IBM has published the following new technical articles, tutorials, and downloads on its DeveloperWorks website. They cover a range of interesting (though not necessarily embedded) technical topics, primarily related to Linux and open source system development. Some require free registration. Enjoy . . . !

• The Top 5 Engineering Hints You Rarely Hear — Don't let disaster happen to you. Lewin Edwards presents five engineering tips that are crucially important to successful product engineering, but which are rarely brought up in discussions of engineering practices. He will cover the absurd, the annoying, and the physically dangerous, and give you hints for avoiding all sorts of these situations.
• Discover the Anatomy of initrd — In this article explore the initial RAM disk for Linux 2.6, including its creation and use in the Linux kernel.The Linux initial RAM disk (initrd) is a temporary root file system that is mounted during system boot to support the two-state boot process. It contains various executables and drivers that permit the real root file system to be mounted, after which the initrd RAM disk is unmounted and its memory freed. In many embedded Linux systems, the initrd is the final root file system.
• Key Porting Differences from LinuxThreads to NPTL — The LinuxThreads project originally brought multithreading to Linux, but didn't conform to POSIX threading standards. The introduction of Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL) however, overcame many of these disadvantages. This article describes some of the differences between these two Linux threading models for developers who may need to port their applications or who simply want to understand where the differences lie.
• Handle Your Errors Using Flex and Bison — Flex and Bison are powerful tools for developing lexical and grammar parsers, in particular language compilers and interpreters. Although it is easy to generate programs using Flex and Bison, it is a bit harder to make those programs produce user-friendly syntax and semantic error messages. This article examines the error-handling features of Flex and Bison, shows how to use them, and details some pitfalls.
• Parse your Text with Yacc and Lex — Examine the processes behind building a parser using the lex/flex and yacc/bison tools, first to build a simple calculator and then delve into how you can adopt the same principles for text parsing. Parsing text is an important part of many applications. Within UNIX, several elements of the OS rely on parsing text, from the shell you use to interact with the system, through to common tools and commands like awk or Perl, right through to the C compiler you use to build software and applications.
• Easy step-by-step guide for incorporating SVG into Web pages — Time to capitalize on the fact that several browsers recently completed or announced built-in SVG support. Learn step-by-step how to incorporate Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) into Web pages using real browser examples. SVG 1.1, an XML language for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, provides a practical and flexible graphics format in XML, despite the language's verbosity.
• Examine the Ajax into J2EE web app life cycle — Its a good idea to review the potential impacts throughout the full development life cycle of introducing Ajax technology into Java EE Web applications. Being aware of the issues involved in accommodating Ajax's asynchronous communication based pattern will help put you on the road to effective Ajax integration.
• Web services using REST on Rails and Java — You can use servlets on the Java side and Rails controllers on the Ruby side to knit together applications using the strengths of both platforms. That's the beauty of Web services. All you really need is the courage to break from the herd. This article introduces Web services in Rails and focuses on a strategy known as Representational State Transfer (REST).

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.