Especially considered in historical context, each of the languages and language creators listed here had a unique insight that changed the way we thought about programming. Rebol: A multi-paradigm (symbolic, functional, OO) messaging language; designed for the semantic exchange of information between people and machines. Draws some concepts and features from other languages: Duality of code and data (Lisp), complete extensibility (Forth), raw usability and light syntax in a functional language (Logo). It is a meta-language like Forth, but with full reflective capabilities (it is a meta-circular language). Supports 40+ datatypes, including things like email, url, money, pair, and more. These are not classes or objects, they are native types recognized directly by their lexical form. In support of the messaging concept, REBOL contains a function called parse which you can use to build dialects (embedded languages). Parse, itself, uses a BNF-like dialect to specify grammars and you can use any of REBOL's datatypes as tokens to be recognized. The concept of pseudo-types, different than inheritance, is unique as well (AFAIK).

This week, Internet Explorer 6 has finally been surpassed by Internet Explorer 8. This is a huge event for the Web. IE 6 is now the least popular IE version still in widespread use.

Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Beebo, Plaxo, Orkut, and MSN Spaces are the biggest well known social network spaces. But what about the 800 other sites scrambling for audiences in the social network space? Can they generate $1M in advertising revenue per month, or even per year? Will they ever be profitable?

According to the latest salary survey from Janco Associates, salaries and demand for IT professionals is down. Here are the more interesting results of the survey.

Socialist thinking and organizational patterns permeate many parts of society. Software production is one of them.