Development

The first real, binary third-party iPhone application

Paving the way for genuine, binary applications that run on the iPhone (and don't originate from Apple), developer "Nightwatch" has created, compiled and actually run a basic "Hello World" application natively under the stripped-down version of OS X that ships on the iPhone.

The new development is part of the "iPhone binutils" project, with a stated goal of producing a high quality set of binary utilities for the Apple iPhone, primarily an assembler and linker.

According to the iPhone Dev Wiki, certain parts of the toolchain -- dubbed ARM/Mach-O -- including the … Read more

Apple to hold iPhone "tech talks" for Web developers

Apple will hold a series of "tech talks" on developing Web 2.0 applications for the iPhone in the following cities (with locations and dates):

Los Angeles, CA 08/02 at the LA Marriott Downtown San Francisco, CA 08/24 at the Westin San Francsico, Market Street (Formerly The Argent) Chicago, IL 08/28 at the Allerton Hotel New York, NY 08/30 and 08/31 at the American Conference Center

The event is open to all Apple Developer Connection (ADC) members (if you're not an ADC member, you can register for free here).

Apple's promotional … Read more

So you want to contribute to an open source project? Tristan Rhodes gives you 10 ways

I just finished reading Tristan Rhodes' "The 10 roles in an open source community" and recommend it to anyone wanting to get better insight into how open source communities are shaped, and how you can get involved.

In particular, as someone who doesn't know how to code, I appreciated learning that even a non-developer like I can contribute as a translator (given that i speak French):

One of the coolest things about open source communities is that they are international. This means that your users will understand many different languages. Therefore, the more languages that you support, … Read more

In the trenches with...Brad Nicholes of Novell

Back when I was asked by Chris Stone (then Novell's vice chairman) to join the Linux Business Office at Novell, I honestly could count the number of employees on one hand that had any understanding and experience of open source. Brad Nicholes was one of them. Brad is an understated guy - he's not the sort of person to volunteer to write for this In the Trenches series. No, I had to go to him and solicit his involvement. I suspect even then he preferred to write code, but he agreed to do it, anyway.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Brad. He was the voice of experience on Novell's Open Source Review Board, having earned the distinction of "member" with the Apache Software Foundation. He provided the best insight as to how Novell's forays into open source would be interpreted. Now, of course, the company has become very active in the open source world, but Brad continues to provide expert guidance with the OSRB and elsewhere within Novell.

If you get the chance to meet Brad, you'll like him as I do. He's a great person, and a great asset to Novell. Some of the insight below is among the best we've had on The Open Road.

Name, company, title, and what you actually do

Brad Nicholes, Senior Software Engineer, Novell. I'm currently working on the Data Center Automation product. In reality, I do a lot of different things. I have spent a lot of time over the last 6 years porting and maintaining the Apache HTTP server on the NetWare platform and I am a member of the Apache Software Foundation. I have started and managed a few smaller Open Source projects and contributed to others. I have given presentations at various conferences about Apache and Open Source in general. I am also a member of Novell's Open Source Review Board which is primarily responsible for reviewing Open Source usage and licensing issues within Novell. I have found that by participating in all of these activities, my job ranges from ?in the trenches? software design and coding to project administration to having to understand and consult with management about corporate policy and procedures as well as how legal matters can affect software development (especially in the Open Source world). … Read more

Anatomy of an open-source decision: The Adobe Flex example

I just took the time to read through this interview with Phil Costa, director of Product Management for Flex at Adobe. (Many thanks to Dave McAllister for his link.) You may remember that Adobe announced in April its intention to open-source Flex.

Now, the company is talking about why. It's very interesting to see that the decision to open-source a product is somewhat universal in the considerations that go into it. It brings back memories of early 2003 when we (at Novell) were giddy about releasing the company's UDDI server as open source...

I particularly found Phil's thoughts on the LGPL (i.e., why Adobe opted not to go with LGPL and instead used MPL) fascinating.

At its core, Adobe's decision to open-source flex stemmed from a desire to make the project bigger than the company. That is, independent of the company. Something you could embrace without embracing the company, too. This is precisely the same reasoning that went into Alfresco's decision to GPL our enterprise content management system, so Phil's comments resonate with me.

In response to How Software Is Built's question as to why Adobe decided to open-source Flex, Phil replied:… Read more

The iPhone Web app navigation template

Web developer Joe Hewitt has created an ingeniously simple combination of JavaScript and CSS code that turns standards-based HTML lists into pages that act just like the iPod function on the iPhone -- sliding, navigable menus. To see just how well this template works, load this page on your iPhone:

http://joehewitt.com/files/iphone/navigation.html

The CSS and JavaScript files are located, respectively, at:

http://joehewitt.com/files/iphone/iphonenav.css http://joehewitt.com/files/iphone/iphonenav.js

Feedback? info@iphoneatlas.com.

In the trenches with...Kevin Henrikson of Zimbra

We next go "In the Trenches" with Kevin Henrikson of Zimbra. Zimbra wasn't the first to build a slick email system with a strong AJAX feel, but it has clearly taken the lead among its peers. The backbone of that position is its engineering team, with Kevin at the heart of the organization.

As it turns out, regardless of all the "sex appeal" that Zimbra has in the market (and it has plenty), Kevin's comments reveal that it's community feedback that makes the company tick. Community feedback and an active engineering team that solicits and acts on that feedback, often in real-time. This is the heart of a successful open source business, and Kevin shows us how it's done.

Name, company, title, and what you actually do

Kevin Henrikson, director of Engineering, Zimbra. I currently manage our client engineering team which develops the Zimbra Advanced Client (AJAX based) and Standard Client (JSP/HTML based), the latter being Zimbra's answer to accessibility (screen readers), low-bandwidth, and older PCs. Along with John Holder, I am also responsible for Zimbra's open source community touch points (forums, wiki, blog, etc). I've also had a chance to speak at several conferences on many related topics including AJAX optimization, AJAX offline, and building large scale messaging systems.… Read more

Apple posts iPhone Web development guidelines

Echoing much of what was said at the Worldwide developer conference earlier this last month, Apple has posted Web development guidelines for the iPhone to its Developer Connection Web site. The guidelines discuss the finger as an input device, laying out pages for the iPhone, what's supported in the iPhone's version of Safari, and pays special attention to writing tidy and vigorous JavaScript (as we noted earlier today, the iPhone is a sluggish JavaScript performer). Among the notable points:

Apple provides dimensions in pixels for controls including the status bar, URL text field, and keyboard. "[...] when the … Read more

The iPhone's poor JavaScript performance

No one expected the iPhone to deliver desktop-class performance with regard to Web-based applications, but JavaScript speed on the iPhone is downright sluggish in most respects -- a frustrating fact given that AJAX is the only current method for building dynamic third-party applications for the iPhone.

Celtic Kane online offers a Javascript benchmark that tests various Javascript functions: Try/Catch with errors, Layer movement, Random number engine, Math engine, DOM speed, Array functions String functions and Ajax declaration. In our informal tests, a MacBook Pro running at 1.83GHz with Mac OS X 10.4.10 and the Safari 3.… Read more