Tech News - Application Development

There is a new operating system in the market which is designed in anticipation of the collapse of the current economic system - Collapse OS. The goal of this project is “to be as self-contained as possible.” With a copy of this project, its developer Virgil Dupras says, a capable person will be able to easily build and install Collapse OS without external resources. It will also be possible to build a machine with an exclusive design, and from discarded parts with low-tech tools. Dupras believes that the global supply chain will collapse before 2030 and post-collapse, it would be difficult to reproduce most of the electronics due to lack of supply chain. This will make it impossible to bootstrap the new electronic technology and thus limit its growth. At this point, Dupras says, Collapse OS can prove to be a good “starter kit”. He affirms that this operating system can be designed from “scavenged parts and program microcontrollers” with sufficient RAM and storage. Basically, Collapse OS is a z80 kernel, with a collection of programs, tools, and documentation to assemble an operating system. It can run on minimal and improvised machines and enables interfacing through improvised means like serial, keyboard, display. The Collapse Operating System can edit text and compile assembler source files for a wide range of microcontrollers and CPUs. It can also read and write from a wide range of storage devices and replicate itself. What is the current status of Collapse OS? Collapse OS is built from a GNU environment with minimal tooling and only requires libz80, which is an emulator of the z80 processor. It also has a shell that can poke memory, I/O, call arbitrary code from memory. It can also read SD cards and has a text editor modeled after UNIX's ed. Two days ago, a 5K binary zasm with a 2400 SLOC and 8K RAM usage was added in the apps, with an aim to assemble kernel or itself. Currently, Collapse OS can run on an RC2014 through a serial link with a directly plugged in PS/2 keyboard. It also runs on a Sega Master System or a MegaDrive (Genesis) with video output and D-Pad input and/or a PS/2 keyboard adapter. The unique concept of Collapse OS has led to an informative discussion on Hacker News. One of the queries included the availability of a rad-hardened version of z80. A user answered, “Given the relative simplicity of a z80 compared to newer CPU designs, it should be relatively "easy" to harden it. There was definitely a rad-hardened version of the 8085 (similar to the 8080, and therefore to the z80), which was used on the Sojourner rover (among various other NASA and ESA spacecraft). Seems like RISC processors were more common for this, though (looks like most relatively-recent NASA spacecraft - including pretty much all of NASA's Mars landers after Sojourner - use(d) rad-hardened POWER CPUs, e.g. the RAD6000 and RAD750).” Many users have found the concept of Collapse OS interesting. https://twitter.com/thepanta82/status/1181395008827645952 https://twitter.com/bradneuberg/status/1181273072759762944 https://twitter.com/EvanWard97/status/1181452898296832000 https://twitter.com/indigocat/status/1181297674408124418 A Redditor says, “This is so insanely cool, definitely the coolest project I have seen in a while. I am dry interested in minimal software (void Linux and suckles fanatic) but this is taking it to a new level. I have a ton of respect for people who work on projects geared towards more advanced users, I know that most of the time it’s a thankless job but please, for the love of god keep it up. We need more devs like this in the world!” Read the Collapse OS roadmap page for more information. You can also check out its Github for more details. Understanding network port numbers, TCP, UDP, and ICMP on an operating system Google’s secret Operating System ‘Fuchsia’ will run Android Applications: 9to5Google Report macOS Catalina is now available for download FCC can’t block states from passing their own net neutrality laws, states a U.S. court The US, UK, and Australian governments call Facebook’s end-to-end encryption plan a hindrance to investigating crimes

20 years after KDevelop’s first release, KDevelop 5.3 is now released with features like a new analyzer and improved support for some languages. A new type of analyzer plugin in KDevelop 5.3 In version 5.1 KDevelop got a menu entry Analyzer which provides a set of actions to work with analyzer-like plugins. With version 5.2, a runtime analyzer called Heaptrack and a static analyzer called cppcheck were added. In the development phase of KDevelop 5.3, another analyzer plugin was added which is available with the current release. The new analyzer named Clazy is a clang analyzer plugin specialized for Qt-using code. It can now also be run from within KDevelop by default displaying the issues inline. The KDevelop plugin for Clang-Tidy support will be released as part of KDevelop starting with version 5.4. It is released independently as of now. Internal changes in KDevelop 5.3 KDevelop's own codebase has been subject for using analyzers. A lot of code has been optimized and also stabilized in places indicated by the analyzers. There is also modernization to the new standards of languages like C++ and Qt5 with the aid of analyzers. Improved support for C++ Lot of work was done in KDevelop 5.3 on stabilizing and improving KDevelop’s clang-based language support for C++. The notable fixes include: In clang tooltips were included, range check was fixed. The path to the builtin clang compiler headers can now be overridden. Now the clang builtin headers are always used for the libclang version used. Requests are completed in a group and only the last one is handled. The template for Class/function signatures in Clang Code Completion is fixed. A workaround for constructor argument hints to find declarations. In clang, argument hint code completion is improved. Improved support for PHP With the help of Heinz Wiesinger, there are improvements for PHP support in KDevelop 5.3. There is much-improved support for PHP Namespaces. Support for Generators and Generator delegation is added. The integrated documentation of PHP internals has been updated and expanded. Support for context-sensitive lexer of PHP 7. Installing the parser as a library so other projects can use them. The type detection of object properties is improved. Support is added for the object typehint. ClassNameReferences is better supported. Improvements to expression syntax support particularly around 'print'. Optional function parameters are allowed before non-optional ones. Support for magic constants: __DIR__ and __TRAIT__ are added. Improved Python language support The focus is on fixing bugs, which have been added to the 5.2 series. A couple of improved features in 5.3 are: Environment profile variables are injected into debug process environment. The support for 'with' statements is improved. There is also experimental, but maintainer-seeking support for macOS and port for Haiku. For more details, visit the KDevelop website. Neuron: An all-inclusive data science extension for Visual Studio The LLVM project is ditching SVN for GitHub. The migration to Github has begun. Microsoft announces .NET standard 2.1

On the second day of GopherCon, 28th Aug, Microsoft announced contributions to the open-source Project Athens and their involvement with GopherSource. These announcements add to Microsoft’s efforts to better enable Go developers for making better apps and services. They support GO in Microsoft Visual Studio and on Azure cloud. Project Athens Package version changes in Go causes the current builds to break. This happens when the changed packages are dependencies for a working project. Project Athens stores and serves packages outside of Github, which means that Athens holds dependencies. It is an open source project released under the MIT license and is hosted on GitHub. Microsoft’s current focus is on improving the whole module experience. The aim is to ensure seamless working of Go modules with all proxy servers. They are working to set up a federated and diverse proxy network to include features like: Proxy server implementation for edge deployments in Go modules A new protocol for authenticated module proxies Adding module notary servers for source code authentication An include/exclude list for companies using Go to filter external Go packages Project Athens has been open-source and community owned since it was formed. While Microsoft engineers remain the core maintainers of the project, Athens is supported by many developers from the open-source community now. GopherSource Go can be confusing and intimidating to start using for both new and experienced developers. GopherSource is an initiative to enhance and expand the Go ecosystem by building up more contributors to contribute to Go and key Go projects, this includes Project Athens. GopherSource is like a community for Go developers, to contribute for upstreaming Go, give feedback, make proposals, and provide mentorship. Go at Microsoft There are many users at Microsoft who use Go to build products at scale. They implemented the core services behind Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) in Golang. Aaron Schlesinger, developer at Microsoft Azure, and core maintainer of Project Athens, stated in Microsoft’s blog post: “Internally, we contribute a significant amount of Go code to the cloud native ecosystem, including Virtual Kubelet, which enables scheduling Kubernetes workloads to off-cluster resources such as IoT Edge or Azure Container Instances; and Helm, the Kubernetes package manager.” For more, visit the Microsoft Blog. Go 2 design drafts include plans for better error handling and generics Golang 1.11 is here with modules and experimental WebAssembly port among other updates GoMobile: GoLang’s Foray into the Mobile World

The Rstudio team announced the general availability of their latest RStudio professional product, namely, RStudio Package Manager, two days ago. It explores features such as CRAN access, approved subsets of CRAN packages, adding internal packages from GitHub, and optimized experience for R users among others. RStudio Package Manager is an on-premises server product that helps teams and organizations centralize and organize R packages. In other words, it allows R users and the IT team to work together to build a central repository for R packages. Let’s discuss the features of this new Package Manager. CRAN access RStudio Package Manager allows R users to access CRAN (The Comprehensive R Archive Network) without requiring a network exception on every production node. It also helps automate CRAN updates on your schedule. Moreover, you can optimize the disk usage and only download the packages that you need. However, RStudio Package Manager does not provide binary packages from CRAN. It only provides source packages. This limitation will be addressed in the future. Approved subsets of CRAN packages RStudio Package Manager enables admins to create approved subsets of CRAN packages. It also makes sure that the subsets remain stable despite the adding or updating of packages. Adding internal packages using CLI Administrators can now add internal packages using the CLI. For instance, if your internal packages are in Git, then the RStudio Package Manager can automatically track your Git repositories. This is also capable of making the commits accessible to users. Optimized experience for R users RStudio Package Manager offers a seamless experience that gets optimized for R users. For instance, all packages are versioned which automatically makes the older versions accessible to users. This package Manager is also capable of recording the usage statistics. These metrics help administrators conduct audits and make it easy for R users to discover the popular and most useful packages. For more information, check out the official Rstudio package manager blog. Getting Started with RStudio Introducing R, RStudio, and Shiny

This week the team behind Linux Mint announced the release of Linux Mint 19.2 beta, a desktop Linux distribution used for producing a modern operating system. This release is codenamed as Tina. This release comes with updated software and refinements and new features for making the desktop more comfortable to use. What’s new in Linux Mint 19.2 beta? Update Manager The Update Manager now shows how long kernels are supported and users no longer need to install or remove kernels one by one anymore. Users can now queue installations and removals as well as install and remove multiple kernels in one go. A new button called "Remove Kernels" has been added to make for removing obsolete kernels. There is also support for kernel flavors now. The Update Manager will now show a combobox for users to switch between flavors. Improved menu mintMenu, the main application menu, has received many bug fixes and performance improvements. Also,Even the search bar position and the tooltips are now configurable. In this release, the applet icon now supports both icon files and themed icons. Software Manager A loading screen now shows up when the cache is being refreshed in the Software Manager. Software Manager can now share the same cache and can also list the applications which were installed via other means (other than Software Manager). The cache used by the Software Manager has been moved to mint-common and is turned into a Python module that can recognize manually installed software.  New buttons added in the Maintenance section In this release, two new buttons are made available in the "Maintenance" section of the "Software Sources" configuration tool: Add Missing Keys: With the help of this button, users can now scan their repositories and PPAs and download any key that might be missing. Remove duplicate sources: With the help of this button, users can find and fix duplicated definitions in their sources configuration. Read Also: Ubuntu free Linux Mint Project, LMDE 3 ‘Cindy’ Cinnamon, released Announcing MATE 1.22 The Mint team also announced that Linux Mint 19.2 will be shipped with MATE 1.22 which now comes with improved stability and bug fixes. MATE is the Linux desktop that started as a fork of GNOME 2 in 2011 due to the poor reception of GNOME 3.  What’s new in MATE 1.22? It comes with support for metacity-3 themes. This release features better-looking window and desktop switchers. MATE 1.22 features systemd support in the session manager. It has support for new compression formats and can easily pause/resume compression/decompression. It seems users are happy with this news. A user commented on the official post, “Hi Mint Team. Great job so far. Looks very smooth – even for a beta. Menu is crazy fast!!!”  Few others are complaining about the graphical glitches they faced. Another user commented, “Hi team and thanks for your latest offering, there is a LOT to like about this and I will provide as much useful feedback as I can, I have had an issue with graphical glitches from Linux Mint 19x Cinnamon.” To know more about this news, check out the official blog post. Ubuntu free Linux Mint Project, LMDE 3 ‘Cindy’ Cinnamon, released Is Linux hard to learn? Ubuntu 19.04 Disco Dingo Beta releases with support for Linux 5.0 and GNOME 3.32

Last month, the team at Microsoft introduced content camera feature to the Microsoft Teams Rooms useful for meetings. With this feature, users can intelligently include a whiteboard for presentation in their Teams meeting.  https://twitter.com/randychapman/status/1169884205141987332 Microsoft Teams content camera uses Artificial Intelligence to detect, crop and frame the in-room traditional whiteboard and also share its content with the participants (in the meeting). Interestingly, the new feature makes the presenter standing in front of the whiteboard translucent so that remote participants can see the content right through them. https://youtu.be/1XvgH2rNpmk IT administrators can add certified content cameras to their USB ports in the Microsoft Teams Rooms systems. Once the content camera connects to the room, the admin can select the respective camera for input with the Device Settings menu. Currently, Crestron and Logitech cameras are available and certified for use with the Teams content camera functionality. The team at Microsoft has announced that they will be adding more cameras soon. Microsoft partners are also offering unique mounting systems so that users can fit their cameras into any meeting space. The company announced that ceiling tiles and digital signal processor (DSPs) options are also certified for use in the meeting rooms.  Users seem to be excited about this news, a user commented on HackerNews, “I don't see myself using this, but its really cool. The whole "see through presenter" thing is awesome. Somewhat unrelated, but it would be really cool to see that done using AR glasses.” https://twitter.com/AndrewMorpeth/status/1169907577905270784 https://twitter.com/ramsacDan/status/1170595795873292288 To know more about this news, check out the official post. Other interesting news in programming Microsoft introduces Static TypeScript, as an alternative to embedded interpreters, for programming MCU-based devices LLVM 9.0 RC3 is now out with official RISC-V support, updates to SystemZ and more Developers from the Swift for TensorFlow project propose adding first-class differentiable programming to Swift  

GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is a popular Open source compiler system from the GNU Project. Recently the GNU Project announced the release of GCC 8.1 with added features for its support for languages like C, C++, Java, ADA, GO, Objective-C, among others. This release is the first stable release for GCC v8 with a lot of improvements over previous standards. This release brings an enhancement in C++ support and debugging for various languages. GNU has significantly improved the implementation of Go language to run smoothly with the latest version of Go i.e. v1.10. Apart from the compiler improvement, there has been an addition of garbage collector feature for Golang. GNU has also worked on one of the leading features of GCC compiler: Profile-driven optimization. This feature enables fail-safe compiling using several iterations of compiling and generating a profile of the runtime behavior. Based on the behavior of the program, GCC optimizes the compilation of the program. With the new improvement, GCC can detect code that is not compiled properly and can trigger the code in next instances. Some of the features that were worked on this release include the following: Improvement in compiler diagnostics enhancing the error and warning information at compile time Better Link-time optimization (LTO) using a new Dwarf format debug information. The libstdc++ library feature from C++17 and C++ 2a libraries C language extensions that support automatic vectorization for the latest AMD processors. One of the most important features to note is the support for C++ 20 (C++ 2a) which is currently under development. Also the support for the newer ARM CPUs, Intel CPUs, AMD HSA, among others is worth noting in this release. For more information about changes in GCC 8.1, you can see the changelog. Also, this release is available from GNU FTP servers. More news in application development: What’s new in Visual Studio 1.22 What is Mob Programming?

ReSharper is one of the leading productivity tools from JetBrains. It is integrated with Visual Studio and provides enhancement and automation for .NET project development. JetBrains announced the general availability of ReSharper 2018.1, making it the first important release for this year. One of the major improvement speculated was the support for C# 7.2. JetBrains have finalized the support by adding all the entities that are specifically part of C# 7.2. This will ensure that the code written with latest C# modifiers and operators does not throw an error in ReSharper. Additionally, there are significant bug fixes made to this release. One of the improvements that Jetbrains highlighted in the release, is the Navigation. ReSharper 2018.1 has tools to better filter the search string and provide a better overview of the members of the code. Major additions in ReSharper Ultimate: Debug Step Filters in ReSharper C++ helps you in search related to functions while debugging. Include Analyzer helps with managing dependencies in the header files while compilation. Easy navigation with Analysis Subject panel in dotMemory 2018.1. The redesigned continuous testing mode in dotCover 2018.1 can be made to run in the existing unit test session instead of running another continuous test session. Console runner redesigned for dotCover 2018.1 helps giving coverage analysis for web applications running on IIS server. Code formatting engine has been improved to avoid problems related to indenting, line breaks, spaces, etc. Code formatting problems can be rectified in the code editor itself. Update in managing StyleCop rules directly from StyleCop configuration files. StyleCop analyzes the C# code for style and consistency throughout the development. This update will enhance consistency in code styling for C# developers. Other handy features to make developer's life simple are: Pre-/Post- build support for ReSharper Build engine A new option, known as Remember last search for navigation New settings for parentheses in function declaration and wrapping LINQ expressions ReSharper 2018.1 redefines the code navigation and enhances development with C# 7.x version. Also, improvements in unit testing in ReSharper will certainly catch attention for this release. Latest ReSharper Ultimate 2018.1 is available for download from the official JetBrains website.  

Last week, the team behind Emacs, the customizable libre text editor announced the first release candidate of Emacs 26.3. Again on Wednesday, the team announced a maintenance release, Emacs 26.3. Key features in Emacs 26.3? New GPG key for GNU ELPA Emacs 26.3 now features a new GPG (GNU Privacy Guard) key for GNU ELPA package signature checking (GNU ELPA package is the default package repository for GNU Emacs). New option to help-enable-completion-auto-load This release also features a new option ‘help-enable-completion-auto-load’ that allows users to disable the new feature that was introduced in Emacs 26.1 which was responsible for loading files during the completion of ‘C-h f’ and ‘C-h v’. Supports the Japanese Era name This release now supports the new Japanese Era name. Few users expected more changes in this release, a user commented on HackerNews, “So ... only two relevant changes this time?” While others think that there are editors comparatively better than Emacs. Another user commented, “I don't want to start a flamewar, but I moved most things I was doing in Emacs to Textadept a while back because I found Textadept more convenient. That's not to say TA does everything you can do in Emacs, but it replaced all of the scripting I was doing with Emacs. You have the full power of Lua inside TA. Emacs always has a lag when I start it up, whereas TA is instant. I slowly built up functionality inside TA to the point that I realized I could replace everything I was doing in Emacs.” To know more about this news, check out the mailing thread. What’s new in application development this week? Google Chrome 76 now supports native lazy-loading Introducing ActiveState State Tool, a CLI tool to automate dev & test setups, workflows, share secrets and manage ad-hoc tasks #Reactgate forces React leaders to confront community’s toxic culture head on    

CMake 3.12.0 is now available for download. The new release includes changes in generators, command lines, variables, modules and other updates. Let’s have a look at major changes and new features in CMake 3.12.0 Key Updates Here are the new features added in the latest release: Generators The Visual Studio Generators for VS 2017 now offers support for version=14.## option in the CMAKE_GENERATOR_TOOLSET value (e.g. via the cmake(1) -T option). This helps in specifying a toolset version number. Command Line The cmake(1) Build Tool Mode (cmake --build) gained --parallel [<jobs>] and -j [<jobs>] options. This helps to specify a parallel build level. They also help map to the corresponding options in the native build tool. Commands The add_compile_definitions() command is now added to set the preprocessor definitions at a directory level. This supersedes add_definitions(). Also, the cmake_minimum_required() and cmake_policy(VERSION) commands can now accept a version range using the form <min>[...<max>]. The list() command offers a SUBLIST sub-command to get a sublist of the list. Variables The CMAKE_SUPPRESS_REGENERATION variable is extended and now provides support to the Ninja and Makefile Generators. The CMAKE_FOLDER variable has been added to initialize the FOLDER property on all targets. Properties VS_SHADER_DISABLE_OPTIMIZATIONS and VS_SHADER_ENABLE_DEBUG, which are the properties of HLSL source file now offer support for generator expressions. HLSL source file property VS_SHADER_OBJECT_FILE_NAME has been added to the Visual Studio Generators for VS 2010 and above. The property helps to specify the file name of the compiled shader object. Modules The FindALSA module is now capable of providing imported targets. The FindMatlab module offers support for the Matlab Runtime Compiler (MCR) for compiling and linking matlab extensions. The UseSWIG module has also gained support now for CSHARP variant wrapper files. Generator Expressions A new $<GENEX_EVAL:...> and $<TARGET_GENEX_EVAL:target,...> generator expression is now added to allow consumption of generator expressions. Their evaluation itself delivers generator expressions. Added a new $<TARGET_NAME_IF_EXISTS:...> generator expression. Other changes The Visual Studio 8 2005 generator has been deprecated. Fortran dependency scanning now provides support for dependencies implied by Fortran Submodules. The Compile Features functionality will now make use of C features in MSVC since VS 2010. For more information on the latest updates and features, check out the official CMake 3.12.0 release notes. Qt for Python 5.11 released! Apache NetBeans 9.0 RC1 released!  

Yesterday, the team behind NativeScript announced the release of NativeScript 6.0. This release features faster delivery of patches with the help of NativeScript AppSync and it comes with the NativeScript Core Theme that works for all NativeScript components. This release comes with an improved TabView that enables common scenarios without custom development. NativeScript 6.0 comes with support for AndroidX and Angular 8. https://twitter.com/ufsa/status/1151755519062958081 Introducing NativeScript AppSync Yesterday, the team also introduced NativeScript AppSync which is a beta service that enables users to deliver a new version of their application instantly. Users can have a look at the demo here: https://youtu.be/XG-ucFqjG6c Core Theme v2 and Dark Theme The NativeScript Core Theme provides common UI infrastructure for building consistent and good-looking user interface. The team is also introducing a Dark Theme that comes with the skins of the Light Theme.  Kendo Themes  The users who are using the Kendo components for their web applications can now reuse their Kendo theme in NativeScript. They can also use the Kendo Theme Builder for building a new theme for their NativeScript application.  Plug and play With this release, the NativeScript Core Theme is now completely plug and play. Users can now manually set classes to their components and can easily install the theme. TabView All the components of the TabView are now styleable and also the font icons are now supported. Users can now have multiple TabView components that are nested, similar to having tabs and bottom navigation on the same page. These new capabilities are still in beta. Bundle Workflow With NativeScript 6.0, the NativeScript CLI will now support the Bundle Workflow, a single unified way for building applications. Hot Module Replacement (HMR) is also enabled by default and users can disable it by providing the `--no-hmr` flag to the executed command. To know more about this news, check out the official blog post. NativeScript 5.0 released with code sharing, hot module replacement, and more! JavaScript mobile frameworks comparison: React Native vs Ionic vs NativeScript Nativescript 4.1 has been released  

Yesterday, Red Hat announced that it will serve as a steward of OpenJDK 8 and OpenJDK 11, following the transition from Oracle. “With this transition”, says Red Hat, “we are affirming our support of the Java community and following a similar path that led to its leadership of both the OpenJDK 6 and OpenJDK 7 projects.” At the end of January 2019, Oracle officially ended free public updates to Oracle JDK for non-Oracle customer commercial users. These users will no longer be able to get updates without an Oracle support contract. Additionally, Oracle has changed the Oracle JDK license (BCPL) so that commercial use for JDK 11 and beyond will require an Oracle subscription. The leadership transfer actually happened mid-February, when Red Hat's Java technical lead, Andrew Haley was assigned as the Lead Maintainer in the JDK 8u Updates and JDK 11u Updates projects in OpenJDK. While Andrew is the lead whose job is to accept backports, the actual people who do the backporting work span multiple companies: Red Hat, SAP, Oracle, Amazon, Google, etc. These vendors share the backporting, reviewing, testing work. OpenJDK 8u, 11u Update Projects is where that collaboration happens, and Red Hat is leading that collaboration. Additionally, in December 2018, Red Hat announced commercial support for OpenJDK on Microsoft Windows. Red Hat plans to launch OpenJDK in a Microsoft installer in the coming weeks and distribute IcedTea-Web, the free software implementation of Java Web Start, as part of the Windows OpenJDK distribution. Mike Piech, vice president, and general manager, Middleware, Red Hat notes, " There is a developer hunger to bring Java into the next generation of development, and Red Hat is a leader in this movement through our involvement in the OpenJDK project. We are helping to lead the way in our efforts to enable users of JDK to have support and innovation in their existing environments. Red Hat remains committed to Java and is excited to have the opportunity to help steward the OpenJDK community." The OpenJDK Transition: Things to know and do Mark Reinhold on the evolution of Java platform and OpenJDK RedHat’s OperatorHub.io makes it easier for Kuberenetes developers and admins to find pre-tested ‘Operators’ for applications.

Last week, the team behind NetNewsWire released NetNewsWire 5.0, a free and open-source RSS reader for Mac. NetNewsWire lets users read articles from their favorite blogs and news sites and keeps a track of what users have already read. So, users need not switch from page to page for reading new articles, instead, NetNewsWire would provide them with a list of new articles. In 2002, NetNewsWire started as Brent Simmons’ project which was sold in 2005 and again in 2011. Simmons finally re-acquired NetNewsWire from Black Pixel last year, and relaunched it as version 5 this year.  Previously, when NetNewsWire began as a project, it was named as “Evergreen” but later on became NetNewsWire in 2018. In this release of NetNewsWire 5.0, JSON Feed support, syncing via Feedbin, Dark Mode, a “Today” smart feed, starred articles, and more such features are included.  Key features included in NetNewsWire 5.0 Three pane-design As per the image given below, NetNewsWire 5.0 features a common three-pane design where the users’ feed and folders are on the extreme left hand side. The article lists for each of the feeds lie in the middle column, and the readers can view the article in the right column. Image Source: The Sweet Setup Dark mode NNW 5 comes with a light and dark mode that ensures it fits well with macOS’s dark mode support. New buttons The buttons have a design which is similar to the Mac design. This version features buttons that can be used for creating a new folder, sending an article to Safari or marking an article as unread. Smart feed article list  The Smart feed article list features the article title, feed’s icon, a short description from the article, as well as the time the article was published, and the publisher’s name. The “Today” smart feed list shows articles that got published in the last 24 hours instead of the articles that were published post midnight on the current date. Unread articles The unread articles in a feed are marked with a bright blue dot and users can double-click an article in the article list to open it directly in Safari. Keyboard shortcuts Users can now mark all articles in a given feed as “read” by pressing CMD + K. Users can now jump between their smart feeds with the combination of CMD + 1/2/3. Users can also jump to the browser by simply hitting CMD + right arrow key. By hitting the spacebar, users can jump through an article.  What is expected in the future? Support for more services NetNewsWire supports only its own local RSS service and Feedbin. And currently, the local RSS service doesn’t support syncing to any other service. Support for more services is expected in the future.  Read-It-Later Support Apps like Reeder and Fiery Feeds (on iOS) are working on their own read-it-later features as of late and NetNewsWire 5 doesn’t support such kind of feature. iOS version The team is currently working on the iOS version of NetNewsWire. It seems users are overall excited about this release. A user commented on HackerNews, “This looks very good, I'm just waiting for Feedly compatibility.” To know more about this news, check out the official post. What’s new in application development this week? Twilio launched Verified By Twilio, that will show customers who is calling them and why Emacs 26.3 comes with GPG key for GNU ELPA package signature check and more! Introducing ActiveState State Tool, a CLI tool to automate dev & test setups, workflows, share secrets and manage ad-hoc tasks

Embarcadero has made a significant announcement of launching the community edition for its premium products Delphi, a cross-platform IDE and C++Builder, a powerful C++ IDE. With the community edition, the developers can start using both the products without any charge and access most of the features that are part of the Professional Edition. Apart from the developers, they have the free access to the organizations with less than $5,000 in annual revenue. This announcement is getting a big welcome in the community, considering the offerings for developers, startups, freelancers who have struggled to enter the Delphi ecosystem for years. Delphi has been unpopular among the native applications developers. This may be because of the entry point pricing. As such, this move seems to ease that barrier at least for the developers, using different IDEs. Delphi's community edition is said to provide access to all the features and components from the Professional edition. This will permit developing open source projects at no cost to the developers. Apart from the normal community edition offering, Delphi and C++Builder have free trial versions of the Pro, Enterprise, and Architect version of the products available. Embarcadero did not talk about RAD Studio, one of the 3 premium tools apart from Delphi and C++Builder in its lineup. RAD Studio is a platform to write, compile, and deploy cross-platform applications. You can download the starter edition for Delphi and C++Builder from the Embarcadero’s community website. In case you want to try other offerings, you can opt for a 30 days trial. Delphi: memory management techniques for parallel programming Implementing C++ libraries in Delphi for HPC [Tutorial] Delphi Cookbook

Last month, the team at Ruby announced that support for Ruby 2.3 series has ended. Security and bug fixes from the recent Ruby versions won’t be backported to Ruby 2.3. As there won’t be any patches of 2.3, the Ruby team has recommended users to upgrade to Ruby 2.6 or 2.5 as soon as possible. Currently supported Ruby versions Ruby 2.6 series Ruby 2.6 series is currently in the normal maintenance phase. The team will backport bug fixes and will release an urgent fix for it in case of urgent security issue/bug. Ruby 2.5 series Ruby 2.5 series is currently in the normal maintenance phase. The team will backport bug fixes and will release an urgent fix for it in case of urgent security issue/bug. Ruby 2.4 series Ruby 2.4 series is currently in security maintenance phase. The team won’t backport any bug fixes to 2.4 except for security fixes. The team will release an urgent fix for it in case of urgent security issue/bug. The team is also planning to end the support for Ruby 2.4 series by March 31, 2020. To know more about this news, check out the post by Ruby. How Deliveroo migrated from Ruby to Rust without breaking production Ruby on Rails 6.0 Beta 1 brings new frameworks, multiple DBs, and parallel testing Ruby 2.6.0 released with a new JIT compiler