Java and Javascript, free and efficient

Wow, Javascript and now Java, free.

Both are good for the environment, too. Adobe's JS VM is way faster (i.e., more efficient) than the ones that ship with web browsers. And Sun's Java is way fast too. To the extent scripting languages (Python, Ruby, ...) run on the Java VM instead of their own, lots of cycles (i.e., energy/emissions) are saved.

Kitchen Linker lives in interesting and cool times!

Green programming: D language

On the subject of efficient programming (machine time/energy/electricity AND programmer), Kitchen Linker wonders why the D programming language hasn't replaced C/C++ AND Java/C#. D is as fast as the former and as easy as the latter and entirely practical.

Green programmers, check out D for your next project.

OpenOffice rewrite!?

Slashdot relays that OpenOffice (which I use heavily) is going to get Mozilla Firefox-like extensions and ship with Mozilla's Thunderbird mail reader and one of Mozilla's still-crappy calendar projects. The first part is really cool, it has been too hard to develop for OO.o, this should open up the ecosystem. The second part is probably good to, or OO.o would have eventually and wastefully developed its own mail reader (every program eventually can read mail).

Anyone wondering why not Evolution (an excellent mail reader and calendar client) should consider that OO.o is headed by Sun and Evolution has strong ties to Mono (free implementation of Microsoft's .NET) which competes with Sun's Java.

The post /. referred to says something interesting about OO.o 3.0:

The only objective of the 3.0 will be to make it much more modular and running on tops of frameworks such as Eclipse, Netbeans or Mozilla's XUL.

Uh, do I hear total rewrite? OO.o 3.0 before 2010?

Download OpenOffice 2 now!