Peter Coffee

The Internet is progressing toward “a future of control in large part exercised by technologies of commerce, backed by the rule of law.” So wrote Lawrence Lessig in 1999, adding: “The challenge of our generation is to reconcile these two forces.” Seven years later, that future is now. The prospect of content-based pricing of Internet […]

With all due respect to the righteous indignation of my colleague Larry Seltzer, I can see a number of issues that one might take with his vehement condemnation of security researcher Michal Zalewski and his disclosure of a possible vulnerability in Internet Explorer. Ill start by agreeing with Larry that Zalewski misuses the label of […]

When people used to call the Internet an information superhighway, they emphasized its openness to all and its ability to connect anything to anything. Many who used the expression had an agenda of ensuring universal info-highway access, and this has been largely accomplished in developed nations like the United States. At some point, though, the […]

Were past the stage of ITs evolution where people come to a computer in the manner that they pick up a power tool, having a specific task in mind and probably some training in how to do it. The fastest-growing model of computing today, with no end to the trend in sight, is one of […]

This year marks the 23rd anniversary of software developer Ed Posts famous essay, “Real Programmers Dont Use Pascal.” Its a tongue-in-cheek testament to the exceptional abilities and anti-management habits of the world-class coder. Microsofts VSTS (Visual Studio Team System), which is now complete with the March release of TFS (Team Foundation Server), might have been […]

As much as eWEEK Labs admires what Microsoft has accomplished with its Visual Studio Team System, were also interested in the different approach to a well-tooled developer governance environment thats offered by Version-One, whose V1: Agile Enterprise product becomes available April 18. Accessed through a Web browser interface and available either as a hosted service […]

Dual-core processors are proliferating through PC product lines, including newly Windows-capable Macintosh systems. April has also seen the open-source release of Sun Microsystems SPARC T1 processor design, with up to four threads running on each of up to eight cores. Challenges that were once in the domain of supercomputing now present themselves to enterprise architects: […]

Enterprise application developers are under growing pressure to deliver innovative work—and to do so under growing regulatory scrutiny, in an environment of volatile technology. Under these harried circumstances, developers can be pardoned for thinking “governance” is a code word for pointy-haired managers from the “Dilbert” zone looking over their shoulders and asking, “Why dont you […]

The long-awaited debut of Microsofts Visual Studio Team Server, released in March, came just in time to fill the companys hand and let it lay down VSTS as a nominee in this years sixth annual eWEEK Excellence Awards. Named in April as an Excellence Awards finalist in the Application Development category, VSTS is part of […]

With todays release of the beta code of SQL Anywhere 10, Sybases iAnywhere subsidiary doesnt send one message. It sends four—and with the sun soon to set on tax season 2005, Id like to add one of my own. Message 1: Progress is parallel. Version 10 acknowledges the multi-CPU power thats now found in laptops […]

Considering how well our brains handle spatial relationships, its unfortunate that most information systems make little use of that ability to let us find patterns or anomalies in data. I first wrote that sentence as “its surprising and unfortunate,” but on reflection I had to admit that its not surprising—because, on the programming side, spatial […]

Red Hats acquisition of JBoss, like any good story, offers interesting views from at least three angles. The first angle is what it says about the industry. The second angle is what it says about the technology. The third angle is what it says about the craft of being a software development professional. What this […]