Wednesday, January 22, 2014

10 programming languages that could shake up IT

source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/10-programming-languages-could-shake-it-181548?page=0,0

10 programming languages that could shake up IT

These cutting-edge programming languages provide unique insights on the future of software development

Do we really need another programming language? There is certainly no shortage of choices already. Between imperative languages, functional languages, object-oriented languages, dynamic languages, compiled languages, interpreted languages, and scripting languages, no developer could ever learn all of the options available today.

And yet, new languages emerge with surprising frequency. Some are designed by students or hobbyists as personal projects. Others are the products of large IT vendors. Even small and midsize companies are getting in on the action, creating languages to serve the needs of their industries. Why do people keep reinventing the wheel?

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The answer is that, as powerful and versatile as the current crop of languages may be, no single syntax is ideally suited for every purpose. What's more, programming itself is constantly evolving. The rise of multicore CPUs, cloud computing, mobility, and distributed architectures have created new challenges for developers. Adding support for the latest features, paradigms, and patterns to existing languages -- especially popular ones -- can be prohibitively difficult. Sometimes the best answer is to start from scratch.

Here, then, is a look at 10 cutting-edge programming languages, each of which approaches the art of software development from a fresh perspective, tackling a specific problem or a unique shortcoming of today's more popular languages. Some are mature projects, while others are in the early stages of development. Some are likely to remain obscure, but any one of them could become the breakthrough tool that changes programming for years to come -- at least, until the next batch of new languages arrives.

Experimental programming language No. 1: Dart
JavaScript is fine for adding basic interactivity to Web pages, but when your Web applications swell to thousands of lines of code, its weaknesses quickly become apparent. That's why Google created Dart, a language it hopes will become the new vernacular of Web programming.

Like JavaScript, Dart uses C-like syntax and keywords. One significant difference, however, is that while JavaScript is a prototype-based language, objects in Dart are defined using classes and interfaces, as in C++ or Java. Dart also allows programmers to optionally declare variables with static types. The idea is that Dart should be as familiar, dynamic, and fluid as JavaScript, yet all

You can't do much with Dart today. It's designed to run on either the client or the server (a laNode.js), but the only way to run client-side Dart code so far is to cross-compile it to JavaScript. Even then it doesn't work with every browser. But because Dart is released under a BSD-style open source license, any vendor that buys Google's vision is free to build the language into its products. Google only has an entire industry to convince.

Experimental programming language No. 2: Ceylon
Gavin King denies that Ceylon, the language he's developing at Red Hat, is meant to be a "Java killer." King is best known as the creator of the Hibernate object-relational mapping framework for Java. He likes Java, but he thinks it leaves lots of room for improvement.

Among King's gripes are Java's verbose syntax, its lack of first-class and higher-order functions, and its poor support for meta-programming. In particular, he's frustrated with the absence of a declarative syntax for structured data definition, which he says leaves Java "joined at the hip to XML." Ceylon aims to solve all these problems.

King and his team don't plan to reinvent the wheel completely. There will be no Ceylon virtual machine; the Ceylon compiler will output Java bytecode that runs on the JVM. But Ceylon will be more than just a compiler, too. A big goal of the project is to create a new Ceylon SDK to replace the Java SDK, which King says is bloated and clumsy, and it's never been "properly modernized."

That's a tall order, and Red Hat has released no Ceylon tools yet. King says to expect a compiler this year. Just don't expect software written in "100 percent pure Ceylon" any time soon.

Experimental programming language No. 3: Go
Interpreters, virtual machines, and managed code are all the rage these days. Do we really need another old-fashioned language that compiles to native binaries? A team of Google engineers -- led by Robert Griesemer and Bell Labs legends Ken Thompson and Rob Pike -- says yes.

Go is a general-purpose programming language suitable for everything from application development to systems programing. In that sense, it's more like C or C++ than Java or C#. But like the latter languages, Go includes modern features such as garbage collection, runtime reflection, and support for concurrency.

Equally important, Go is meant to be easy to program in. Its basic syntax is C-like, but it eliminates redundant syntax and boilerplate while streamlining operations such as object definition. The Go team's goal was to create a language that's as pleasant to code in as a dynamic scripting language yet offers the power of a compiled language.

Go is still a work in progress, and the language specification may change. That said, you can start working with it today. Google has made tools and compilers available along with copious documentation; for example, the Effective Go tutorial is a good place to learn how Go differs from earlier languages.

Experimental programming language No. 4: F#
Functional programming has long been popular with computer scientists and academia, but pure functional languages like Lisp and Haskell are often considered unworkable for real-world software development. One common complaint is that functional-style code can be difficult to integrate with code and libraries written in imperative languages like C++ and Java.

Enter F# (pronounced "F-sharp"), a Microsoft language designed to be both functional and practical. Because F# is a first-class language on the .Net Common Language Runtime (CLR), it can access all of the same libraries and features as other CLR languages, such as C# and Visual Basic.

F# code resembles OCaml somewhat, but it adds interesting syntax of its own. For example, numeric data types in F# can be assigned units of measure to aid scientific computation. F# also offers constructs to aid asynchronous I/O, CPU parallelization, and off-loading processing to the GPU.

After a long gestation period at Microsoft Research, F# now ships with Visual Studio 2010. Better still, in an unusual move, Microsoft has made the F# compiler and core library available under the Apache open source license; you can start working with it for free and even use it on Mac and Linux systems (via the Mono runtime).

Experimental programming language No. 5: Opa
Web development is too complicated. Even the simplest Web app requires countless lines of code in multiple languages: HTML and JavaScript on the client, Java or PHP on the server, SQL in the database, and so on.

Opa doesn't replace any of these languages individually. Rather, it seeks to eliminate them all at once, by proposing an entirely new paradigm for Web programming. In an Opa application, the client-side UI, server-side logic, and database I/O are all implemented in a single language, Opa.

Opa accomplishes this through a combination of client- and server-side frameworks. The Opa compiler decides whether a given routine should run on the client, server, or both, and it outputs code accordingly. For client-side routines, it translates Opa into the appropriate JavaScript code, including AJAX calls.

Naturally, a system this integrated requires some back-end magic. Opa's runtime environment bundles its own Web server and database management system, which can't be replaced with stand-alone alternatives. That may be a small price to pay, however, for the ability to prototype sophisticated, data-driven Web applications in just a few dozen lines of code. Opa is open source and available now for 64-bit Linux and Mac OS X platforms, with further ports in the works.

Experimental programming language No. 6: Fantom
Should you develop your applications for Java or .Net? If you code in Fantom, you can take your pick and even switch platforms midstream. That's because Fantom is designed from the ground up for cross-platform portability. The Fantom project includes not just a compiler that can output bytecode for either the JVM or the .Net CLI, but also a set of APIs that abstract away the Java and .Net APIs, creating an additional portability layer.

There are plans to extend Fantom's portability even further. A Fantom-to-JavaScript compiler is already available, and future targets might include the LLVM compiler project, the Parrot VM, and Objective-C for iOS.

But portability is not Fantom's sole raison d'être. While it remains inherently C-like, it is also meant to improve on the languages that inspired it. It tries to strike a middle ground in some of the more contentious syntax debates, such as strong versus dynamic typing, or interfaces versus classes. It adds easy syntax for declaring data structures and serializing objects. And it includes support for functional programming and concurrency built into the language.

Fantom is open source under the Academic Free License 3.0 and is available for Windows and Unix-like platforms (including Mac OS X).

Experimental programming language No. 7: Zimbu
Most programming languages borrow features and syntax from an earlier language. Zimbu takes bits and pieces from almost all of them. The brainchild of Bram Moolenaar, creator of the Vim text editor, Zimbu aims to be a fast, concise, portable, and easy-to-read language that can be used to code anything from a GUI application to an OS kernel.

Owing to its mongrel nature, Zimbu's syntax is unique and idiosyncratic, yet feature-rich. It uses C-like expressions and operators, but its own keywords, data types, and block structures. It supports memory management, threads, and pipes.

Portability is a key concern. Although Zimbu is a compiled language, the Zimbu compiler outputs ANSI C code, allowing binaries to be built only on platforms with a native C compiler.

Unfortunately, the Zimbu project is in its infancy. The compiler can build itself and some example programs, but not all valid Zimbu code will compile and run properly. Not all proposed features are implemented yet, and some are implemented in clumsy ways. The language specification is also expected to change over time, adding keywords, types, and syntax as necessary. Thus, documentation is spotty, too. Still, if you would like to experiment, preliminary tools are available under the Apache license.

Experimental programming language No. 8: X10
Parallel processing was once a specialized niche of software development, but with the rise of multicore CPUs and distributed computing, parallelism is going mainstream. Unfortunately, today's programming languages aren't keeping pace with the trend. That's why IBM Research is developing X10, a language designed specifically for modern parallel architectures, with the goal of increasing developer productivity "times 10."

X10 handles concurrency using the partitioned global address space (PGAS) programming model. Code and data are separated into units and distributed across one or more "places," making it easy to scale a program from a single-threaded prototype (a single place) to multiple threads running on one or more multicore processors (multiple places) in a high-performance cluster.

X10 code most resembles Java; in fact, the X10 runtime is available as a native executable and as class files for the JVM. The X10 compiler can output C++ or Java source code. Direct interoperability with Java is a future goal of the project.

For now, the language is evolving, yet fairly mature. The compiler and runtime are available for various platforms, including Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Additional tools include an Eclipse-based IDE and a debugger, all distributed under the Eclipse Public License.

Experimental programming language No. 9: haXe
Lots of languages can be used to write portable code. C compilers are available for virtually every CPU architecture, and Java bytecode will run wherever there's a JVM. But haXe (pronounced "hex") is more than just portable. It's a multiplatform language that can target diverse operating environments, ranging from native binaries to interpreters and virtual machines.

Developers can write programs in haXe, then compile them into object code, JavaScript, PHP, Flash/ActionScript, or NekoVM bytecode today; additional modules for outputting C# and Java are in the works. Complementing the core language is the haXe standard library, which functions identically on every target, plus target-specific libraries to expose the unique features of each platform

The haXe syntax is C-like, with a rich feature set. Its chief advantage is that it negates problems inherent in each of the platforms it targets. For example, haXe has strict typing where JavaScript does not; it adds generics and type inference to ActionScript; and it obviates the poorly designed, haphazard syntax of PHP entirely.

Although still under development, haXe is used commercially by its creator, the gaming studio Motion Twin, so it's no toy. It's available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows under a combination of open source licenses.

Experimental programming language No. 10: Chapel
In the world of high-performance computing, few names loom larger than Cray. It should come as no surprise, then, that Chapel, Cray's first original programming language, was designed with supercomputing and clustering in mind.

Chapel is part of Cray's Cascade Program, an ambitious high-performance computing initiative funded in part by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA). Among its goals are abstracting parallel algorithms from the underlying hardware, improving their performance on architectures, and making parallel programs more portable.

Chapel's syntax draws from numerous sources. In addition to the usual suspects (C, C++, Java), it borrows concepts from scientific programming languages such as Fortran and Matlab. Its parallel-processing features are influenced by ZPL and High-Performance Fortran, as well as earlier Cray projects.

One of Chapel's more compelling features is its support for "multi-resolution programming," which allows developers to prototype applications with highly abstract code and fill in details as the implementation becomes more fully defined.

Work on Chapel is ongoing. At present, it can run on Cray supercomputers and various high-performance clusters, but it's portable to most Unix-style systems (including Mac OS X and Windows with Cygwin). The source code is available under a BSD-style open source license.

7 programming languages on the rise

source: http://www.infoworld.com/print/141620

7 programming languages on the rise

By Peter Wayner

Created 2010-10-25 02:00AM

In the world of enterprise programming, the mainstream is broad and deep. Code is written predominantly in one of a few major languages. For some shops, this means Java [1]; for others, it's C# or PHP [2]. Sometimes, enterprise coders will dabble in C++ or another common language used for high-performance tasks such as game programming, all of which turn around and speak SQL to the database.
Programmers looking for work in enterprise shops would be foolish not to learn the languages that underlie this paradigm, yet a surprising number of niche languages are fast beginning to thrive in the enterprise. Look beyond the mainstays, and you'll find several languages that are beginning to provide solutions to increasingly common problems, as well as old-guard niche languages that continue to occupy redoubts. All offer capabilities compelling enough to justify learning a new way to juggle brackets, braces, and other punctuation marks.
[ Keep up on key application development insights with the Fatal Exception blog [3] andDeveloper World newsletter [4]. | See how the latest Python IDEs [5] and PHP tools [6] fared in our recent InfoWorld Test Center reviews. ]
While the following seven niche languages offer features that can't be found in the dominant languages, many rely on the dominant languages to exist. Some run on top of the Java Virtual Machine, essentially taking advantage of the Java team's engineering. And when Microsoft built C#, it explicitly aimed to make the virtual machine open to other languages. That detail may help make deployment easier, but it doesn't matter much to the programmer at creation time.
Either way, these seven languages are quickly gaining converts in the enterprise. Perhaps it's time to start investigating their merits.
Programming languages on the rise: Python
There seems to be two sorts of people who love Python [7]: those who hate brackets, and scientists. The former helped create the language by building a version of Perl [8] that is easier to read and not as chock-full of opening and closing brackets as a C descendant. Fast-forward several years, and the solution was good enough to be the first language available on Google's AppEngine [9] -- a clear indication Python has the kind of structure that makes it easy to scale in the cloud, one of the biggest challenges for enterprise-grade computing.
[ For a look at the wide-ranging flock of Python IDEs, see "InfoWorld review: Nine fine Python development tools [7]." ]
Python's popularity in scientific labs is a bit hard to explain, given that, unlike Stephen Wolfram's Mathematica for mathematicians, the language never offered any data structures or elements explicitly tuned to meet the needs of scientists. Python creator Guido von Rossum believes Python caught on in the labs because "scientists often need to improvise when trying to interpret results, so they are drawn to dynamic languages which allow them to work very quickly and see results almost immediately."

Of course, a number of libraries that offer much of what a scientist could want are available for Python. NumPy and SciPy are just two of the most notable libraries nurtured as open source projects and tuned for scientific computation.
Scientific and engineering enterprises such as pharmaceutical companies aren't the only ones tapping Python for research. Many Wall Street firms now rely heavily on mathematical analysis and often hire university scientists who bring along their habit of coding in Python. Python is becoming so popular on Wall Street that there are even proposals to require the prospectus for a bond to include a Python algorithm for specifying who gets what return on the investment.
Programming languages on the rise: Ruby
Some may argue that Ruby and Python are hardly "niche" languages, but the truth is, from an enterprise perspective, they remain promising tools all too often pushed to the margin. That said, Ruby, or more precisely the combination of Ruby with the Rails framework known as Ruby on Rails, is becoming increasingly popular for prototyping. Its entrance into the enterprise came on the heels of the Web 2.0 explosion, wherein many websites began as experiments in Ruby. 37signals [10] -- one of Ruby's many proponents -- actually uses Ruby to deploy code.
[ The InfoWorld Test Center puts nine Rails IDEs and editors through their paces in "Lab test: Climb aboard Ruby on Rails [11]." ]
The secret to Ruby's success is its use of "convention over configuration," wherein naming a variable `foo` causes the corresponding column in the database to automatically be named `foo` as well. As such, Ruby on Rails is an excellent tool for prototyping, giving you only one reason to type `foo`. Ruby on Rails takes care of the rest of the CRUD scaffolding for you.
Ruby on Rails sites are devoted to cataloging data that can be stored in tables. Well-known examples include Web applications like Basecamp, Backcamp, and Campfire from 37Signals, a collection of websites that knits together group discussions, debates, and schedules. Ruby on Rails handles the formatting of these database tables, as well as decisions about what information to display. Using Ruby on Rails' naming convention, production quality code can be sketched up easily without much duplicate effort.
Many of the production-grade Ruby websites run on JRuby, a version written in Java that sits squarely on the JVM. JRuby users get all of the JVM's prowess in juggling threads, a very valuable asset in production-level deployments with many concurrent users.
Programming languages on the rise: MATLAB
Built for mathematicians to solve systems of linear equations, MATLAB has found rising interest in the enterprise, thanks to the large volumes of data today's organizations need to analyze [12]. Many of the more sophisticated statistical techniques that match people with advertisements, songs, or Web pages depend upon the power of algorithms like those solved by MATLAB.
Expect MATLAB use to grow as log files grow fatter. It's one thing for a human to look at the list of top pages viewed, but it takes a statistical powerhouse to squeeze ideas from a complex set of paths. Are people more likely to shop for clothes on Monday or Friday? Is there any correlation between product failures and the line that produced them?
MathWorks, the company behind MATLAB, offers a diverse set of whitepapers showing how engineers are searching for statistical answers. Toyota Racing [13], for instance, plans its NASCAR entries by analyzing tests in wind tunnels and other labs. Canada's Institute for Biodiagnostics [14] is searching for the best treatment for burns.

There are also a number of open source alternatives, including Octave, Scilab, Sage, and PySci, one of the aforementioned Python libraries [15]. All of these tools help with the complicated statistical analysis that is now becoming common for firms trying to understand what the customer did and what the customer may want to do in the future.
Programming languages on the rise: JavaScript
JavaScript is not an obscure language by any means. If anything, it may be the most compiled language on Earth, if only because every browser downloads the code and recompiles it every time someone loads a Web page. Despite this fact and the increasing dominance of AJAX-savvy Web pages, JavaScript is rarely thought of as a language that runs on the big iron.
This isn't for lack of trying. Netscape tried to make JavaScript the common language on its server platform back in 1996, but ended up establishing it only in the browser. Aptana, one of the latest devotees, throttled its development of Jaxer when it never caught on. AppJet, a small experimental company, used the Rhino JavaScript library written in Java to make it simpler to code server-side. That company was acquired by Google [16] in 2009 and now seems to be devoted to other projects.
Still, new applications for JavaScript abound. CouchDB [17], for instance, doesn't use SQL for queries, instead taking two JavaScript functions, one for selection (Map) and the other for bundling everything together (Reduce). Node.js [18] is one of the more exciting server-side JavaScript frameworks [19]to appear as of late, revitalizing the ancient dream of bringing harmony to both client and server-side programming. The package takes Google's V8 JavaScript engine created for the browser and lets it make the decisions about formatting outgoing data.
Everywhere people need a small amount of scripting power, JavaScript finds new uses. One of the simplest ways for developers of large applications to offer users the ability to create subapplications, JavaScript continues to grow in the enterprise, one small chunk of code at a time.
Programming languages on the rise: R
Statistical analysis is being increasingly done in R these days, although some purists call the language S, its original name. Tibco sells a commercial version called S-Plus [20].
[ For an in-depth primer on what enterprises are doing with "big data," see "The big promise of Big Data: What you need to know today [12]." ]
There probably won't be an S++ because the language is more a version of LISP or Scheme with additional features for computing statistical functions and then displaying the results in pretty pictures. If the boss wants the computer to churn through billions of lines of log files looking for patterns, clusters, and predictive variables, R or S is a well-loved solution.
R is another Swiss Army Knife of numerical and statistical routines for hacking through the big data sets [12] -- collections big enough that it might be better called a Swiss Army Machete. Lou Bajuk-Yorgan, senior director of product management for Tibco's Spotfire S-Plus, says its software is used by a number of clients who are studying how business or engineering projects might work or why they fail to work. Analyzing weather patterns to find the best places to build wind-powered generators is one example.

Programming languages on the rise: Erlang
Does your server need to respond to many different independent messages concurrently? Do you need to parcel these requests out to different cores or servers in various parts of the world? That's practically the definition of the hardest part of enterprise computing. Erlang [21], an open source language first created by scientists at Ericsson Computing Laboratory, excels at these tasks.
[ For a deeper look at today's "slacker databases," see the InfoWorld Test Center review "NoSQL databases break all the old rules[22]." ]
The language mixes traditional facets of functional programming (no side effects) with a modern virtual machine that compiles down to machine code. The structure of the language forces the programmer to build something that's easier to spread across multiple cores and multiple machines. There are a number of practical implementations of Web servers [23] and the CouchDB [24]. That's right: The database that asks to receive queries written in JavaScript instead of SQL is itself written in Erlang.
CouchDB is just the beginning. A number of project managers dealing with "big data" are building systems for storing large volumes of data in a scalable way. Hibari [25], an open source project from Gemini Mobile [26], offers consistent, scalable clusters to store key-value pairs that repair themselves after failure. The functional structure makes it easier to create big applications that juggle multiple connections efficiently.
Programming languages on the rise: CobolIt may not be fair to call Cobol a niche language as it was once the dominant language in the enterprise. Grace Murray Hopper, famous for finding the first bug in the early mainframes, helped create the language in 1959 and it's been enhanced hundreds of times since. Cobol jockeys today get to play with object-oriented extensions, self-modifying code, and practically every other gimmick.
That never earned it much respect in some circles. Or as famous academic Edsger Dijkstra put it: "The use of Cobol cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." The folks in mainframe shops everywhere ignored this note and soldiered on. IBM calls one of the latest releases "Enterprise Cobol 4.2," but it could as easily be numbered 147.2 or maybe even 588.3. Cobol programmers like the syntax that's more like a natural language with actual nouns and verbs that form clauses and sentences -- a technique that might call Ruby to mind.
While fewer schools are teaching new programmers Cobol, the language is far from dying [27], with many corporations continuing to invest in their Cobol stacks. A recent search of Dice.com showed 580 jobs mentioning Cobol and 1,070 mentioning Ruby. The bulk of the jobs seemed to involve counting money ("asset management") and counting doctor's visits ("Health IT"). While these are some of the same areas that first adopted computers for back-office processing, the work still needs to be done.
Versions of the languages run on JVMs and .Net virtual machines making it possible to migrate code stacks away from mainframes to Linux boxes [28]. Programmers who want to use a more modern IDE can search for plug-ins to Eclipse [29], a project that is gaining new support.

Programming languages on the rise: CUDA extensions
As libraries for programming video cards to do massively parallel jobs, CUDA extensions are not technically a language; they're just extensions to C. Still, some enterprise programmers are beginning to unlock the massively parallel architectures normally devoted to rendering realistic blood splattering in alternative game worlds. Moreover, recoding loops for massive parallelism means rethinking many of the idioms from basic C or C++ programming, making CUDA extensions all the more valuable.
Opportunities to tape CUDA extensions include machine vision, massive simulations, and huge statistical computations. Many problems of data analysis are naturally massively parallel, making GPU processors worth a look. One of Nvidia's recent conferences devoted to CUDA applications included separate tracks devoted to computational fluid dynamics, computer vision, databases and data mining, finance, and molecular dynamics. That list alone is long enough to explain why big enterprise coders are curious.
"It's clear that the GPU reached escape velocity," Dan Vivoli, senior vice president at Nvidia, said at the Nvidia conference after scientists had presented papers on how the GPU's parallelism can work in these domains. "The processor is now reaching all different disciplines of science and industry."
Related articles

InfoWorld review: Eight PHP power tools [30]

InfoWorld review: Nine fine Python development tools [31]

Lab test: Climb aboard Ruby on Rails [32]

The big promise of Big Data: What you need to know today [33]

NoSQL databases break all the old rules [34]

InfoWorld review: Databases primed for social networks [35]

This article, "7 programming languages on the rise [36]," originally appeared at InfoWorld.com [37]. Follow the latest news in programming [38] at InfoWorld.com.

Application Development

**Source URL (retrieved on 2014-01-21 10:21PM): http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/7-programming-languages-the-rise-620

Links:**
[1] http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/infoworld-review-top-java-programming-tools-191
[2] http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/infoworld-review-eight-php-power-tools-737
[3] http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/blogs?source=fssr
[4] http://www.infoworld.com/newsletters/subscribe?showlist=infoworld_developer&source=ifwelg_fssr
[5] http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/infoworld-review-nine-fine-python-development-tools-374?source=fssr
[6] http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/infoworld-review-eight-php-power-tools-737?source=fssr
[7] http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/infoworld-review-nine-fine-python-development-tools-374
[8] http://www.infoworld.com/t/languages-and-standards/whatever-happened-perl-012
[9] http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/first-look-googles-high-flying-cloud-python-code-190
[10] http://37signals.com/
[11] http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/lab-test-climb-aboard-ruby-rails-851
[12] http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-explosion/the-big-promise-big-data-what-you-need-know-today-585
[13] http://www.mathworks.com/company/user_stories/userstory45540.html
[14] http://www.mathworks.com/company/user_stories/userstory45502.html
[15] http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/7-programming-languages-the-rise-620#python
[16] http://www.infoworld.com/t/collaboration/google-buys-collaboration-app-boost-wave-129
[17] http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-management/couchdb-emerging-top-choice-offline-web-apps-777
[18] http://nodejs.org/
[19] http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/watch-out-java-here-comes-javascript-799
[20] http://spotfire.tibco.com/products/s-plus/statistical-analysis-software.aspx
[21] http://www.erlang.org/
[22] http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-management/slacker-databases-break-all-the-old-rules-599
[23] http://erlyweb.org/
[24] http://couchdb.apache.org/
[25] http://hibari.sourceforge.net/
[26] http://www.geminimobile.com/
[27] http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/7-dirtiest-jobs-in-it-937?page=0,1
[28] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_pwwi/is_20050229/ai_mark01049402/
[29] http://www.eclipse.org/tools/proposals/cobol-proposal.html
[30] http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/infoworld-review-eight-php-power-tools-737?source=rs
[31] http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/infoworld-review-nine-fine-python-development-tools-374?source=rs
[32] http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/lab-test-climb-aboard-ruby-rails-851?source=rs
[33] http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-explosion/the-big-promise-big-data-what-you-need-know-today-585?source=rs
[34] http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-management/slacker-databases-break-all-the-old-rules-599?source=rs
[35] http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-management/infoworld-review-databases-primed-social-networks-828?source=rs
[36] http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/7-programming-languages-the-rise-620?source=footer
[37] http://www.infoworld.com/?source=footer
[38] http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world?source=footer

Friday, January 17, 2014

장화 홍련 전

아래글 출처 : http://ask.nate.com/knote/view.html?num=148540

장화홍련 (2003): hoonlove0903
| 07.07.05 10:21

오늘은 영화 장화홍련에 대해 몇가지 이야기 해보겠습니다.

장화홍련은 김지운 감독의 2003년작 영화입니다. 지금까지 소개해드렸던 영화들과 마찬가지로 여러가지 궁금증을 유발시키는 영화입니다. 그럼 영화속의 몇가지 궁금한 점에 대해서 이야기 해보겠습니다.

1. 수미(임수정)이 집에들어가서 시계를 열고 시간을 돌리는장면은 무엇을 뜻하는 것인가?

DVD에 수록되있는 김지운 감독의 코멘트리에서 인용하자면 "죽어있는 시계를 통해서 죽음의 그림자를 이야기 하고 싶었다", "무언가를 되돌리고 싶어하는 수미의 강박관념", "돌아가고 싶어하는 수미의 마음" 등을 나타 냈다라고 감독님은 말하고 있습니다. 자신의 엄마와 수연이 살아있던 새엄마가 오기전의 행복했던 시절로 돌아가고 싶다는 마음을 무의식적으로 표현한 것이겠죠.

2. 처음 집에 온날 왜 옷장에 똑같은 옷이 걸려있는 것인가?

코멘트리 내용을 발췌해 보자면 "수미(임수정)가 다중인격 망상 증세를 갖고 있음을 암시하는 장면이다. 똑같은 옷,똑같은 책,똑같은 노트….쉽게 지워지지 않는 기억에 대한 정신적 압박감이며 누군가에게 특정 혐의를 전이시키고 싶은 분열된 인격을 상징한다." 요컨대 엄마의 자살과 수연의 죽음에 자신또한 같고 있는 책임을 전가하고 싶고 잊고 싶어하는 마음의 상징인것이죠

3. 수미의 꿈은 도대체 뭘 뜻하는 건가?

꿈속에서 나타난 귀신은 수미의 엄마로 추측됩니다. 이유는 동생의 죽음은 인식을 못하고 옆에 있다고 생각하는 상황이지만 엄마의 죽음은 이미 알고있기 때문입니다. 역시 엄마의 죽음에 대한 자책감 때문에 그런 꿈을 꾼것 같습니다. 김지운 감독님의 말로는 특별한 뜻은 없고 극의 공포감을 극대화하기 위해 그런 장면을 넣었다고 합니다.

4. 처음 선착장에서 수연이의 손을 보고 수미가 놀라는 이유는 무엇인가?

이건 명확이 밝혀진게 없습니다. 수연이의 부재를 암시하는것 같기도 하고 수연이 죽었던 당시에 피투성이가 된 수연의 손에 대한 수미의 무의식의 기억때문일 수도 있습니다.

5. 도대체 그집에 실제로 존재하는것은 무엇들인가?

정확하진 않지만 수연이의 원귀, 수미, 아빠 이렇게 셋으로 보입니다. 수연이 원귀를 직접적으로 느낀사람은 삼촌인 선규의 아내입니다. 극중에서 실제로 여자아이를 보았다고 말합니다. 수연이의 원귀는 후에 새엄마에게 복수합니다. 장농에서 엑토플라즘을 쏟아내며 나오는데 삭제된 필름에는 여자아이가 완전히 모습을 드러냅니다.

원귀를 제외하고, 영화에 보여지는 것은 수미가 만들어낸 2명의 허상(새엄마,수연이)과 수미와 아빠 총4명이 보여집니다. 수미는 자신과 새엄마의 이중 인격이었기에 1인2역 인것이고(1인3역이 아닙니다) 수연이는 아직도 귀신인지 수미가 만들어낸 허상인지는 밝혀지지 않았습니다. 새엄마에게 복수하는 수연이와 수미옆에있는 수연이가 동일한 존재인지 아닌지도 역시 알수없습니다. 그러니 확실히 살아서 존재하는 것은 수미와 수미의 아빠 이 둘입니다.

이상으로 질문 답변 형식으로 몇가지 적어보았습니다. 제가 적은 답변들에는 제 자신의 생각이 들어가 있으니 다른분들의 의견과 틀릴수 있습니다. 그럼 오늘은 이쯤에서 글을 마치겠습니다. 읽어 주셔서 감사합니다.

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그외 설명이 잘 된 감상평 : http://besito.egloos.com/4636337

영화 내용이 곁들여진 해석 : http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=sussldusdp&logNo=30044814330

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

kiaf 2013 : Hamilton Aguiar

source: http://www.parkcitymagazine.com/Park-City-Magazine/Summer-Fall-2006/Hamilton-Aguiar/

Recent art works from wynwood art group : http://www.wynwoodartgroup.com/Artist-Detail.cfm?ArtistsID=672

Hamilton Aguiar

TEXT: MELISSA FIELDS
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF REDSTONE GALLERY

Hamilton Aguiar is tired, but you wouldn’t know it. Slight pauses in his animated dialogue, where he seems to be trying to remember what he’s talking about, are the only hint to how fatigued he really is. Then one of the pauses stretches to a lapse and he says, with an endearing giggle, “I’m sorry, I’ve been working day and night and haven’t slept in three days.” He may be exhausted, but it is a good sort of exhaustion; in fact, for this South American-born artist, sleep deprivation is all too familiar. And so is success.

Aguiar, who arrived in the United States almost 20 years ago knowing only a handful of English words, is now one of the country’s hottest new visual artists. His unique oil-on-silver-leaf silhouetted landscape paintings can be found in galleries in New York City, Aspen, Laguna Beach, Scottsdale, Boston and at our own Redstone Gallery in Park City. He’s also penetrated the art scene in several countries around the globe including Sweden, Japan, Korea, Germany and Canada. The Spring 2005 issue of Fine Art Magazine said of his paintings: “… his landscapes incorporate many historical elements while breaking new ground in technique and composition.”

With this kind of overwhelming sensation for his work, it would be easy to imagine Aguiar’s road to success paved with years struggling as a starving artist. To the contrary, since following a girlfriend from Brazil to New York state at age 21, Aguiar has embraced everything he’s done from house painting to owning a gallery in the same way. He now enjoys his art, considering each experience as an opportunity to better himself. “I’ve always looked at whatever I was doing at the time as part of the path that would lead me to something bigger,” Aguiar says. “I’ve always tried to enjoy whatever I was doing for what it was and learn from it.”

Not long after coming to the U.S., Aguiar knew he wanted to make America his permanent home and hired an immigration lawyer to help him get his Green Card. “As a thank you for her help, I did a painting for her,” he says. “She liked it so much that she said I should consider going into a field that allowed me to utilize my artistic talents.” The next day Aguiar enrolled in a decorative painting class in New York City. At the time, he was making a living as a house painter in the Hamptons and soon began incorporating faux finishing into his repertoire of services. One of his clients introduced him to Ken Verosko, one of the Big Apple’s most sought-after faux finishers. With Verosko, Aguiar worked on a number of large faux finishing projects including the Louisiana State Capitol building. “Ken had hired these two women from Germany who were master gilders to work on the project in Louisiana. Through them, I added gilding to my skill set,” Aguiar explains.

While growing his house painting and faux finishing business and collaborating on projects with Verosko, Aguiar continued to paint on canvas, mostly for himself. Then in 1999, his father had a heart attack, and Aguiar returned to Brazil. While there, he visited with an old friend and gallery owner. The friend knew Aguiar painted and invited him to participate in a small show he was hosting the following week. “Well, I had maybe one painting at that time,” Aguiar says. He worked day and night for five days to produce about eight paintings. At the show he was an unexpected hit, selling almost everything he’d produced, including one large piece for $10,000. “That’s when I started to think about my painting in a different way,” he says.

Buoyed by his artistic accomplishment in Brazil, Aguiar opened a gallery in South Hampton, New York when he returned to the States. The gallery hosted shows of artwork by Romero Britto, Norman Rockwell, Burton Morris, Thales and many Brazilian artists. Aguiar continued to supplement his income with gilding and faux finishing jobs.

About a year after opening the gallery, Aguiar met Nan Miller, a well-known gallery owner, publisher and art dealer. “Nan saw my work and told me that I was a faux finisher, gallery owner and artist, and that I needed to pick just one and focus on it. She told me she thought I should be an artist,” A year later, Aguiar closed his gallery and focused on creating his art full time.

Up until this point, Aguiar’s technique involved applying resin to canvas and then painting over it with oil paints. One midwinter day, however, as he was leaving a restaurant in the Hamptons, Aguiar paused to observe the sun reflecting off the fresh snow of a recent storm. “I felt something when I saw that image,” he says. “I wanted to capture that light.”

Aguiar returned to his studio with an idea. He applied silver leaf to a canvas and then used oils to paint a landscape over it. The next morning when he returned to his studio, two other artists he shared the space with were looking at his painting. “They first asked me how I did it and then told me they thought I had really hit on something,” Aguiar says.

Over the next several months, feedback for his silver-gilded paintings continued to be positive. Aguiar decided to take a leap of faith and enter himself as an unrepresented artist at the 2004 New York International Art Expo, widely considered the place where up-and-coming visual artists are discovered. Within two hours of the show’s opening, Aguiar sold half of the 20 paintings he’d brought with him. The other half were purchased by Bill Handler, art aficionado and owner of Park City’s Redstone Gallery. “We were eight months out from opening the gallery in Park City,” Handler says.

“But I knew even if we never opened the gallery, Hamilton was going to be a great commercial success and I’d always regret not at least purchasing his paintings for myself.”

At the end of Art Expo, Aguiar had more then a dozen commissions and, in addition to the Redstone Gallery, had made agreements with gallery owners in Aspen, Laguna Beach and Boston to carry his work. A short time later, Nan Miller signed on as Aguiar’s publisher and distributor. “The response to Hamilton’s work is like no other I have experienced in the 35 years I’ve been in this business,” Miller says. “Every gallery owner’s greatest desire is to find an artist whose talent is so unique and impressive that individual collectors and gallery owners alike need to have this artwork in their collections. Hamilton is that artist.”

Aguiar now employs two full-time gilders, but continues to complete all of the painting himself which, in light of exploding demand, is why he’s almost always tired. “I suppose I could train someone to reproduce some of my paintings, but that just wouldn’t be me,” Aguiar says. “I never know what I’m going to paint before I paint it and you can’t teach someone how to do that.”

Although Utah-based freelance writer Melissa Fields has yet to add pieces of world reknown to her collection, she has accumulated more than 100 works from a very promising up-and-coming artist: her 3 1/2-year-old son, Charlie.

See Hamilton Aguiar’s work at Park City’s Redstone Gallery, 1678 West Redstone Center Drive, 435.575.1000.

영화 김복남 살인사건의 전말

source: http://blog.ohmynews.com/specialin/343221

영화 '김복남 살인 사건의 전말'을 파헤치다

영화 여행 2010/09/11 07:18 꺄르르

영화 <김복남 살인 사건의 전말>은 대단한 작품입니다. 놀라운 영화란 얘기는 미리 듣던 터였는데 과연 입소문이 헛되지 않았다는 걸 느낄 수 있네요. 영화에 대해 인상비평을 하기보단 영화에 담긴 주제의식과 장치들에 대해 가름하고자 쓴 글입니다. 따라서 아래에는 영화 내용이 잔뜩 나옵니다.

왜 여자주인공 이름이 뜬금없이 복남이일까?

이름 김복남(서영희)부터 뭔가 찝찝합니다. 여자 이름이 김복남이라니! 물론 굳어진 성관념을 넘어서 여자라 하더라도 얼마든지 남자이름을 쓸 수 있습니다. 성별에 따라 이름이 딱 정해진 건 아니니까요. 요즘엔 어여쁜 남자이름도 얼마나 많은지요. 그러나 김복남이란 이름은 성에 얽매지 않는 자유로움을 뜻하기보단 예전 주말연속극 <아들과 딸>의 후남이란 이름과 마찬가지로 여성이 남자란 사슬에 갇혀있단 걸 드러냅니다.

태어나자마자 자신이 바라지 않아도 평생 짊어져야 하는 김복남이란 이름은 여자라는 이유만으로 업신여기겠다는 이 세상의 주홍글씨입니다. 태어나면서부터 인두질 당하듯 김복남이란 이름은 복남이라 불리는 여성에게 지울 수 없는 상처를 안겨주지요. 여자가 복있는 남자(복남)라 불리는데, 복되게 산다면 그게 더 야릇하겠지요.

복남이란 이름처럼 복남이의 삶은 펀펀하지 않습니다. 태어나서 한 번도 뭍에 가본 적 없는 섬여자 복남이는 온갖 등쌀과 닦달, 성폭행과 발길질에 시달립니다. 어쩜 저럴 수가 있을까 싶을 정도로 안타까운 장면들이 이어지지만, 저런 모습은 영화라서 저렇게 찍은 게 아닙니다. 조금만 눈을 돌리면 미처 몰랐더라도 옆집에서 벌어지는 일이기 십상입니다. 복남이의 고통은 한 여자의 수난이라기보다 여자라서 겪는 고난을 보여주니까요.

아빠란 남자에게 예쁨을 받고자 하는 딸 '연희'는 '여자'가 어떻게 만들어지는지 그 계보을 드러낸다

때리는 남자들보다 어정쩡하게 말리는 여자들이 더 밉다

이 영화는 단순히 남자들이 여자들을 이렇게 괴롭힌다는 걸 이르지 않습니다. 오히려 여자들 사이에서 벌어지는 성차별을 오싹하게 그려내죠. 복남이의 남편이나 시동생보다 관객들로 하여금 울컥하게 하는 사람들은 동호할매, 파주할매, 순이할매, 개똥할매들, 그리고 서울 친구 해원(지성원)입니다. 이들은 권력에 대들지 못한 채 애오라지 자기보다 약한 사람에게만 입방정 떠는, 일상에서 어렵지 않게 만나는 어리석은 사람들의 꼬락서니죠.

때리는 시어미보다 말리는 시누이가 더 밉다는, 어처구니없는 옛말을 잠깐 들여다보면, 왜 이런 말이 있는지 엿볼 수 있습니다. 할매들은 복남이가 쥐어터지고 쓰러진 채 헉헉대는 꼴을 보면서 조금 안쓰러워하지만, 그렇다고 복남이의 편에 서지 않습니다. 말리는 시누이가 더 미운 까닭은 이런 일이 빚어지는 얼개엔 눈썹하나 까딱하지 않기 때문이죠. 이 땅의 쌔고 쌘 시누이들은 올케가 자기 엄마에게 숱하게 머리털이 뽑히고 나서야 말리는 체 하지만 툭하면 뺨을 맞아야 하는 틀거리에 대해 꼬투리 잡진 않았습니다. 다만 너무 호되게 조지지 말라고만 할 뿐.

이런 시누이들처럼 이 할매들은 가부장제에 길들여진 여자들의 모습을 고스란히 알려줍니다. 여자들이 일을 도맡아 하는데도 ‘남자가 있어야 된다’는 얘기를 입버릇처럼 뇌까리고, 여자이면서도 여성을 낮잡으며 못 미더워하고 남자에게 기대려는 모습은 가부장제가 얼마나 여자들을 노예화하였는지 딱 까놓고 보여줍니다. 이런 여자들을 지켜보기란 메스꺼우면서도 스잔하지요.

그 무엇이 여자들로 하여금 남자들에게 굽실거리며 주눅 들게 만드는가?

그런데 가부장제에 왜 여자들이 굽실거리는지 이 영화는 놀랍게도 건드립니다. 일상에서 차별을 받으며 오랜 세월 종살이하였던 생활문화가 여자들을 주눅 들게 하고 미욱하게 만들었지만, 이것만으론 모자랍니다. 여자란 남자를 섬기고 떠받들어야 한다는 말뚝을 박는 게 있으니, 바로 남성 입맛대로 이뤄지는 성관계입니다.

아내가 집안에 있는데도 다방여자를 불러다 안방에서 성관계를 맺는 모습은 좀 심하다 싶지만, ‘성관계의 진실’이라 해도 지나치지 않을 성싶습니다. 성이란 보수성을 지닌 영역에선 남자는 ‘성욕의 주체’이지만 여자는 ‘남자들의 대상’으로 남아있으니까요. 성관계의 가지런함은 아직 만들어내지 못 했습니다. 여자들이 일부일처제란 허울을 믿고 결혼을 하지만, 남자들은 사부자기 안방에서 야동을 보고 바깥에서 걸핏하면 성매매를 하고 있으니까요.

그런데 더 소스라치는 건 이런 뒤틀린 성관계가 여자들로 하여금 울컥하게 하기보다 도리어 남자들 앞에서 고분고분 해지도록 만든다는 점입니다. 왜 자기 남편들을 다 죽게끔 한 치매할배가 곧 할매들에게 치켜세움 받았을까요? 할매들이 앞 다투어 치매할배의 ‘남근’에 끄달렸기 때문입니다. 일을 하지 않아 땀 한 방울 흘리지 않은 채 ‘맹꽁이잎’만 먹는데도 치매할배가 어엿하게 살 수 있는 까닭이죠. 진짜 여성해방을 이루려면 ‘남근’에서 벗어나는 한다는 말처럼 들리게 됩니다.

더러운 리코더를 닦지도 않고 입에 문 복남이, 리코더에 맞아 쓰러지다

따라서 리코더는 아주 상징성 강한 장치로 쓰입니다. 리코더의 생김새를 굳이 남근과 견줄 까닭이야 없지만, 이 영화에선 남근의 대리물로서 작동하죠. 어린 복남이가 남이 물던 리코더를 닦지도 않고 입에 무는 장면도 복남이의 앞날을 가늠하게 하고, 남자애들이 리코더로 복남이를 때린 뒤 복남의 몸을 들추는 것도 이런 맥락입니다.

자신을 짓밟고 욕보이는, 더럽고 아니꼬운 남성질서에 구멍을 내고자 복남이는 낫을 들고 이리저리 휘두릅니다. 그러나 낫만으론 남성질서가 무너지지 않자 영화 막바지에 다른 곳도 아닌 남근을 겨냥해서 쇠망치를 내리칩니다. ‘남근’이란 남성권위에 치이고 족대김 당한 복남이는 어디를 부셔야 하는지 잘 알고 있던 것이죠.

하지만 한 여자가 대든다고 길고긴 세월 이뤄져온 남성지배가 휘우듬하지 않습니다. 남근질서는 아주 굳세고 검질기죠. 그리하여 복남이는 총에 맞아 죽지 않고 리코더에 ‘꽂혀’ 죽습니다. 그것도 자신을 건져주리라 믿었던 서울 친구에게 말이죠. 포스터에서 복남이와 해원이의 모습은 많은 걸 말해주고 있습니다. 오늘도 피 흘리며 남성사회를 욕망하는 수많은 여자들의 괴로움과 서글픔을.

세상의 악마가 어떻게 만들어지는가? <친절한 복남씨>의 탄생!

영화 <악마를 보았다>가 복수의 올바름을 물었다면, <김복남 살인 사건의 전말>은 한 발 더 나아갑니다. 세상의 악마들에게 침만 뱉지 말고, 그들이 어떻게 만들어지는지 알고 있냐며 묻습니다. 서울 친구가 잘 보여주듯 옆 사람을 악마로 만들고 세상살이를 섬뜩한 지옥으로 만드는 것은 사람들의 고개돌림입니다. 무관심을 머금고 사회는 갈수록 끔찍해집니다.

해원이가 복남이의 편지를 진작 뜯어보았다면, 조금 더 용기를 갖고 사회사달에 입을 열었다면 어땠을까요? 복남이의 고통은 보다 줄어들었을 테고, 해원이도 그렇게 쉽게 정리해고 당하지 않았겠죠. 사회는 사람들과 더불어 살아가는 곳이란 생각의 끈을 놓아버리면, 불쌍한 할머니를 매몰차게 내쫓고 후배 귀쌈을 아무렇지 않게 올려붙이는 괴물이 되기 십상입니다.

김기덕 영화와 박찬욱 영화가 불편함을 안겨주지만 그럼에도 사람들을 극장으로 불러 모으는 까닭은 끈덕진 폭력과 성이란 매체, 그 안에서 빚어지는 사람살이의 고약함을 잘 그려내기 때문이지요. 이 영화는 ‘김기덕 세계관’에다 <친절한 금자씨>가 버무려진 느낌입니다. 그야말로 <친절한 복남씨>의 탄생입니다.

나의 인생 이야기

Wednesday, January 22, 2014