLLocation:

Removed CLLocation.course
Removed CLLocation.speed
Removed CLLocation.speedAvailable
Removed CLLocationDirection
Removed CLLocationSpeed

Removed CLLocationManager.locationServicesApproved

I haven’t installed the 2.1 beta yet but it appears that Apple is removing the ability to receive remote notifications in user applications. This is a feature that many have been eagerly awaiting.

Update

From the beta 4 readme file:

What’s New
Beta release 4 is a bug fix update. This release also removes the client-side APIs for the Apple Push Notification Service for further development.


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