Drupal websites, for instance, often blend traditional modules with additional code inserted to make decisions about data selection and formatting. Although much of this occurs on the back end, Drupal can be configured to allow users to include PHP code in particular data fields. As a result, programmers aren't pushing compile and run any longer; instead, they're updating a bit of running code on the fly. They're usually smart enough to do this on a test version, but sometimes they even update hot, running code because it's not that hard. What could possibly go wrong?
This is the ultimate end of open source where anything can be altered on the fly.
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This article, "Open source programming tools on the rise," originally appeared at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest news in programming and open source at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.