The Django Software Foundation kept busy in 2014 by promoting, supporting and improving its open-source project, the Django Web framework. As the organization prepares for the upcoming year, it is looking to further its 2014 accomplishments. One of the biggest community achievements the foundation accomplished last year was the development of the Django Girls organization, … continue reading
Firefox Hello, the WebRTC in-browser chat feature first included in Firefox 34, is now available to all with the launch of Firefox 35. The real-time communication feature allows users to start plug-in-free video chats within the browser in the form of a pop-up box, without the aid of a service such as Google Hangouts and … continue reading
The Apache Software Foundation has announced Apache Flink as a Top-Level Project (TLP). Flink is an open-source Big Data system that fuses processing and analysis of both batch and streaming data. The data-processing engine, which offers APIs in Java and Scala as well as specialized APIs for graph processing, is presented as an alternative to … continue reading
Microsoft isn’t happy about Google’s disclosure of a zero-day vulnerability in Windows 8.1, and the company has publicly voiced its displeasure. In a blog post entitled “A Call for Better Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure,” senior director of Microsoft’s Security Response Center Chris Betz admonished Google for disclosing the vulnerability only two days before Microsoft was scheduled … continue reading
Developers today are looking seriously at the advantages to be had from free entry-level versions of commercial software—so-called “freemium” software. Developers often see freemiums as great test beds for potential commercial products. This is a trend that looks to be taking hold in the enterprise and developer communities. Freemium, a mix of “free” and “premium” … continue reading
In some ways, open source in 2014 meant more than it ever had in years prior. Where once Linux was the primary standard-bearer of open source in the enterprise, in 2014 there were too many gigantic open-source projects appealing to enterprises that it’s difficult to pick just one to hold up as the model for … continue reading
Normally an article about a programming language and framework that both have been with us for more than a decade would be anything but a page-turner. When it comes to C# and .NET, it turns out there’s a big story to tell, including things that could spell another decade of that language (and maybe even … continue reading
For all its surface frenzy, 2014 was a year in which the biggest news stories in the programming language community were about acknowledging reality and bowing to the inevitable. First, there was Java 8. For Java developers, this release is the most important since before the turn of the century—probably the most important release since … continue reading
A change at the top, followed by a clearly defined focus, with an all-out embrace of open technologies and an increased update release cycle. Throw in a further commitment to consumer devices for good measure. One could argue that 2014 was the year of Microsoft. Or, at least, the year it remade itself. But it … continue reading
In 2014, the selection of cloud platforms and services was more plentiful than ever before, and it saw countless partnerships and integrations to tie them all together. Cloud users and developers are dropping eggs in many different baskets, be it Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud or open-source platforms such as … continue reading
Software vulnerabilities have existed for as long as there has been software. Organizations and their developers have been locked in a cat-and-mouse game with the legion of hackers looking to steal data. Every time one breach is fixed, another is exploited, and ‘round and ‘round it goes. So, after Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, Edward Snowden, … continue reading
GitHub is warning users to update their Git clients as soon as possible. A critical security vulnerability has been found in Git, affecting all Git clients and software related to Git repositories such as GitHub for Windows and GitHub for Mac. “We strongly encourage all users…to be particularly careful when cloning or accessing Git repositories … continue reading
