Doc Ruby writes, "As reported at GigaOM, 'Infinera has bonded 10 parallel 10 Gb/s channels into one logical flow while maintaining packet ordering at the receiver,' bridging 100-Gbps ethernet over 10 10-Gbps optical WAN links. Infinera's press release is here. Further from GigaOM: 'The experimental system was set up between Tampa, Florida and Houston, Texas, and back again. A 100 GbE signal was spliced into ten 10 Gb/s streams using an Infinera-proposed specification for 100GbE across multiple links. The splicing of the signal is based on a packet-reordering algorithm developed at [UC] Santa Cruz. This algorithm preserves packet order even as individual flows are striped across multiple wavelengths.' We're all going to want our share of these 100Gbps networks. The current network retailers, mainly cable and DSL dealers, still haven't brought even 10Mbps to most homes, though they're now bringing fiber to the premises to some rich/lucky customers. Are they laying fiber that will bring them to Tbps, or will that stuff clog the way to getting these speeds ourselves?" Rumors say that what runs over Verizon's FiOS is ATM, to support their aspirations for triple-play.

Via Kotaku, an article at the SF Gate website about the game industry's interest in female gamers, and said gamers' proficiency with aforementioned games. The Swedish 'Girlz of Destruction' pro gaming group is mentioned (much more legit than, say, calender models with console controllers), as is the 'Couples, Computers and Gaming' event at Ruby Skye in San Francisco. From the article: "Lee compares the rush she gets playing video games to her high school soccer matches, and said some women who don't play unfairly equate games with crime and violence. Lee added she's never fired a real gun in her life. She will return this winter to her student life at UC Berkeley, where she is studying environmental policy. Enderle said game developers are still male-dominated, and if game companies want to get serious about recruiting women to play games, they need to recruit women to help make the games as well."

Tim Hunter writes "Hal Fulton's The Ruby Way, Second Edition doesn't try to be the only book a Ruby programmer needs. It tries to be a book every serious Ruby programmer needs, and it succeeds. The Ruby Way is a book about programming with Ruby, the object-oriented programming language from Japan. Ruby is free software and runs on Linux, Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X, and other operating systems. It is available for download from its web site, www.ruby-lang.org or its companion site www.rubyforge.org. Read the rest of Tim's review.

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "An unlikely but growing group of rock stars are also avid players of Guitar Hero, a PlayStation title that uses a miniature plastic guitar to let gamers pretend to be, well, rock stars, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'Michael Einziger, the 30-year-old guitarist for the hard-rock band Incubus, says he was "shocked at how hard it was" to play the videogame's version of his song "Stellar." He admits he was handily beaten by his then-14-year-old sister, Ruby Aldridge, when the two of them squared off earlier this year. "It doesn't have anything to do with playing guitar," Mr. Einziger says. "It's all rhythmic." When the four members of the punk-pop band the Donnas got together to play Guitar Hero last week, guitarist Allison Robertson took some good-natured ribbing from her bandmates, says drummer Torry Castellano. That's because Ms. Robertson had a hard time playing along with the band's own song "Take It Off." "Expectations for her are pretty high because she's the guitar player and because she's so good at videogames in general," says Ms. Castellano.'"

devilsecret writes to point out that some of the new Apple capabilities for developers on Leopard have been unveiled. The most interesting parts appear to be the opening of more of iLife to other programs, and the inclusion of Ruby on Rails.

Doc Ruby writes to tell us about an article in the Baltimore (MD) Sun, reporting that someone sent a package to a former legislator containing what appears to be Diebold source code. From the article: "Diebold Election Systems Inc. expressed alarm and state election officials contacted the FBI yesterday after a former legislator received an anonymous package containing what appears to be the computer code that ran Maryland's polls in 2004... The availability of the code — the written instructions that tell the machines what to do — is important because some computer scientists worry that the machines are vulnerable to malicious and virtually undetectable vote-switching software. An examination of the instructions would enable technology experts to identify flaws, but Diebold says the code is proprietary and does not allow public scrutiny of it." Read on for more of Doc Ruby's comments and questions.

Ravi writes "Asynchronous Javascript And Xml, popularly known as Ajax, is a combination of Javascript, XML and some coding on the server side. Even though this technology existed for years, many believe it was Google which brought it to the front by implementing it on its sites and thus raising it to the cult status it enjoys now. There is something magical in seeing a website update its content without reloading the whole page, which is the visual essence of Ajax." Read the rest of Ravi's review.

Prompted by Senator's Brownback's legislation, an interesting discussion is taking place on the ESRB, and gaming related politics. Next Generation offers up a damning look at the ESRB, wherein author Aaron Ruby says that the organization is 'incapable of effectively communicating with consumers, nor of fending off attacks from the industry's many critics.' At the Sony Online 'Station Blog', SOE's John Smedley retorts, saying that an industry-wide mentality is to blame for the ESRB's precarious position. Meanwhile, EGM's editor Shoe has some choice words on claims the organization shouldn't have to 'play through' every game that comes to market. From this last piece: "Sure, you usually can't see 100% of a game on an average playthrough. But I guarantee if you get three guys to sit down and finish every product, you can learn a lot more about what these games contain than from watching a bunch of highlight reels, which, remember, are edited by companies who have huge stakes in what the ratings turn out to be -- talk about conflict of interest!"

Simon P. Chappell writes "Classics are funny things, especially in the world of books. There are books that people say "should' be classics (I'll refrain from mentioning names to protect the pretentious) and then there are books that people are too busy actually using to get around to listing as classics. Mastering Regular Expressions, now in it's third edition, is in the second group. It's one of those books that you see on desks in computer departments the world over. This is a real "doers" book." Read the rest of Simon's review.

pate writes "Sun has thrown some corporate weight behind Ruby, Rails, and dynamic languages by hiring the two main JRuby developers, Charles Nutter and Thomas Enebo. Charles posted about jruby stepping into Sun on his blog, and Thomas posted his take too. Tim Bray, who started the ball rolling posted about the JRuby Love."

mudimba writes "A major security hole has been found in Ruby on Rails. Upgrading to version 1.1.5 is extremely urgent, and all previous versions except those "on a very recent edge" are affected. Details on the exact nature of the flaw will be coming soon, but the rails team has decided to wait a short time before disclosure so that people can have a chance to upgrade their servers before would-be-assailants are armed." Update: 08/10 13:56 GMT by J : Now they're saying only the last six months of releases are affected: 1.1.0 through 1.1.4.

Today Apple announced a few expanded open source efforts. First, beginning with Mac OS X 10.4.7, the Darwin/Mac OS X kernel, known as "xnu", is again available as buildable source for the Intel platform, including EFI utilities. Second, iCal Server, Bonjour, and launchd are moving to Apache 2.0 licensing. And finally, Mac OS Forge has been launched, as the successor to OpenDarwin as a conduit for hosting projects such as WebKit that were formerly hosted by the OpenDarwin project's servers, such as WebKit. Mac OS Forge is sponsored by Apple. DarwinPorts has already moved to its own servers. Update: 08/08 01:43 GMT by J : The official Apple announcement is now out. Other fun news: Leopard will ship with Ruby on Rails.

rfreedman asks: "Most of the buzz on the web about software development tools, languages, and practices seems to concentrate on getting software developed as quickly as possible. Take, for example, the current huge hype about Ruby on Rails, and how it allows the creation of a CRUD web-database application x-times more quickly than every other environment. It seems to me that this concentration on initial construction of software ignores the issue of total cost of ownership. Most people who develop software also have to maintain it, and have to support changes to it over long periods of time. As has been discussed many times over the years, maintenance is the most expensive part of the software development life-cycle. I think that the software development community would be better served by discussions of how to build more robust, flexible, and maintainable software (thereby driving down TCO), than by the endless discussions that we currently see about how to build it quickly. What do you think?"

Simon P. Chappell writes "This may not be the book that you think it is, if you don't read the title carefully, but it is the book you need, if you are developing applications for Ruby On Rails (often known as just Rails, or RoR, to its friends). When learning any new development platform, there are many idioms and approaches, best practices if you will, that can benefit your development efforts. This book sets out to bring you that understanding of the best way to write the Ruby side of your Rails application." Read the rest of Simon's review.

An anonymous reader writes "The Java community has used JavaServer Pages (JSP) technology through most of the last decade, but signs of rust are starting to show. Longstanding conventions inhibit Java programmers from using Java code within Web pages now. Other languages handle Web development much better than Java. This article discuss how code generation works in Ruby, and it delve into a more radical component-based approach in Seaside."

rdelon writes "Finally there is some movement in the hosting provider control panel department. cPanel and Ensim have been around for years but some people have grown increasingly frustrated with them. WebFaction has developed a new type of control panel. It offers an Ajax web interface that decouples the application from the domain: the root of a website might be served by Ruby on Rails while the /blog URL might be served by WordPress; reciprocally, multiple websites might be served from a single Django application, which reduces the resource usage on the server. A screencast demo of the control panel is available on their blog."

An anonymous reader writes "Ruby on Rails seems to be the new hotness in the world of web development, right up there with Ajax. IBM DeveloperWorks has a helpful howto on how to bring the worlds of Ruby on Rails and your DB2 framework together. From the article: 'Because Rails emerged from the open source world, until recently you had to use MySQL or PostgreSQL to work with it. Now that IBM has released a DB2 adapter for Rails, it's possible to write efficient Web applications on top of your existing DB2 database investment.'"

markmcb asks: "I help design a LAMP web site and I'm constantly plagued by trying to decide on what level should I separate functional code and markup. Depending on what you read, some say embedding HTML in your PHP scripts [or Perl, or Java, or Ruby, or Python, etc] is bad while others say it's no big deal. However, seldom are any practical applications of such code cited. How is your site built? Do you mix HTML with your code? If not, how do you overcome the simple and easy method of doing so? Lastly, what performance gains/losses have you noticed by doing so?"

An anonymous reader writes "Ruby on Rails seems to be a lightning rod for controversy. At the heart of most of the controversy lies amazing productivity claims. Rails isn't a better hammer; it's a different kind of tool. This article explores the compromises and design decisions that went into making Rails so productive within its niche."

Aranth writes "The staff at Ars Technica has gotten its hands on a demo of Duke Nukem Forever, and has written up a review. It seems the game is near ready for release! As the article explains, the reason it has taken so long to develop is because this is the first real Web 3.0 application- it has 'been rewritten as an Ajax application written using the Ruby on Rails framework' and runs in any web browser, although some seem to have difficulties." Sadly, the game looks to be deficient in the area of ponies. :(((( But, it's playable from my hiptop!! :))))