OpenAmplify’s developer community opens with a bang

As I mentioned in my review of OpenAmplify, Hapax is looking to make a developer community that goes above and beyond just providing forums or wikis. The beta of the OpenAmplify community is now open. With the launch, Hapax is bringing some nice items to the table, including a $1,000 prize for the best Firefox add-on to use OpenAmplify (get the full details in the press release). Given that the OpenAmplify API literally takes a few moments to learn inside and out, your ability to work with OpenAmplify is limited only by your imagination, not your ability to learn new technologies.

PHP 5.2.10 released…

PHP 5.2.10 has been released. There is one security fix (related to JPEG processing), and more than 100 bug fixes.

… And PHP 5.3.0 gets a step closer to release

PHP 5.3.0 RC4 has been released as well. The feature list is pretty nice, including namespaces, late static binding, and closures.

Even Microsoft can’t keep up with .NET

ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports that it seems the .NET Services in Azure can’t keep up with the .NET 4 framework. As a result, key pieces of Azure will not be released at the initial launch. We’ve seen this time and time again, with part of the tools lagging far behind the main .NET release; the awful gap between the launch of Vista, .NET 3/3.5, and Visual Studio 2008 are a good example.

If you want to learn more about Azure, Mary Jo will offer a primer on the subject in a ZDNet Webcast this week. Register to attend the Webcast (sponsored by 3PAR), which will be live Wednesday, June 24th at 1:00 ET / 10:00 AM PT / 5:00 PM GT.

vokeStream’s 2009 innovators

vokeStream, an independent research group, released its 2009 list of innovators in the field of development (login needed to read the article). Some of the entries are familiar names (VMware, Microsoft Expression Studio, Citrix), some are up-and-coming names (Black Duck, Coverity), and some were new to me (Blueprint, Surgient). The list has 19 items on it and is worth a look if you’re interested in learning about some companies doing some fresh new things.

Want to see how to use Entity Framework from VB.NET?

The ADO.NET team posted some samples of using the Entity Framework from VB.NET. This is a nice surprise, since C# has really been edging out VB.NET in terms of sample code and examples.

Good JavaScript tips for beginners

Jeffrey Way has 24 tips for JavaScript beginners. While I am hardly a JavaScript expert, all the tips seem sensible. The one caveat I have is his hate for eval(). In my experience, eval() is an incredibly powerful tool (which is his problem with it) that can work wonders. But, you need to be extraordinarily careful with it. So yes, avoid eval() if you are a novice, but please learn to use it safely when you are more experienced.

J.Ja

Disclosure of Justin’s industry affiliations: Justin James has a working arrangement with Microsoft to write an article for MSDN Magazine. He also has a contract with Spiceworks to write product buying guides.

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