ActiveBlog: Insights on Open Source and Dynamic Languages

Key Modules Added to ActivePython

kendrap — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:18:34 +0000

ActivePython is now more enterprise-ready then ever! With the inclusion of several key modules, ActivePython is now the best choice for all your Python needs. These modules are only available in the Business Edition and Enterprise Editions of ActivePython.

What's new:

GUI Toolkits Modules: PyQt and wxPython are two of the most popular GUI Toolkits in the Python developer community
Database Modules: Modules for connecting to MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and any ODBC database: MySQL-python, psycopg2, cx_Oracle, pyodbc and pymssql
Crypto Module: M2Crypto is one of the primary Python tools for providing security and is the most complete Python wrapper for OpenSSL

You can add these key modules to your ActivePython installation in 1 of 2 easy ways:

Buy ActivePython Business Edition
Request a Quote for ActivePython Enterprise Edition

ActivePython Busines Edition and ActivePython Enterprise Edition include service level guarantees to support business-critical systems. Comprehensive licensing agreements through ActiveState’s OEM Edition let you redistribute ActivePython and your required modules worry-free.

Using Python in the enterprise has never been so safe and so easy!

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How to Migrate Perl Server-to-Server

grahams — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:00:30 +0000

Sooner or later everybody swaps out hardware. Installing the new gear is usually the easy part. How do you get your applications transferred across, as quickly as possible, and make sure they work on the new system?

Moving Perl anywhere is always a calculated risk because Perl isn't designed to be moved around. How large the risk is depends on how much the environment changes. If all that's happening is a hardware refresh, then the existing installation can be transferred onto the same path on the new system with very little risk. (Keep in mind that some common transfer methods will convert links into copies of the original file. This is enough to break an installation.)

At the opposite end of the spectrum are cases where everything changes; hardware, operating system version, Perl version, installation pathe, etc. With these cases there is no realistic hope of transfer. These cases should always re-install from scratch.

Everything else falls into a grey area with a rapidly diminishing rate of return for each additional manual step needed. If only the operating system changes, the results of a simple transfer across will vary depending on how good your O/S vendor is at backward compatibility. We don't recommend this because if something breaks, it may not become obvious until the specific affected library is needed, and you're not starting out with the system in a known or easy to re-create state so it's much harder to trouble-shoot. If you feel you need to try this method, test the install as thoroughly as you can before returning it to production.

If the Perl version changes, or you move from a 32-bit to a 64-bit version, or you change the install path, just about the only thing that can be trusted is pure Perl code. Since there are so many modules with compiled components, and some of the pure Perl code packages are self modifying when they are installed, sorting out which modules can be "transferred" comes down to a choice between trial and error or manual code diving. In our opinion, either method is too much work to be justified.

ActivePerl provides some tools which can speed up a clean re-install. The major problem a re-install poses is getting all the modules you need. PPM has a utility to capture a profile:

ppm profile save MySetup.xml

After installing ActivePerl on the new machine, copy MySetup.xml from the old to the new machine and run:

ppm profile restore MySetup.xml

This will help enormously, but it won't give you exactly what you had before. This method will install the latest versions of your modules rather than the exact versions you were using. Overall, this is probably a good thing. You'll get fixes and features you didn't have before, and you may need the latest versions on your system anyway if you have upgraded Perl or your third party software.

The PPM system has a lot of modules, but you may find that a module you used in the past isn't available. This can happen if a module has been deprecated. It can also happen if the module is incompatible with the version of Perl you want to use, or if the module can't be compiled without the presence of third party software. Watch the output of the "ppm profile restore" command for modules that can't be found. Sometimes these modules can be sourced from other non-ActiveState PPM repositories. If you know ahead of time that modules in your list have to be pulled from other repositories, you can add those repositories to PPM before you run the "ppm profile restore". If a module can't be sourced from any known repository, it is often possible to use the Perl CPAN tools in ActivePerl and PPM to help you compile the modules locally. In the end, there may be a few cases where the best alternative is changing your programs to use a different module.

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Deploying Tcl Applications with Starpacks

andreask — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:25:24 +0000

Finally your software is complete! Ready to leave the nest of your development environment, spread its wings, fly into the wide world of unpredictable user environments... and crash. Deployment: the bane of software developers.

All of the subtle and not-so-subtle dependencies your application has on things in your development environment don’t necessarily carry over to the end users. Particularly the important parts: the packages, the runtime, the data files, and what-not.

Cue "wrapping", the method of choice for Tcl applications.

Take the interpreter, the packages (binary and pure Tcl), the data files, and put them into a single new file: the application executable. All the dependencies are satisfied, carried within that one file and independent of the system environment (e.g. the user’s own, incompatible Tcl installation).

Installation is via copying, un-installation via deletion.

Of the various methods developed over the years (freewrap, mktclapp, prowrap), ActiveState chose starpacks, both as the method to support the tools in our Tcl Dev Kit, and as the way these tools are packaged themselves.

Built on top of the virtual filesystem support added to the Tcl core in the 8.4 development cycle eight years ago, a slightly modified runtime, called a basekit or tclkit, accesses a metakit database attached to it as if it were a regular filesystem. All file commands work, and everything built on top of them--including Tcl's package management. While some care is needed to run the application both wrapped and unwrapped, the changes are minimal and done only once, in the startup.

The above description also provides the major reason for us choosing this technology. All the other methods are based on custom hacks of and patches to the Tcl library. Starpacks are based on public APIs and need only a bit of custom building for the creation of their basekit runtimes, and even there only the public APIs of the core are used to achieve the customized startup looking for and initializing access to the attached filesystem.

Tcl Dev Kit’s main tool for packaging Tcl applications is TclApp, a graphical front-end to the core functionality of wrapping files and packages into starpacks. The virtual filesystem explorer, TclVFSE for short, is a supporting tool for examining starpacks and their contents. The TDK has a 21 day trial, so you can try these tools out for yourself and see if they fit your needs.

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New Webinar - Connecting the Dots: US SEC, ABS Mandates, Financial Modeling and Python

kendrap — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:24:42 +0000

Join us on Wednesday September 22nd for a webinar co-hosted by Ann Rutledge, R&R Consulting, and Diane Mueller, ActiveState, focused on the recent US SEC regulation, ABS Mandates, Financial Modeling and Python.

Date: Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Time: 10:00 AM Pacific/1:00 PM Eastern/17:00 UTC

Space is limited - Reserve your Webinar seat now!

Recently, the US SEC published a proposal (33-9117) covering a series of new initiatives to address the current lack of transparency of asset-backed securities (ABS). This new series of SEC proposed initiatives are a way of putting "teeth" into Reg AB that would give the SEC (and the market) enough data to police and prevent events like the recent subprime crisis.

In this webinar, Ann Rutledge and Diane Mueller will discuss a new key technical requirement in the SEC proposal; the provision of a Python computer program and the market data required to properly monitor and analyse these complex ABS transactions. The role of the proposed program is to enable the capture of all the complicated terms of an ABS deal in code that can be used to analyze the cash flows in each deal and how the returns will get split up between different parties. Currently, investors, fund managers, and investment managers receive a complex, textual description of this information in the prospectus, which makes it difficult to perform or visualize a rigorous quantitative or if-then analysis of the asset-backed securities.

By attending this webinar you will learn:

some historical challenges regarding regulation of the asset-backed securities (ABS) market
technical benefits of Python and XML for capturing essential financial information in ABS transactions
about opportunities for collaboration between between regulators, accounting standards bodies, and the open source software community

If you are in the finance industry and are affected by the potential SEC regulations, you don't want to miss this webinar!

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Pain-free Continuous Integration for Python Using tox+Hudson

sridharr — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:00:17 +0000

At ActiveState, we use Hudson for continuous integration of our various Python projects such as PyPM.

Why do we use Hudson and not Buildbot? The short answer is that Hudson is simply much easier to configure and run than buildbot.

Most of our Python projects - internal and external - are meant to work on at least three platforms: Linux, Windows and MacOSX. In addition, they must also work on a variety of Python versions, say: 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 3.1. Each of these projects have a reasonable coverage of tests; yet every commit to the trunk leaves the risk of breaking a specific functionality on a particular platform and particular Python version, that the developer who introduced the commit may not be using. This is where continuous integration, and Hudson in particular, comes to help.

We first install Hudson in a master machine and then configure the various "slave" machines each corresponding to a platform. We normally use the following seven slaves/platforms for our Python projects:

win32-x86
win64-x64
macosx-10.4
macosx-10.5
macosx-10.6
linux-x86
linux-x86_64

Configuring the slave is magically easier with Hudson. On Windows machine, thanks to Java Web Start, assuming Java is already installed, we only have to invoke a particular URL from browser. On other machines, this is a matter of running a particular Java command line.

And that veers our attention to the Hudson web interface for the rest of the configuration. Titus' PyCon talk referred to above walks through the necessary steps for setting up a project for continuous integration in Hudson, so I won't go into the details. Suffice it to say that you will have to, at minimum, provide the a) source control URL for your project, and b) the command-line (or Python script) to run your project's tests.

Where does tox come into this picture? tox makes it much easier to test across the various Python versions. If you have been watching Titus' talk, it must have been clear that setting up testing across multiple platforms is as simple as checking across each of the Hudson slave you want to test. With tox, you just need to write a file named ``tox.ini`` in your project root directory. The platinfo project has one:

$ cat tox.in [tox] envlist = py24, py25, py26, py27, py31 [testenv] commands = python test/test.py $

If you now run "tox" in the command line, tox will automagically:

Find the various Python versions installed on your system, without you telling it explicitly
Create virtualenv for each of the configured Python versions
Create a sdist of your project (setup.py) and then install it on the virtualenv along with the dependencies.
Run the specified test command using that virtualenv.

tox integrates with Hudson by way of a command line - consult the tox documentation for more details.

For the fine details, I suggest you to watch this excellent PyCon 2010 talk by Titus Brown.

See also:

tox home page
Michael Foord's blog post on how he uses tox with the mock project
tox bootstrap script, so you do not have to install tox on each of the slaves
Continuous Integration (Wikipedia)

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New M2Crypto Module in ActivePython

kendrap — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:17:25 +0000

With security being top of mind for many organizations, the addition of the most complete Python wrapper for OpenSSL, M2Crypto, is a welcome addition to the enterprise-ready distribution of ActivePython. The M2Crypto module is available for Windows, Linux and Mac (for both x86 and x86_64) in ActivePython Business, Enteprise, and OEM Editions.

OpenSSL is a robust, commercial-grade, full-featured, and open source toolkit implementing the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL v2/v3) and Transport Layer Security (TLS v1) protocols. OpenSSL also includes the full-strength general purpose cryptography library, and is the most widely used protocol for secure network communications.

Find out more here.

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Celebrating 22 Builds of Komodo by the LA Zoo

trentm — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:17:53 +0000

Last Thursday the LA Zoo & Botanical Gardens tweeted that they’d successfully hatched 22 Komodo dragons (more info). That’s awesome! Congratulations to the Zoo staff on their efforts. In celebration, we’ll donate 20% of all Komodo IDE sales for Tuesday, Aug 31st to the LA Zoo.

Update September 1/10: Thanks to everyone who purchased a copy of Komodo IDE yesterday! 20% of our online Komodo sales was donated to the Zoo. If you'd like to contribute you can donate to them online. They've also posted a video of the hatchlings in action. Adorable!

Name a dragon

Given the techie audience for Komodo and the ActiveState blog, we thought that (for fun) we could come up with a list of good dragon names for those 22 cuties. Do you have any fond memories of dragons from your Fantasy genre reading? Smaug? Others? Please suggest a LA Zoo Komodo dragon baby in the comment section below.

ActiveState babies

Incidentally, here at ActiveState we’ve hatched 56 Komodo releases over the years (along with countless nightly builds). Here is a feature from 22 recent Komodo IDE hatchlings:

Version	Feature
Komodo 6.0.0b3	Invoke Tool dialog, Performance
Komodo 6.0.0b2	HTML 5/CSS 3 autocomplete
Komodo 6.0.0b1	Python 3 autocomplete support
Komodo 6.0.0a2	Places sidebar, Publishing
Komodo 6.0.0a1	Database Explorer, Multi-language Rx
Komodo 5.2.2	PHP namespace autocomplete handling
Komodo 5.2.1	Multi-language syntax coloring fixes, Git integration improvements
Komodo 5.2.0	PHP 5.3 support, Ruby 1.9.1 debugging support
Komodo 5.2.0b1	Source Code Control history searching
Komodo 5.2.0a1	HTML "View Source" in Komodo
Komodo 5.1.4	Find in Files improvements
Komodo 5.1.3	"Fast Open" improvements, Vi emulation improvements
Komodo 5.1.0	"Fast Open" dialog
Komodo 5.1.0b1	Hyperlinks
Komodo 5.1.0a2	Find highlighting
Komodo 5.1.0a1	Editor History
Komodo 5.0.3	Komodo Add-ons improvements
Komodo 5.0.2	Rx improvements, mixed end-of-line character checking
Komodo 5.0.0	Git support
Komodo 5.0.0b1	Code Formatting system
Komodo 5.0.0a3	Multi-window support, Workspace save/restore
Komodo 5.0.0a2	Mercurial and Bazaar support

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Google Summer of Code: Tcl-style

andreask — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:50:30 +0000

Now that this year's Google Summer of Code has ended, it's time for Matthew and me as admins for the Tcl Association to summarize things.

As in previous years, the Tcl Association was an umbrella organization handling not only projects related directly to the Tcl core and packages, but also for smaller organizations with a high Tcl content, like the aMSN project.

This year Google gave us seven slots to fill. While this was two less than we were given in previous years, it was also in line with Google generally dialing down the overall number of slots this year. We actually got an above average number of slots (750 projects for 152 organizations, for an average of not quite five projects per organization).

The detailed listing of this year's Tcl projects (with students, mentors, etc.) can be found on the Tcler's Wiki, specifically at GSoC 2010 Executed Projects (as we've done in previous years).

All of our students passed.

I will be talking about this summer's Tcl GSoC participation at this year's Tcl Conference as well. Please see their website for the schedule and registration.

I am even more pleased that two of our students are working on papers to present their work at the conference as well, namely Ozgur Dogan Ugurlu's Tcl Bytecode Assembler, and Eduardo Santos' OpenACS Abstraction Layer.

I hope to see you there.

Thank you to all participants this summer and hopefully we will see you next year as well--as students or mentors. If that turns out to be impossible, please keep spreading the word about GSoC in general, and Tcl in particular.

At last, a big thanks as well to ActiveState for allowing me to perform my work for the Tcl/GSoC on company time.

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Deployment & distribution: PerlApp or ActivePerl OEM?

angieh — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:01:27 +0000

With thousands of people downloading ActivePerl and Perl Dev Kit to get started with creating applications or scripts with Perl, one of the questions we often get is - "When can I use PerlApp to distribute my application, and when do I need an OEM license to redistribute ActivePerl?"

So here are some basic guidelines:

You can take your Perl script, ActivePerl and PerlApp and wrap or compile the script into a single, simple-to-install standalone executable that can be redistributed without the need for an OEM license. The PerlApp feature in Perl Dev Kit makes it a popular product for creating applications when you don't want users to touch your code or run scripts.
If you allow a user to interact with the underlying language (have the executable run scripts), or wrap up the entire language build into the executable, or if the user can see that the underlying language is ActivePerl, then an OEM license is required.

It's not always black and white, so if in doubt, please contact us while you're in development.

Other resources:

ActivePerl Community Edition

ActivePerl Community Edition license (for information & pricing OEM license and redistribution rights, please contact us.)

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Kitchen Angels - Activators Driven to Make a Difference!

shannony — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:18:20 +0000

Last week, the sales & marketing team took some time away from the office to participate in a program called Kitchen Angels. Run by a unique company called Inspire Canada, we spent the day in a kitchen challenge (complete with a time and budget limitation!) to prepare meals for homeless people in Vancouver. It was a great opportunity to collaborate as a team, challenge ourselves, have fun, and make a difference in our community!

We loved the program so much, that we wanted to share the experience with you! Here are some of the highlights of the day:

The challenge:
Four hours to cook and feed 175 needy people in Vancouver, to the satisfaction of an executive chef, under budget restrictions.

The results:
Fantastic! The team really came together to highlight their strengths, and the community members who benefited were very, very thankful. One man saw one of our team members walking to work the next day, and high-fived her for a great meal the night before!

Activators who participated:

Angie Hirata, Director, Sales & Marketing
Kendra Penrose, Marketing Communications Manager
Sheila Rebellato, Marketing Campaign Manager
Shannon Yelland, Online Marketing Manager
Michael Simon, Customer Service/Sales Representative
Ron Buckley, Account Executive
Michelle Gagnon, Account Executive

The menu:
We combined our creative juices to create the menu below. Thank goodness for those on the team that are kitchen whizzes, who made up for those of us that are more challenged in the culinary department!

Ginger Soy Pork Tenderloin
Orange Chicken Thighs and Rabbit
Roasted Vegetables with Garlic
Couscous with Cucumbers & Tomatoes
Chocolate Dipped Fruit
Bread Pudding with Raisins & Coconut, served with a decadent caramel sauce

“Being a kitchen angel for one day was an awesome team building event and very humbling--definitely an eye opener for me. I felt very honored to help feed that many people and to connect with other Activators at the same time.”
- Shannon Yelland

“As a new member of the team, Kitchen Angels really gave me the opportunity to get to know my
teammates and help out the community in my city. It helped me to learn what is being done to help the less fortunate is our city”
- Michelle Gagnon

“This was a truly rewarding experience! I loved getting to work toward a completely unique goal with my coworkers, and give back to the community at the same time. I feel closer to my teammates now, and want to thank Inspire Canada for a top-notch afternoon.”
- Sheila Rebellato

“Totally eye opening in many ways. This challenge was so different from what we usually focus on as a team in the workplace, but that let us come together as a team in a different way. Each one of us had to take a mental inventory of our skills, find where we could contribute and then give our best in that area.”
- Michael Simon

“If it wasn’t for Michael taking the initiative with the dish washing midway through, I am sure we would not have completed on time. He knew it had to be done, even if it was not a glorifying task!”
- Shannon Yelland

The final outcome and key takeaways:

The team delivered on time with 30 minutes to spare
Enough food was made for many people to come back for seconds (or thirds, or pack lunches for their jobs the next day!)
The team was thanked many times by the attendees for the great tasting food
We realized that we are a strong team and the process brought us closer together
The team now wants to do more bonding experiences together in future
Some team members really shined through and showed project management skills that were not as obvious day-to-day in the office

Inspire Canada is an great way for Vancouver organizations to give back to the community as well as participate in great team building experiences. Why not join companies like ActiveState, ACL , and SAP who have participated and contact Inspire Canada today?

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Top 4 Insights from GROW 2010 Conference in Vancouver

bartc — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:43:51 +0000

I took a break from Dynamic Languages late last week to attend the GROW 2010 Conference in Vancouver, BC. What is GROW? In a nutsell it is "a technology conference that brings together leading entrepreneurs, thinkers, influencers and investors from Silicon Valley and Canada to inspire innovation and entrepreneurship". The conference was held in ActiveState's home town of Vancouver, Canada. Our hat goes off to the GROW organizers for putting on a "kick-ass" event. It was outstanding.

Details on GROW can be found at: http://growconf.com/

The day was filled with excellent networking and lots of great insights.

Here are the top 4 insights I got from GROW that I will leave you to ponder:

#1 Leonard Brody - President, Clarity Digital:

"Don't build a business that tries to change human behaviour"
"First mover advantage is a fallacy"

#2 Tony Hsieh - CEO, Zappos:

Kara Swisher, Co- Executive Editor, The Wall Street Journal, interviewed Tony. Tony shared some wonderful stories about Zappos as he is about to start a tour to promote his book: "Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose". These stories combined with Tony's very "humble" demeanor, which is not surprising for that is one of the core values of Zappos, could make this book a very interesting read.

#3 Lane Becker - Co-Founder, Get Satisfaction

What is "Get Satisfaction"? It's a social support application for engaging your customer community to reduce support costs, build buzz and collect feedback. Should ActiveState consider replacing our community forums and bug lists with Get Satisfaction? What do you think?
On the topic of failing: "Fail: But at your speed and on your own terms."
Plus, the next time some one slams your venture or idea, consider a rule he shared: "Nobody knows anything"

#4 Dave McClure, 500 Hats LLC

For a "platform" to be viable it needs:
1. Users
2. Money (e.g. a revenue/business model)
3. Features
In that order! Note: The term "platform" was used in context to platforms such as: LinkedIn, FaceBook, iPhone

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5 Key Database Modules added into ActivePython: PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server and ODBC

kendrap — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:15:21 +0000

ActivePython now provides five key Python database modules; mysql-python, psycopg2, cx_Oracle, pyodbc, and pymssql.

With the addition of these modules, ActivePython now supports the world's most popular proprietary and open source databases including MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. To find out which products these are available on, check out the official webpage.

We've got your enterprise covered:

MySQL has become the world's most popular open source database and is used in more than 10 million installations ranging from large corporations to specialized embedded applications. MySQL runs on more than 20 platforms including Linux, Windows, and OS/X, HP-UX, AIX.
PostgreSQL is an open source database used by the likes of Yahoo, Skype and MySpace and is now widely seen as an alternative to MySQL database.
While the Oracle proprietary database offerings still lead in worldwide in RDBMS software market share, Microsoft's SQL Server product is not far behind especially considering the fact that SQL Server is only available on Windows-based systems while Oracle caters to a variety of platforms.

With the addition of the python ODBC package (pyodbc), ActivePython nows enables your development teams to rapidly build and deploy enterprise-class applications that rely on enterprise-grade databases.

This release improves ActivePython's ablity to connect with wide mix of the world's most popular proprietary and open source databases giving developers more flexibility and more choice in their design decisions, including whether to use an open source or propriety database.

Newly released ActivePython Database Modules now included in PyPM can be viewed here.

ActiveState also employs a number of python language experts and providing our customers unparalleled expertise in our language distributions, technical support, consulting, and training services. At ActiveState, we pride ourselves in providing prompt response and quick resolution of technical issues for our customers. Depending on the level of commercial support you choose, our dynamic languages experts will work to quickly diagnose and solve your problems so that your system and your business can keep running smoothly.

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Perl 5.12: Ready to Make the Move?

angieh — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 19:09:04 +0000

Last week we hosted a webinar on Perl called "Keeping up with Perl: development, upgrade and deployment options for Perl 5.12 ", where 79% of the audience was considering an upgrade to Perl 5.12. Jan Dubois, senior Perl developer and Troy Topnik, technical writer, covered a wide range of topics to answer the important question: now that ActivePerl 5.12 and Perl Dev Kit 9 are available, are you ready to make the move?

Jan and Troy covered:

What’s new in Perl 5.12
What to do with legacy code written in Perl
Assess if you need to upgrade to the latest Perl
How to deploy Perl applications quickly and efficiently
How to use CPAN and Perl Package Manger (PPM) for managing 3rd party modules
Deployment choices including web, system, desktop and utility applications

The vast majority of people who attended the webinar are currently using ActivePerl 5.8 and 5.10. Not surprisingly, most people (79%) are considering upgrading to 5.12. A large majority indicated that they used Perl for data analysis (84%) even more so than system administration (69%).

Are you ready to make the move to 5.12? ActivePerl 5.12 is now available in all Editions (Enterprise, OEM, Business, and Community Editions), and is supported in Perl Dev Kit 9 too. If you're considering the upgrade, listening to the archived webinar is worth your time. If you're starting to implement new applications with Perl, concerned with legacy applications, or are simply in need of a refresher to keep up-to-date, don't miss it.

The webinar is available here (full audio/video): https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/941079089
Note: The first two minutes have some some bad audio feedback. Once the main presenters start, however, this is largely cleared up and is not a distraction.

Or, for a quick review, see the slides below.

Keeping up with Perl: Development, Upgrade and Deployment Options for Perl 5.12

View more presentations from ActiveState.

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Komodo IDE on a USB stick

troyt — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:41:56 +0000

I like it when a Komodo tech support email comes in that makes me think "Good question. I don't know the answer. I bet we could make this work though."

One such question arrived last week from a long-time Komodo user who wanted us to make Komodo "portable" so that he could run it from a USB stick when he was travelling. Not everyone uses a laptop after all.

A simple solution was posted in the Komodo Community forum a while back, but it didn't take into account changing mount points/drive letters from system to system (which is important for Komodo) and it wouldn't work for Komodo IDE. So, here's a solution that should work for most people.

We'll have to:

install the software to the USB drive
tell Komodo to put the user settings on the USB drive, rather than in the default location
for Komodo IDE, put the license on the USB drive
optionally, install a language distribution too

I'll show a Windows example, but the above principles will be the same on OS X and Linux.

Install Komodo to a directory on the USB stick. For example:
E:\KomodoIDE-portable

The Windows drive letter may be different for you, and will likely change when moving from system to system, but we'll cross that bridge in a moment.
Create the following directories in the installation base directory:
E:\KomodoIDE-portable\AppData\

You don't have to use that directory name, but we'll stick with it for now.
Create a file in the base directory of the installation (i.e. adjacent to the Komodo executable) called 'portable.bat' with the following contents:
```
@echo off
set APPDATA=%CD%\AppData
set KOMODO_HOSTNAME=usb
set KOMODO_USERDATADIR=%APPDATA%\komodo_profile
START ko.exe
```
This is the meat of it, a batch script that sets a few environment variables that are important to Komodo, then launches the application.
- KOMODO_USERDATADIR is a special variable that tells Komodo where to look for and save profile information. If you're running Komodo Edit, this may be the only one you need to set.
- KOMODO_HOSTNAME is another special variable that you'll need if you're running Komodo 5, which saves host-specific preferences in a 'host-<hostname>' subdirectory of the profile. If you don't want Komodo to generate a new code intelligence database for each machine you work on (and you probably don't), set this variable.
- APPDATA is a Windows-specific variable that tells applications where to find user-secific application data. If you set this, you don't actually have to set KOMODO_USERDATADIR, since the default location of the Komodo profile is within APPDATA.
So there's some choice on how you set this up, but the above "belt and suspenders" approach should work.
If you're using Komodo IDE, you'll need to put the license on there too. Komodo looks for this license in a subdirectory of APPDATA, so you need that APPDATA variable set as above (e.g. in the console using 'SET') before running the license installer.

You could conceivably make a multi-platform USB stick with installations of Komodo for Mac OS X and Linux in separate directories. You'd need to set up separate bash scripts for each copy.

We're done, right? Well, possibly.

If you're going to be using Komodo's debugging, syntax checking, and code intellgence features for Perl, Python, PHP, Ruby, or Tcl, you'll probably need the appropriate interpreter(s). You might as well install these on the USB drive as well.

If you're doing that, you should add the interpreter to the path in the same batch file. For example, if you installed ActivePerl in a subdirectory of 'KomodoIDE-portable', you'd specify the path to perl.exe with a line like:

set PATH=%CD%\Perl\bin;%PATH%

By default, Komodo will look for languages interpreters on the PATH. It's best to leave the language preference set that way in this case because, as with the user profile directory, we can't rely on the full path to the interpreter staying the same from system to system.

Your mileage may vary, but this trick worked for me and the customer who wrote in with the request. I hope it helps some of you travel more easily with your favorite IDE.

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How to Sell Enterprise Language Distributions to Your Boss

angieh — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:28:28 +0000

In working with Perl, Python, and Tcl developers in companies, many have a strong preference for using the ActiveState versions of these dynamic languages. Developers that use ActivePerl, ActivePython, and ActiveTcl appreciate how it saves them time by having easy access to pre-compiled modules through our package managers, and installers for a wide range of operating systems and platforms. However, a lot of their managers (or their managers’ managers) don’t have this same understanding. And when it comes to getting approval for enterprise-grade purchases (ActivePerl Enterprise, for example), developers often have a hard time explaining the value to the higher-ups.

Speak their language

The most important thing to remember about “selling” something to your managers and other stakeholders is to speak their language. Many of the approvers of IT or development purchases don’t understand or care about the technical nitty-gritty of Perl, Python, or Tcl.

What they care about is maximizing productivity (getting the most out of your time) and minimizing risk (especially in business or mission-critical systems). So if you’re a developer paid to create applications using Perl for your company, the company wants you to spend your time adding value to the business with the applications you create, not compiling binary modules. If Perl is used in mission-critical applications, they need to know that there are sufficient resources to manage and trouble-shoot the core applications.

Flooring Specialists Don’t Make Floorboards

If your manager was paying professionals to build or renovate a home, they would hire various builders and contractors like tilers, electricians, and flooring specialists. Each of those trades people would come to the job with the parts they need. The tiler would come with tiles, the flooring specialists would come with hardwood or other floorboards. The flooring guys certainly wouldn’t be expected to make the floorboards themselves by sourcing the wood, measuring it, chopping it, sanding it, and polishing it. They would have the finished floorboards ready to install, because that’s the value they provide... so they get their ready-to-use materials from their suppliers.

The same could be said for software developers. Employers expect developers to use their core competencies to build applications for the company, not to prepare the raw materials they need to do the building.

Show a Return on Investment

So when selling your higher-ups on the value of enterprise-grade language distributions to do your job, consider the amount of time spent by developers throughout your company on:

Compiling modules
Trouble-shooting problems with your builds
Getting version consistency across all your operating systems
Reviewing complex licensing terms for various modules to understand if and how you can use it in your company (whether your time or your legal departments’ time)

If the investment in an enterprise-ready language distribution is less than the time spent (and related dollar cost) building and configuring the application’s run-time environment, then the higher-ups will understand the value proposition, and go for the positive return on investment. And you’ll be able to spend your time on providing more value back to the company.

Need more help building your case? Learn more in this white paper, or angieh [at] activestate [dot] com (subject: ROI%20template%20spreadsheet%20(from%20blog)) (email me) for help using our ROI template spreadsheet.

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Smooth Transitions: Using Tcl 8.5 and upgrading to Tcl 8.6

kendrap — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 18:32:25 +0000

As part of our regular webinar series we are hosting our second technical webinar focused on Tcl. Join resident Tcl expert Jeff Hobbs, Director of Engineering at ActiveState and long-time Tcl community leader and member of the Tcl Core Team, as he reviews Tcl 8.5 and gives a sneak peak into what to expect from Tcl 8.6. From infinite precision math to new data structures and with several new commands, this webinar will cover in depth the major changes in Tcl 8.5 and how to take advantage of them, as well as a glimpse of Tcl 8.6. In addition to major changes in 8.5, he will review best practices and tips to ensure a successful migration.

Date: Wed, August 25, 2010
Time: 11:00am PST/ 2:00pm EST

Space is limited so register now!

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ActiveState Survey Results: Security biggest barrier to Cloud adoption

sheilar — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 13:02:21 +0000

July's ActiveState quick poll focused on Cloud adoption, and revealed that developers are still feeling a little 'insecure' about the cloud. Responses revealed that it would probably take both a corporate mandate and better security before most would deploy to the cloud.

When asked what the barriers when deploying to public clouds, again respondents ranked security higher than all other issues.

This perception of a lack of security did not keep respondents from seeing real benefits in deploying to the Cloud: automation of scalability, fail over, and provisioning being the most compelling reason for moving to the cloud.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the survey!

Interested in sharing your views with us? Participate in this month's survey about open source databases.

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Komodo 6.0 Beta 3: Faster, More Stable, Invoke Tool panel

trentm — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 23:26:39 +0000

We (ActiveState) released Komodo 6.0 beta 3 today and we want your feedback. If you tried beta 2 from about a month ago and hit stability issues, I’m pleased to note that we’ve squashed a few major crasher bugs: beta 3 is much more stable. We’ve made some significant performance improvements as well. Update via Komodo’s Help > Check for Updates… menu entry and give it another try. If you are a current Komodo IDE 5 or Komodo Edit 5 user; in the market for a new Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, Tcl, XML, HTML, CSS IDE or editor; interested in hacking on an open source editor; or just curious please download the beta:

Read some of the details below and tell us how you really feel:

What’s New in Beta 3?

Faster
- improved startup and shutdown speed
- faster file closing
- better editor tab switching speed
- faster text searching in files
Invoke Tool
- easily search and invoke a toolbox item
- you can find it under the Tools menu
Updated API catalogs for
- Perl 5.10 and Perl 5.12
- jQuery 1.4.2
- Dojo 1.5.0
- YUI 2.8
Stability improvements on all platforms

What’s New in Komodo 6?

A lot. HTML 5 autocomplete. CSS 3 autocomplete. Full Python 3 support (debugging, syntax checking, autocomplete, code browsing). A new Database Explorer tool for quickly exploring SQL databases (SQLite out of the box and extensions for MySQL and Oracle, with plans for Postgres). A new project system called “Places” (mostly complete) that adds a file system browser (local and remote). New publishing support for syncing a directory with a remote machine. Additions to Komodo’s Hyperlinks for quickly navigating to file references. Added support for PHP, Perl, Ruby and JavaScript regular expression debugging with Komodo’s excellent Rx tool. See the Komodo 6.0 Features post for a full outline.

Your feedback please

Komodo 6 is still months (a couple at least) away from a final release. We’d love to have your input on how we can polish and improve on the above work and how we can make Komodo IDE and Komodo Edit tools that help you get your coding work done faster. Please subscribe to this blog or follow @activestate on twitter for coming posts that go into detail on what’s coming and new in Komodo 6. And please give us your feedback. Enjoy.

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ActiveState comments on SEC proposed use of Python

dianem — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:01:20 +0000

ActiveState has submitted its comments to the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC's) Proposed Rule on Asset-Backed Securities [Release Nos. 33-9117; 34-61858; File No. S7-08-10].

ActiveState wrote in support of the SEC's proposed use of Python in the preparation of a waterfall computer program in the offering disclosure, and reporting for asset-backed securities.

The full text of the comment letter can be found here (PDF), or read the list of all submitted comment letters at: http://sec.gov/comments/s7-08-10/s70810.shtml.

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Check out DjangoDash 2010

dianem — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 07:00:00 +0000

ActiveState is pleased to sponsor this year's Django Dash 2010, a 48-hour competition for Django enthusiasts to "flex and show off their coding skills".

Registration: August 1 - 7
Competition: August 14 - 15
Winners Announced: August 31

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. It lets you build high-performing, elegant Web applications quickly and DjangoDash is a perfect showcase - an intense 48 hour deadline will push developers to test the limits of their ingenuity to deliver the coolest apps possible.

DjangoDash is a chance for Django enthusiasts to show off their coding skills and their ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines! It's also a cool way of showing of how easy it is to do rapid web application development with Django.

Participants have 48 hours from start to stop to produce the best Django app they can and have a little fun in the process.

The DjangoDash has a few simple rules:

Nothing Gets Built Ahead Of Time
48 Hours To Build
Max Team Of 3
Your Choice Of Git Or Mercurial
Your Entry Is Open Source
Any Third Party Code Is Fine (But Affects Your Score)
You Must Use Pip Requirements Or Buildout

ActiveState has donated copies of Komodo IDE to the winners and there are lots of other cool prizes too!

And even if you aren't competing you can follow along on irc.freenode.net at #djangodash.

Learn more about DjangoDash and Django.

Learn more about Komodo IDE and ActivePython.

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Python & Finance: US SEC Mandates, Financial Modeling, and Other Snakes in the Grass - OSCON Presentation

dianem — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:04:44 +0000

As promised, here's the slidedeck from my recent OSCON2010 presentation.

I reviewed the implications of the US SEC's recent proposal to use an open source language (Python) for modeling the flow of funds (waterfall) in asset-backed securities and walked through some financial content use cases - in hopes of spurring some collaboration between the open source community, domain experts and government regulators.

Python & Finance: US Government Mandates, Financial Modeling, and Other Snakes in the Grass

View more presentations from ActiveState.

My premise here is that as governments around the world begin to provide more and more data in web developer-friendly formats on sites like data.gov and sec.gov - there is an inherent set of hurdles that must be overcome. Not the least of which is that the domains are complex, the relationships of even similar data across government agencies is often ill-defined, the tools are still sometime a glimmer in some developer's eye and more often than not - proprietary in nature and expensive to use.

That said, here are the slides - enjoy and join in the conversation!

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Keeping up with Perl: Development, Upgrade, and Deployment Options for Perl 5.12

kendrap — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:20:17 +0000

Wonder what's new in Perl 5.12? Need some guidance on what to do with your legacy code? Need some tips on upgrading and deploying Perl?

Then don't miss our next webinar! Register today and get a coupon for $250 off ActivePerl Business Edition.

Keeping up with Perl: Development, Upgrade and Deployment Options for Perl 5.12

Join us on Wednesday August 4 at 11:00 PST/2:00 EST for a live webinar focused on Perl 5.12. There are still a few spaces left so hurry up and register now. Our experts will be reviewing Perl 5.12 core enhancements (the "Yada Yada" operator, Unicode improvements) and talking about how and why to upgrade.

If you're starting to implement new applications with Perl, are considering upgrading systems, or are simply in need of a refresher to keep up-to-date, don’t miss this webinar.

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The Growth of Dynamic Languages - Pythonists, Pythonistas, and Pythoneers

bartc — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:41:34 +0000

As the Dynamic Languages Experts we often get asked:

Which open source dynamic language has the greatest usage?
Which open source dynamic language is currently growing the fastest in usage?

Why are these questions relevant? Our customers and partners want to know:

How to evolve their products to support the needs of these languages
What language to use as they create new applications or upgrade systems
What language has the biggest community they might be able to rely on and
What languages are popular so they can keep up with the market

There are six key dynamic languages (or scripting languages, as some people say) that we focus on: Perl, Python, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, and Tcl.

One source that is often used to answer the "usage" and "growth" questions is the TIOBE Index, which tracks a variety of different programming languages. However, some people have voiced concerns about the reliability or accuracy of this index. At ActiveState, based on our own web statistics, interaction and conversations with developers, and sales figures, we also have our own data on answers to the "usage" and "growth" questions, but we wanted to expand our data set with other third-party sources beyond are own or TIOBE.

We looked at the following additional sources: MarkMail, Indeed, Ohloh, and BlogPulse. See "Detailed Approach & Methodology" section for complete research details). Indeed was the source that received a higher weighting relative to the other sources as it represents how ingrained or prominent each programming language is within development environments. Furthermore, we feel Indeed captures both new development and older code bases, exemplifying how "sticky" a programming language has been over time.

So what's the answer?

Based on a compilation of data from all these sources, we tabulated scores, weightings, and rankings for these languages.

Which Dynamic Language has the greatest usage?

When it comes to usage, not surprisingly, PHP is the leader due to its huge presence on the web. This is followed by JavaScript, then Python/Perl (which are effectively equal), then Ruby and of course rounding out the list is Tcl, which is a very niche language.

Which Dynamic Language is currently growing the fastest in usage?

No question. Python is the fastest growing Dynamic Language today. We think many are under-estimating its popularity and we expect to see a lot from Python in the coming years. Python is then followed by JavaScript, then PHP, Ruby, Perl, and Tcl. What will be surprising to many is that Ruby ranked 4th on the list!

Why does Python have such high usage and growth? We believe there are a few reasons:

Companies from Microsoft to Google have embraced Python and are not only supporting its use, but also investing in its development
Strong support and community
Established developer base
Enterprise friendly licensing
Popularity for web applications as cloud computing becomes more prevalent
Proposed by the SEC for use in financial modeling

Except for Tcl, eWeek recently included Python, Perl, Ruby, PHP and JavaScript in the "Top 10 Programmer Languages to Keep You Employed". Some of the drivers for the popularity of dynamic languages include:

Younger programmers (tomorrow's software leaders) are preferring to learn Python, Ruby, or PHP; rather than static languages.
IT is a big user of scripting solutions
Ease of use
Lower development costs, reduced maintenance costs, and faster development times/faster time to market
The large communities around these languages have built considerable knowledge bases and broad code repositories for potential reuse across a wide range of applications.

What do you think? Why do you think Python is growing so fast? Are you planning on switching to Python, if you haven't already done so?

Detailed Approach & Methodology

To compile and summarize the information, in addition to the TIOBE Index and our own internal data, we used the sources and methodology below.

MarkMail: MarkMail is a free service for searching mailing list archives. By searching on specific terms, such as "Perl" you can get an indication over time how often Perl is used on the mailing list archives compared to say "Python". You can get an indication of both "usage" and "growth" from MarkMail. The following two figures for Perl and Python are examples. As you can see, Perl has been steady since 2001, while Python has been showing growth over the years.

Perl

Source: http://markmail.org/search/?q=perl

Python

Source: http://markmail.org/search/?q=python

Indeed: Indeed.com is a search engine for jobs and we use their "job trends tools" to track how often job postings reference the popular dynamic languages. They have both an absolute and a relative comparison which can be seen below. As you can see, JavaScript and Perl are the most popular languages mentioned in job descriptions. But Ruby shows the most relative growth.

Source: Indeed - Absolute for perl, python, tcl, php, ruby, javascript

Source: Indeed - Relative for perl, python, tcl, php, ruby, javascript

Ohloh: Ohloh is a free public directory that tracks open source software and people who are involved in open source projects. They have a very good tool for tracking and comparing what is going on with many different programming languages. For purposes of getting more insight into our "usage" and "growth" questions we focused on three specific tools: commits, contributors, and projects. The results for commits are shown in the two figures below. The "values" figure allows us to gauge usage activity whereas the "relative" figure allows us to gauge the growth of the languages relative to each other.

Source: ohloh - http://www.ohloh.net/languages/compare

BlogPulse: BlogPulse is an automated trend discovery system for blogs. Similar to MarkMail but rather than focusing on mailing list archives it focuses on what is being said in blogs. BlogPulse is good for a feel on the "usage" question, but not on the "growth" question for the timescale they use is too short. What we found on BlogPulse is as follows:

Source: Perl, Ruby, PHP

Source: JavaScript, Tcl, Python

Of course with MarkMail, Indeed, and BlogPulse our analysis will include counts for search terms that do not have anything to do with a Dynamic Language (such as snakes for "python"). This is not a science, but it broadens our view by considering a number of different factors rather than just using TIOBE and or our own internal data.

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Five More Pictures of OSCON

dianem — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:46:55 +0000

Armed with only my iphone, my free speaker's pass and with my own presentation slidedeck nearly completed, I headed south from ActiveState's Vancouver, BC headquarters to the masses at OSCON2010. As this was my first OSCON adventure, I was looking forward seeing the luminaries that Tim O'Reilly's able team had assembled for this OS developer community tribal gathering. I am happy to report that the conference was a success (and I did finish my slidedeck and give my presentation on Python & Finance to a rather receptive and participatory audience).

Here's five pictures from my OSCON 2010 adventure and a few thoughts:

Best Marketing Ploy

Besides Open Sourcing your entire Stack ala Rackspace's OpenStack Initiative, hands down the Best Marketing Ploy at OSCON has to have been Firehost's new twist on Guerilla marketing in the bathroom stall. If you weren't feeling like your privacy was being invaded before - now you really had proof.

Best Keynote

My vote for the best Keynote at OSCON hands down was Google's Rob Pike with his Public Static Void presentation succinctly laying out the evolution of computer languages, slicing through the issues surrounding modern computer languages and in turn proposing that adding a new language "Go" (a Google-sponsored OS language development effort) as a solution. Of all the keynotes, Rob managed to engage the audience with new ideas, real content and an intriguing vision.

Best Selling Book

That said, when I asked the conference booksellers from the Powell's Technical Books Booth what book was leading the sales - Erlang was the clear leader, although Python was also flying off the shelves as well.

Best Power Panel

I did go to the cloud summit and listened to all the latest buzz words, announcements and tried not to drink too much kool-aid. By far the best Keynote power panel occurred when Tim O'Reilly was joined by Kate Craig-Wood (Memset), Dion Hinchcliffe (Dachis Group), JP Rangaswami (BT Design) for a panel discussion/debate entitled: Cloudy Future or Can We See Trends? I was impressed by the thoughtfulness of their answers, their shared vision of the cloud as an ecosystem and their obvious concern for the future of the open cloud.

Best Hair Color

My nomination for Best Hair Color at OSCON2010 goes to the effervescent Nóirín Shirley, (Apache Software Foundation) enjoying a break attending a conference instead of her usual busy schedule organizing the upcoming ApacheCon NA 2010 1-5 November 2010 in Atlanta for a change.

Nóirín embodies the spirit of OSCON - the wonderful eclectic nature of the OS community, the mix of the millienum generation, business suits, cloud-happy vendors, to the aging hippies (myself included) in which community and collective cooperation lives on and inspires us all.

Thanks and kudos to Tim and the gang at O'Reilly for putting together a great event.

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ActiveState Komodo 6, Projects, Extensions and You

ericp — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 23:50:16 +0000

With the second beta of Komodo 6, you're going to see a few changes to the project system. For years, the project system has served triple duty as a file manager, a toolbox, and a general container for preferences and other resources. We knew that, while the project system was adequate, we could improve the way Komodo handles files and tools.

After this beta, the project tab and the partviewer XBL binding are going to disappear, to be replaced by other components. If you're strictly a Komodo user, you shouldn't be affected by this. Life should go on, and the time spent using Komodo should get even better. However, if you've written macros or extensions, you'll need to do some extra work. Here are a couple of small improvements to your overlay XUL code that will keep your extensions working fine in version 6. Best of all, they're backward-compatible: you can stick them in your current extensions and they will work with Komodo 5 too.

Future-Proofing Sidebar Placement

First, if you've written an extension that adds a new sidebar to either the left or the right, you'll probably need to change its insertion code. The right sidebar "toolbox_tab" and "sharedtoolbox_tab" have been replaced with the single sidebar "toolbox2_tab" (I know, imaginative name there, no?). We're aware of only a couple of extensions that insert after "toolbox_tab", and if you're one of the authors, there will be a fix.

Far more extensions like to install a sidebar in the "project_tab".

Now by default, if Mozilla can't resolve the given id, it will place the element at the end of the list. If this is acceptable to you, you don't have to do any more. However, the positioning system for overlays is reasonably flexible. Quoting from http://mdn.beonex.com/en/XUL_Tutorial/Overlays:

If the overlay's element contains an insertafter attribute, the element is added just after the element in the base window with the id that matches the value of this attribute.

If the overlay's element contains an insertbefore attribute, the element is added just before the element in the base window with the id that matches the value of this attribute.

If the overlay's element contains a position attribute, the element is added at the one-based index specified in this attribute.

Otherwise, the element is added as the last child.

Actually, the values of insertbefore and insertafter can be comma-separated lists, in which case the first id in the list that is found in the window is used to determine the position.

So this means you can leave references to "project_tab" and "projectviewbox" in your code, and then future-proof the code by adding references to "places_tab" and "placesViewbox", the Projects sidebar's replacement. The following XUL code shows how I modified the JSTreeDrive XUL code so it would stay in sync once the project tab disappears:

<tabs id="project_toolbox_tabs">
        <tab id="jstreedrive_tab" label="Files"
             insertafter="project_tab,places_tab"
             position="2"
             ... />
    </tabs>
    <tabpanels id="project_toolbox_tabpanels">
        <tabpanel flex="1" id="jstreedriveviewbox"
                  insertafter="projectviewbox,placesViewbox"
                  position="2" >

Getting Your Tabs in the Tab Selection Popup Menus

While working with other extensions, I noticed that some were adding new tabs, but the tabs weren't showing up in the tab-picker menu ([View|Tabs & Sidebars]). You do this by overlaying menuitems into the "menu_view_tabs_popup" and "tabPicker_popup" menupopups, which I do for Places (the new file management sidebar) like so:

<menupopup id="menu_view_tabs_popup">
      <menuitem id="show_places_tab2"
          observes="show_places_tab"
          insertbefore="show_codebrowser_tab2"
          insertafter="show_project_tab2"
          position="1"
          oncommand="uilayout_ensureTabShown('places_tab', true)"
          label="&Places.label;"
          type="checkbox"
          />
    </menupopup>

    <menupopup id="tabPicker_popup">
      <menuitem id="show_places_tab"
          observes="show_places_tab"
          insertbefore="show_codebrowser_tab"
          insertafter="show_project_tab"
          position="1"
          oncommand="uilayout_ensureTabShown('places_tab', true)"
          label="&Places.label;"
          type="checkbox"
          />
    </menupopup>

I noticed that there was no menuitem for "Places" or another extension I had installed in the "Tabs & Sidebars" menu. I used the JS Shell to determine that its parent was popupset#extensionPopupSet, and saw that the overlays were wrapping the references to menupopup#menu_view_tabs_popup and menupopup#tabPicker_popup in the popupset#extensionPopupSet element. This overlay element should be used only for standalone popups defined in extensions, not for adding XUL code to existing elements. By freeing the two menupopup items, they now showed up in the [View|Tabs & Sidebars] menu.

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Komodo 6.0 Beta 2: HTML 5, CSS 3, Python 3, Database Explorer, Publishing, ...

trentm — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:58:48 +0000

We (ActiveState) released Komodo 6.0 beta 2 yesterday and we want your feedback, bugs and IDE dreams. While we've made nightlies available since almost the first builds of Komodo 6, we feel that Komodo 6 is getting stable enough that it is time to start talking about it more to get a wider audience trying it and giving us feedback on what we've done so far.

So if you are a current Komodo IDE or Komodo Edit user; in the market for a new Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, Tcl, XML, HTML, CSS IDE or editor; interested in hacking on an open source editor; or just curious please

➊ download the beta:

Komodo IDE: http://www.activestate.com/komodo-ide/downloads
Komodo Edit: http://www.activestate.com/komodo-edit/downloads

➋ read some of the details below and

➌ tell us how you really feel:

forums: http://community.activestate.com/products/Komodo
email: http://listserv.activestate.com/mailman/listinfo/komodo-beta
bugs: http://bugs.activestate.com/enter_bug.cgi?product=Komodo

What's New in Komodo 6?

A lot. HTML 5 autocomplete. CSS 3 autocomplete. Full Python 3 support (debugging, syntax checking, autocomplete, code browsing). A new Database Explorer tool for quickly exploring SQL databases (SQLite out of the box and extensions for MySQL and Oracle, with plans for Postgres). A new project system called Places that adds a file system browser (local and remote). New publishing support for syncing a directory with a remote machine. Additions to Komodo's Hyperlinks for quickly navigating to file references. Added support for PHP, Perl, Ruby and JavaScript regular expression debugging with Komodo's excellent Rx tool. See the Komodo 6.0 Features post for a full outline.

Your feedback please

Komodo 6 is still months (a few at least) away from a final release. We'd love to have your input on how we can polish and improve on the above work and how we can make Komodo IDE and Komodo Edit tools that help you get your coding work done faster. Please subscribe to this blog or follow @activestate on twitter for comings posts that go into detail on what's coming and new in Komodo 6. And please give us your feedback. Enjoy.

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Survey Says: Selenium by a Nose for Most Popular Test Framework

dianem — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 17:17:07 +0000

Last month we asked our developer community to share with us which test frameworks they are using today--with some interesting results. It was a bit of a horse race with Selenium beating out the "Other" category by a Nose.

The results were a mixed bag as the test automation community has a lot of frameworks and testing approaches from which to choose. The "Other" category filled up with lots of interesting responses, including the following: "Burp, Fiddler, Paros, Webscarab". Those in the world of Web Application Security might have heard about Burp, Paros, WebScarab and other proxy tools, which are used to intercept the web (HTTP/HTTPS) requests...but it read like a mini-poem on first glance; a few more syllables and it could have been a haiku:

Burp, Fiddler! Paros, Web Scarab!

We also asked the community which scripting languages that they were using today; most replied with multiple languages and added Shell Scripting and javaScript to the "other" category. The interesting horse race in this category was how close Python is coming to overtaking Perl as the Testing language of choice.

Thank you to all of those of you who participated in the survey and please feel free to send further almost-haikus and feedback to us! Oh, and congrats to Steff J, who won an ActiveState t-shirt for taking the time to reply to the survey! Steff, we'll be in touch for sizing and shipping info.

Want an opportunity to pick up a coveted ActiveState t-shirt, too? All you need to do is answer this short survey on deploying to the Cloud. Don't worry if you haven't moved to the Cloud; we'd still love to hear your future plans, hopes and fears related to the Cloud: surveymonkey.com/july2010as.

A winner will be drawn in early August and announced in the newsletter and on the blog.

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Pay Attention to Your Open Source Software Licenses

angieh — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:55:48 +0000

Two times in June this year, ActiveState hosted legal webinars from expert open source lawyers to discuss some of the main legal issues surrounding open source. On June 16, 2010, Van Lingberg, from Haynes and Boone LLP and author of "Intellectual Property and Open Source" spoke on "Putting Open Source Dynamic Languages through the Licensing Test: A guide to most popular licenses and their implications." And on June 29, 2010, Robert Blasi, a partner and patent attorney with Goodwin Procter, covered "Best Practices in Managing Open Source Intellectual Property in the Enterprise."

Since legal issues always revolve around details and your own unique circumstances, we recommend you listen to the webinars directly. But to sum up their collective advice:

Pay attention to your software licenses.

Do you disagree? Probably not. According to responses from webinar attendees to a question on the importance of indemnification, it’s overwhelmingly seen as important or very important.

Ok, it’s important. But what does that mean for you specifically? It's impossible to touch on the full state of affairs concerning open source legal issues, but both presentations touched on Jacobsen v. Katzer, the leading case dealing with open source software in the US. The Jacobsen court held that an open source license may set conditions limiting the use of copyrighted material, and that a violation of such conditions constitutes an act of copyright -- as opposed to contract -- infringement. That means monetary damages.

The bottom line for enterprises is that you need to pay attention to your software licenses, even if they are open source licenses. Open source licenses are no longer different.

How do you use open source software without risk? At its core, there are three essential overlapping pieces:

Understand the current situation
Correct as necessary
Put processes in place going forward

Sound obvious? Polls taken during the webinars suggest over 60% of you say "Yes, we pay attention" which is great news, but it is balanced by the sobering statistic: Nearly 30% of you say "Yes, but we probably need to do it better" or "No, but we are planning to".

For more details on doing an initial audit and other prudent and necessary steps, please make the time to view the webinars themselves. It's time well spent.

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OSCON 2010 Tracks That Are Getting ActiveState's Attention

bartc — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:36:33 +0000

Oscon (Open Source Convention) 2010 is fast approaching and ActiveState is gearing up to be there from July 20 - 23, 2010. We're definitely looking forward to the Cloud Summit all day on Tuesday and we will be in attendance after the cloud summit for some socializing during the presentation of the O’Reilly Open Source Awards and for Ignite OSCON, fast-paced and fun evening of talks.

ActiveState's Diane Mueller and Trent Mick will be presenting on Thursday at 2:30pm "Python & Finance: US Government Mandates, Financial Modeling, and Other Snakes in the Grass" so if you have not yet made a decision on your session for that time, we'd love if you'd attend!

Here are some of the other sessions we're looking forward to during the rest of the week:

TUESDAY PM | July 20, 2010:

1:30pm Tues
Cooking with jQuery (JavaScript)
Location: Portland 251
Please note: to attend, your registration must include Tutorials.
Mike Hostetler (appendTo, LLC), Jonathan Sharp (appendTo LLC.)
JavaScript is not a dirty word. The language itself is quite elegant. However, competing implementations by differing browsers has given it a bad rap. Yet, in this age of Ajax it is a must-have for any successful web application. Join this group of JavaScript gurus, who co-authored the O'Reilly jQuery Cookbook, for a tutorial session covering reliable techniques: intermediate to advanced.
Read more.

7:00pm Tues
Ignite OSCON (Event)
Location: Portland Ballroom
If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Would you pitch a project? Launch a web site? Teach a hack? We’re going to find out when we conduct our second Ignite event at OSCON.
Read more.

7:50pm Tues
O'Reilly Open Source Awards (Event)
Location: Portland Ballroom
In the tradition of the Google-O'Reilly Open Source Awards from years past, we will continue with the O'Reilly Open Source Awards. This honor will be presented to individuals for dedication, innovation, leadership and outstanding contribution to open source. Join us to recognize this year’s winners.
Read more.

8:00pm Tues
Ignite OSCON Part 2 (Event)
Location: Portland Ballroom
If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Would you pitch a project? Launch a web site? Teach a hack? We’re going to find out when we conduct our second Ignite event at OSCON.
Read more.

WEDNESDAY AM | July 21, 2010:

9:55am Wed
Keynote: Marten Mickos
Location: Portland Ballroom
Please note: This and all other keynotes will be live streamed and recorded.
Marten Mickos (Eucalyptus Systems)
Keynote by Marten Mickos, CEO of Eucalyptus Systems.
Read more.

10:40am Wed
Pinax: A Platform for Rapidly Developing Web Sites (Python)
Location: Portland 252
James Tauber (Eldarion)
Pinax is an open-source platform built on the Django Web Framework that dramatically reduces the time it takes to develop Web sites. By providing common components in a high-extensible framework, Pinax increases the speed at which websites can be developed and launched. Features include account management, integration with OpenID and OAuth, invitations, friendships, groups, tagging and more.
Read more.

10:40am Wed
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People: The Joys of Engineering Leadership (Community)
Location: D136
Brian Fitzpatrick (Google, Inc.), Ben Collins-Sussman (Google, Inc.)
Are you the 'point' person for your team? Do you have sweaty palms, headaches, and a calendar full of meetings? You may have an affliction called 'manager'. This condition is treatable through analysis and therapy. We'll examine how you may have arrived at this state and how you can once again regain your self-respect and that of your peers. Hear real-life stories of both good and bad leadership.
Read more.

10:40am Wed
New Beginnings in Perl 5 (Perl)
Location: Portland 256
Piers Cawley (BBC)
Four years ago, I abandoned Perl for Ruby because I was finding the annoyances of Perl were outweighing the benefits - Ruby simply didn't have those annoyances. Today I'm back with Perl. This talk explains why and shows off the modules that are helping to turn Perl 5 into a nicer language.
Read more.

10:40am Wed
Anatomy of an Open Source Cloud Ecosystem (Cloud Computing)
Location: Portland 251
James Urquhart (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
If cloud computing is one natural conclusion of open source business models, what kind of cloud ecosystem would best support open source as a whole? Join James Urquhart, author of the "Wisdom of Clouds" blog on the CNET blog network, as he explores the technology and business models that could drive the open source opportunities of tomorrow--and a few that won't.
Read more.

11:30am Wed
Django: Two Extreme Case Studies (Python)
Location: Portland 252
Mike Biglan (Concentric Sky), M Wiggins (Concentric Sky)
We were fortunate this past year to develop two of the larger Django applications out there – in the span of 12 weeks: michaelmoore.com and Santa Fe Institute's santafe.edu. Between the two, these sites have multiple layers of memcached caching, multiple web servers and database servers, integrated site search (Lucene/SOLR and Google GSA), DjangoCMS, and integrations with iCal and Alfresco.
Read more.

11:30am Wed
Using Drizzle (Databases)
Location: Portland 255
Eric Day (Rackspace Cloud)
Drizzle is a fork of the MySQL server focused on modularity, improved performance, and community development. This session will give an overview of the current state of Drizzle, tools around it, and the various language APIs available. The session will go through the steps to install Drizzle, how to get started with management, and things to watch out for when porting and writing applications.
Read more.

11:30am Wed
Perl 5.12 (Perl)
Location: Portland 256
Jesse Vincent (Best Practical)
Perl 5.12 is the latest major release of Perl 5. In addition to new features and numerous bugfixes, this release marks a major change in how we develop and release Perl. Come learn about how we're refactoring the language and the community.
Read more.

11:30am Wed
Financial Incentives in Open Source (Business)
Location: E145/E146
Moderated by:
Rob Lanphier (Wikimedia Foundation)
Panelists: Todd Crowe (Todd Crowe Web Design & Development), Leslie Hawthorn (Geek at Large), Stormy Peters (GNOME Foundation), Donald Smith (The Eclipse Foundation)
Many contributors to open source projects do so without financial motivation. It's still reasonable to believe that given the right financial incentives, development communities could achieve more. This panel will explore the different methods for motivating communities with financial incentives and other goodies, and discuss the thorny issues that arise when commerce collides with community.
Read more.

11:50am Wed
Thyrd (Event)
Location: F150_El Camp
Phil Mercurio (Thyrd Informatics)
Thyrd is an experimental visual programming language built as a proof of concept. Thyrd is reflective (a Thyrd program can inspect and modify itself) and concurrent. Visually, it resembles a spreadsheet. Underneath is a stack-based functional language in the same family as Forth, Joy, and Befunge. This talk will present the key concepts in Thyrd and some of the directions it might take.
Read more.

WEDNESDAY PM | July 21, 2010:

1:40pm Wed
CoApp: Bringing Open Source Package Management to Windows (Products & Services)
Location: E143/E144
Garrett Serack (Microsoft)
Discover the changing landscape of Open Source on Windows, and how the introduction of the Common Opensource Application Publishing Platform is driving performance, stability and quality into OSS applications on Windows.
Read more.

1:40pm Wed
Parrot (Event)
Location: F150_El Camp
Allison Randal (O'Reilly Media, Inc.)
The Parrot virtual machine hit 2.0 in January of this year, and the 2.6 production release will be out the day before this talk. A virtual machine like no other, Parrot targets dynamic languages such as Perl, Ruby, Python and PHP. It incorporates an object-oriented assembly language, is register-based rather than stack-based, and employs continuations as the core means of flow control.
Read more.

1:40pm Wed
Database Scalability Patterns (Databases)
Location: Portland 255
Robert Treat (OmniTI)
Database scalability means different things to different people. Vertical vs. Horizontal scaling? Federating vs. Sharding? Despite the labels database scalability tends to fall into a few common patterns that anyone can apply. In this talk we'll discuss factors for applying these patterns including the life-cycle of your database, how hardware affects your choices, and tools to help you on the way.
Read more.

1:40pm Wed
Open Source Tool Chains for Cloud Computing (Cloud Computing)
Location: Portland 251
Mark Hinkle (Zenoss), John Willis (Opscode, Inc. ), Alex Honor (ControlTier open source automation project)
The proliferation of cloud computing is inevitable, hosted apps, software-as-as-service and now dynamic on-demand utility computing is becoming the norm. The session will be a “fire-side” chat style discussion of the types of challenges presented by IT management operations personnel and how they can manage cloud infrastructure using open source tools.
Read more.

2:30pm Wed
Understanding and Optimizing your Code with Devel::NYTProf (Perl)
Location: Portland 256
Tim Bunce (TigerLead)
Devel::NYTProf is not only a state-of-the-art source code profiler for Perl, it's also a great tool for analyzing the control-flow in your code. Come and find out how to gain insight into what your code is really doing, and a structured approach to making it run faster.
Read more.

2:30pm Wed
Building Applications with the Simple Cloud API (Cloud Computing)
Location: Portland 251
Doug Tidwell (IBM)
The Simple Cloud API is a project sponsored by several leading vendors (Zend, Go Grid, IBM, Microsoft, Nirvanix and Rackspace). This session will demonstrate how to use open-source implementations of the API to work with multiple cloud vendors.
Read more.

4:30pm Wed
PostgreSQL Techniques for Django Developers (Python)
Location: Portland 252
Christophe Pettus (PostgreSQL Experts, Inc.)
With support right out of the box, Django is one of the most efficient ways of deploying a PostgreSQL-backed web application. We'll discuss techniques to get maximum efficiency out of PostgreSQL using Django, including schema design tips, Django ORM techniques, transaction management, and extending PostgreSQL.
Read more.

4:30pm Wed
Introduction to MongoDB (Databases)
Location: Portland 255
Kristina Chodorow (MongoDB)
MongoDB (from "humongous") is a high-performance, open source, schema-free document-oriented database.
Read more.

5:20pm Wed
Bare Essentials of Legal Issues for Developers (Business)
Location: E145/E146
Bradley Kuhn (Software Freedom Law Center / Software Freedom Conservancy), Karen Sandler (Software Freedom Law Center)
Developers regularly encounter issues with the legal infrastructure of software. Co-presented by a lawyer and a software developer, this presentation is a tightly packed overview on the need-to-know issues of copyrights, patents and trademarks for busy developers who wish to simply know the bare essentials, so they can get on with their work while still remaining well-informed on legal issues.
Read more.

THURSDAY AM | July 22, 2010:

10:40am Thurs
Reduce your Risk by Creating your Own CPAN (Perl)
Location: Portland 256
brian d foy (The Perl Review, LLC)
Create your own CPAN-like repository to manage the Perl modules that you use. Choose any version of public Perl distributions, used patched versions of public modules insert your private modules, and never connect to an external network. When you control everything, you reduce the risk of third-party authors breaking your world.
Read more.

10:40am Thurs
PhoneGap 101: Is PhoneGap Right for Your Mobile Development Project? (Mobile)
Location: D139/140
Brian LeRoux (Nitobi Inc.), Filip Maj (Nitobi)
Find out what the buzz is all about! Learn how to use PhoneGap to build platform-neutral mobile apps with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Now's your chance to find out if the PhoneGap open source framework is the right technology choice for your mobile development projects.
Read more

11:30am Thurs
Ruby and Mirah on App Engine (Ruby)
Location: Portland 252
John Woodell (Google, Inc. ), Charles Nutter (Engine Yard, Inc)
Ruby apps can now be deployed to Google App Engine thanks to JRuby. New app instances spin-up on demand so there is no need to provision hardware but each new JRuby runtime can take several seconds. Mirah (formerly Duby) is a new language with Ruby-inspired syntax that compiles directly to Java bytecode. Duby is compelling for App Engine development because new instances can spin-up in a second.
Read more.

11:30am Thurs
jQuery UI: Rich Interactivity, Simplified (JavaScript)
Location: Portland 255
Mike Hostetler (appendTo, LLC), Jonathan Sharp (appendTo LLC.)
jQuery UI is the official jQuery suite of interactions and widgets for building Rich Internet Applications. It makes building web interfaces as refreshingly simple as jQuery has made Ajax and the DOM. As simple as $('<p>Hello, World</p>').dialog();
Read more.

11:30am Thurs
Dist::Zilla - Maximum Overkill for CPAN Distributions (Perl)
Location: Portland 256
Ricardo Signes (Pobox.com)
Perl's CPAN system is its killer app: a massive collection of libraries for nearly any task at hand. The code on the CPAN ranges from dreadful to superb, but the code used to build CPAN packages has typically hovered around "mediocre," largely due to artificial constraints. Dist::Zilla breaks free of constraints like performance, footprint, and good taste to provide you with unbridled power.
Read more.

THURSDAY PM, July 22, 2010:

1:40pm Thurs
Great User Interfaces in the Terminal Window (Python)
Location: D136
Rob Lanphier (Wikimedia Foundation)
There are a number of toolkits available that make it much easier than ever before to design delightful, intuitive user interfaces for the terminal window. This talk will explore several options for Python, including cmd, curses, newt/snack and urwid. I'll compare the different approaches for different application domains, and show some shortcuts for the impatient.
Read more.

1:40pm Thurs
Cooking Your Way to Happiness: System Provisioning with Chef (Operations)
Location: D135
Trotter Cashion (Hoopla Software)
Having trouble ensuring that all your machines are provisioned properly? Find your system of bash scripts difficult to maintain? Come meet Chef and see how easy automated system provisioning can be. We'll cover the benefits of using a tool like Chef, how easy it is to get started with Chef Solo, and how you can scale up to hundreds and even thousands of boxes without breaking a sweat.
Read more.

2:30pm Thurs
Python & Finance: US Government Mandates, Financial Modeling, and Other Snakes in the Grass (Products & Services)
Location: E142
Diane Mueller (ActiveState), Trent Mick (ActiveState)
The recent US SEC proposal addressing the lack of transparency of asset-backed securities by adding disclosure requirements to include Python financial models reflects a need for Open Tools to work with Open Data to ensure transparency in Government. This session discusses why Python is a good fit for the SEC's proposal & the Open Source challenges ahead for the financial ecosystem.
Read more.

2:30pm Thurs
A better Python for the JVM (Python)
Location: D136
Tobias Ivarsson (Neo Technology)
Python is a great Programming Language. The JVM is a great runtime platform. Jython is an excellent implementation of Python for the JVM. But there is room for improvement. In this talk I will share with you how Jython is evolving to become even better in the future. Learn how you can take advantage of the improving Jython in your code.
Read more.

2:30pm Thurs
Datacenter Automation with Puppet (Operations)
Location: D135
Teyo Tyree (Puppet Labs)
Efficient IT infrastructures must hold to several basic properties. Changes must be tracked. Automation must be maximized. Compliance against corporate standards must be preserved. Especially in days of limited resources, how can software help solve this problem? In this presentation, we'll show how Puppet can automate, enforce, and ensure sanity in the modern datacenter.
Read more.

4:30pm Thurs
Measuring the Health of Open Source Ecosystems (Business)
Location: D133
Donald Smith (The Eclipse Foundation)
Many organizations falsely believe that more downloads, users and/or contributors means a healthier ecosystem. That is akin to saying that planet earth gets "healthier" with more population. This session presents some measures every OS organization can employ to determine the health and viability of their ecosystem, rather than it's less important variable - size.
Read more.

FRIDAY AM | July 23, 2010:

10:00am Fri
I'll Do It Later — Lazy and Non-Blocking API Design (Perl)
Location: Portland 256
Eric Wilhelm (Scratch Computing)
Long-running functions get in the way of distributed or interactive systems. Applying these "lazy component" designs and use-cases to your sequential code will make your APIs more open and easily reusable. Read more.

10:00am Fri
Practical Concurrency (Tools & Techniques)
Location: E145/E146
Tim Bray (Google, Inc.)
Computers are getting wider, not faster. If you want your code to run faster, it has to have some parallelism. This is hard, and threads probably aren't the answer. There is a lot of new concurrency technology on the scene. This talk surveys the 2010 state of the art in tools to empower developers to write concurrent code, and makes some predictions.
Read more.

11:50am Fri
Building Next Generation Web Applications with the Spring 3.0 Web Stack (Java)
Location: Portland 251
Jeremy Grelle (SpringSource, a division of VMware)
Building modern Java™ technology-based Web applications that expose your business services to the widest-possible audience has become an increasingly difficult task in this day of Ajax, RIA, and SOA. Spring 3.0 strives to bring effective weapons in the battle against complexity, including a complete modular stack of Web-focused solutions.
Read more.

Do you have specific favourite sessions for OSCON 2010? Feel free to share below in comments.

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ActiveState's Diane Mueller and Trent Mick to Present at OSCON

sheilar — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:01:02 +0000

OSCON 2010 in Portland, OR, is coming up really fast--we're down to less than two weeks to go!

Diane and Trent are putting the finishing touches on their planned session:
Python & Finance: US Government Mandates, Financial Modeling, and Other Snakes in the Grass

You may recall a blog post that we had recently discussing the recent SEC proposal (PDF) for how to address the current lack of transparency of asset-backed securities through changing disclosure requirements to include the provision of a Python computer program.

The goal of the SEC proposal is to capture all the complicated terms of the deal in code that can be used to analyze the cash flows in each deal and how the returns will get split up between different parties. Currently, investors, fund managers, and investment managers receive a complex, textual description of this information in the prospectus, which makes it difficult for them to perform or visualize a rigorous quantitative or if-then analysis of the asset-backed securities.

This all begs the question “Why Python?” Diane and Trent plan to address some of the aspects of Python that make it a good fit for the SEC’s proposal and some of the challenges and the implications of using Python for financial analysis. One of the answers is that it’s open source and while there are a number of proprietary financial modeling solutions and more than a few trade description languages in use on Wall Street – there is little use asking for openness and transparency from issuers if the interpreter for that code is proprietary in nature. That said, Python has other aspects that make it a good choice for these purposes and has been widely used on Wall Street and in the finance community for financial modeling and number crunching.

At the very least, it’s not enough to have open data, one has to have open tools to fulfill the transparency requirements to establish meaningful use of financial information. Buyers, Sellers and Regulators alike need an open technology means to accurately and efficiently interpret financial information.

This presentation will also discuss some opportunities for collaboration between regulators and the open source related to the development of an ecosystem of open source projects that can exploit the availability of this proposed new rich source of financial information.

Planning to attend OSCON and want to attend the session? Join Diane and Trent at 2:30PM on Thursday, July 22nd. You can find out more and sign up here:

http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010/public/schedule/detail/15589

If you can't make it to our talk, swing by our booth (#423) and talk to any of us... Diane Mueller, Trent Mick, Jeff Hobbs, Bart Copeland and Sheila Rebellato will all be in attendance. We'd love to hear what you think of the SEC proposal for Python, or hear about how you're using dynamic languages in your projects!

And don't forget, if you haven't already signed up for OSCON and you want to attend, be sure to use discount code os10s20d for 20% off!

We look forward to seeing you there.

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