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• Programming Language Levels

  20 mai 2011, par Multimedia Mike — Programming

  I’ve been doing this programming thing for some 20 years now. Things sure do change. One change I ponder from time to time is the matter of programming language levels. Allow me to explain.

  The 1990s
  When I first took computer classes in the early 1990s, my texts would classify computer languages into 3 categories, or levels. The lower the level, the closer to the hardware ; the higher the level, the more abstract (and presumably, easier to use). I recall that the levels went something like this :

  • High level : Pascal, BASIC, Logo, Fortran
  • Medium level : C, Forth
  • Low level : Assembly language

  Keep in mind that these were the same texts which took the time to explain the history of computers from mainframes -> minicomputers -> a relatively recent phenomenon called microcomputers or "PCs".

  Somewhere in the mid-late 1990s, when I was at university, I was introduced to a new tier :

  • Very high level : Perl, shell scripting

  I think there was some debate among my peers about whether C++ and Java were properly classified as high or very high level. The distinction between high and very high, in my observation, seemed to be that very high level languages had more complex data structures (at the very least, a hash / dictionary / associative array / key-value map) built into the language, as well as implicit memory management.

  Modern Day
  These days, the old hierarchy is apparently forgotten (much like minicomputers). I observe that there is generally a much simpler 2-tier classification :

  • Low level : C, assembly language
  • High level : absolutely every other programming language in wide use today

  I find myself wondering where C++ and Objective-C fit in this classification scheme. Then I remember that it doesn’t matter and this is all academic.

  Relevancy
  I think about this because I have pretty much stuck to low-level programming all of my life, mostly due to my interest in game and multimedia-type programming. But the trends in computing have favored many higher level languages and programming paradigms. I woke up one day and realized that the kind of work I often do — lower level stuff — is not very common.

  I’m not here to argue that low or high level is superior. You know I’m all about using the appropriate tool for the job. But I sometimes find myself caught between worlds, having the defend and explain one to the other.

  • On one hand, it’s not unusual for the multitudes of programmers working at the high level to gasp and wonder why I or anyone else would ever use C or assembly language for anything when there are so many beautiful high level languages. I patiently explain that those languages have to be written in some other language (at first) and that they need to run on some operating system and that most assuredly won’t be written in a high level language. For further reading, I refer them to Joel Spolsky’s great essay called Back to Basics which describes why it can be useful to know at least a little bit about how the computer does what it does at the lowest levels.
  • On the other hand, believe it or not, I sometimes have to defend the merits of high level languages to my low level brethren. I’ll often hear variations of, "Any program can be written in C. Using a high level language to achieve the same will create a slow and bloated solution." I try to explain that the trade-off in time to complete the programming task weighed against the often-negligible performance hit of what is often an I/O-bound operation in the first place makes it worthwhile to use the high level language for a wide variety of tasks.

    Or I just ignore them. That’s actually the best strategy.

• Announcing Long Term Support in Piwik 2 – The analytics platform for your mission critical projects

  11 janvier 2016, par Matthieu Aubry — About, Development

  We are proud to announce our Long Term Support (LTS) for Piwik 2.X !

  Why Long Term Support (LTS) ?

  Part of our mission is to ready Piwik for the enterprise — and ready the enterprise for Piwik. Our fast release cycle and our ability to quickly innovate has served us well for the past seven years and has lead Piwik to being one of the most popular open source projects, used by over one million websites worldwide. But Piwik’s success today has also shown us that this fast release cycle is not suited for all users and customers. Like most large open source projects (such as Ubuntu, Firefox, Debian, Symfony, Node.js, etc.) at Piwik we now also offer a Long Term Support release which gives users the confidence that Piwik can be used for mission critical projects for months to come.

  What does LTS mean for Piwik ?

  For the duration of the LTS period, Piwik 2.X will continue to receive the following fixes :

  • Critical bugs causing data loss or data corruption.
  • Major and Critical security issues.

  Our goal is to offer you a Piwik LTS release that you can trust for all your mission critical projects.

  How long will Piwik 2.X be supported ?

  Piwik 2.X will be supported for at least 12 months after the initial release of Piwik 3.0.0.
  Piwik 3.0.0 is expected to be released in the second half of 2016.
  This means that Piwik 2.X will be supported at least until the second half of 2017.

  Which Piwik version is LTS ?

  The latest Piwik 2.16.X release is our Long Term Support version.

  How do I benefit from the LTS version ?

  To get the full benefits of Piwik LTS, please make sure you are using the latest LTS version. First, update to the latest Piwik 2.X version, then Configure Piwik to use the LTS release channel and then update to the latest LTS version.

  How do I configure Piwik to use the LTS version ?

  By default, Piwik will not use the LTS version. When you use the one-click update your Piwik instance will be updated to the very latest release : when Piwik 3.0.0 will be released, the one click update will update your instance to 3.0.0. It is however possible to configure your Piwik so that you will stay on Piwik 2.X and keep using the LTS Long Term Support version :

  • Login Piwik as the Super User,
  • Go to Settings > General > Update settings,
  • Under “Release channel” click “Latest stable 2.X Long Term Support version”, and click “Save”.
    

  How do I get professional Piwik Support ?

  If you need professional support for your Piwik service get in touch with the Piwik experts.

  ---

  For other questions, feedback or discussion, feel free to join our forums and comment on this LTS forum post.

  We wish you all a fantastic year 2016 !

• Discovering our premium on-premise features

  28 novembre 2023, par Erin — Community, Plugins

  In our latest release (Matomo 4.16), we’ve enhanced visibility to the premium On-Premise features within Matomo. Now, it’s easier to maximise the potential of your Matomo On-Premise setup while also supporting our open-source project.

  By default, Matomo On-Premise instances will now display available premium features in the left-menu navigation bar. If you prefer, we’ve made it easy to hide or disable the menu items (steps provided below). Note that no features were removed and you still have full access to the same features as before.

  We would encourage you to check out our premium features, as thousands of users already find them powerful additions to their analytics.

  How to hide or disable menu items

  We understand that not everyone will need these premium features listed in their left-menu navigation. That’s why we’ve made it very easy to remove them. 

  • If you prefer not to see these features listed, each user can hide them by clicking the link “hide this section”. This option is available in each of the new feature pages.
  • Alternatively, for administrators wanting to disable these features at an organisational level and for all users at once, you simply need to follow these steps :
    • Login as Super User (to your On-Premise Matomo instance)
    • Go to Administration > System > Plugins
    • Scroll down to the “ProfessionalServices” plugin, and click “Deactivate”

  The revenue from premium features helps us innovate and improve Matomo, fueling our strong commitment to the open-source ethos that’s at the heart of everything we do.

  Explore the complete range of Matomo On-Premise premium features, developed by Matomo and our passionate community, available in our marketplace. Start a 30-day free trial today and unlock a new level of analytics excellence.