Featured Articles

This extract, from my published book on programming C in an IoT context, explains the basics of files the C way. As with all things C, it starts simple and then gets a little more involved.

What exactly is C#'s dynamic type all about? Is it dynamic or is it just static typing under cover? And how does it change things like early binding, virtual and non-virtual?

News

Top Level Await Now In V8 ... But Might Not Be What You Think
22 Jan | Ian Elliot

One of the irritations of JavaScript's wonderful async and await approach is that you have to use it in a function. This is a limitation hat seems to be about to go away when you read headlines like "Top level Await Implemented In V8". However, you need to read the small print.

Software Developers are in demand all over the world, which is great if you fancy a change of scene. In its 2020 report Devskiller finds that JavaScript is the must-have skill required by employers across the globe.

A brand-new Professional Certificate that includes a crash course on Python programming is now available on the Coursera platform. It is aimed at those looking to start a career in an IT role such as Systems Administrator or IT support specialist and consists of six short courses.

Google has made ALBERT (A Lite BERT) available in an open source version. ALBERT is a deep-learning natural language processing model that the developers say uses far fewer parameters than BERT without sacrificing accuracy. 

Python is an attractive language with a good community for support and development, but is the price for this speed? Machine learning researchers at EPFL have put it to the test and found it not wanting.

There's a new version of MariaDB that is designed to make it easier to develop apps using smart transactions and cloud-native data storage. While  described as cloud-native, it is being released first as an on-premises service that customers can optionally install in a cloud instance. 

We don't really consider the effects that our user interfaces have on human behavior. Could it be that we are changing the way people think about time and space simply by showing them a bar indicator of battery state? This story first ran last year and is among our "Too Good To Miss" items.

There are two types of people in this world - no it's not "that" joke - those who revel in fonts and all things to do with them and those who hardly notice them. So the news that JetBrains has a new programming font will either excite you or leave you wondering what the fuss is about.

It's time to get ready for Hash Code 2020, Google's team programming competition in which participants solve Google-inspired engineering problems. This is the seventh edition of contest and the second time it has been open on a global scale.

Having failed to augment its revenue stream with paid-for services, Mozilla has laid off about 70 employees, a figure that is likely to rise as Mozilla in still in a consultation process in the UK and France.

People are reporting the imminent demise of the Chrome App as another example of Google dumping anything it cares to. But there is more - the Chrome App was also an idea whose time seems to be over.

The latest update of the Python extension for Visual Studio Code has been released with enhanced support for Jupyter including the ability to select the current kernel that the notebook is using.

Books of the Week

Full Review

Query Store For SQL Server 2019 (Apress)

Reviewer: Kay Ewbank,  Rating: 5 (out of 5)

Added to Book Watch

MongoDB: The Definitive Guide 3rd Ed (O'Reilly)

Hands-On RESTful Web Services with ASP.NET Core 3 (Packt)

Python for Professionals (BPB Publications)