Ph.D.. Graydon Ekdahl, Issue #49, May 1998 A fun way to look at the issue of the development of a universal GUI. Don Quixote: Ahhh, Sancho, think of it! A single GUI interface that would allow me to write my application once and then run it on Windows, OS2 Warp and Linux boxes without changing one line! Maybe even on ...

Andrew M. Kuchling Issue #49, May 1998 A Python SIG has put together a DB-API standard; Mr. Kuchling gives us the details. Many people use Python because, like other scripting languages, it is a portable, platform-independent and general-purpose language that can perform the same tasks as the database-centric, proprietary 4GL tools supplied by database vendors. Like 4GL tools, Python lets ...

George Kraft IV Issue #49, May 1998 A major strength of the Common Desktop Evnironment is its programming infrastructure, for example, ToolTalk. This article illustrates client and server plug-and-play through the use of the Desktop’s Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). ToolTalk, in the Common Desktop Environment (CDE), is a message brokering system that enables applications to communicate with each other without ...

Richard Schwaninger Issue #49, May 1998 A discussion of rapid prototyping and how it can benefit programmers in creating software to match the customer’s needs. Creating software is a complex process that embeds the programmer in rules and constraints. Customer needs fight against bugs in the program, and usability fights against production costs. The current procedure to solve all these ...

Various Issue #48, April 1998 Our experts answer your technical questions. Using ZIP Drive and Printer I want to use my ZIP drive as well as my printer with Linux. My friend suggested using kerneld to make modules of the ZIP drive and my printer so that I can load the ZIP drive, access it, then unload it to use ...

Eric S. Raymond Issue #48, April 1998 Netscape source is now free, who would have thought it? Eric Raymond, that’s who. Here are his insights into this momentous event. One of the strangest and most disorienting feelings to experience is waking up and realizing you’re making history. I had that feeling the day of Netscape’s bombshell announcement on January 23, ...

Marjorie Richardson Issue #48, April 1998 Mr. Eid began work for Corel Corporation in 1989 and eventually rose to the position of Vice President of Technology. In October of last year, Corel Computer Corporation announced that its newest computer, the Corel Video Network Computer, would come with the Linux operating system installed. Wanting to know more, I asked for and ...

James Shapiro Issue #48, April 1998 Mr. Shapiro shows us how to write a program to compute internal rate of return using three programming languages supported by Linux—Perl, C and Java. The world of finance is rife with mathematical formulas. We are all familiar with the elementary ones like those for compound interest or tallying up the value of a ...

Ivan Griffin Mark Donnelly PhD. John Nelson Issue #48, April 1998 This month we are presented with an introduction to the networking of distributed objects and the use of CORBA. In the last few articles in this series, we dealt with basic low-level network programming in Linux, and with the issues involved in developing network servers (daemons). However, coding at ...

Otto Hammersmith Issue #48, April 1998 Here’s an explanation of how Imake works and how you can use it to build your executables—an article for programmers with C and Unix programming skills. Imake is tool for configuring the X Window System and its components for different platforms and compilers. Imake allows you to create a generic description of how your ...