StevePerkins.com

“Why can’t I just build an .EXE?“ When Java was first introduced, mainstream programming languages mostly either compiled to standalone executables (e.g. C/C++, COBOL), or else ran in an interpreter (e.g. Perl, Tcl). For many programmers, Java’s need for both a bytecode compiler and a runtime interpreter was a shift in thought. The compilation model made Java better suited for business programming than “scripting” languages. Yet the runtime model required a suitable JVM to be deployed and available on each target machine. [Read More]

The Source Control Hosting Landscape GitHub has been the the most popular site for hosting open source software projects since 2008. It took the lead when SourceForge was slow to embrace newly-popular git source control system. GitHub is rivaled by Bitbucket, thriving on an enterprise-friendly pricing model and integration with other Atlassian tools. However, GitHub’s model of charging for privacy rather than headcount makes it a dominant open source social platform. [Read More]

Groovy: The “Enterprise Hipster” Language Not everyone sees the Java programming language as sexy. However, the Java virtual machine is a dominant force everywhere, from the most conservative enterprise to the most whimsical startup. There are myriad alternative languages today that compile to Java bytecode. There are JVM-based versions of Python, Ruby, and multiple implementations of JavaScript. There are entirely new languages, such as Kotlin from JetBrains and Ceylon from RedHat. [Read More]

We started this four-part series by taking the traditional monolithic .NET Framework, and comparing it to its new modular and cross-platform .NET Core sibling. Then we dove into ASP.NET vNext, a family of open-source frameworks and build tools for deploying cross-platform apps. In the third part we looked at the IDE’s and other tooling under the Visual Studio brand. Now we will wrap everything up, with a walkthrough demonstrating how to create and deploy a new cross-platform app. [Read More]

In the first two sections of this four-part series (part 1, part 2), we looked at the new open-source and cross-platform “.NET Core” and the ASP.NET vNext framework. Here, we’ll look at the various development tools options available under the Visual Studio brand. Previous Visual Studio Versions Visual Studio is Microsoft’s flagship IDE, and is increasingly a brand name covering their team workflow tools in general. Traditionally there have been several products under this name: [Read More]