The Core

Programmer's Python - Function Objects  
Monday 07 January

Python is one of those select languages that make functions first class object. Yet you can use it for years and never even notice that it is an object-oriented language. What makes functions as objects special?

Babbage's Bag

From Data To Objects  
Thursday 03 January

What are objects really all about? The data stupid. We don't give data enough credit for it role in programming. Perhaps we shouldn't call it coding but datering or something. The relationship between data and code is deep and it is the real reason we invented object oriented programming.

News

Python Language Of The Year   Wednesday 09 January

If you have been following the hype around the wonder language Python, then this headline will come as no surprise. Is this Python's 15 minutes of fame?

Software Developer Best USA Job For 2019   Wednesday 09 January

For the second year in a row, software developer tops the list of  the U.S. News and World Report's annual best jobs rankings.

EU Bug Bounty - Software Security as a Civil Right   Wednesday 09 January

A State-sponsored bug bounty comes as refreshing news in that it shows that amongst the bureaucrats there are tech savvypeople who understand the true value of OSS software to society, and as such the impact when its security goes wrong. 

Zalando Flair NLP Library Updated   Tuesday 08 January

A new version of Flair, the simple Python Natural language processing (NLP) library has just been released by Zalando Research. Flair is built in Python on top of the PyTorch deep learning framework, and the updated version adds two new pre-trained frameworks that you can use.

Ring In the Changes At GitHub   Tuesday 08 January

GitHub has announced that GitHub Free now includes unlimited private repositories for projects with up to three collaborators. It has also combined its cloud and self-hosted services into a unified GitHub Enterprise Product.

JDK 12 Feature Set Frozen   Monday 07 January

The feature set for the next version of Java SE, JDK 12, is now known as the development team has frozen the feature set for the new version. While many of the proposed improvements have made the cut, support for raw string literals is no longer included.

App Store Takes $1.22B In A Week As Apple Falls   Monday 07 January

You may have an app that earns you a few cents a week, but Apple has the app store that earns it gazillions - but for what exactly? And is the market really as big as $1.22 billion a week?

Are You A Difficult Developer?   Sunday 06 January

An interactive infographic from Neil Green looks at personality types that cause problems for software projects. Better still there's a quiz that reveals what type of dysfunctional developer you are.

Over 100 Million Alexa Devices Sold   Saturday 05 January

This is impressive for two reasons. One is the number itself and the other is that Amazon was prepared to disclose the information as it prepares to square up to Google at CES in Las Vegas next week. 

Electron 4 Updates Chromium Support   Friday 04 January

GitHub has released version 4.0 of Electron, its open source framework for cross platform development of desktop applications. Electron was originally known as Atom Shell as it was developed for GitHub's Atom text editor.

The 12 News Days of Xmas 12 - December   Friday 04 January

... the month of the deepest dark - sorry southern hemisphere - but it's also the month of deepest dart and the Hour of Code.

NetBeans 10 Improves JDK 11 Support But Drops C/C++ Update: Not Really   Friday 04 January

A new major release of the Apache NetBeans IDE is now available. NetBeans 10 has added support for JDK 11, JUnit 5, PHP, JavaScript and Groovy, as well as solving many issues. On the other hand, there is disappointing news on the C/C++ front.
Update: not as disappointing as it first appeared.

Wolkenkit Event-Sourcing JavaScript Library Updated   Friday 04 January

Wolkenkit, an open-source JavaScript library for building event-sourcing applications based on Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS), has been updated.

Scratch 3.0 Released To Mixed Reaction   Thursday 03 January

After months in Beta, Scratch 3.0 was released on January 2nd. Its major changes include support for tablets, ditching Flash - Scratch 3 is based on HTML, CSS and JavaScript - and a new extension system. However, many existing users are deeply unhappy.

The 12 News Days of Xmas 11 - November   Thursday 03 January

... in many places the start of the holiday season - how do we get any work done?

Qt for Python Released   Thursday 03 January

A version of Qt for Python has been released. Qt is a cross-platform application and UI software development framework that lets you create native apps for desktop, embedded or mobile platforms.