This essay is intended for Python programmers wanting to understand the concept of cooperative inheritance and the usage of super. It does not require any previous reading. The target is Python 3.0, since it has a nicer syntax for super, even if most of what I say here can be backported down to Python 2.2.

Scala pattern matchers with side effects can have unexpected results in for expressions.

I think my subconscious mind has been figuring this out over the past number of years.

Adobe's Flash Player provides a sophisticated platform for client-side imaging applications. This article illustrates how to use the latest Flash Player 10 features from Flex 4 applications to efficiently manipulate images on the client, focusing on Pixel Bender image filters.

A short response to Tim Bray's recent blog post, Doing it Wrong.

The JCP's Program Office posted its 2010 calendar, along with its latest newsletter. News include the final release of Java EE 6, MIDP3, and a special election for an ME EC seat.

In a previous weblog a suggestion for reifying lambda types was given. The previous weblog gave examples, but no formal description of the process. This weblog gives a more formal description.

An increasing number of organizations are taking the plunge to Scrum, with or without professional coaching. Developers transitioning to Scrum can avoid many pitfalls by following a handful of hard-learned principles. In this article, I discuss a common mistake with the popular "user story" requirements format: poorly defined done criteria.

Google's Collection Library reached its 1.0 release last week, featuring many enhancements to the standard Java Collections Framework.

Malcom Gladwell's latest book is a selection from his New Yorker columns. The underlying theme is what I call "wrong correctness," which is fascinating because there are enormous possibilities to be mined, but only if we can learn how to create a new approach to business.

Recently, at Devoxx, it was announced that Java would get lambda functions (a.k.a. anonymous functions or closures). There are many ways of implementing these on the JVM. This post proposes that reifying lambdas is a good choice.

In a recent blog post, Lau Jensen compares Clojure to Ruby and Scala in terms of code complexity and performance, using the example of a simple news reader program.

The latest version of Groovy features anonymous inner and nested classes, extended annotation support, power asserts, AST-related enhancements, improved support for SQL, and a new and improved Eclipse plugin.

During its close to one-and-a-half decade of existence, Sun's JDK has built up many internal dependencies. As a result, many core Java APIs depend on a large number of other JDK APIs. A key goal of JDK 7 is to minimize such dependencies, resulting in a more modular JDK. That goal, however, is not easy to reach, writes Sun's Alan Bateman.

The latest release of Google's open-source Web development framework includes the new Speed Tracer performance analyzer, declarative UI definitions, improved layout capabilities, code splitting, compiler optimizations, and numerous enhancements to the Eclipse plug-in.

A not-so-serious overview of the events in software development that led to the creation of Scala.