Programming News Picks: Focus on Free Software
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-02-16 23:26:19 UTC
- Modified: 2014-02-16 23:26:19 UTC
Summary: 2014 news picks that focus on programming and development, especially of Free software or using Free software tools
Demise of Proprietary
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HTML5 developers queried recently by tools vendor Sencha remain dedicated to building apps via Web technologies, even as doubts have been cast on how effective HTML5 is vis à vis native development. Many of those same developers, however, have dropped support for the classic Microsoft Windows platform.
Surveying 2,128 business application developers from the HTML5 development community, including users of its own tools, Sencha found that 70-plus percent of developers planned to do more with HTML5 in the 2013 timeframe than they had done the previous year. And 75 percent will work further with HTML5 in 2014. More than 60 percent of developers have migrated to HTML5 and hybrid development for primary applications. For the coming year, just 4 percent of HTML5 developers plan to cut back on HTML5.
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I still remember IBM's provocative announcement in 2001 that it was putting $1 billion toward the development and promotion of Linux. While such billion-dollar commitments from IBM are now so routine as to be unremarkable, back then a billion dollars meant a lot. I was working for an embedded Linux vendor at the time, and most of our sales cycle was spent explaining why GPL-licensed Linux wasn't the technology equivalent of terminal cancer. (Thanks in part to Microsoft's contribution.)
Google
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The second video features Jason Hibbets's full interview with Chris DiBona Open Source Director at Google. Find out how DiBona measures his performance, why he once called open source "brutal," and more on working for Google and the future of open source.
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Over 280 attendees representing 177 mentoring organizations gathered for a two-day, code-munity extravaganza celebrating the conclusion of Google Summer of Code with the annual Mentor Summit held at Google in Mountain View, California.
GitHub
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GitHub's position as the repository of choice for open source community projects is today one of dominance, most would argue.
Officially often referred to as a "web-based revision control service" (rather than simply a software code repository), this classification is an obvious nod to the site's inherent level of active community involvement as open projects are continuously developed, refined and augmented.
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So, what’s the problem? Well, that’s simple. It seems that Fox News’ technology department –run by a motley crew of half-witted quick-study-types– failed to explain GitHub, and also disregarded both spelling and punctuation in favor of adopting what I would describe as a rogue journalistic style; a style that exists far beyond the confines of traditional English language rules. It is now with great pleasure that I flog the holy-hell out of the following screen capture in an attempt to make them cry.
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I have an open source script for a specific site (I'm trying not to call anything by name here) that a few other developers and I recently moved to GitHub. We've been joined by several new developers since we moved to the new system, including one very active one in particular. However, this active one has started changing a lot of the project.
First of all, he deleted our versioning system (not like Git, but like that—we called it versions v4.1.16) and said it would be better to simply push the code to the site when we think it's ready. Now there's no centralized place to put release notes, which has become annoying.
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GitHub has become the de facto repository for open source projects. So, we were excited for the opportunity to sit down with GitHub's co-founder and CIO Scott Chacon during the All Things Open Conference in Raleigh, NC.
Python
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One year ago the Puerto Rico Python Interest Group (prPIG) was founded on one purpose; to create a sustainable user community based on software development in Puerto Rico. On February 20, 2014 we will celebrate our first anniversary with an open format meeting with lightning talks from the community.
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Programming languages are crucial to a programmer as they boosts their productivity. Keeping in mind the fact that programmers may not be comfortable with all the coding languages around, we thought of compiling a list of programming languages set to make it big in 2014.
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Python community, friends, fellow developers, we need to talk. On December 3rd, 2008 Python 3.0 was first released. At the time it was widely said that Python 3 adoption was going to be a long process, it was referred to as a five year process. We've just passed the five year mark.
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In an article entitled “Python Displacing R As The Programming Language For Data Science,” MongoDB’s Matt Asay made an argument that has been circulating for some time now. As Python has steadily improved its data science credentials, from Numpy to Pandas, with even R’s dominant ggplot2 charting library having been ported, its viability as a real data science platform improves daily. More than any other language in fact, save perhaps Java, Python is rapidly becoming a lingua franca, with footholds in every technology arena from the desktop to the server.
Git
LLVM
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It looks like there's finally going to be stable point releases of the LLVM compiler infrastructure for pushing out bug-fixes quicker, whether you're using the Clang C/C++ compiler or depending upon LLVM for your GPU driver compiler back-end.
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It's nearly one month late but the LLVM 3.4 compiler infrastructure is now available with the updated Clang C/C++ compiler front-end, the usual LLVM sub-projects, and also some new compiler tools.
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The release of LLVM 3.4 is imminent and with the major compiler infrastructure upgrade comes update to the Clang C/C++ compiler front-end, LLDB debugger, and other LLVM sub-projects. LLVM 3.4 is a very righteous release and in celebration of its forthcoming release, it's back into compiler benchmarking season at Phoronix.
Ruby
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Ruby 2.1 has many improvements including speedup without severe incompatibilities.
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The Ruby project has done a new major release on Christmas for their popular programming language. Ruby offers performance speed-ups but without severe incompatibilities, according to the release announcement.
Misc.
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Regular readers of this column won't be surprised to hear that I love both Ruby on Rails and PostgreSQL. Rails has been my primary server-side Web development framework for about eight years, and it has managed to provide solutions for a large number of consulting and personal projects. As for PostgreSQL, I've been using it for about 15 years, and I continue to be amazed by the functionality it has gained in that time. PostgreSQL is no longer just a relational database. It's also a platform supporting the storage and retrieval of many types of data, built on a rock-solid, ACID-compliant, transactional core.
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In the sometimes dark and mysterious world of computers, I see open source programming and community around it as a force of good. Open source sparks and kindles a connection between people that I think is hard to find elsewhere in programming. Working with open source, a programmer builds important and powerful collaboration skills. This is significant because many of us (programmers and self-proclaimed nerds) are rather antisocial. Open source programming helps us cultivate social behaviors like sharing, improved communication, and collaborating towards a common goal.
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So by the mid-1980s, programming in schools was surging...
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The Checkpoint-Restore Tool has reached version 1.0 as part of the CRIU project. Checkpoint/Restore In Userspace allows for users to freeze running applications and checkpoint it to the hard drive as a file and that checkpoint can then be restored to a running process later on. CRIU is different from suspend-and-resume with the Linux kernel in that this is a tool for handling individual programs and it is implemented in user-space.
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The development team behind the Clutter software, a library for creating compelling, portable, dynamic and fast graphical user interfaces (GUI), has announced a few days ago that the second maintenance release of the stable Clutter 1.16 branch is available for download.
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Jim Kukunas of Intel OTC published the set of 13 patches on Monday that include medium and quick deflate strategies, a faster hash function with SSE 4.2 support, PCLMULQDQ-optimized CRC folding, SSE2 hash shifting, and other changes/tuning.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- BetaNews Has More or Less Died After Experiments With LLM Slop, Is Linuxsecurity Next?
- It doesn't seem like BetaNews knows what it's doing, let alone what it talks about
- Links 13/06/2025: Journalists Targeted by Cracking, China-Japan and Israel-Iran Tensions Grow
- Links for the day
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- Links 14/06/2025: Wars and L.A. Distortion Effect
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 14/06/2025: Historic Ada Design and GeminiSpace.Club to Expire
- Links for the day
- Links 14/06/2025: India Plane Crash and Middle-Eastern War
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 13, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, June 13, 2025
- Gemini Links 13/06/2025: (Not)virtues and Project Yeet Broadband
- Links for the day
- Links 13/06/2025: US Reduces Nonessential Staff at Baghdad Embassy Ahead of Strikes in Iran, Invasion of California Debated
- Links for the day
- X11 is Free Software
- Whether you agree (e.g. on politics) with the person/s forking it doesn't matter
- The More Time Passes, the Better Our Advice on Social Control Media Seems
- At the end of the day, any platform you do not control yourself is working for someone else
- Twitter (X) is Dying, Now It's Just Like a Mafia-Type Operation of the Man Who Does Nazi Salutes in Public
- a form of extortion
- UK High Court Blasts Brett Wilson LLP for Misusing "GDPR" After Failed Efforts to Censor Critics Using 'Libel' Claims
- No wonder this firm is rapidly shrinking
- Recent Blunders in Microsoft GitHub (e.g. Slop-Generated Bug Reports or GPL Violations 'as a Service') Taking Their Toll?
- Put bluntly, if you still use Microsoft GitHub, then you're slave to Microsoft
- American Imperialism and Microsoft Plagiarism
- Techrights will therefore do what Microsoft does not want it to do: it'll write even more about Microsoft
- When They Have Nothing Left to Help Advance Abusive Litigation for Microsoft People... Other Than Throwing ~500 Pages of Someone Else's Work Into a PDF
- Microsoft is having a very tough year
- The Price of Exposing Corruption in Poland (and Elsewhere)
- It's easier to participate in corruption than to merely do the right thing and oppose it
- Slopwatch and Yet More Holes in 'Secure Boot' (as Usual!), Promoted Inside Linux by the Man We Are Suing
- Today's Slopwatch will be short
- Gemini Links 13/06/2025: People You've Left Behind, Life Update and OS Changes
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 12, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, June 12, 2025
- Links 12/06/2025: Portland Homeless Deaths Quadruple, COVID Cases Surge in Asia
- Links for the day
- Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IX: Minimum Wages For You (Experienced Scientist), Alicante/EU Paydays For Me (Unproductive, Corrupt Official)
- Does UPRP maladministration extend to the false belief that qualified and experienced scientists can play the role of circus clowns?
- "The Liberating Power of Simply Telling People the Truth."
- 'polite' bullying
- Who Imitates Who? Plagiarist as Client (From Microsoft), 'Plagiarism' at the Law Firm?
- let's revisit the subject
- EPO's Gareth Lord Asked About "Quality and Productivity" or, Put Another Way, Why the EPO Keeps Granting So Many Invalid/Illegal Patents
- letter to Lord
- EPO's Central Staff Committee (CSC) Scrutinises the Man Who Illegally Grants (and Forces Others to Illegally Participate in Granting) Software Patents in Europe
- EPO compels examiners to break the law in the name of obeying illegal "rules" or "orders"
- The Latest Rumour Says The Next (as Correctly Predicted Before) Wave of Layoffs at Microsoft is 3 Weeks Away, "Larger Than the First Wave"
- Step 2
- TV Licensing Used to SPAM Your Postbox, Now It Does the Same to E-mail
- First they ask for your E-mail address; then they start nagging you via E-mail
- The Toxic Playbook
- Either you support Prince Mohammed bin Salman or you're a nazi
- It's Possible That BetaNews Got Cracked, But Nobody Talks About It, The Site Contains an Outdated Old Image, No Activity
- It's possible that they will never explain what happened to the site and users' accounts
- Links 12/06/2025: Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson Dies
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 12/06/2025: Video Game Diegesis and Steam Next Fest
- Links for the day
- Why the Militants Have Lost Every Battle Since 2022 (When Attacking My Wife and I in Various Ways, Even Attacking Our Employers)
- This takes patience, sure, but at the end most evildoers face the consequences for their actions
- Our Priority is Still Tackling Software Patents and Corruption in Patent Offices
- Meanwhile we got compliments on our recent articles, which means that they are effective
- Politics Will Impact Software Choices
- Will those systems respect users' freedom?
- EPO: Neglecting Children to Promote American Monopolies by Shielding Them From European Competition
- Yesterday the Central Staff Committee at the EPO spoke about another "reform" at the Office
- Slopwatch: Another Day, Another Slopfest, LLM Slop Scrapers Slow Down Our Site
- We too have some slop issues; this past day this site and the sister site had to answer about 2.5 million requests (not counting Gemini Protocol) and it's slowing things down for everybody
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, June 11, 2025