March 2000 Frame page

<body> <table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" width="735" height="518"> <tr> <td align="right" valign="top" width="206" height="1"> <p align="center"><img border="0" src="images/Accent03.gif" align="left" width="142" height="37"> </p> <p align="left"><b><font size="2">February 2000 - Vol. 1 No. 2</font></b></p> </td> <td valign="bottom" width="501" height="1"> <p align="center">  <a href="index.html" target="_top">[Home]</a> <a href="Newsletters.html" target="_top">[Up]</a> <a href="2000-03.html" target="_top">[Next]</a> <a href="2000-01.html" target="_top">[Previous]</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="206" height="529" bgcolor="#FFFFCC"><font size="2"><a href="#Editorial"><b>Editorial</b></a></font><font size="3"><br> </font><font size="2"><a href="#Reviews">Reviews, Reviews, Reviews</a><br> <a href="#Immortality">Immortality and What's in a Name</a><br> <a href="#FormatChange">Format Change</a><br> <a href="#Thanks">Thanks to Computer Literacy</a><br> <br> <a href="#Trends"><b>Trends</b></a></font><font size="4"><br> </font><font size="2"><a href="#ChangeInTrends">Changes in Trends</a><br> <a href="#SVDifference">The Silicon Valley Difference</a><br> <b><br> <a href="#WhatsHot">What's Hot, What's Not</a></b><strong><br> </strong><a href="#ProgrammingLinux">Linux Programming</a><br> </font><font size="3"><br> </font><font size="2"><a href="#TechTalk"><b>Tech Talk</b></a></font><font size="3"><br> </font><font size="2"><a href="#Compile-Time">Compile-Time Computations Using Templates</a></font></td> <td valign="top" height="529" bgcolor="#FFCC99" width="501"> <h1><a name="Editorial">Editorial</a></h1> <h2><a name="Reviews">Reviews, Reviews, Reviews</a></h2> <p class="Byline-Contemporary"><i>By Reg. Charney, Editor</i></p> <p class="BodyText-Contemporary"><span style="layout-grid-mode:line">We have a love/hate relationship with reviews. While we all like reading or seeing movie reviews, we hate doing book reviews. And while code reviews are valuable, we are ambivalent about them because it might be our code that's reviewed and few of us like to be criticized. At the moment, the ACCU can't offer you movies, but we can offer you books and software to review. We can even offer guidelines on doing these reviews. What you need to do is add the active ingredient to this mix - your time and effort. And what do you get for doing this? I am glad you asked.</span></p> <ul> <li> <p class="BodyText-Contemporary"><span style="layout-grid-mode:line">You get to see your name both in print and on the Web.</span></li> <li> <p class="BodyText-Contemporary"><span style="layout-grid-mode:line">You get national and international exposure.</span></li> <li> <p class="BodyText-Contemporary"><span style="layout-grid-mode:line">You get to develop a reputation as an expert on what you reviewed.</span></li> <li> <p class="BodyText-Contemporary"><span style="layout-grid-mode:line">You get to keep, for free, what you review. If you where interested in the subject anyway, this is a painless way of getting it. (Remember, these books usually cost $30-$70 each and software often costs $50-$1,000.)</span></li> <li> <p class="BodyText-Contemporary"><span style="layout-grid-mode:line">Active involvement in the ACCU will give you more leverage in getting: your next job, peer approval, and access to people, places and things.</span></li> </ul> <p class="BodyText-Contemporary"><span style="layout-grid-mode:line">And, of course, you get the proverbial pat on the back for bettering your fellow members and the programming world.</span></p> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US; mso-bidi-language:AR-SA;layout-grid-mode:line">What's in it for the ACCU and Open Source Software movement? Your </span><span style="layout-grid-mode:line">involvement makes us one the most active organizations in the world of computing. We will become a source and beacon for all professionals and those aspiring to improve their programming technical skills. Other organizations will want to work with us. We will be fulfilling our purpose with a vengeance.</span><p class="BodyText-Contemporary"><span style="layout-grid-mode:line">So, review this opportunity and contact me. We have the books and software available. Our web site will list those by the time you see this issue of our newsletter.</span></p> <h2><a name="Immortality">Immortality and What's in a Name</a></h2> <p class="BodyText-Contemporary"><span style="layout-grid-mode:line">To quote Shakespeare, we are hoping that "A rose is still a rose by any other name". While ACCU'SiVe had a derivation (ACCU of Silicon Valley) and was pronounceable, it has no pizzazz nor is it meaningful to the uninitiated. Thus, we are looking for a catchier name. Current favorites include ACCUte, ACCUrate, and ACC<sup>++</sup>ent. Let us know which you prefer, or if you have a better name. There is a terrific prize worth what I paid for it to the winner, plus an honorable or dishonorable mention, as desired. And remember, your name will appear forever at the top of our newsletter - talk about immortality!</span></p> <h2><a name="FormatChange">Format Change</a></h2> <p class="BodyText-Contemporary"><span style="layout-grid-mode:line">To facilitate printing in one color, some changes have been made to the printed layout.</span></p> <h2><a name="Thanks">Thanks Computer Literacy</a></h2> <p class="BodyText-Contemporary"><span style="layout-grid-mode:line">Besides providing ACCU with meeting space, Computer Literacy is also sponsoring the printing of ACCU’SiVe. Thanks Computer Literacy – you’re great!</span> <h1><a name="Trends">Trends</a></h1> <p class="Byline-Contemporary"><i>By Reg. Charney</i></p> <h2><a name="ChangeInTrends">Change in Trends</a></h2> <p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-weight: normal">Trends this month’s shows current language demands in Figures #1 and #2. The normalized demand for languages in Figure #2 shows that the demand for Java now outstrips the demand for both C and C++ by a fair margin.</span></p> <p align="center"><img border="0" src="images/2000-03-Fig01.gif" width="472" height="277"></p> <p align="center"><b>Figure #1</b></p> <p align="center"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-weight: normal"><img border="0" src="images/2000-03-Fig02.gif" width="472" height="273"></span></p> <p align="center"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman"><b>Figure #</b></span><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman">2</span></b></p> <p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-weight: normal">Figure #3 shows the demand for C and C++ has dropped in the last 30 days by comparison to Java, HTML, Perl and XML. Notice that VB has also declined in demand since last month.</span></p> <p align="center"><img border="0" src="images/2000-03-Fig03.gif" width="462" height="259"></p> <p align="center"><b>Figure #3</b></p> <h2><a name="SVDifference">The Silicon Valley Difference</a></h2> <p class="BodyText-Contemporary">Silicon Valley still maintains its uniqueness with respect to employment.</p> <p class="BodyText-Contemporary">The percentage of software engineering jobs increased from 25% to 37% of the 180,000+ technical jobs listed. Of these software-engineering openings, 66% are in Silicon Valley. Again, this has not changed from last month and continues to show that Silicon Valley firms use the net by a 2:1 margin over the rest of the country. <h1><a name="WhatsHot">What’s Hot and What’s Not</a></h1> <h2><a name="ProgrammingLinux">Programming Linux</a> </h2> <p class="BodyText-Contemporary">In the last month or so, I have noticed a lot of books on programming the Linux operating system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">  </span>Unlike those for programming Windows, all the source code is available and documented. One interesting example is “Open Source Linux Web Programming” by Jones and Batchelor. Done by M&T books. Its ISBN is 0-7645-4619-8. <h1><a name="TechTalk">Tech-Talk</a></h1> <p class="Byline-Contemporary"><i>By Michael Ball, Distinguished Engineer, Sun Microsystems, Inc.</i></p> <h2><a name="Compile-Time">Compile-Time Computation Using Templates</a></h2> <p>You may have heard that templates can be used to do complex calculations at compile time. Serious tools, like <a href="http://oonumerics.org/blitz/">Blitz++</a>, and silly things like computing factorials are examples. Since serious tools tend to be large, we’ll use a silly example here.</p> <p>The factorial function is normally computed from the following:</p> <blockquote> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent"><code><span style="font-family:"Courier New"">fact(0) = 1<br> fact(n) = n · fact(n-1)  </span></code></p> </blockquote> <p>We can use this definition to write a template to evaluate the function at compile time. We declare a class template containing an enumerated type.</p> <p>The first part implements the recursive definition.</p> <blockquote> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="margin-left:0in"><code><span style="font-family:"Courier New"">template<int n><br> struct fact {<br> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes">  </span>enum { res = n*fact<n-1>::res };<br> };</span></code></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">The second defines the "0" value:</span></p> <pre>template<> struct fact<0> {<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">   </span>enum { res = 1 }; }; </pre> </blockquote> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US; mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">Try it out and play with it, then check out the results of the Blitz project. Other examples are at <a href="http://extreme.indiana.edu/~tveldhui/">Tod Veldhuizen's home page</a>.</span> <p> </p> </td> </tr> </table> <p> </body>