Microsoft wants to drop support for Windows XP.  They have agreed to continue to allow downgrades from W7 (primarily for enterprise customers and netbook buyers) but they have discontinued support for XP SP2.  Support for XP SP3 will continue into 2014.  In an eWeek.com article, Don Reisinger offers ten reasons why Microsoft must offer long-term support for XP. (I had to read the story on my desktop, of course.)

According to a study Reisinger cites, of 278,498 corporate and public sector PCs analyzed, “almost half are still running Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2.”  Analysis and marketing firm Net Applications reports that as of June 2010, XP is running on 62% of the world’s PCs.

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I’ve been using Microsoft Windows since I realized that my 8-bit Kaypro wasn’t the wave of the future. Not on phones, mind you – I could never see downgrading from Palm to one of Microsoft’s many mobile versions and I doubt I’ll see a compelling reason to downgrade from Android to the Windows Mobile 7 either. A downgrade to iPhone + AT&T is equally unlikely.

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Note: My thanks to the Droid Bugs blog for detailed instructions on capturing Droid screenshots on a PC via USB cable.

While reading my email (Gmail) on my Motorola Droid this morning, I found several industry newsletters waiting for me. That last one caught my eye, so I opened it to find …

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PhpStorm 1.0 and WebStorm 1.0 have been released by JetBrains. Pricing is about where I had hoped it would be – and even better until September 1, 2010.

For PhpStorm

• Commercial license until September 1, $149, $199 after
• Personal license until September 1, $49, $99 after
• Freebies are available for classroom and open source project use

For WebStorm

• Commercial license until September 1, $99, $149 after
• Personal license until September 1, $39, $69 after
• Freebies are available for classroom and open source project use

Both IDEs are available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux and both have 45-day trial downloads available.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with JetBrains in any way and have no financial interest in the company or its products. I have been using the PhpStorm beta for several months.

I’ve been trying to decide how to replace/ refurbish my aging self-built home workstation (XP, 4 GB RAM, 2.13Ghz Core 2 Duo processor). I have all the software I need for a software and web development powerhouse, so I need a platform to really take advantage of the toolkit.

With those thoughts in the back of my mind, I came across an article on Tech Republic entitled “Dust off that dinosaur computer”. Naturally, that got me thinking about – not my next, but my first computer (ca. 1983).

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Got an idea for a new programming language? Thinking about implementing one on a new platform? It may be easier than you think. Early in my teaching career, I got interested in the problems that confront – and sometimes discourage – novice programmers. One of the problems that beginners had (and probably continue to have) is that they focus more on syntax than on semantics. That is, they get so hung up on how to express something in, say, C or Java (syntax) that they neglect to ensure that what they are trying to express actually makes sense (semantics).

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I’ve participated in the construction of web apps off and on for at least a dozen years. But now – assuming that app refers to a robust, non-trivial business application – I’m beginning to question whether the web is an appropriate platform for developing and deploying them.

In theory, building a server-based application without a dedicated fat client seems to be a Really Good Idea. About ten years ago, I wrote an unpublished paper extolling the virtues of the web browser as a ubiquitous generic client.  A that time, Electronic Software Distribution (ESD) was a hot topic as enterprises struggled to ensure that employees were using the right versions of desktop software, especially dedicated clients; recent experience at a former employer indicates that ESD is still an issue. The ability to transform a generic client into the latest version of a particular client on the fly, simply by connecting it to a particular server-based app, had obvious appeal.

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