David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails and co-founder and chief technology officer of Basecamp-maker 37signals, has criticized Automattic's demand for 8% of vendor WP Engine's revenues as a violation of open source principles and the GPL license. He argues this, among other things, undermines the clarity and certainty of open source licensing, threatening its integrity beyond WordPress. He writes: Ruby on Rails, the open-source web framework I created, has been used to create businesses worth hundreds of billions of dollars combined. Some of those businesses express their gratitude and self-interest by supporting the framework with dedicated developers, membership of The Rails Foundation, or conference sponsorships. But many also do not! And that is absolutely their right, even if it occasionally irks a little.

That's the deal. That's open source. I give you a gift of code, you accept the terms of the license. There cannot be a second set of shadow obligations that might suddenly apply, if you strike it rich using the software. Then the license is meaningless, the clarity all muddled, and certainty lost.

Look, Automattic can change their license away from the GPL any time they wish. The new license will only apply to new code, though, and WP Engine, or anyone else, are eligible to fork the project. That's what happened with Redis after Redis Labs dropped their BSD license and went with a commercial source-available alternative. Valkey was forked from the last free Redis version, and now that's where anyone interested in an open-source Redis implementation is likely to go.

But I suspect Automattic wants to have their cake and eat it too. They want to retain WordPress' shine of open source, but also be able to extract their pound of flesh from any competitor that might appear, whenever they see fit. Screw that.

Redmonk's latest programming language ranking (attempting to gauge "potential future adoption trends") has found evidence of "a landscape resistant to change." Outside of CSS moving down a spot and C++ moving up one, the Top 10 was unchanged. And even in the back half of the rankings, where languages tend to be less entrenched and movement is more common, only three languages moved at all... There are a few signs of languages following in TypeScript's footsteps and working their way up the path, both in the Top 20 and at the back end of the Top 100 as we'll discuss shortly, but they're the exception that proves the rule.

It's possible that we'll see more fluid usage of languages, and increased usage of code assistants would theoretically make that much more likely, but at this point it's a fairly static status quo. With that, some results of note:

- TypeScript (#6): technically TypeScript didn't move, as it was ranked sixth in our last run, but this is the first quarter in which is has been the sole occupant of that spot. CSS, in this case, dropped one place to seven leaving TypeScript just outside the Top 5. It will be interesting to see whether or not it has more momentum to expend or whether it's topped out for the time being.

- Kotlin (#14) / Scala (#14): both of these JVM-based languages jumped up a couple of spots — two spots in Scala's case and three for Kotlin. Scala's rise is notable because it had been on something of a downward trajectory from a one time high of 12th, and Kotlin's placement is a mild surprise because it had spent three consecutive runs not budging from 17, only to make the jump now. The tie here, meanwhile, is interesting because Scala's long history gives it an accretive advantage over Kotlin's more recent development, but in any case the combination is evidence of the continued staying power of the JVM.

- Objective C (#17): speaking of downward trajectories and the 17th placement on this list, Objective C's slide that began in mid-2018 continued and left the language with its lowest placement in these rankings to date at #17. That's still an enormously impressive achievement, of course, and there are dozens of languages that would trade their usage for Objective C's, but the direction of travel seems clear.

- Dart (#19) / Rust (#19): while once grouped with Kotlin as up and coming languages driven by differing incentives and trends, Dart and Rust have not been able to match the ascent of their counterpart with five straight quarters of no movement. That's not necessarily a negative; as with Objective C, these are still highly popular languages and communities, but it's worth questioning whether new momentum will arrive and from where, particularly because the communities are experiencing some friction in growing their usage.
It's important to remember Redmonk's methodology. "We extract language rankings from GitHub and Stack Overflow, and combine them for a ranking that attempts to reflect both code (GitHub) and discussion (Stack Overflow) traction. The idea is not to offer a statistically valid representation of current usage, but rather to correlate language discussion and usage in an effort to extract insights into potential future adoption trends."

Having said that, here's the current top ten in Redmonk's ranking:

1. JavaScript
2. Python
3. Java
4. PHP
5. C#
6. TypeScript
7. CSS
8. C++
9. Ruby
10. C

Their announcement also notes that at the other end of the list, the programming language Bicep "jumped eight spots to #78 and Zig 10 to #87. That progress pales next to Ballerina, however, which jumped from #80 to #61 this quarter. The general purpose language from WS02, thus, is added to the list of potential up and comers we're keeping an eye on."

Pundits aggregate results from multiple pollsters to minimize biases. So ZDNet tried the same approach, but aggregating rankings for the popularity of 19 top programming languages. Senior contributing editor David Gewirtz combined results from nine popularity rankings, including PYPL, the Tiobe index, GitHub's Usage 2023 summary report, and several rankings from Stack Overflow and from IEEE Spectrum.

The results? The top cluster contains Python, JavaScript, and Java. These are all very representative in the world of AI coding...

The next cluster contains the classic C-based languages [C++, C#, C], plus TypeScript (which is a more robust JavaScript variant) and SQL.

Below that are languages that were dominant a while ago, the web languages used to build and operate websites [HTML/CSS, PHP, Shell], followed by a range of other languages that are either growing in popularity (R, Dart) or dropping in popularity (Ruby). [Just above Ruby are Go, Rust, Kotlin, and Lua.]

Finally, at the bottom is Swift, Apple's language of choice. Objective-C, the previous language of Apple programming, has all but dropped off the list since Apple launched Swift. But while Apple boasts many developers, Swift is clearly not a standout in programmer interest... [T]here aren't a huge number of companies hiring Apple app developers, at least primarily. That's why Swift is relatively far down the chart. Objective-C is being replaced by Swift, and we can see it dropping right before our eyes.
"With the exception of Java, the C-family of languages still dominates," the article concludes, before adding that if you're only going to learn one language, "I'd recommend Python, Java, and JavaScript instead." But it also advises aspiring programmers to learn "multiple languages and multiple frameworks. Build things in the languages. Programming is not just an intellectual exercise. You have to actually make stuff....

"[L]earning how to learn languages is as important as learning a language — and the best way to do that is to learn more than one."

"Rust is the fastest-growing programming language, with its developer community doubling in size over the past two years," writes The New Stack, "yet JavaScript remains the most popular language with 25.2 million active developers, according to the results of a recent survey." The 26th edition of SlashData's Developer Nation survey showed that the Rust community doubled its number of users over the past two years — from two million in the first quarter of 2022 to four million in the first quarter of 2024 — and by 33% in the last 12 months alone. The SlashData report covers the first quarter of 2024. "Rust has developed a passionate community that advocates for it as a memory-safe language which can provide great performance, but cybersecurity concerns may lead to an even greater increase," the report said. "The USA and its international partners have made the case in the last six months for adopting memory-safe languages...."

"JavaScript's dominant position is unlikely to change anytime soon, with its developer population increasing by 4M developers over the last 12 months, with a growth rate in line with the global developer population growth," the report said. The strength of the JavaScript community is fueled by the widespread use of the language across all types of development projects, with at least 25% of developers in every project type using it, the report said. "Even in development areas not commonly associated with the language, such as on-device coding for IoT projects, JavaScript still sees considerable adoption," SlashData said.

Also, coming in strong, Python has overtaken Java as the second most popular language, driven by the interest in machine learning and AI. The battle between Python and Java shows Python with 18.2 million developers in Q1 2024 compared to Java's 17.7 million. This comes about after Python added more than 2.1 million net new developers to its community over the last 12 months, compared to Java which only increased by 1.2 million developers... Following behind Java there is a six-million-developer gap to the next largest community, which is C++ with 11.4 million developers, closely trailed by C# with 10.2 million and PHP with 9.8 million. Languages with the smallest communities include Objective-C with 2.7 million developers, Ruby with 2.5 million, and Lua with 1.8 million. Meanwhile, the Go language saw its developer population grow by 10% over the last year. It had previously outpaced the global developer population growth, growing by 5Y% over the past two years, from three million in Q1 2022 to 4.7 million in Q1 2024.
"TNS analyst Lawrence Hecht has a few different takeaways. He notes that with the exceptions of Rust, Go and JavaScript, the other major programming languages all grew slower than the total developer population, which SlashData says increased 39% over the last two years alone."

The PHP programming language has sunk to its lowest position ever on the long-running TIOBE index of programming language popularity. It now ranks #17 — lower than Assembly Language, Ruby, Swift, Scratch, and MATLAB. InfoWorld reports: When the Tiobe index started in 2001, PHP was about to become the standard language for building websites, said Paul Jansen, CEO of software quality services vendor Tiobe. PHP even reached the top 3 spot in the index, ranking third several times between 2006 and 2010. But as competing web development frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, Django, and React arrived in other languages, PHP's popularity waned.

"The major driving languages behind these new frameworks were Ruby, Python, and most notably JavaScript," Jansen noted in his statement accompanying the index. "On top of this competition, some security issues were found in PHP. As a result, PHP had to reinvent itself." Nowadays, PHP still has a strong presence in small and medium websites and is the language leveraged in the WordPress web content management system. "PHP is certainly not gone, but its glory days seem to be over," Jansen said.
A note on the rival Pypl Popularity of Programming Language Index argues that the TIOBE Index "is a lagging indicator. It counts the number of web pages with the language name." So while "Objective-C" ranks #30 on TIOBE's index (one rank above Classic Visual Basic), "who is reading those Objective-C web pages? Hardly anyone, according to Google Trends data." On TIOBE's index, Fortran now ranks #10.

Meanwhile, PHP ranks #7 on Pypl (based on the frequency of searches for language tutorials).

TIOBE's top ten?

1. Python
2. C
3. C++
4. Java
5. C#
6. JavaScript
7. Go
8. Visual Basic
9. SQL
10. Fortran

The next two languages, ranked #11 and #12, are Delphi/Object Pascal and Assembly Language.

Apple, in a blog post: We are delighted to announce the open source first release of Pkl (pronounced Pickle), a programming language for producing configuration. When thinking about configuration, it is common to think of static languages like JSON, YAML, or Property Lists. While these languages have their own merits, they tend to fall short when configuration grows in complexity. For example, their lack of expressivity means that code often gets repeated. Additionally, it can be easy to make configuration errors, because these formats do not provide any validation of their own. To address these shortcomings, sometimes formats get enhanced by ancillary tools that add special logic. For example, perhaps there's a need to make code more DRY, so a special property is introduced that understands how to resolve references, and merge objects together. Alternatively, there's a need to guard against validation errors, so some new way is created to validate a configuration value against an expected type. Before long, these formats almost become programming languages, but ones that are hard to understand and hard to write.

On the other end of the spectrum, a general-purpose language might be used instead. Languages like Kotlin, Ruby, or JavaScript become the basis for DSLs that generate configuration data. While these languages are tremendously powerful, they can be awkward to use for describing configuration, because they are not oriented around defining and validating data. Additionally, these DSLs tend to be tied to their own ecosystems. It is a hard sell to use a Kotlin DSL as the configuration layer for an application written in Go. We created Pkl because we think that configuration is best expressed as a blend between a static language and a general-purpose programming language. We want to take the best of both worlds; to provide a language that is declarative and simple to read and write, but enhanced with capabilities borrowed from general-purpose languages. When writing Pkl, you are able to use the language features you'd expect, like classes, functions, conditionals, and loops. You can build abstraction layers, and share code by creating packages and publishing them. Most importantly, you can use Pkl to meet many different types of configuration needs. It can be used to produce static configuration files in any format, or be embedded as a library into another application runtime.

We designed Pkl with three overarching goals:
To provide safety by catching validation errors before deployment.
To scale from simple to complex use-cases.
To be a joy to write, with our best-in-class IDE integrations.

In response to new EU regulations, Apple on Thursday outlined plans to allow iOS developers to distribute apps outside the App Store starting in March, though developers must still submit apps for Apple's review and pay commissions. Now critics say the changes don't go far enough and Apple retains too much control.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney: They are forcing developers to choose between App Store exclusivity and the store terms, which will be illegal under DMA (Digital Markets Act), or accept a new also-illegal anticompetitive scheme rife with new Junk Fees on downloads and new Apple taxes on payments they don't process. 37signals's David Heinemeier Hansson, who is also the creator of Ruby on Rails: Let's start with the extortion regime that'll befell any large developer who might be tempted to try hosting their app in one of these new alternative app stores that the EU forced Apple to allow. And let's take Meta as a good example. Their Instagram app alone is used by over 300 million people in Europe. Let's just say for easy math there's 250 million of those in the EU. In order to distribute Instagram on, say, a new Microsoft iOS App Store, Meta would have to pay Apple $11,277,174 PER MONTH(!!!) as a "Core Technology Fee." That's $135 MILLION DOLLARS per year. Just for the privilege of putting Instagram into a competing store. No fee if they stay in Apple's App Store exclusively.

Holy shakedown, batman! That might be the most blatant extortion attempt ever committed to public policy by any technology company ever. And Meta has many successful apps! WhatsApp is even more popular in Europe than Instagram, so that's another $135M+/year. Then they gotta pay for the Facebook app too. There's the Messenger app. You add a hundred million here and a hundred million there, and suddenly you're talking about real money! Even for a big corporation like Meta, it would be an insane expense to offer all their apps in these new alternative app stores.

Which, of course, is the entire point. Apple doesn't want Meta, or anyone, to actually use these alternative app stores. They want everything to stay exactly as it is, so they can continue with the rake undisturbed. This poison pill is therefore explicitly designed to ensure that no second-party app store ever takes off. Without any of the big apps, there will be no draw, and there'll be no stores. All of the EU's efforts to create competition in the digital markets will be for nothing. And Apple gets to send a clear signal: If you interrupt our tool-booth operation, we'll make you regret it, and we'll make you pay. Don't resist, just let it be. Let's hope the EU doesn't just let it be. Coalition of App Fairness, an industry body that represents over 70 firms including Tinder, Spotify, Proton, Tile, and News Media Europe: "Apple clearly has no intention to comply with the DMA. Apple is introducing new fees on direct downloads and payments they do nothing to process, which violates the law. This plan does not achieve the DMA's goal to increase competition and fairness in the digital market -- it is not fair, reasonable, nor non-discriminatory," said Rick VanMeter, Executive Director of the Coalition for App Fairness.

"Apple's proposal forces developers to choose between two anticompetitive and illegal options. Either stick with the terrible status quo or opt into a new convoluted set of terms that are bad for developers and consumers alike. This is yet another attempt to circumvent regulation, the likes of which we've seen in the United States, the Netherlands and South Korea. Apple's 'plan' is a shameless insult to the European Commission and the millions of European consumers they represent -- it must not stand and should be rejected by the Commission."

Web software firm 37Signals has migrated off the cloud after spending $3.2 million on Amazon Web Services last year, said co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson, who is also the creator of Ruby on Rails. The Basecamp project management software-maker bought $600,000 of Dell servers and expects to save over $7 million in five years by running operations in-house. From a report: DHH likened clouds to "merchants of complexity" where they are incentivized to make things as complex as possible to keep customers hooked. He compared that to the original Internet, which was not built on complex cloud services geared for multi-tenancy, but rather on simpler tools such as Linux and PHP, which anyone could use without cost. This is not to say cloud has zero value for all use cases, [Kelsey] Hightower and DHH agreed.

Clouds make perfect sense in many cases, for start-ups that do not know how much infrastructure they will need, and also for enterprises with a lack of expertise and money to burn. For many companies in the middle, though a lot of profit margin can be recovered by reducing cloud costs and running things in-house instead, the two argued.

An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this report from CNET: Marking its 60th year on television, the British time-travel series will close out 2023 with one last anniversary special that arrives on Christmas Day. Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor helms the Tardis in The Church on Ruby Road, which centers on an abandoned baby who grows up looking for answers... Disney Plus will stream Doctor Who: The Church on Ruby Road on Monday, Dec. 25, at 12:55 p.m. ET (9:55 a.m. PT) in all regions except the UK and Ireland, where it will air on the BBC. In case you missed it, viewers can also watch David Tennant starring in the other three anniversary specials: The Star Beast, Wild Blue Yonder and The Giggle. All releases are available on Disney Plus.
But what's interesting is CNET goes on to explain "why a VPN could be a useful tool." Perhaps you're traveling abroad and want to stream Disney Plus while away from home. With a VPN, you're able to virtually change your location on your phone, tablet or laptop to get access to the series from anywhere in the world. There are other good reasons to use a VPN for streaming too. A VPN is the best way to encrypt your traffic and stop your ISP from throttling your speeds...

You can use a VPN to stream content legally as long as VPNs are allowed in your country and you have a valid subscription to the streaming service you're using. The U.S. and Canada are among the countries where VPNs are legal

An anonymous reader shared this report from InfoWorld: JetBrains' Kotlin language, a Java rival endorsed by Google for Android mobile development, continues to scale up Tiobe's index of language popularity, reaching the 15th spot in the November 2023 rankings...

Software quality services company Tiobe cites Kotlin advantages including interoperability with Java and unrivaled Android accommodations as reasons for the language's rise. Kotlin, Tiobe CEO Paul Jansen said, also fits in with a modern programming culture of expressive languages that have a strong type system and avoid null pointer exceptions by design. "Based on my experience, I am pretty sure Kotlin can reach a top 10 position," Jansen said. It remains to be seen if it can ever scale as high as a top four slot, he added...

In the rival Pypl Popularity of Programming languages index this month, Kotlin was ranked 13th with a 1.76% share, having slipped slightly year-over-year.
Kotlin's rank on the TIOBE index rose three positions in the last month — after rising two positions the month before. TIOBE's CEO says the language has now achieved its highest ranking ever on the index, surpassing 2017's "first wave of Kotlin popularity...when Google announced first class support for Kotlin on Android."

Rust now ranks #20 on the index, behind Delphi/Object Pascal, Swift, Ruby, and R.

Here's TIOBE November rankings for top-20 most popular programming languages:

1. Python
2. C
3. C++
4. Java
5. C#
6. JavaScript
7. PHP
8. Visual Basic
9. SQL
10. Assembly Language
11. Scratch
12. Fortran
13. Go
14. MATLAB
15. Kotlin
16. Delphi/Object Pascal
17. Swift
18. Ruby
19. R
20. Rust

The senior security editor at Ars Technica writes: Highly invasive malware targeting software developers is once again circulating in Trojanized code libraries, with the latest ones downloaded thousands of times in the last eight months, researchers said Wednesday.

Since January, eight separate developer tools have contained hidden payloads with various nefarious capabilities, security firm Checkmarx reported. The most recent one was released last month under the name "pyobfgood." Like the seven packages that preceded it, pyobfgood posed as a legitimate obfuscation tool that developers could use to deter reverse engineering and tampering with their code. Once executed, it installed a payload, giving the attacker almost complete control of the developerâ(TM)s machine. Capabilities include:


- Exfiltrate detailed host information
- Steal passwords from the Chrome web browser
- Set up a keylogger
- Download files from the victim's system
- Capture screenshots and record both screen and audio
- Render the computer inoperative by ramping up CPU usage, inserting a batch script in the startup directory to shut down the PC, or forcing a BSOD error with a Python script
- Encrypt files, potentially for ransom
- Deactivate Windows Defender and Task Manager
- Execute any command on the compromised host


In all, pyobfgood and the previous seven tools were installed 2,348 times. They targeted developers using the Python programming language... Downloads of the package came primarily from the US (62%), followed by China (12%) and Russia (6%)
Ars Technica concludes that "The never-ending stream of attacks should serve as a cautionary tale underscoring the importance of carefully scrutinizing a package before allowing it to run."

An anonymous reader shared this report from InfoWorld: JetBrains is previewing a dedicated IDE for the Rust programming language, called RustRover, which combines coding assistance with an integrated Rust toolchain. Available in preview September 13, RustRover is positioned to simplify the Rust coding experience while "unlocking the language's full potential," JetBrains said. Capabilities include real-time feedback, code suggestions, simplified toolchain management, and team collaboration.

Previously, JetBrains offered IntelliJ Rust, an open source Rust plugin for IntelliJ IDEs. But with RustRover, the company aims to provide a dedicated product with enhanced functionality for the growing Rust developer community. JetBrains also has been previewing a multi-language editor and IDE, called JetBrains Fleet, that supports Rust development...

RustRover will have some similarities to JetBrains' other language-specific IDEs including PyCharm for Python, GoLand for Go, and RubyMine for Ruby.
RustRover integrates with version control systems, supporting GitHub and Git.

Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson has removed TypeScript from the forthcoming version 8 of the Turbo framework, saying he has "never been a fan," but many Turbo users have protested that the decision was rushed and the change is unwelcome. From a report: A comment on the GitHub pull request that removes TypeScript states that this "is a step back, for both library users and contributors." This comment has -- at the time of writing -- 357 likes and just 8 downvotes, suggesting wide support. Turbo is a framework for delivering HTML pages intended to "dramatically reduce the amount of custom JavaScript," and is sponsored by Hannson's company 37signals, whose products include the Basecamp project management platform and the Hey messaging system. Turbo is the engine of Hotwire, short for "HTML over the wire," because it prefers sending HTML itself rather than JSON data and JavaScript code.

Although Turbo itself is not among the most popular frameworks, Ruby on Rails is well-known and used by major web sites including GitHub and Shopify. Hansson posted that TypeScript "pollutes the code with type gymnastics that add ever so little joy to my development experience, and quite frequently considerable grief. Things that should be easy become hard." The community around the open source Turbo project though is for the most part perplexed and disappointed, not only by the change itself, but also by the manner in which it was made.

Canonical engineering manager Ben Hoyt believes that a variable's name is more important than its type, so "the name should be more prominent and come first in declarations." In many popular programming languages, including C, C++, Java, and C#, when you define a field or variable, you write the type before the name. For example (in C++):

// Struct definition
struct person {
std::string name;
std::string email;
int age;
};

In other languages, including Go, Rust, TypeScript, and Python (with type hints), you write the name before the type. For example (in Go):

// Struct definition
type Person struct {
Name string
Email string
Age int
}

There's a nice answer in the Go FAQ about why Go chose this order: "Why are declarations backwards?". It starts with "they're only backwards if you're used to C", which is a good point — name-before-type has a long history in languages like Pascal. In fact, Go's type declaration syntax (and packages) were directly inspired by Pascal.

The FAQ goes on to point out that parsing is simpler with name-before-type, and declaring multiple variables is less error-prone than in C. In C, the following declares x to be a pointer, but (surprisingly at first!) y to be a normal integer:

int* x, y;

Whereas the equivalent in Go does what you'd expect, declaring both to be pointers:

var x, y *int

The Go blog even has an in-depth article by Rob Pike on Go's Declaration Syntax, which describes more of the advantages of Go's syntax over C's, particularly with arrays and function pointers.

Oddly, the article only hints at what I think is the more important reason to prefer name-before-type for everyday programming: it's clearer.
Hoyt argues a variable's name has more meaning (semantically) — pointing out dynamically-typed languages like Python and Ruby don't even need types, and that languages like Java, Go, C++ and C# now include type inference.

"I think the takeaway is this: we can't change the past, but if you're creating a new language, please put names before types!"

RSS Advisory Board: This month marks the 20th anniversary of the effort that became the Atom feed format. It all began on June 16, 2003, with a blog post from Apache Software Foundation contributor Sam Ruby asking for feedback about what constitutes a well-formed blog entry. The development of RSS 2.0 had been an unplanned hopscotch from a small group at Netscape to a smaller one at UserLand Software, but Atom was a barn raising. Hundreds of software developers, web publishers and technologists gathered for a discussion in the abstract that led to a concrete effort to build a well-specified syndication format and associated publishing API that could become Internet standards. Work was done on a project wiki that grew to over 1,500 pages. Everything was up for a vote, including a plebiscite on choosing a name that ballooned into a four-month-long bikeshed discussion in which Pie, Echo, Wingnut, Feedcast, Phaistos and several dozen alternatives finally, mercifully, miraculously lost out to Atom.

The road map of the Atom wiki lists the people, companies and projects that jumped at the chance to create a new format for feeds. XML specification co-author Tim Bray wrote: "The time to write it all down and standardize it is not when you're first struggling to invent the technology. We now have aggregators and publishing systems and search engines and you-name-it, and I think the community collectively understands pretty well what you need, what you don't need, and what a good syntax looks like. So, now's the time."

Slashdot reader Zapotek brings an update from the Ecsypno skunkworks, where they've been busy with R&D for distributed computing systems: Armed with Cuboid, Qmap was built, which tackled the handling of nmap in a distributed environment, with great results. Afterwards, an iterative clean-up process led to a template of sorts, for scheduling most applications in such environments.

With that, Peplum was born, which allows for OS applications, Ruby code and C/C++/Rust code (via Ruby extensions) to be distributed across machines and tackle the processing of neatly grouped objects.

In essence, Peplum:

- Is a distributed computing solution backed by Cuboid.
- Its basic function is to distribute workloads and deliver payloads across multiple machines and thus parallelize otherwise time consuming tasks.
- Allows you to combine several machines and built a cluster/supercomputer of sorts with great ease.

After that was dealt with, it was time to port Qmap over to Peplum for easier long-term maintenance, thus renamed Peplum::Nmap.

We have high hopes for Peplum as it basically means easy, simple and joyful cloud/clustering/super-computing at home, on-premise, anywhere really. Along with the capability to turn a lot of security oriented apps into super versions of themselves, it is quite the infrastructure.
Yes, this means there's a new solution if you're using multiple machines for "running simulations, to network mapping/security scans, to password cracking/recovery or just encoding your collection of music and video" -- or anything else: Peplum is a F/OSS (MIT licensed) project aimed at making clustering/super-computing affordable and accessible, by making it simple to setup a distributed parallel computing environment for abstract applications... TLDR: You no longer have to only imagine a Beowulf cluster of those, you can now easily build one yourself with Peplum.
Some technical specs: It is written in the Ruby programming language, thus coming with an entire ecosystem of libraries and the capability to run abstract Ruby code, execute external utilities, run OS commands, call C/C++/Rust routines and more...

Peplum is powered by Cuboid, a F/OSS (MIT licensed) abstract framework for distributed computing — both of them are funded by Ecsypno Single Member P.C., a new R&D and Consulting company.

"I write all novel client-side code as JavaScript instead of TypeScript, and it's a delight," says the creator of Ruby on Rails. Posting on Twitter, David Heinemeier Hansson opined that TypeScript "sucked out much of the joy I had writing JavaScript. I'm forever grateful that Yukihiro 'Matz' Matsumoto didn't succumb to the pressure of adding similar type hints to Ruby."

When it comes to static vs dynamic typing, "I've heard a million arguments from both sides throughout my entire career," Hansson wrote on his blog today, "but seen very few of them ever convinced anyone of anything."

But wait — he thinks we can all get along: Personally, I'm unashamedly a dynamic typing kind of guy. That's why I love Ruby so very much. It takes full advantage of dynamic typing to allow the poetic syntax that results in such beautiful code. To me, Ruby with explicit, static typing would be like a salad with a scoop of ice cream. They just don't go together.

I'll also confess to having embraced the evangelical position for dynamic typing in the past. To the point of suffering from a One True Proposition affliction. Seeing the lack of enthusiasm for dynamic typing as a reflection of missing education, experience, or perhaps even competence.

Oh what folly. Like trying to convince an introvert that they'd really like parties if they'd just loosen up a bit...

These days, I've come to appreciate the magnificence of multiplicity. Programming would be an awful endeavor if we were all confined to the same paradigm. Human nature is much too varied to accept such constraint on its creativity...But it took a while for me to come to these conclusions. I'm a recovering solutionist. So when I see folks cross their heart in disbelief that anyone, anywhere might fancy JavaScript over TypeScript, I smile, and I remember the days when I'd recognize their zeal in the mirror.
Hansson also sees the "magnificence of multiplicity" in positions about functional vs object-oriented programming. "Poles on both these axes have shown to deliver excellent software over the decades (and awful stuff too!)."

Amazon is making its AI-powered coding assistant CodeWhisperer free for individual developers, reports the Verge, "undercutting the $10 per month pricing of its Microsoft-made rival." Amazon launched CodeWhisperer as a preview last year, which developers can use within various integrated development environments (IDEs), like Visual Studio Code, to generate lines of code based on a text-based prompt....

CodeWhisperer automatically filters out any code suggestions that are potentially biased or unfair and flags any code that's similar to open-source training data. It also comes with security scanning features that can identify vulnerabilities within a developer's code, while providing suggestions to help close any security gaps it uncovers. CodeWhisperer now supports several languages, including Python, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, and C#, including Go, Rust, PHP, Ruby, Kotlin, C, C++, Shell scripting, SQL, and Scala.
Here's how Amazon's senior developer advocate pitched the usefulness of their "real-time AI coding companion": Helping to keep developers in their flow is increasingly important as, facing increasing time pressure to get their work done, developers are often forced to break that flow to turn to an internet search, sites such as StackOverflow, or their colleagues for help in completing tasks. While this can help them obtain the starter code they need, it's disruptive as they've had to leave their IDE environment to search or ask questions in a forum or find and ask a colleague — further adding to the disruption. Instead, CodeWhisperer meets developers where they are most productive, providing recommendations in real time as they write code or comments in their IDE. During the preview we ran a productivity challenge, and participants who used CodeWhisperer were 27% more likely to complete tasks successfully and did so an average of 57% faster than those who didn't use CodeWhisperer....

It provides additional data for suggestions — for example, the repository URL and license — when code similar to training data is generated, helping lower the risk of using the code and enabling developers to reuse it with confidence.

An anonymous reader shares a report from the New York Post: A supposed glitch in the popular "Find My iPhone" app has been directing random strangers to the home of an unsuspecting Texas dad at all hours of the day, falsely accusing him of stealing their electronic devices.

[Software engineer] Scott Schuster told the local news station KTRK that he's been visited by close to a dozen irate people over the past few years, telling him that their missing phone had last pinged at his address. "[I] had to wake up and go answer the door and explain to them that I didn't have their device, and people don't tend to believe you," the dad of two told the outlet.
The Texas resident tells KTRK that his biggest concern was "someone coming to the house potentially with a weapon."

And the same station reports that local sheriff Eric Fagan "said he was so shocked and concerned that he informed his patrol units and dispatchers, just in case anyone called about the address." "Apple needs to do more about this," Fagan said. "Please come out and check on this. This is your expertise. Mine is criminal and keeping our public safe here in Fort Bend County." Fagan added that Apple doing nothing puts a family's safety in jeopardy. "I would ask them to come out and see what they can do. It should be taken seriously. You are putting innocent lives at risk," he said....

There have been other high-profile device pinging errors elsewhere in the country, with at least one that brought armored vehicles to a neighborhood. In 2021, body camera footage captured a Denver police SWAT team raiding the home of a 77-year-old woman in Colorado over a false ping on the app. Denver officers believed she had stolen guns connected to a car theft after tracking a stolen iPhone to her address using the Find My app. That woman later sued the lead detective.

ABC13 has tried contacting the software giant since Tuesday. Someone called back, so we know they are aware of the incident. Still, no one has said if they are going to fix the issue, or at the very least, look into the matter.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: In Something Pretty Right: A History of Visual Basic, Retool's Ryan Lucas has a nice round-up of how Visual Basic became the world's most dominant programming environment, its sudden fall from grace, and why its influence is still shaping the future of software development.

Visual Basic (or VB) burst onto the scene at a magical, transitional moment, presenting a radically simpler alternative for Windows 3.0 development. Bill Gates' genuine enthusiasm for VB is evident in an accompanying 1991 video in which BillG personally and playfully demonstrates Visual Basic 1.0 at its launch event, as well as in a 1994 video in which Gates thanks Alan Cooper, the "Father of Visual Basic," with the Windows Pioneer Award.

For Gates, VB was love at first sight. "It blew his mind, he had never seen anything like it," recalls Cooper of Gates's reaction to his 1988 demo of a prototype. "At one point he turned to his retinue and asked 'Why can't we do stuff like this?'" Gates even came up with the idea of taking Cooper's visual programming frontend and replacing its small custom internal language with BASIC.

After seeing what Microsoft had done to his baby, Cooper reportedly sat frustrated in the front row at the launch event. But it's hard to argue with success, and Cooper eventually came to appreciate VB's impact. "Had Ruby [Cooper's creation] gone to the market as a shell construction set," Cooper said, "it would have made millions of people happier, but then Visual Basic made hundreds of millions of people happier. I was not right, or rather, I was right enough, had a modicum of rightness. Same for Bill Gates, but the two of us together did something pretty right."

At its peak, Visual Basic had nearly 3.5 million developers worldwide. Many of the innovations that Alan Cooper and Scott Ferguson's teams introduced 30 years ago with VB are nowhere to be found in modern development, fueling a nostalgic fondness for the ease and magic VB delivered that we have yet to rekindle.