Apache Kafka 2.5 was launched with new metrics and security features, among other improvements. 

Additionally, some preparatory work was done towards the removal of Apache Zookeeper such as KIP-555: details about the ZooKeeper deprecation process in admin tools, and KIP-543: dynamic configs will not require ZooKeeper access

Producer scalability for exactly once semantics has been added and the reliability of idempotent/transactional producer has been improved. 

Additional details on the new release are available here.

Google Play policy updates
The updates include more transparent subscription offers, and unnecessary location access was limited (developers need to get approval if they want to access background location in their app). 

“We suggest that you review location best practices and evaluate whether you have appropriate disclosures, and really need background location; however, no action will be taken for new apps until August 2020 or existing apps until November 2020,” Google wrote in a blog post that contains more details about the policies.

Free intro Flutter course
The free course contains 10 hours of video and hands-on tutorials on how to build apps using Dart and a walk-through on building nine real-world apps that run on iOS and Android.

This course requires no prior Flutter experience, and we hope this gives you the chance to build new development skills for iOS, Android, and the web, according to Flutter in a post.

Flutter is Google’s UI toolkit for building natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase.

Microsoft releases new implementation of its C++ Core Guidelines Support Library (GSL)
Version 3.0.0 of Microsoft’s implementation of the C++ Core GSL is now available for download and it includes new implementations of ‘gsl::span’ and ‘gsl::span_iterator’ that align to the C++ 20 standard.

It also includes changes to contract violation behavior, additional CMake support, and the deprecation of ‘gsl::multi_span’ and ‘gsl::strided_span.’

Additional details on the new version are available here.

Coder raises $30 million to bring software dev to the cloud
Coder raised $30 million in a Series B funding round to move software development into the cloud. This brings Coder’s total funding to $43 million.

“Today Coder provides open-source tools and an enterprise platform that makes it easier than ever for organizations of all sizes to configure, secure and scale development environments, dramatically increasing productivity,” Coder wrote in a post.

Coder Enterprise orchestrates full-featured development environments, which can be deployed on either public or private clouds.