Kolejny indeks TIOBE

TIOBE Programming Community Index for February 2005
February Headline: Fourth increase in a row for both Java and C#

The TIOBE Programming Community index gives an indication of the popularity of programming languages. The index is updated once a month. The ratings are based on the world-wide availability of skilled engineers, courses and third party vendors. The popular search engines Google, MSN, and Yahoo! are used to calculate the ratings. Observe that the TPC index is not about the best programming language or the language in which most lines of code have been written.

The index can be used to check whether your programming skills are still up to date or to make a strategic decision about what programming language should be adopted when starting to build a new software system.
Position (Position) Programming Language Ratings (Ratings) Status
1 C 19.820% +1.63% A
2 Java 18.340% -4.22% A
3 C++ 11.337% -4.37% A
4 PHP 10.278% +3.02% A
5 Perl 8.861% -0.61% A
6 (Visual) Basic 7.102% -2.04% A
7 SQL 3.373% -0.14% A
8 Python 2.506% +1.50% A
9 C# 2.363% +0.19% A
10 Delphi/Kylix 1.895% +1.17% A
11 JavaScript 1.779% -0.36% A
12 SAS 1.378% +0.66% A
13 COBOL 0.874% +0.13% A
14 IDL 0.686% +0.31% A--
15 ABAP 0.678% +0.51% A--
16 Lisp 0.656% +0.20% B
17 Pascal 0.556% +0.06% B
18 Fortran 0.518% +0.03% B
19 Ada 0.462% -0.04% B
20 MATLAB 0.402% +0.17% B
Legend

Some columns need extra explanation:

*

(Position). This column indicates the difference in position with respect to last year.
*

Ratings. The search query '+" programming" -tv' is used to calculate the TPC Index. This query is executed for the regular Google, MSN, and Yahoo! web search and the Google newsgroups for the last 12 months. The formula that is applied is #(normalized Google web hits) + #(normalized MSN web hits) + #(normalized Yahoo! web hits) + #(normalized Google newsgroup hits). The term "normalized" means that the sum of all web hits of the first 50 languages for a query is taken and evenly distributed.
*

(Ratings). This column indicates the changes in ratings for the last 12 months.
*

Status. Programming languages that have status "A" are considered to be mainstream languages. Status "A-" and "A--" indicate that a programming language is inbetween status "A" and "B". From a supportability point of view, it is strongly advised to stick to mainstream languages for industrial, mission-critical software systems. If a programming language has a rating that is higher than 0.7% for at least 3 months it is rewarded status "A". The first two months the programming language will receive status "A--" and "A-" respectively. The opposite holds for languages that go from status "A" to status "B".

Sending us artefacts or ideas how to improve the way the TPC index is calculated are very appreciated

Nowa wersja StarOffice ma nowy format zgodny z wymaganiami OASIS

StarOffice 8 Learns From MS Office
By David Worthington, BetaNews
February 17, 2005, 8:10 PM

Basking in the limelight of LinuxWorld, Sun used the occasion to show off a working mock-up of the next version of its StarOffice productivity software. In many ways, StarOffice 8 represents the suite's continued maturation.

Built-in usability enhancements conform to the look and feel of industry standard functionality, configuration options and language support is enhanced, and interoperability with Microsoft Office is more comprehensive. Sun has also has thrown in a newly redesigned database engine and software development kit (SDK).

In its quest to produce a substitute for MS Office, Sun has taken care to soften the transition. Usability enhancements are intended to make the software easier to learn and use, reducing migration and training cost. Features such as toolbars and menus, down to headers and footers, resemble Office and have adopted Office terminology.

For instance, "AutoPilot" has been renamed "Wizard." Notable changes were made to mail merge and a new feature named "Format Paintbrushes" preserves copy and paste styles like Microsoft Office Smart Tags.

What's more, StarOffice has been programmed to behave as a native application -- with native widget rendering -- for every supported operating system such as Solaris, Linux and Windows.

No matter how successful it is at erasing any observable differences between StarOffice and Microsoft Office, Sun must labor to ensure seamless compatibility under the hood. The 8.0 release of StarOffice now has the same set of AutoShapes that Microsoft provides in PowerPoint, and has vastly improved handling of Excel spreadsheet files.

Despite it emphasis on Office, Sun has not forgotten third parties. StarOffice 8.0 has improved PDF support, which for the first time allows quality selection for images, as well as well PDF exports. Some new formats such as Xforms are also supported.

Under Sun's guidance, StarOffice has continued to adhere to open standards. The default file extension for StarOffice files has been changed to the OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) Open Document Format (.odx). Sun maintains backward compatibility to StarOffice 7.0 and previous versions.

In addition, Sun has updated its database engine to HSQLDB, which is open source and Java driven, and has moved to a new front end. Sun claims that it is now much easier to create forms, queries and reports. The software supports most major database types and connectors.

In an appeal to the enterprise, a configuration manager will be bundled with the Java Desktop Configuration Manager. This tool helps manage user settings such as profiles, policies, security and authentication, and access controls.

Since StarOffice fares well overseas and has a broad base of supported languages, the software also has a multi-language installation feature that can be selected during installation.

Lastly, Sun has continued its push -- which began with StarOffice 6.1 -- to court the enterprise sector with extended customization that allows customers to include more functionality or change interface elements. The updated SDK has included API concepts and sample code written in several popular 3G languages.

StarOffice 8 is a free public download.

Naœladowanie OWA i Outlook'a

Firma SCALIX przedstawi³a aplikacjê "open-source" do z³udzenia podobna do MS Outlook bez u¿ycia technologii "grubego" klenta OWA. Wykorzystuje jedynie DHTML i HTTPXML (przesciegne³a nawet google'a GMAIL). Adres http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/index.php?p=1061

Computerworld | HP reveals HTTP vulnerabilities

Computerworld | HP reveals HTTP vulnerabilities