Compose Multiplatform is a great way to create a UI for a range of platforms. In this extract from the book on Kotlin by Mike James we look at how to understand how its declarative approach is different.

Getting access from an application to the hardware is never easy. If you want to know how well your disk drive is performing then there is a way of accessing the SMART data - including the temperature - using WMI and .NET 8 and it is fairly easy.

The thing about the BusyBeaver function is that it is very easy to understand, but very difficult to compute. We now know its value up to 5, which isn't much progress for more than 50 years work.

Ladybird sets out to be an independent Web Browser, free of Google (or any) advertising. It has taken the step of becoming a non-profit project on receiving a $1 million donation from GitHub founder, Chris Wanstrath, to aid its development.

Devoxx Genie is a fully Java-based LLM Code Assistant plugin for IntelliJ IDEA, designed to integrate with local and cloud LLM providers.

Apache NetBeans 22 has been released. This release has a new Gradle Wizard, upgrades to Java 22 javac, and a number of UI changes.

Microsoft has improved the .NET Upgrade Assistant to add code assessment features. The assistant helps Visual Studio developers upgrade .NET applications to the latest version of .NET.

Having faced doubt, debate and insecurity, Perl is still going after all those years, alive, kicking and making releases. Business as usual.

The Seattle-based Living Computer Museum, founded in 2012 by Paul Allen to preserve vintage and heritage computers for posterity has closed and its collection will be sold at auction by Christies in September.

Udacity has announced it is accepting applications for the next wave of 1,000 AWS AI & ML Scholarships. Any student over the age of 16 who self-identifies as under-served or under-represented in technology, and is currently enrolled in high school or college, may apply.

Andrew Tanenbaum has been awarded the 2023 ACM System Software Award for MINIX the operating system he created for teaching purposes and which was an important influence on Linux.

The Eclipse Foundation has released Theia IDE, which they say is created for developers seeking a modern, open, and flexible tool for their coding pursuits. The IDE is based on the Theia Platform, which offers an open source alternative to Microsoft’s popular Visual Studio Code.

Amazon has announced Timestream, a fully-managed time series database service that is based on open source InfluxDB.
But what is a time series ?

Author: Loren Klingman and Ashley Parker
Publisher: Big Nerd Ranch Guides
Date: April 2023
ISBN:978-0137901760
Audience: Front end devs
Rating: 4
Reviewer: Ian Elliot
React is difficult to master, so a book can really help.

This book introduces Kotlin to programmers who have at least the basics of programming. The book is written by Mike James, the editor of I-Programmer.info and author of many books. This third edition was prompted by the release of Kotlin 2, which uses a new compiler that makes it faster. The most important feature of Kotlin 2 is its full support for Compose Multiplatform, a UI framework for cross-platform development that encompasses desktop, web, Android and iOS. This innovative system is covered in a new chapter which introduces the way Compose works and how it exploits Kotlin's unique features.

This book shows how R can be successfully applied to the field of operations research (OR). Jim Duggan's approach is centred on the idea of the future OR professional as someone who can combine knowledge of key OR techniques (e.g., simulation, linear programming, data science, and network science) with an understanding of R, including tools for data representation, manipulation, and analysis.

This book sets out the case for Bitcoin being 'resistance money', arguing that in an imperfect world of rampant inflation, creeping authoritarianism, surveillance, censorship, and financial exclusion, bitcoin empowers individuals to elude the expanding reach and tightening grip of institutions both public and private. Andrew M. Bailey, Bradley Rettler and Craig Warmke begin by explaining why bitcoin was invented, how it works, and where it fits among other kinds of money. The authors then offer a framework for evaluating bitcoin from a global perspective and use it to examine bitcoin’s monetary policy, censorship-resistance, privacy, inclusion, and energy use.