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Gitpod, a Kubernetes application that provides a collaborative development environments in your browser, is now open source. Coding in Gitpod uses Eclipse Theia, which is similar to VS Code. Gitpod is also tightly integrated with GitLab, GitHub, and Bitbucket. Gitpod provides an IDE that can be launched from any GitHub page. Along with the in-browser IDE you get a cloud-based Linux container configured specifically for the current project. Eclipse Theia is described as a true open source alternative to Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code. Theia is an extensible platform to develop multi-language Cloud and Desktop IDEs. Theia has been designed to give an extensible platform to develop multi-language Cloud and Desktop IDE-like products for developers. Using Theia means Gitpod offers coding support features in the IDE such as syntax highlighting and auto-complete. While the current IDE is based on Theia, the developers plan to allow the use of other IDEs as well. VS Code extensions are support...

  Facebook releases Graph API v8.0, reminds devs that ‘Sharing for Devices’ will soon end Facebook has released the eighth version of its Graph API, which requires some action from developers. Graph API v8.0 brings several changes and deprecates various features. Among the most notable is that “Sharing for Devices” – a feature enabling users to share content from IoT devices – will no longer be available from November 2nd. The following API versions are also being deprecated: September 28, 2020 – v5.0 and v6.0 of the Marketing API will no longer be available. October 27, 2020 – v3.1 of the Graph API will no longer be available. Some actions will be required by developers to accommodate some of Facebook’s changes: By October 24th, developers must leverage a user, app, or client token when querying Graph API for user profile pictures via UID, FB OEmbeds and IG OEmbeds. By November 2nd, apps wanting to access the business field on ad accounts will need to be granted specific permissio...

  Twitter has released a new API which it wants developers to use to build helpful bots and more powerful third-party apps. According to  a post  on the Twitter Developer Blog, the new API will no longer take “a one-size-fits-all approach” and will be “more flexible and scalable to fit your needs.” What that means in practice is Twitter’s API now includes three access levels: the free basic level, elevated, and custom. Developers will no longer have to transfer APIs as their products grow, between what was essentially three separate platforms previously. New features have been added based on developers’ requests. Among the additions are “conversation threading, poll results in Tweets, pinned Tweets on profiles, spam filtering, and a more powerful stream filtering and search query language.” Most interestingly, Twitter is actively encouraging the development of bots for things like spreading factual information about COVID-19. Alyssa Resse, Product Designer at Twitter, sai...

  Popularity may not be a single vector answer, but students and professionals still want to know if they're guiding their careers and companies in the right direction. UC Berkeley programming students often ask me which programming language is the most popular. It's a simple question with a far-from-simple answer. Let's start with why people want to know. Usually, at least when it comes to students, they ask which language is the most popular because they want to learn subjects where there are jobs. For most people, it makes very little sense to enter a field with knowledge about something that's not in demand. Other times, programmers who are already skilled want to get a feel for whether their current skills are relevant, or whether it's time to look at other languages because shifts in popularity might mean it's time to bone up on a new language. Developers who are building products also want to know about popular languages, because if they're building A...

A polyglot environment is a double-edged sword, bringing benefits along with complexities that may threaten the organization. Image credits :  geralt  via  Pixabay ,  CC0 With all the different programming languages available today, many organizations have become digital polyglots. Open source opens up a world of languages and technology stacks developers can use to accomplish their tasks, including developing and supporting legacy and modern software applications. Polyglots can talk with millions more people than those who only speak their native language. In software environments, developers don't introduce new languages to achieve specifc ends, not to communicate better. Some languages are great for one task but not another, so working with multiple programming languages enables developers to use the right tool for the job. In this way, all development is polyglot; it's just the nature of the beast. The creation of a polyglot environment is often gradual and situa...

  After All These Years, the World is Still Powered by C Programming Many of the C projects that exist today were started decades ago. The UNIX operating system’s development started in 1969, and its code was rewritten in C in 1972. The C language was actually created to move the UNIX kernel code from assembly to a higher level language,  which would do the same tasks with fewer lines of code . Oracle database development started in 1977, and its code was rewritten from assembly to C in 1983. It became one of the most popular databases in the world. In 1985 Windows 1.0 was released. Although Windows source code is not publicly available, it’s been stated that  its kernel is mostly written in C , with some parts in assembly. Linux kernel development started in 1991, and it is also written in C. The next year, it was released under the GNU license and was used as part of the GNU Operating System. The GNU operating system itself was started using C and Lisp programming langu...