Featured Articles

JavaScript Async - Avoiding State With Yield
Ian Elliot

One way to keep your UI responsive is to break a computation up into small chunks. The problem is that you have to record the state of the computation so you can restart it. Yield can be used to do this automatically. This is an extract from Chapter 4 of my book on JavaScript Async.

In this chapter of Modern Java we get to grips with the idea of a container that is used to host components to build a user interface. We also find out how the Swing GUI Builder generates code to make it all much easier. 

News

Why Do Android Devs Convert To Kotlin?
01 Apr | Mike James

Not just why, but how? Moving an app from an existing language to a new one isn't something that happens every day, but since the advent of Kotlin it's more common than it was. So what is Java to Kotlin all about?

David Silver, best-known for AlphaGo, is the latest recipient of the ACM Prize in Computing. It is awarded for his breakthrough advances in computer game-playing and contributions to the "growing and impactful area of deep reinforcement learning".

Ever since it introduced its project-based micro-credential, Udacity has offered Nanodegrees in Web Development. We take a look at the latest revision of the Full Stack and Front End Web Developer Nanodegree Programs while there is still time to take advantage of the Free Access for a month offer. 

Facebook has developed Rome, an “all-in-one” solution for JavaScript and TypeScript development. The project (named after the saying that 'all roads lead to Rome') is described as a complete JavaScript toolchain that compiles and bundles JavaScript projects, lints and type-checks, runs tests, and can also format code. 

The Apache Software Foundation, the world's largest open software foundation celebrated its 21st Anniversary by reminding us of "The Apache Way".

The latest version of JavaFX has been released with improvements including support for HTTP/2 in the WebView component. JavaFX is a cross-platform framework that lets developers create a single app for use on desktops, embedded devices, Android and iOS based on JavaSE. 

In the drive to combat the coronavirus, Folding@ Home's distributed network is now running at over 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 operations per second, more than five times faster than the world fastest supercomputer.

The Eclipse Foundation's IoT Working Group has issued a report that reveals that for commercial organizations the IoT is real and adoption is growing, albeit with a degree of caution. As far as IoT is concerned, the open source model clearly dominates. 

Having recently announced the imminent end of the Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer/Expert/Architect certifications, Mircrosoft has extended the retirement date by seven months, to January 31,2021, citing the impact of Covid-19 as the reason.

There's a new version of Apache Samza, an open source framework for developing and running stream processing jobs. Samza was originally developed alongside Kafka by LinkedIn before being made open source and taken into the Apache Software Foundation fold. 

Udacity has come up with a positive response to social isolation. Its Quarantine Special offers Free Access for 30 days to any of 40 nanodegree programs, including many we've introduced before. 

There's a new version of Apache NetBeans with improvements including more support for JDK 14 and new support for JavaServer Faces.

Books of the Week

Full Review

The Pragmatic Programmer, 21st Anniversary Edition

This is a second edition of the highly regarded book by Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt covering the non-technical aspects of being a software developer. Awarding it a rating of 5, Mike James concludes:

If you are looking for a book that is fun to read and will make you think about what you are doing when you program, then you will want a copy of this book.

Added to Book Watch

• Modern Full-Stack Development (Apress)
• Django 3 Web Development Cookbook 4th Ed (Packt)
  
• CSS In Easy Steps 4th Ed (Easy Steps)