Rear Admiral Grace Brewster Murray Hopper was responsible not only for the development of the Cobol language but also for making computers and computing more accessible. Her remarkable career justifies her accolades of "Mother of COBOL", "Amazing Grace" and "Queen of Software".

It is with regret and nostalgia that we have decided to stop reviewing books. The reasons are complicated but unavoidable. Book Watch will continue to bring new titles to your attention, but full reviews are now deprecated.

Following closely on the similar decision in Epic v Apple, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has rejected Google's appeal. Is this the end of the monopoly of the app stores?

While developers are using AI tools they are by no means satisfied with them. While LLMs are widely used, fewer than half of developers are making use of AI agents. And Vibe Coding is ruled out by the vast majority. These findings come from the 2025 Stack Overflow Survey, which we are covering with multiple reports.

Apache Flink has been updated with a new AI Model DDL that can be used to manage AI models through Flink SQL and the Table API.

In this Github-based course provided by Microsoft, you'll learn how to build GenAI application using JavaScript.

GitHub Spark is now in public preview. The micro-app creator was first announced at GitHub Universe last fall, and is now available for Copilot Pro+ subscribers.

The news is that Langfuse, the LLM observability platform,
has made all it commercial product features available for free and open source. But first of all, what is Langfuse?

A German/US company is working on a hybrid made up of live cockroaches and AI control to produce bio-robotic systems, aka fully controllable living insects, that could be used for "mission-critical operations".

Java conferences seems to go on for ever! Previously we've covered Spring I/O, KotlinConf, Devoxx, JavaOne and Voxxed. However, the series wouldn't be complete without JCON EUROPE 2025, which took place between May 12–15 in Cologne.

On this day, August 1st, in 1967 Naval Reservist Grace Murray Hopper was recalled to active duty by the US Navy to help develop COBOL, designed as an easily-readable computer program that would be as machine-independent as possible and run on any computer for which a computer existed with only minor modifications.

Google has released a beta version of Opal, a tool that can  describe, create, and share AI mini-apps. Google describes Opal as a tool to accelerate prototyping AI ideas and workflows, demonstrate a proof of concept with a functional app, and build custom AI apps to boost your productivity at work.

The release candidate of TypeScript 5.9 has been announced, with a preview of a new feature providing expandable hovers.

Author: Joel Murach
Publisher: Mike Murach
Pages: 652
ISBN: 978-1943873104
Print: B0CHMPQ3FC
Kindle: B0FBX3LBSG
Audience: MySQL developers
Rating: 5
Reviewer: Kay Ewbank

This is an updated edition of a longstanding popular title. The new edition adds a chapter on cloud computing and hosting MySQL on Amazon Web Services, and updates the information for MySQL 8.0.33, removing deprecated data types and functions and adding new statement options and clauses.

This book shows how to use MicroPython to program the Pico and interface with the Pico’s hardware. Harry Fairhead and Mike James reveal what you can do with the Pico's GPIO lines together with widely used sensors, servos, motors and ADCs. This updated and expanded edition was prompted by the launch of the Pico 2 and Pico 2W which use a new chip, the RP2350, with significant improvements but also changes. This book therefore covers four devices, the new Pico 2 and its WiFi counterpart, the Pico 2W, as well as the original Pico and Pico W.

<ASIN: 1871962978>

This book addresses the challenge of building AI that not only generates text but also grounds its responses in real data and takes action. Salvatore Raieli shows how to use retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), knowledge graphs, and agent-based architectures to engineer truly intelligent behavior.

<ASIN: 183508706X>

In this rollicking tech and pop culture history, Keith Houston follows emoji from its birth in 1990s Japan, traces its Western explosion in the 2000s, and considers emoji’s ever-expanding lexicon. Named for the world’s most popular pictogram, Face with Tears of Joy tells the whole story of emoji, where they came from, how they work, and where they're going.

<ASIN:1324075147 >