4 hot Microsoft technologies coming in 2012

By J. Peter Bruzzese

Source: InfoWorld

The year 2012 brings with it prophecies (of doom, unfortunately -- thanks, Mayans), predictions, and promises in every industry. While I'm no seer of the future, there are four tools and toys I'm particularly anticipating from Microsoft this new year, after 2011's relative dearth of tools and toys from the company.

10 programming languages that could shake up IT

Source: InfoWorld

Do we really need another programming language? There is certainly no shortage of choices already. Between imperative languages, functional languages, object-oriented languages, dynamic languages, compiled languages, interpreted languages, and scripting languages, no developer could ever learn all of the options available today.

Microsoft to enable Linux on its Windows Azure cloud in 2012

By: Mary Jo Foley

Summary: Microsoft is preparing to launch a new persistent virtual machine feature on its Azure cloud platform, enabling customers to host Linux, SharePoint and SQL Server there.

Marketing Open Source Software

Marketing Open Source Software

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10 reasons why this is a great time to be a developer

Takeaway: After a long stretch of stagnation, the developer field is starting to open up — in a number of interesting, groundbreaking ways.

Ever since I was a kid, being a programmer looked fun and exciting. But in the last decade, the novelty of the Internet has worn off, and it seems like we’ve just been spinning our wheels. With an increasingly uninteresting workload and stagnation in pay, a lot of folks have either left for other pastures or have thought about it. Well, in the last year or two, things have really changed. Here are 10 reasons why now is a great time to be a developer.

Open Source, Open Market for Ideas

Open source isn't just about better software, says Berkeley political scientist Steven Weber. It's about fostering creativity and challenging the status quo.

Why would a professional political scientist be interested in the open-source movement? For Steven Weber, a professor of political science and director of the Institute of International Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, it was the chance to investigate a technological issue that had what he saw as political ramifications. "In the political science world, I work on large-scale political action problems. And when I first learned about what was happening in the open-source community, I thought, 'That's a problem I recognize. I ought to see if I can understand what's going on there,'" says Weber. Better yet, he observes, "The best part of it for a researcher—it's really profoundly, astoundingly wonderful—is that your data is all archived. It's like having access to every classified document you could ever imagine."