Peter Coffee

Supporting collaborative software efforts requires skill and effort in identifying relationships, avoiding misunderstandings and building a sense of shared commitment to mutual goals—what some might call, popularly if not rigorously, “right-brain” tasks. Those goals are aided, though, by informed choice and skillful use of “left-brain” formalisms and tools such as specification languages and diagramming conventions, […]

At what point does one draw the line between an enterprise IT application and an embedded system? Or is the question itself outdated, as these two once-separate domains converge? We all know the characteristics of enterprise IT applications. They address a business requirement. Their design emphasizes maintainability of code rather than low-level hardware optimization. They […]

When you throw a bunch of chemicals into a pot, its common for something to happen. Sometimes the resulting reaction can be spectacular; sometimes it is more subtle. In time, though, a reaction reaches a point where its products start spontaneously breaking back down into the original ingredients: where chemical equilibrium is reached, and things […]

Id hate to be remembered for a dumb prediction that I didnt even make, but thats the posthumous predicament of Charles Duell. Commissioner of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 1899, Duell never actually said that “everything that can be invented has been invented,” notwithstanding 10,000 Web pages claiming that he did. Id planned […]

One of the most misunderstood quotations of all time is the one that asserts, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Originated in 1927 by an advertising salesman, the statement was attributed as an Asian proverb to give it more of an aura of ancient wisdom. The key point, though, is that the “worth” he […]

From the other room, I overheard a conversation between two of my teenage sons: “What if you could plug your brain into a supercomputer …” said one, “… and have it design a game from your mind?” finished the other. In nearly perfect unison, they agreed: “That would be so cool!” I wondered if I […]

Bringing first-class development tools into its Office desktop suite, Microsoft is taking a forward step along the path to productivity. Thats a journey whose progress Ive been praising since 1991, when advanced macro capabilities made Word 2.0 for Windows a revolutionary product. The forthcoming Visual Studio Tools for Office will put even more developer power […]

With its ease of running code in many environments, the Java platform attracts a large share of open-source development interest. The SourceForge.Net open-source project repository, for example, included as of this writing more than 1,400 multiplatform projects in Java that were classified as being aimed at developers and as having reached a production level of […]

When eWEEK Labs analysts want to puncture a software vendors exaggerated claims, they often ask if the next release will cure world hunger. Ironically, open-source advocates are skirting the edge of that very claim: Freeing up money spent on software licensing fees in Brazil could double the budget for fighting that countrys hunger problem, said […]

Theres an awfully big tent enclosing at least a three-ring circus of options for “open-source development.” In the first ring, there are open-source tools for proprietary platforms—for example, the Open Watcom C/C++ and FORTRAN compilers, taken open in 2003 by SciTech Software Inc., of Chico, Calif., and available for DOS, Windows and OS/2 application development. […]