Development
Contracts for Python
Contracts for Python is a Python implementation of a concept that comes from the Eiffel language, Design by Contract. "Programming by Contract allows a programmer to document a function/class with statements describing behavior." Along with the regular code, contracts for functions and methods add pre and post condition checking, and code for testing correct operation of the code.
A draft Python language PEP (Python Enhancement Proposal) for Design by Contract has been submitted. The status of PEP 316 is currently Deferred.
The PEP states that compared to Assertions, Contracts produce better documentation, and make for easier testing.
The Eiffel Design by Contract document goes into greater detail on the subject:
Version 1.0 beta 3 of Design by Contract just came out. The CHANGELOG file details the recent changes, which include support for Python 2.2 and Jython among other things.
System Applications
Audio Projects
Ogg Traffic
The June 24, 2003 edition of Ogg Traffic is out. Topics include: development on Positron, Speex, Theora, libshout2, the Speex ACDM codec, integer speex, OggHelp.com, and a new ogg stream from Virgin Radio.Planet CCRMA Changes
The Planet CCRMA audio software packaging project has made new images available for Red Hat 9.0, see the ChangeLog file for details.
Database Software
PostgreSQL Weekly News
The June 18th 2003 PostgreSQL Weekly News is out. "After last week's mention of running PostgreSQL on an Opteron with Debian Linux in 64-bit node, I received a couple of emails about other people using PostgreSQL on 64-bit hardware. One in particular was a note that SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 for AMD64 has been shipping with support for PostgreSQL 7.2.4 since April, and is actively being maintained. With that said, we are now less than two weeks away from feature freeze (July 1st). Bruce Momjian has gone through a number of patches, if you plan to add something new for the next release it needs to be submitted as soon as possible."
SAP DB Version 7.4.03 released
Version 7.4.03 of SAP DB is available. Change information is available in the release info document.
Medical Software
FreeMED Stable Release! (LinuxMedNews)
LinuxMedNews has an announcenent for version 0.6 of the FreeMED Medical Practice Management System. "After two years of development, the FreeMED Software Foundation has released a stable version of FreeMED! The new .6 Version has lots of new features including a totally new modular architecture, HL7 support, medical billing functionality, scheduling system, and integrated security system. The new version is also compliant with both the HIPAA privacy and security rules."
Printing
LinuxPrinting.org news
The latest changes on the LinuxPrinting.org site include a patch for printing with just black ink on HP DeskJet 6xx, 8xx, and 9xx printers.
Web Site Development
CMFLinkChecker 0.1 released (ZopeMembers)
Version 0.1 of CMFLinkChecker has been announced. "CMFLinkChecker is an addon (Portal Tool) for CMF and Plone that gives you instantly an overview about the status of the links that exist within your content."
Epoz 0.4.0 released (ZopeMembers)
Version 0.4 of Epoz, a wysiwyg-editor for Zope and Plone, has been announced. The changes include: "Epoz-Buttons are now customizable via CSS. Epoz will now integrate much more seamlessly into your own applications, esp. Plone."
Exodus - a web application review tool
Rogan Dawes has put together a web application review tool called Exodus. "Exodus acts as a web proxy, and can observe and display HTTP and HTTPS conversations, as well as extracting links from observed HTML responses, and HTML comments, scripts and forms. Exodus also offers functionality to fetch unseen links, submit requests manually, sample cookies, and submit "bad input" to URL's, in the hope that something will break."
Formulator 1.4.2 released (ZopeMembers)
Version 1.4.2 of Formulator, an extensible framework that eases the creation and validation of web forms, has been released. "It contains a single bugfix compared to 1.4.1. Sticky forms should now work properly with unicode fields."
Gallery v1.3.4 and Gallery Remote v1.0.1 Released (SourceForge)
SourceForge has an announcement for new versions of Gallery and Gallery Remote. Gallery is a web-based photo gallery package. "New features for v1.3.4 include: the ability to download your gallery to burn to CD or browse offline, additional photo print services, auto-rotation of JPEGs when possible, and the ability to add new customized description fields to photos."
mnoGoSearch 3.2.11 Released
Version 3.2.11 of the mnoGoSearch web site search engine software is available. See the change history for a list of changes and bug fixes.My Media Manager 1.2 final released ! (ZopeMembers)
Version 1.2 final of My Media Manager, a set of online management and publishing tools for administering streaming media servers, has been announced. "There haven't been made many changes from the release candidate, but some minor bux fixes (mainly to the GUI) has been fixed."
Dynamically Creating PDFs in a Web Application
Sean C. Sullivan shows how to work with the iText Java Class Library to generate PDF documents on the fly.Plone 1.0.3 released! (ZopeMembers)
Version 1.0.3 of Plone, an information management system, has been released. "Release 1.0.3 fixes some bugs, and adds a reserved IDs feature. It is a recommended upgrade for users of the 1.0.x versions."
Web Services
IBM Releases WebSphere SDK 5.0.1 for Web Services
IBM has released version 5.0.1 of its WebSphere SDK for Web Services. "The free download includes: An embedded version of IBM WebSphere Application Server - Express, V5.0 with additional support for ORB and EJBs. WSDK supports SOAP 1.1, WSDL 1.1, UDDI 2.0, JAX-RPC 1.0, EJB 2.0, Enterprise Web Services 1.0 (JSR 109), WSDL4J, UDDI4J, and WS-Security."
Desktop Applications
Audio Applications
BEAST/BSE v0.5.2 released
Version 0.5.2 of BEAST/BSE, the Bedevilled Audio SysTem and the Bedevilled Sound Engine, has been released. The pair form a GUI package that can be used for music composition, audio synthesis, and sample manipulation. "This new development series of BEAST comes with a lot of the internals redone, many new GUI features and a sound generation back-end separated from any GUI activities." A new track editor has been added.
CheeseTracker 0.8.0 is out
Version 0.8.0 of CheeseTracker, an electronic music application with synthesis, sampling, and sequencing, is available.Three new releases of Horgand
Three new releases of Horgand, an electronic organ simulator, have been released this week. Version 1.0 adds Auto-accompaniement, chord recognition, drum loops, bass samples, and bug fixes. Version 1.0.1 includes some additional refinements and bug fixes. Version 1.0.2 includes a Bass file pattern editor, adds load-save for rhythm patterns, fixes one bug, and more.WaveSurfer 1.5.2 released
Version 1.5.2 of WaveSurfer, an audio visualization and editing program, has been released. Changes include support for a default configuration, storable preferences, a spectrogram analysis bandwidth slider, bug fixes, and more.
Desktop Environments
KDE Traffic #55
Issue #55 of KDE Traffic has been published. Topics include: dropping kmidi?, IR controller project, UI Abstraction Proposal, A happy user, KDE enterprise gets attention, Not enough time for KDE, and The promised treat.KDE-CVS-Digest for June 20, 2003
The June 21, 2003 edition of the KDE-CVS-Digest is out. KDE.News has this summary: "This week in KDE-CVS-Digest: CD burning application K3b begins to gain DVD writing functionality, continued fixes and improvements to KWin, more on the binary compatibility debate, bug fixes, and more."
Financial Applications
Games
BZFlag 1.7g2 'steely eyed banana' released (SourceForge)
SourceForge has an announcement for a new version of the game BZFlag. "Now with twice as mojo! New features include a nifty server administration system, autoconf, cheating protection, expanded platform support and much more. BZFlag is an OpenSource OpenGL Multiplayer Multiplatform battlezone capture the flag game."
Graphics
Sodipodi 0.32 Released (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop.org has an announcement for version 0.32 of Sodipodi, a vector-based drawing program. This is the second bugfix release after the switch to Gtk+ 2.0.
GUI Packages
SPTK 2.0a2 released
Version 2.0a2 of SPTK, the Simply Powerful ToolKit, has been released. "I've made a lot of changes since version 1.3b, so it doesn't look like it relates to 1.3 anymore. As a matter of fact, I'm starting a version 2.0. So, here we go."
Interoperability
Netatalk 1.6.3 released (SourceForge)
Version 1.6.3 of Netatalk, an open-source set of Apple compatible file sharing utilities, has been released. "Netatalk 1.6.3 is a maintenance release for the 1.6 series that fixes various small bugs and glitches in Netatalk."
wine20030618 released
Version 20030618 of Wine, the Windows Emulator, has been released. Changes include Direct3D and DirectSound improvements, merged fixes from Crossover Office 2.0, a new iphlpapi dll, and bug fixes.Wine Traffic #175
Issue #175 of Wine Traffic has been published. Topics include: Wine-20030618, TransGaming Update, WineHQ Interview, DMusic Interfaces, Displaying Icons for Executables, Wintab Status, Workaround for Xvidmode Graphic Corruption, and Missing Bugzilla Descriptions.
Office Applications
AbiWord-2.0 Beta 1 Released (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop.org reports on the release of AbiWord 1.99.1. "This release contains bugs some of which have already been found and fixed. We invite interested users to test AbiWord-1.99.1 and report bugs to http://bugzilla.abisource.com/." The code is available for download here.
AbiWord Weekly News
Issue #149 of the AbiWord Weekly News is out. "Abiword rakes in some more beau coups, while several developers attend GUADEC (which just reel them in!) Martin is the most powerful bait you can get in C++. Meantime, Frank's got an almost functional static plugin thing going on; another limited functionality Windows binary is created, but this one gets to SourceForge; another dialogue means another screenshot, and Windows users might see the next release having fixed their printing capabilities (though, note, not all are covered). Joaquin is cool that way. And, don't forget to get caught up on our GUADEC/Dublin fun!"
KOffice 1.3 Beta 1 Released
KDE.News has an announcement for KOffice 1.3 beta 2. "On June 18th 2003, the KDE Project released the second beta version of KOffice 1.3. It comes with a lot of bugfixes and a couple of new features such as a PDF import filter, new OpenOffice.org filters and more stencils for Kivio."
OpenOffice.org Scripting Framework
An early developer release (0.3) of the Scripting Framework for OpenOffice.org is available. New features include JavaScript support, support for filesystem scripts, improved edit and debug facilities, and more.
Web Browsers
Mozilla 1.4 Release Candidate 3 Ships (MozillaZine)
Mozilla 1.4 RC 3 has been announced. "The third, and probably final, release candidate of Mozilla 1.4 is now available. Get your copy from the mozilla1.4rc3 directory on ftp.mozilla.org and check out the Mozilla 1.4 RC3 Release Notes for more information."
Mozilla Thunderbird Gets Extension Support (MozillaZine)
According to MozillaZine, extension support has been added to the Thunderbird browser.Mozilla Status Report
The Mozilla Status Report for June 20, 2003 is out. Topics include: Mozilla 1.4 Release Candidate 2, Mozilla Thunderbird, Technology Evangelism, Mozilla Start Page, Mozilla Calendar Alarms, and more.NewsMonster 1.0RC1 Released (MozillaZine)
MozillaZine reports on the release of NewsMonster 1.0RC1, a weblog manager. "This is the first 1.0-quality aggregator available for Mozilla. The major change in this release is the addition of a reputation system which I think will make this the killer Mozilla app!"
Miscellaneous
FreeDOS kernel 2030 released (SourceForge)
Kernel 2030 of FreeDOS has been announced. "FreeDOS kernel build 2030 is out with quite a few important bugs fixed. FreeDOS aims to be a complete, free, 100% MS-DOS compatible operating system. FreeDOS is free because it is released under the GNU General Public License."
GnomeMeeting 0.98 is available! (GnomeDesktop)
Version 0.98 of GnomeMeeting, an H.323 compatible videoconferencing and VOIP/IP-Telephony application, has been released. "This is a major release with many changes and enhancements, and it should be the last release before the 1.0 cycle is reached."
Languages and Tools
C++
C++ Memory Management: Principles (O'ReillyNet)
O'Reilly has published an article on C++ memory management. "Half of wisdom is knowing what doesn't work. George Belotsky eloquently explained Common C++ Memory Management Errors in a previous article. This article explains design principles that will help you use C++ effectively and efficiently."
Caml
Caml Weekly News
The June 17-24, 2003 edition of the Caml Weekly News has been published. Take a look for current Caml developments.
Lisp
OpenMCL 0.13.6 released
Version 0.13.6 of OpenMCL is out. "This maintenance release features changes to Gray Streams and fixes a few bugs."
Perl
This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)
The June 16-22, 2003 edition of This Week on perl5-porters is online. Topics include: Algorimic Complexity Attack, Clearing $1, siginfo, and Selected bugs.This week on Perl 6
The June 15, 2003 edition of This week on Perl 6 is out with the latest Perl 6 language news.Hidden Treasures of the Perl Core, part II (O'Reilly)
Casey West covers more internal modules in the Perl Core on O'Reilly. "In this article, we dig deeper to uncover some of the truly precious and unique gems in the Perl Core."
PHP
PHP 4.3.3RC1 Released
PHP version 4.3.3RC1 has been released. The changes include support for the latest GD library, better POSIX socket ID support, an improved IMAP extension, bug fixes, and lots more. See the NEWS file for details.PHP Weekly Summary for June 23, 2003
The PHP Weekly Summary for June 23, 2003 is out. Topics include: PHP 5 beta TODO list, PHP 4.3.3 RC 1, GD, GIF, Animated GIF, International PHP Conference 2003, Binary PECL packages, MySQL extension.Transforming XML with PHP (O'Reilly)
Bruno Pedro explains transforming XML from PHP on O'Reilly. "This article compares two methods of transforming XML in PHP: PEAR's XML_Transformer package and the W3C XML transformation language XSLT. I will first describe the PEAR project and its philosophy, with a focus on its XML transformation techniques. I will then give a brief introduction to XSLT and the way to use it from PHP."
Python
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!
The Dr. Dobb's Python-URL for June 23, 2003 is out, with weekly news and links for the Python community. This week's issue contains discussions on the low-down on range() and xrange(), and what might happen to them in the future; security problem with naïve SQL quoting; and much more.Daily Python-URL Daily Python-URL
The Daily Python-URL has several new interviews and the usual assortment of Python-related articles.wxPython 2.4.1.2 released
Version 2.4.1.2 of wxPython, a Python interface to the wxWindows GUI library, is available. See the CHANGES file for details on what's new.
Scheme
Scheme Weekly News
The June 23, 2003 Scheme Weekly News is out with the week's Scheme language development news.
Shells
Zsh 4.0.7 and 4.1.1 released (SourceForge)
Two new versions of zsh, an alternative Unix shell program, has been released. "4.1.1 introduces many new features both in the main shell and as library add-ons. It has been in development for some time and is believed to be fairly stable. 4.0.7 is a bug-fix release for the stable branch of zsh."
Tcl/Tk
Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!
The June 23, 2003 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is out with the week's assortment of Tcl/Tk development tips and news articles.
XML
Bring Scalable Vector Graphics to life with built-in animation elements (IBM developerWorks)
Brian John Venn writes about SVG on IBM's developerWorks. "Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML-based language for drawing two-dimensional graphics. Sound dull? Far from it. SVG has many exciting features available to it such as transformations, alpha masks, filter effects, and animation. This tip provides working examples to show you how to apply the five flavours of SVG animations to your SVG documents."
CSS 3 Selectors (O'Reilly)
Russell Dyer writes about CSS 3 Selectors on O'Reilly. "Although the promise of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) has been wondrous, the progress has been wanting. As with all W3C standards, there is the lengthy discussion process conducted by the related working group, then the problem of implementation by web browser vendors, and finally the unpredictable period of time for people to update to new versions of their browser. These steps can take a year or two each."
Debuggers
GDB 6.0 branch created
A new version 6.0 branch of GDB, the GNU Project Debugger, has been created. The code is available via CVS.
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