Everything in Python might well be an object, but if this is the case we need some way of creating new custom objects. How  objects become classes and more is explained in this extract from Programmer's Python: Everything is an Object, by Mike James.

You probably have heard of eXtreme Programming or XP. It's a type of agile software development and a lot of people think it's great. Some are trying to turn it into something more like software engineering and others are simply against it. So what is it all about and why does it ring true with some and makes no sense at all to others?

Apple has released details of an overhaul of app privacy disclosure that will affect any developer with an app on the Apple Store.

The release of .NET 5, announced at .NET Conf 2020, is a historic moment, but one tinged with regret and anxiety. This release unifies .NET to just one on-going framework. What this holds for the future isn't clear.

JetBrain's Jetpack Compose for Desktop is an open source project being developed in collaboration with Google’s Jetpack Compose, intended to simplify and accelerates UI development for desktop applications, and allow extensive UI code sharing between Android and desktop applications. It's first milestone release is now available. 

PyTorch has been updated with several new APIs including support for NumPy-Compatible FFT operations, profiling tools and major updates to both distributed data parallel (DDP) and remote procedure call (RPC) based distributed training.

A report that looks at trends in the usage of MongoDB alongside  SQL and other NoSQL database technologies, reveals a decline in SQL-only technologies at the same time as the adoption of  NoSQL technologies, to facilitate moving data to the cloud. 

There's an updated version of Uno that includes Linux and Windows 7 support using a new Skia rendering backend. Uno can be used to write C# and XAML once to create an app that will run on Windows, Android, macOS and iOS devices, as well as in web browsers via WebAssembly.

This month's TIOBE brings dramatic news. Python has replaced Java as the second most popular language. Although this was bound to happen sometime, we had not imagined it would be this soon.

Amazon has launched Luna, a cloud gaming service that it says game developers can use to reach multiple endpoints from a single source.

Launched at this week's Haskell eXchange online event, the newly formed Haskell Foundation has been established as a non-profit dedicated to broadening the adoption of the Haskell programming language. 

The .NET bindings for Spark have been updated. The new 1.0 version adds support for .NET apps targeting .NET Standard 2.0 or later, as well as support for Apache Spark DataFrame APIs.