OStatic

The latest means to create desktop-style Web applications using JavaScript was announced last week, and has created quite a flurry of excitement. Cappuccino, an open-source application framework, was released by the programmers at 280 North, a Web startup that has been using Cappuccino in its own development. Cappuccino, as the FAQ states, is released under the Lesser GNU Public License. This license ensures that while the Cappuccino framework itself will remain open source, applications written using it may be released under any license, without restrictions.

Client-side Web developers work mainly in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, displaying and manipulating data within a Web browser, while retrieving and storing that data on the server. One exciting new entry on this front is SproutCore, a new JavaScript framework that brings a full model-view-controller (MVC) approach to client-side programming. SproutCore gained a great deal of public attention in the last week, since Apple announced that its new MobileMe (formerly .Mac) service uses it.

PHP 6.0 is on its way, and it looks like this release will finally remove some of the features that caused many people to turn their noses up at PHP, such as register globals and magic quotes. At the same time, the new version will include built-in support for a number of new features, most notably Unicode, which will make it possible to create completely internationalized Web applications. PHP 6.0 might not stop people from hating the languge, but the improvements that we're seeing in the current developer snapshot point to a language that is maturing with time.