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Yet another slam against Javascript - this time in Dan Morrill’s blog vs Javascript 2. Dan names AIR, Silverlight, and JavaFX as successors to Javascript because of his prediction that the browser based application of today is destined to be replaced by open standards apps of some other kind. (more…)

Revolution Live 2008 begins today. Revolution Live 2008 is a conference for developers that use Runtime Revolution, a cross platform development tool published in North America by co-sponsor Mirye Software.

Ill be updating throughout the day. (more…)

Last summer, I had the opportunity to talk with Bill Atkinson, the creator of HyperCard.

Bill Atkinson wrote many of the first applications that were available on the Macintosh computer, including the very popular HyperCard development environment. I took some lightweight notes of that conversation - not word for word notes but just jotted down a few things we talked about. We quickly found common interests in the Northwest, Japan, fractal based art and artificial intelligence.

Bill was a pleasure to talk with - his warmth and intelligence shine without any of the egocentricism you find in many executives in the software industry.

Bill was in the process of getting his PhD when he joined Apple. At the time, there were about 30 employees in the company. I didn’t get the impression that Bill completed his PhD, but he apparently continued with some graduate studies at the University of Washington.

Since leaving Apple, Bill Atkinson has pursued a number of interests, including his great love of natural photography - which you can see in Bill Atkinson Photography. We talked at length about the beauty of the Northwest and the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, a place where Bill has spent much time with his camera.

Bill has published some photography books, however he was very dissatisfied with the state of color display and printing in the United States. In order to go beyond the limitations of color available from US publishers, Bill had to go beyond the borders - to Japan.

In Japan, Bill found publishers not only willing to learn and put into practice the techniques he desired in printing, but a willingness to share that information, even with competitors.

So I had to ask - do you still use HyperCard? Bill still has some stacks that run his photography business - running on a G5 and maintained by his wife. But his involvement in programming revolves around Numenta, a business focused on developing software that simulates the neocortex. Numenta was started by Jeff Hawkins, the man behind both Palm and Handspring.

Numenta had caught my attention about a year prior and Paradigma was accepted into their then closed developer program. Bill was surprised that I knew about Numenta.

Bill believes Numenta represents more than the next step in computing - it has historical significance. Neurons in the human brain fire at the a maximum of 200 per second - and we cannot get around that limitation. Not only can human brain functionality be emulated by a computer, they can go far, far beyond these limits. Numenta is forward looking towards a kind of progeny of humans that will go beyond humans.

So will Bill hop back into programming tools and deliver HyperCard 3? It seems very unlikely. He was very happy to hear that the golden descendant of HyperCard - Runtime Revolution - is prospering and delivered the many modern features that never found their way into HyperCard.

If you are interested in natural photography - stop by Bill Atkinson Photography and pick up his book or prints.

08.05.25 Related: Wired Magazine: What HyperCard Could Have Been

Paradigma Software and Mirye Software Publishing are celebrating 10 years of Valentina by giving away developer licenses to Valentina 2.5.8 ADK Standard Edition - between February 14 - February 18, 2008. It is our Valentine’s Day gift to cross-platform developers who need to deploy database applications on all three major operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

You can get your free license by visiting the registration gift site.

It wasn’t very long after Valentina 1.0 that I first met Ruslan Zasukhin, founder, co-investor and VP of Engineering at Paradigma Software. Valentina 1.0 was strictly a C++ development kit at the time. Proactive International approached Ruslan to create a version of Valentina for REAL Software’s REALbasic development environment. Valentina has progressed - with server versions - including Valentina Office Server and Valentina Embedded Server, and support for many more development systems and two web languages: PHP and Ruby/Ruby on Rails.

While I have to remain candid about forthcoming developments, there are new products on their way in 2008 that will enable developers greater freedom to interact with, organize and display their millions of records. Watch for it!

As lead investor and co-owner of Paradigma Software, the Sun Microsystems $1 billion acquisition of MySQL announced today was a big filler of my inbox - both from the conventional computer industry media and users of our Valentina Database System. That Oracle also acquired BEA Systems was barely covered but also of interest. I think the NetworkWorld quote gets to the heart of the why.

MySQL has become a formidable competitor to other relational database management systems from companies such as Oracle and IBM. The database itself is free for people to download, and MySQL makes money by offering subscription support packages.

Sun has, over the course of the last five years, found itself the guest without a chair at the enterprise dinner table. Solaris OS was the operating system of choice when companies were building their first internet infrastructures, and Sun found new relevance with the Java - only for Java to find cold comfort on the desktop but a welcome home on the server. Open sourcing Java and now, the acquisition of MySQL strengthens the relationship it would like to groom with the now respected open source developer community; the relationship that Oracle’s support (or hijacking as Ive heard it referred to) of Red Hat Linux was supposed to accomplish.

This will matter little to developers who use ultra-fast Valentina database system or cross-platform development environments like Revolution. (more…)

It is being reported that REALbasic 2007 R4 has dropped official support for MySQL and that the company is directing developers to utilize ODBC drivers to interact with MySQL. The GPL’d driver was turned over to a third party to continue support. It has also been reported that there were too many business issues with licensed connectivity between differing versions of MySQL. However, given the persistence of MySQL in closing deals they are interested in, it simply could be these issues were not surmountable given the level of interest of the parties. Like most companies of size, if the opportunity isn’t large or significant enough to their own business strategy, its easy enough just to point towards company policy and a take-it-or-leave-it position.

Anyway, REAL Software has been strongly promoting their own SQLite based database server and placed significant policy barriers in their forums against discussing competing products - including banning Paradigma staff members after staff members answered questions asked by REALbasic users about Valentina for REALbasic. What would MySQL think about such policies coming from a potential partner?

REAL Software has released REALbasic 2007 Release 4 with database improvements and support for Ubuntu with their Linux deployment. We applaud REAL Software’s support for Ubuntu. Paradigma announced support for Ubuntu at Ubuntu Live in July 2007, and delivered the free Valentina Community Server. Valentina Office Server and Valentina Embedded Server have been available since April 2007 on Linux, with direct cross platform connectivity from REALbasic applications and connectivity from Valentina Studio.

REAL Software also has a statement of support from Actual Technologies, which provides ODBC drivers that work on MacOS X. It is not clear to me if, deploying applications on MacOS X, that REALbasic developers must utilize Actual Technologies drivers or not. Actual Technologies sells ODBC connectivity on a per seat basis and is well known as a provider of ODBC solutions to the Macintosh developer community. Valentina developers though have a built in solution with Valentina Studio that can be had at no added cost.

Valentina Studio can connect with ODBC sources, allowing fast and easy conversion to the native Valentina database format, as well as any export formats supported by Valentina. Valentina Studio is included with Valentina for REALbasic Professional and VDN Platform Edition (REALbasic version).

Bart Silverstrim recently asked an interesting question on the REALbasic Mailing list about single vs multiuser databases and the REALbasic Standard license. REALbasic comes with a single user version of a SQLite based database. What exactly is the difference between a single user and multiuser database? (more…)