VentureBeat: GitHub launches Codespaces for browser-based coding. “The biggest facet of today’s news is a new product called GitHub Codespaces, which is designed to make it easier for developers to join a project, launch a developer environment, and start coding with minimal configuration — all from a browser. Available in ‘limited public beta’ from this week, Codespaces is a cloud-hosted development environment with all the GitHub features, and it can be set up to load a developer’s code and dependencies, extensions, and dotfiles, and includes a built-in debugger.”
software development
The Verge: Glitch launches subscriptions to power up its bite-sized apps
The Verge: Glitch launches subscriptions to power up its bite-sized apps. “The coding platform Glitch is formally launching its first paid product today: a subscription that lets you pay to upgrade the bite-sized apps you can run on its platform. Since it launched in 2017, Glitch has let anyone write and remix code and then publish bots, web apps, and other projects that it would host for free. But that free hosting came with strict limitations. Apps had limited RAM and storage, and more importantly, they would be shut down if they went dormant for just a few minutes, meaning you often had to wait through a sluggish start up before using them.”
IT Pro Today: 2020 Open Source Conferences That Have Moved Online
IT Pro Today: 2020 Open Source Conferences That Have Moved Online. “Although open source developers are unlikely to fly to some cool and groovy city to spend a few days fellowshipping and learning from fellow geeks, they can still attend open source conferences from the comfort of their shelter-in-place abode, since many of the cancelled conferences are holding safe and sanitary online conferences. Even better news: Attending a conference in person can cost a king’s ransom once attendees shell out $1,000 or more for admission to a major event, plus airfare and hotel fees. In contrast, most of these virtual conferences are absolutely free. All anyone has to do is register.”
ProgrammableWeb: ProgrammableWeb Launches Covid-19/Coronavirus Developer Resource Center
Tip o’ the nib to Esther S. for this one from ProgrammableWeb: ProgrammableWeb Launches Covid-19/Coronavirus Developer Resource Center. “ProgrammableWeb has launched a special resource center to help developers find the top COVID-19 related APIs and other appdev resources. The content in this resource center is curated by the ProgrammableWeb staff and is designed to provide developers with the most up to date information and tools to help them build solutions related to the coronavirus pandemic. These could be tracking solutions, reporting solutions or any type of innovation that these resources might inspire.”
Hypergrid Business: Best Places To Learn AR and VR Development Online in 2020
Hypergrid Business: Best Places To Learn AR and VR Development Online in 2020. “There are quite a handful of platforms that allow you to develop virtual reality and augmented reality apps and content, but it is not easy to find an offline virtual reality school or academy with which to train for those interested in developing AR and VR apps. Udemy may be the popular place to learn VR and AR, but there are other free or cheaper subscription options.” I liked this one a lot. Extensive, lots of annotation.
DevOps: GitLab Open Sources Monitoring Tools
DevOps: GitLab Open Sources Monitoring Tools . “GitLab has decided to make its monitoring and observability tools available as part of its core open source platform to help reduce the total cost of DevOps. Previously, the tools were available as part of the commercial tools in GitLab’s DevOps platform.”
Medium: Google’s Monopoly is Stifling Free Software
Medium: Google’s Monopoly is Stifling Free Software. “Google has an undeniable monopoly on search, and a near-monopoly on web browsing software via Chrome and its forks. And even alternative browsers such as Mozilla’s Firefox reference Google’s Safe Browsing service to decide on the trustworthiness of downloads. Stopping the spread of malware is a laudible goal, but a consequence of this is directly harming free and open source software developers from being able to release their software without paying expensive certificate authority rent-seeking fees.”
Northern Arizona University: Can open source software be gender-biased? Yes, say professors who are working to eliminate gender-biased ‘bugs’
Northern Arizona University: Can open source software be gender-biased? Yes, say professors who are working to eliminate gender-biased ‘bugs’ . “The cycle of open source software (OSS) development and gender representation is, perhaps, unsurprising—women are vastly underrepresented among OSS developers. As a result, women miss out on development and professional opportunities, and as jobs in OSS development open up, women lack the experience to get them. And the cycle continues. It’s so pervasive that it’s likely built right into the software itself, say four researchers, which is an entirely separate problem—one they’re aiming to resolve through finding these bugs and proposing redesigns around them, leading to more gender-inclusive tools used by software developers.”
CyLab: This new tool for developers can help preserve app users’ privacy
CyLab: This new tool for developers can help preserve app users’ privacy . “When writing the code for an app using Coconut, the plugin’s heuristics automatically detect when a request for user data is made, triggering a popup reminder to the developer to write an annotation explaining the reasons behind their request. Rather than requiring them to write one from scratch, developers have the option of choosing one from a list of pre-written annotations explaining the reason behind the request, such as, ‘Data collection for advertising,’ ‘Location-based game,’ or ‘Maps and navigation,’ among others.”
CNET: GitHub blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea due to US sanctions
CNET: GitHub blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea due to US sanctions. “Software development platform GitHub is essential to developers across the globe. Unfortunately for users in Iran, Syria and Crimea, access is getting squeezed, thanks to US trade law.”
TechCrunch: GitHub launches Sponsors, lets you pay your favorite open source contributors
TechCrunch: GitHub launches Sponsors, lets you pay your favorite open source contributors. “GitHub today launched Sponsors, a new tool that lets you give financial support through recurring monthly payments to open source developers. Developers will be able to opt into having a ‘Sponsor me’ button on their GitHub repositories and open source projects will also be able to highlight their funding models, no matter whether that’s individual contributions to developers or using Patreon, Tidelift, Ko-fi or Open Collective.”
PC Magazine: To Stop Shady Apps, Google To Scrutinize First-Time Developers
PC Magazine: To Stop Shady Apps, Google To Scrutinize First-Time Developers. “To better protect Android users from malicious apps, Google plans on spending more time vetting new developers who want to publish over the Google Play store.”
Motherboard: The Internet Was Built on the Free Labor of Open Source Developers. Is That Sustainable?
Motherboard: The Internet Was Built on the Free Labor of Open Source Developers. Is That Sustainable?. “On the surface, the open source software community has never been better. Companies and governments are adopting open source software at rates that would’ve been unfathomable 20 years ago, and a whole new generation of programmers are cutting their teeth on developing software in plain sight and making it freely available for anyone to use. Go a little deeper, however, and the cracks start to show. The ascendancy of open source has placed a mounting burden on the maintainers of popular software, who now handle more bug reports, feature requests, code reviews, and code commits than ever before. At the same time, open source developers must also deal with an influx of corporate users who are unfamiliar with community norms when it comes to producing and consuming open source software. This leads to developer burnout and a growing feeling of resentment toward the companies that rely on free labor to produce software that is folded into products and sold back to consumers for huge profits.”
TechCrunch: Google updates its speech services for developers
TechCrunch: Google updates its speech services for developers. “Google Cloud’s Text-to-Speech and Speech-to-Text APIs are getting a bunch of updates today that introduce support for more languages, make it easier to hear auto-generated voices on different speakers and that promise better transcripts thanks to improved tools for speaker recognition, among other things.”
PR Newswire: WhiteSource Unveils Free to Use Vulnerability Checker to Combat Most Critical Open Source Vulnerabilities (PRESS RELEASE)
PR Newswire: WhiteSource Unveils Free to Use Vulnerability Checker to Combat Most Critical Open Source Vulnerabilities (PRESS RELEASE). “The new standalone CLI tool is free to use and available for anyone to download directly from the WhiteSource website. Once downloaded, the Vulnerability Checker offers users the opportunity to import and scan any library and run a quick check on the chosen development projects against last month’s top 50 open source vulnerabilities. The Vulnerability Checker compiles a detailed report within minutes after scanning the designated libraries in your command line, highlighting detected vulnerabilities, their severity, paths, as well as links to references and suggested fixes.”
