There’s now an official blog up for Radical Breeze and all things Illumination:

http://blog.radicalbreeze.com/

There you will find the Press Release archive (along with new release announcements as they go live).  That is also where you will find Contest results, Beta release information and more.

I will still, from time to time, post information here on my blog.  But if you want to stay up to date… that is the place to do it!

Just a quick reminder that there are only three days left to finish and submit your entry for the August Illumination Software Creator contest!

Here’s the details again just in case.  :)  We’ve had some awesome and creative entries so far… keep ‘em coming!

The Rules:

- Create an Illumination project that is a Number Guessing Game using the smallest number of blocks possible.
- Number must be random, between 1 and a user definable number.  User must be able to guess as many times as it takes to get the correct number and be notified when the correct number is guessed, along with how many tries it took.
- If an incorrect guess is made, user must be notified if it was “high” or “low”.

The Grand Prize Package:

- 20 User License of Illumination Software Creator will be donated to the school (any school) of your choice.
- Gift Certificate for one license of Illumination you can use for yourself, or give to a friend.
- Gift Certificate for any game from Good Old Games.

Entry Information:

- Deadline: Aug 31st, 2010 @ 11:59pm Pacific Time.  Winners announced on Sep 3rd.
- All entries must be emailed as an .isc project file to webmaster@radicalbreeze.com.

For several years now many have been concerned about Mono (the open source re-implementation of the .Net framework).  Specifically: What happens if Microsoft decides it isn’t happy with Mono?  What if they unleash the lawyers upon the Mono project, effectively rendering useless (and un-distributable) all of the Mono-based applications out there?

The debate over whether Mono is “safe” to use has been, to say the least, fierce.

Luckily, at present, Microsoft has not “unleashed the lawyers”.  Development and adoption of Mono has continued.

And now we have the Oracle situation: Oracle purchases Sun (makers of Java).  Oracle then sues Google over Google’s usage of Java in Android.

Of course, Java is the primary programming language on the Android platform.  Removing Java from Android would be like… removing HTML from Firefox.  The mere thought could be devastating.  Especially to all of the developers creating software for the Android platform, today, in Java.  (And, perhaps, that’s the whole point.)

Let’s take a step back for a moment.

This means that we have two of the most popular programming languages/frameworks in use today… and, as a developer, both have a great deal of legal uncertainty around them.

Can we, as developers, build our applications using these frameworks and languages and feel confident that we can, legally, ship them a year from now?

And, even if we can legally ship our applications built on Java or Mono, will the platforms we are developing for (such as Android) have a damaged market-share (or, potentially worse, a splintered technology base where older versions use Java and future versions use… something else) due to these sorts of lawsuits or concerns?

The key here is the root question of “Is it safe to develop with one language and for one platform when either is controlled by a single company?”.

The answer, of course, is “no”.  Or, more to the point, “Hell no”.

Yet, over the last few years, I have found myself actively defending both the legality and viability of Mono on the Linux Action Show.

Is this shortsighted of me?  Have all of the various “Mono Haters” been right all along?  Is it really in all of our (I am referring to the developers of the world) best interests to abandon both Mono and Java and run back into the warm embrace of C++?

To be honest, at this point, I am uncertain.

Regardless, I find myself gravitating towards a firm stance of “total language and platform independence”.

Meaning that I am finding myself far more comfortable using the higher level languages and tools that afford me the flexibility to move between platforms and frameworks without too large of an investment.

Tools like Lazarus (which is built on top of the Free Pascal compiler and an LGPL’d framework that lets you toggle between Win32, QT, GTK2, Cocoa, etc. as if you were changing TV channels).  This sort of flexibility removes my dependence on any one platform, widget-set, etc. but at the cost of using a higher level toolset (which many will balk at).

For me it’s all about not having “the rug pulled out from under me” by the whims of any one company.  By using something like Lazarus (which, admittedly, has its drawbacks) I have far more control over my own software development destiny).

(In the interest of not being too “Self-Promote-y”, I’m only going to make brief mention of Illumination Software Creator, which I developed, here as another high level, cross platform/language/framework tool.)

Here’s my thought.

If we, as a development community, stop using these specific languages/frameworks (such as Java) directly and, instead, focus on higher level tools (such as Lazarus)… this will reduce the control these companies have over us, and allow us maximum freedom to jump to a new, more stable ship when a storm hits.  (This very thing is one of the big reasons many use OpenGL over Direct3D.)

Of course, right now, our options for those sorts of high level, cross platform languages/frameworks/tools is… limited.  But the faster we embrace those sorts of tools, the faster that situation will improve.

And the quicker we can tell Oracle to “shove off”.

When Illumination Software Creator first launched, just a few short months ago, we had a 4 key goals:

1) Allow anyone to make their own software, regardless of whether or not they have any programming experience.
2) The process of building new apps should be 100% visual and easy to learn.  No coding required.
3) Support as many platforms and systems as possible to allow one project to build apps that run almost anywhere.
4) Applications built with Illumination must not require any custom runtime, virtual machine or libraries.  They must be native and built in an optimal way for their target platform.

These goals are lofty, to be sure.  Many doubted it was even possible to pull this off.

I’m proud to say that we’ve nailed each and every one of them.

And today we are rolling out the next version of Illumination Software Creator: Version 2.1.

The big news in this version:

Full support for building Android apps.

That’s right.  In addition to Windows, Linux, MacOS X, Flash websites and Maemo applications… Illumination can now create fully native Android applications.

We’ve even added a new Web Browser widget that allows you to add web browsing functionality to your Android applications.

Version 2.1 also brings with it a host of usability improvements and bug fixes.  And, of course, this update is free for all users.

We are, needless to say, pretty excited.  Illumination is in a class by itself: allowing anyone to create their own software… and able to do so for more platforms than darn near any development tool on the planet.  (And we are just getting started.)

But we want to kick it up a notch.

Recently we had a “Name Your Own Price” sale where you could… name your own price for Illumination.  And it got us thinking…

Why not always have Illumination Software Creator be available in a “Name Your Own Price” way?  That way it is accessible to anyone.  College students and IT Professionals alike.

So that’s what we’re doing.  Starting today you can officially choose what price Illumination is worth to you from the online store using a handy-dandy slider.

Will we make less money by doing it this way?  Who knows.  We just might.  But Illumination is important.  And it should be accessible to as many people as possible.

So go to RadicalBreeze.com.  Download version 2.1 (and the tutorial, if you are new to Illumination) from the Download tab.  Check out some of the examples while you are there to get your feet wet.  Then head over to the Illumination Forum if you want to talk with other Illumination users or ask questions.

Now it’s time for us to get back to work on version 2.2… which will freak some people out.

The 4th (and likely final) Beta release of Illumination Software Creator is available!

Some changes worth noting in Beta 4:

- Android builds now support reading and writing Text files (not including Open/Save dialogs as those are not supported by Android itself).
- Android builds now have the ability to include a Web Browser control!  (This feature is Android only for the moment as PyGTK and Flex/Web do not properly support a good cross platform web control.)
- Variable names cannot be renamed to be the same as another existing variable.
- Several fixes to project building to (especially for Flex builds).

It is also worth noting that, due to a great deal of feedback, we have decided to work on a more powerful design for the Graphics/Drawing functionality introduced during the 2.1 Beta cycle.  As such we’ve pulled graphics related controls and blocks from 2.1.  That functionality will re-appear in 2.2.

You can grab Beta 4 from the links below:

Illumination 2.1 Beta 4 for Linux

Illumination 2.1 Beta 4 for Windows

Illumination 2.1 Beta 4 for MacOS X

You can grab an example project for building simple Android web browser from here.

(Update: Download links above are now actually for Beta 4.)