The temptation of AI as a service
Back in the early days of the cloud, I had a nice little business taking enterprise applications and reengineering them so they could be delivered as software-as-a-service cloud assets. Many enterprises believed that their custom application, which provided value by addressing a niche need, could be resold as a SaaS service and become another source […]
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Ubuntu Linux update brings performance boosts, tool updates
Canonical has released Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, aka “Noble Numbat,” a new Long Term Support release of the popular Linux distribution that brings performance enhancements and toolchain updates for developers. Announced April 25 and downloadable from ubuntu.com, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS offers Linux 6.8 kernel capabilities with improved syscall performance, nested KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) support on […]
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Java proposal would streamline module package imports
Java would be enhanced with the ability to succinctly import all packages exported by a module, under a proposal floating in the Java community. The plan would simplify the use of modular libraries in Java. The preview language feature for Java SE (Standard Edition), called Module Import Declarations, has been filed as a JDK Enhancement […]
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7 innovative ways to use low-code tools and platforms
Some developers and business leaders believe that low-code is only for small, lightly used applications such as replacing spreadsheets and building dashboards. “These tools, in general, aren’t well suited to more advanced applications,” says Steve Jones, devops advocate at Red Gate Software. With heavier use and more complex data manipulation requirements, he says, “they often […]
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Node.js 22 arrives, backs ECMAScript modules
Node.js 22, the latest version of the popular JavaScript runtime, has arrived, featuring require() support for ECMAScript modules, an improved WebSocket client, and an updated version of the Google V8 JavaScript engine. Announced April 24, version 22 of the event-driven, asynchronous runtime can be downloaded from Nodejs.org. The release adds require() support for synchronous ECMAScript module […]
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How to upstream code to open source projects
Code commonly flows downstream, from an open-source project into an organization’s own products. Upstreaming is the process of reversing that flow—contributing code back to an open-source project. The value proposition of upstreaming includes harnessing the strength of an open-source community to examine code, find and fix problems, and add their own features that make the […]
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AWS Snowmobile drives into the sunset
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has slowly and silently phased out its Snowmobile service—an offering launched at its annual AWS re:Invent conference in 2016 to help enterprises move data from their on-premises servers to the cloud provider’s data centers to accelerate their migration to the public cloud. The Snowmobile service, essentially an eighteen-wheel truck and trailer […]
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SAS Viya and the pursuit of trustworthy AI
As the use of ever more powerful AI models continues to grow, ensuring trust and accountability must be at the top of the list of goals, on par with any of AI’s potential benefits. It won’t happen overnight, nor will it result from any single step, such as better code, government regulations, or sincere pledges […]
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ECMAScript 2024 takes shape
ECMAScript 2024, a planned update to ECMA’s standard for JavaScript, is set to include seven new features ranging from array grouping to Unicode strings. The 2024 specification, from ECMA’s Technical Committee 39, is expected to be approved in June. Among the list of finished features cited for publication this year is a proposal for array […]
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Rust gets security fix for Windows vulnerability
The Rust language team has published a point release of Rust to fix a critical vulnerability to the standard library that could benefit an attacker when using Windows. Rust 1.77.2, published on April 9, includes a fix for CVE-2024-24576. Before this release, Rust’s standard library did not properly escape arguments when invoking batch files with […]
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