Microsoft’s answer to GitHub?

After spending a year in beta, Microsoft has opened up their Team Foundation Service to the public. Team Foundation Service is an Application Lifecycle Management tool (also known as ALM) designed to manage all stages of software development. It provides source code version control, unit testing, even a cloud-hosted build service. It offers integration with Visual Studio and Eclipse and can even be used to develop for non-Microsoft platforms. Complete backups on “three physically-distinct servers” are made every day, with incremental backups made every hour.

Team Foundation Service appears to be a cloud-based version of the similarly named (confusingly so, in my opinion) Team Foundation Server. Team Foundation Server (also known as TFS) is a server-based management tool that seems to inspire strong opinions. Many people really like it while others despise it. It is also quite expensive and involves the additional complications of setting up a server and the hassles that go along with server management.

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Using Python plugins with Vim on 64-bit Windows 7

Among the most most important features of Vim, the popular vi-compatible editor, are the plugins used to extend its functionality. Most Vim plugins are written in Vimscript, Vim’s built-in scripting language. Support was added in Vim 7 for plugins also written in Python, Ruby, and Perl. I wanted to use a Vim plugin written in Python on my 64-bit Windows 7 system and was surprised by how difficult it was.

Although Vim versions later than 7 can support plugins written in other languages, that support has to be compiled into the copy of Vim you use. One way you can tell is to display version information by using the version command:

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Thoughts on JavaScript, Forth, and scripting languages

Mozilla recently released Firefox 9, a new version of their browser. One of its most important features is a JavaScript engine that is 36% faster than their previous version.

It strikes me that we have come quite a way if JavaScript performance is now one of the biggest selling points of a browser. The change isn’t all that surprising: with JavaScript powering almost all web applications, JavaScript performance is closely tied to the perceived speed of the browser itself.

I think the success of JavaScript is especially impressive when you consider that JavaScript is not a “clever” language, nor does it have any popular gimmick attached to it. It has succeeded solely by being ubiquitous (all major web browsers support JavaScript) and by undergoing steady improvement.

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BBC World Service announces cuts

The BBC has finally issued a press release outlining the cuts they plan for the BBC World Service in order meet the government’s mandatory 16% budget reduction and those cuts seem pretty drastic.

In addition to job losses of 650 people, they plan to close five language services completely and end radio programs in seven languages, focusing on online content only. The BBC World Service is also beginning "a phased reduction from most short wave and medium wave distribution of remaining radio services." This will include shutting down their popular 648 kHz mediumwave transmitter, which can be heard in much of Europe. It will also mean stopping English language shortwave broadcasts to Russia and limiting broadcasts to Asia and Africa to two hours a day. Considering the political climate in Russia, this seems like an odd time to be ending broadcasts there.

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Deutsche Welle plans cutbacks

Deutsche Welle, the German international broadcaster that has been operating since 1953, has been ordered by the German government to cut expenses. Deutsche Welle has prepared a 400 page report detailing plans to tighten its focus by dropping shortwave and reducing mediumwave (what is known as AM in the United States) broadcasts. For more details, here is a Deutsche Presse-Agentur story and also a Deutsche Welle press release (in German).

Deutsche Welle’s new focus will be FM broadcasts in target areas, which include Asia, Africa, Arab countries, Iran, and Latin America. In another big change, Deutsche Welle will no longer target German expatriates. It also sounds as though the German government will have more of a role in keeping Deutsche Welle’s output compatible with German foreign policy.

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Visual Studio 2005 and Windows SDK v7.1

Despite its age, I think Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 is quite a useful tool. It works well for native C++ Windows development and I prefer its user interface to later versions. But one problem is that it doesn’t support the newer Windows 7 headers. This makes software development using Windows 7 features rather difficult.

The obvious solution is to download the latest version of the Windows software development kit (SDK) from Microsoft. The documentation for the current version of the SDK (v7.1) describes it as supporting Visual Studio 2005. But the SDK configuration tool which is necessary to configure Visual Studio 2005 doesn’t work with it, describing Visual Studio 2005 as "not a supported scenario." So how do you configure Visual Studio 2005 with Windows SDK v7.1 if the configuration tool won’t do it?

The trick is to set the configuration paths manually. Visual Studio paths can be changed in the menus under Tools, Options…, VC++ Directories.

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