ravee - Slashdot User

Comment Why not use ... (Score 1) 380

by ravee on Sunday July 15, 2007 @01:49AM (#19864835) Attached to: Warning On Office 2007 "Try-Before-You-Buy"

Why not use OpenOffice.org instead ? Agreed, Microsoft Office 2007 is very beautiful to look at and also has made a number of advances in usability. But that does not condone its history of changing the MSWord file format even across different versions of MSWord as well as locking the users to its proprietary format.

Microsoft has to learn to support open file formats as people now a days are becoming more and more aware of the hazards of vendor lock in.

Submission + - Linux Programmer's Toolbox

Submitted by

Ravi

on Thursday May 10, 2007 @01:21PM

Ravi writes: "What does it take to start writing programs for Linux ? Most people will guess a text editor, knowledge of a programming language and the compiler and libraries of that language would suffice. But ask a professional programmer who has been writing code for Linux and he will differ with you and insist that while the three things stated above can very well help kick start ones programs, other things also come into play in writing efficient programs such as a debugger, memory profiler tools and above all a good understanding of the inner working of Linux kernel and its processes.

The book titled "The Linux Programmer's Toolbox" authored by John Fusco is a book which is a store house of knowledge which aims to make the average Linux/Windows programmer aware of the tools at his disposal which can help him write better programs for Linux.

The book is divided into 10 distinct chapters with the first 4 chapters describing various ways of boosting ones productivity while embarking on writing code for Linux as well as getting to know the various tools at ones disposal.

In the very first chapter titled "Downloading and Installing Opensource tools", he talks about the different archive formats commonly used in Linux, various package managers such as Debian's own apt-get, Red Hat's Yum and how to properly authenticate the packages you download to ensure that they are not tampered.

The second chapter deals with building tools from source. Here apart from describing the actual steps involved in compiling the sources, the author also delves into explaining the concept behind the MakeFile, the common variables used in implicit rules and so on. In this chapter one also gets to acquire an understanding of the tools used to create projects as well as examine how these tools work together in the build process.

The book has a chapter exclusively devoted to explaining ways of ambulating through the myriad of documents; tools such as man, info, as well as some of the not so obvious ones. One thing I like about this particular chapter is how the author has provided tables which list a number of recommended manual pages with a short description of each of them.

Linux doesn't have a comprehensive IDE on the lines of Microsoft Visual Studio to develop programs — at least not yet. Most Linux programming gurus are perfectly at home with coding using their favorite text editor. And any book of this stature will be incomplete without a mention of the different editors available for coding in Linux and their pros and cons. The 4th chapter of this book introduces the different editors including Vim and Emacs and discusses their pros and cons. There are numerous tips in this chapter which aims to make writing code much more efficient, productive and a pleasant experience for the average Linux programmer. As a Vi enthusiast, I couldn't help but admire how one can convert Vim editor to work as a code browser with the help of Ctags which is explained in detail.

The fifth chapter titled "What every developer should know about the kernel" is a turning point in the book and gives a comprehensive understanding of the working of the Linux kernel. It is by far the largest chapter — with nearly 100 pages devoted to this topic — in this book. In this chapter the author talks in lucid detail about the different modes in Linux, the process scheduler, device drivers, the I/O scheduler and the memory management in user space, understanding all of which is instrumental in writing better programs for Linux.

The next two chapters deal with Linux processes and the communication between processes. Here one gets to know more about the technical vagaries related to processes such as forking, cloning, process synchronization and the basics of inter process communication. The author has introduced several APIs and basic examples of each.

In the 8th chapter, the author introduces many tools which are installed by default in most Linux distributions which aid in debugging communication between processes. The tools include (but are not limited to) lsof, fuser, stat, hexdump, strace and so on. And each tool is accompanied by its usage and its output with a short discussion of the output.

In the 9th chapter titled "Performance Tuning", one gets to know more about fine tuning ones Linux program. Here the author explains the factors affecting system performance as well as the tools for finding system performance issues.

Finally, the last chapter of this book explores some of the most common debugging tools and techniques for Linux. More specifically, I found the discussion on the use of GNU debugger quite informative.

At the end of each of the 10 chapters in the book, the author has provided a short synopsis of the tools that are used. Also many additional online resources have also been listed where one can acquire more knowledge about the topic being covered. Through out the book, noteworthy sections have been highlighted in dark background which makes it quite eye catching and also easy for quick reference.

The book is written with a slant towards the C language especially when depicting the examples in the latter half of the book. But that is something which can be understood considering that the bulk of the Linux kernel has been written using C language.

Most programmers with Windows background will be forced to make a paradigm shift while embarking to program for Linux. While the Windows programmers are used to taking deceptive comfort within the cozy confines of a Visual IDE, when they make the shift to write Linux programs, they are suddenly faced with the hard facts of programming as it really is. And this book could be an ideal companion for this set of programmers who wish to lessen their learning curve and make programming for Linux a much more pleasurable experience.

Having said that, I found this book to be an excellent resource for any programmer (not necessarily only of Windows background) who wish to develop programs for Linux.

Ravi Kumar is a Linux enthusiast who maintains a blog related to Linux, Open Source and Free Software at linuxhelp.blogspot.com."

Journal Journal: A Web based OS - Don't wait for Google OS

Journal by ravee on Saturday October 01, 2005 @03:28AM

EyeOS is a free, cross-platform Personal Content Manager System based upon the style of a Desktop Operating System. The base package includes the whole Operating System structure and ten apps, as a Calendar, a File Manager, a Text Editor, an Internal Messenger, a Browser and a Calculator. You can download it and try it for free at EyeOS.org .
The only catch is you need PHP and apache webserver running on your machine. I tried this OS and am really impres

Journal Journal: Trap-building ants torture prey

Journal by ravee on Saturday April 23, 2005 @10:45PM

I was of the impression that torturing was a skill perfected by the homo sapiens until I came across this interesting post. That is, a news item on BBC News which describes about a species of ants which use the same technique to hunt for prey. They lay a trap for the prey and when the prey is snared, it is impaled, drawn and quartered before it is transported to the ants nest for devouring.
You can read all about it here.

Journal Journal: 12 Great tips on successful job-hunting

Journal by ravee on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @02:24AM

I came across this post where the author details 12 great job searching ideas as adviced by job recruitment gurus all over the world. It is really interesting that after going through this post, I find that majority of us have made one or the other mistake listed there while searching for a job. All in all a very informative read.

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