Kuldip Oberoi's Blog

Sun and the OpenSolaris community today announced the immediate, and unrestricted, availability of the latest version of the distro- OpenSolaris 2008.11. Previously, I used it as my alternative OS, either via VirtualBox or on a dedicated demo laptop. However, I just installed a release candidate build of 2008.11 as my main day-to-day environment- development , email, music, movies, IM, etc. — it’s all in there!

It has this cool backup/snapshot utility called Time Slider, which utilizes OpenSolaris technologies such as ZFS. Accidentally delete a file or destroy its contents? No problem. Think of it as an integrated system-wide SCM that is always working, behind the scenes. The best thing about it- the Time Slider interface is integrated into the GNOME windowing system, which makes it TRIVIAL to use. There has been a justifiable knock that Sun technologies are innovative, but difficult to use by mere mortals. Myth busted!

Check out this short, but very well done, intro video done by our OpenSolaris evangelists:

Today at EuroPython 2008, Ted Leung (Dynamic Languages & Tools Architect at Sun) and Frank Wierzbicki (Jython Project Lead working at Sun) announced that the NetBeans IDE will be supporting Python and Jython in future releases. The latest release, NetBeans IDE 6.1, is already multilingual- supporting Java, C/C++, JavaScript, and Ruby/JRuby. In addition, the latest milestone build, NetBeans 6.5 M1, features support for PHP developers.

Python is not new to Sun- with a long history of use, including with the new Image Packaging System (IPS) utilized in OpenSolaris OS. Python is available, today, for OpenSolaris 2008.05 via its pkg.opensolaris.org repository and in Cool Stack for Solaris 10 systems. With our recent history of engagement with the Ruby/JRuby and Rails communities, we look forward in increasing our participation in the Python communities.

At the core of the effort to bring Python/Jython support to the NetBeans IDE, is the formation of the NBPython Project, led by community member Allan Davis. For developers wishing to contribute, sign up for the development mailing list.

In addition, the Sun Developer Network (SDN) is also launching the Python Developer Center and is planning to feature Python/Jython technologies in future Sun Tech Days events, a 15-city world tour designed to educate developers in local markets on various technologies.