"In this document, you learn about the differences between class inheritance and interface implementation. Inheritance supports the creation of hierarchical frameworks of increasingly specialized classes that share some code and also add their own customizations. Interfaces allow multiple unrelated classes to share predictable sets of methods and properties. Both interfaces and inheritance provide polymorphism, allowing generic procedures to work with many different kinds of objects. You also saw how object composition allows you to reuse and extend implementation code without inheritance, and how it can be combined with interfaces to support polymorphism. All these techniques enable you to create and revise complex software systems by helping you add new functionality, with minimal need to dig back into old working code." Read the rest of the article at MSDN.

Unix is steadily evolving into something much easier to use. The trick is to find tools that make things friendlier, but which fit in well with existing tools and are easier for people to take and use for new projects. Read more at Freshmeat.

Hans-Joerg Frieden, Thomas Frieden and Steffen Haeuser will be attending an #AmigaFun meeting today at 6PM (GMT) and will be answering questions regarding AmigaOS4.x. Also this Saturday at the Alt.WoA Show in the UK, Fleecy Moss (CTO, Amiga Inc) and Alan Redhouse (CEO, Eyetech Group) will hold a presentation regarding Amiga's future plans.

"It happens to everyone eventually. You walk into the office, turn on the desktop PC and you're greeted with ugly beeping and no video. The slightly acrid tang of electrical smoke reaches your nostrils and you know that before you've even begun your day, it's already over. You say a small prayer to the computing gods that it's not the hard drive that's fried and you turn everything off before you begin unplugging peripherals." Read the rest of the article at LinuxOrbit.

"As someone who writes about Open Source, I spend quite a bit of time considering its future in the enterprise. I don't spend much time reflecting on how Open Source can improve on the technology of yesteryear. But there are people who do just that." Read the rest of the story at NewsForge.

"For those who aren't familiar with OS X, it is a full implementation of BSD Unix with a Macintosh front end, which is to say world class inside and out. OS X is faster, smarter, prettier, and easier to use than any version of Windows. In short, it is exactly the competitor Microsoft needs. And the timing couldn't be better." Very interesting and easy-reading article, but I would not say "faster" in the above excerpt. Robert Cringely is at it again, this time discussing how the best thing for Apple, for users, and even for Microsoft, would be an Intel version of OSX.

Just a few days ago, Java2SE version 1.4 was released by Sun. Overview page, download page and change log/incompatibilities here. Furthermore, an interesting editorial at ZDNews titled "The convergence of .NET and Java" can be found here.

The OpenBeOS folks released their first ever test version for their BeOS clone operating system. This first release is not self-hosted, it is just a collection of individual components that replace their equivelant under the original BeOS 5. The components released so far are OpenTracker, OpenDeskbar, MDR(Mail Daemon Replacement) and some of the preference panels: Keyboard, Menu, Mouse, Screen, Virtual Memory, WorkSpaces. The OBOS developers are looking for beta testing and feedback.

"Since Mac OS X shipped, announcements regarding new versions of software applications designed to run natively on the new OS have become a daily occurrence. Some of these announcements mention that the application is Cocoa-based while others mention that the application is Carbon-based. The smart developers mention neither, knowing that the average Mac user doesn't know the difference and doesn't care. Apple has been talking to developers about the benefits of Cocoa and as a result, many Mac users have started to get the idea that applications that are Cocoa-based are somehow better than applications that are Carbon-based. API or framework choices have much more impact on developers than on end users. This white paper explains what Carbon and Cocoa are, how they differ, and what impact they have on users of REALbasic." Read the rest of the story at Real Software, developers of the Real Basic.

"Microsoft .NET applications are built from components. All .NET objects expose important attributes, such as properties, methods, and events. These attributes form the foundation of object-oriented programming. As the architect of Visual Basic .NET objects, you are also responsible for implementing the interface (that is, the properties, methods, and events) necessary for other programmers to use your application's services. Much of your development time will be spent designing objects and writing the code defining the objects and components exposed and used by your applications." Read the rest of the article at MSDN.

"According to Anders, generics (parametic polymoprhism) is one of the directions in which C# would evolve. Microsoft already has a prototype of the runtime in generics. "The trick is to proceed with caution," he advises." Read the rest of the interview with the creator of C# at TheRegister.

"Digital matchmakers such as Match.com and Yahoo Personals' ClubConnect are all the rage these days among singles searching for sweethearts. Who knew your soul mate was a mouse click away?" Read the rest of the story at ZDNet. Our Take: Well, I did find my beloved husband on the net, exchanging (angry) emails "discussing" technical details of the nVidia TNT2 and BeOS, as a follow up of a news story on BeNews, exactly two years ago. The emails were followed by IRC & ICQ chats, and the rest is history...

Continuing Part I from last week, this is the Part II article regarding the future of 64-bit CPUs, called "Under the Microarchitectural Covers": "Who will dominate 64-bit computing, AMD or Intel? AMD's Hammer architecture is compelling and compatible, but IA-64 has great long-term potential. Will Intel also hedge its bet with a 64-bit x86 design?" "Instruction Dispatch and Execution": See how Hammer's nine execution units are nothing like Itanium's. "Seamless and Powerful Multiprocessing": Hammer's onboard memory controller and HyperTransport links--big advantage. "Intel's Ace in the Hole": What's this rumored 'Yamhill' 64-bit x86. On a related note, Intel's McKinley 64-bit CPU will showcase at next week's Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

"BSD is now three times as popular on the desktop than Linux, Apple's Ernest Parbakar told attendees at the annual USENIX BSD Conference here yesterday. That's thanks to Mac OS X, of course, which is a BSD-based Unix (although much of this remains hidden). Read the rest of the story at TheRegister. Our Take: This is definetely true for the desktop where Linux holds less than 1% (and Apple a bit less than 3% according to Oct 2001 stats), but that is certainly not true for the server market, where Linux holds around 25%.