PERL,INGRES,PROGRAMMING

  Chainguard has released OpenJDK Java images which are JCK conformant, adhering to the strict Java standard but also with a twist. The twist is that the images are minimalist and based on Wolfi Linux (Un)Distribution. What's the deal with that? https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/17358-chainguard-images-now-come-with-jck-certified-java-.html

  pgextensions.org by DataCloudGaze is an online index of all PostgreSQL extensions that are available on all Cloud providers' managed instances. Why is that useful? https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/17348-pgextensions-index-for-postgresql.html

  The sessions from this year's British branch of the premier Java developer community conference, are now available online, for free. This year's Devoxx UK run in London on 8-10 May;3 days packed with 170 sessions across 6 stages and attended by more than a thousand developers. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/17343-devoxx-uk-sessions-now-available-online.html

  Accessing and working with Couchbase from C++ is now possible, thanks to the release of a C++ SDK that provides integration with Couchbase Server. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/184-cc/17336-couchbase-c-sdk-goes-ga.html

  Extensions like pgai are targeted at the "AI Engineers", a new breed of developers who unlike researchers are concerned with practically applying AI (models, tools, and APIs) to build software. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/17332-pgai-brings-your-ml-workload-to-the-database.html

  The talks from APISEC|CON, the largest event dedicated to API security, are now available up on Youtube, for free. The virtual event covered AI and LLM security, defending APIs, API sprawl, governance, testing, shift left, authentication attacks...it's all there. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/149-security/17327-apisec-conference-sessions-now-available-online-.html#google_vignette

  Are you sick of the math associated with cryptography? You don't have to be any more. Applied Cryptography from the University of Tartu shows cryptography without the math! At last, a hands-on tutorial that teaches developers how to utilize cryptography in an easy-to-comprehend and down-to-earth way. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/150-training-a-education/17318-learn-cryptography-without-the-math.html

  Pg_Lakehouse from ParadeDB is an extension that turns PostgreSQL into the analytical engine of DuckDB. Why is that useful? How do you use it? https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/17316-pglakehouse-makes-postgresql-quack.html

  Devoxx Genie is a fully Java-based LLM Code Assistant plugin for IntelliJ IDEA, designed to integrate with local and cloud LLM providers. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/17300-access-llms-from-intellij-with-devoxx-genie.html

  Having faced doubt, debate and insecurity, Perl is still going after all those years, alive, kicking and making releases. Business as usual. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/222-perl/17298-perl-v5400-shows-that-it-is-too-resilient-to-die-.html

  Amazon has announced Timestream, a fully-managed time series database service that is based on open source InfluxDB. But what is a time series ? A formal definition would sound like:   "A time series is a sequence of data points reported at a       consistent interval over time". https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/17291-amazon-timestream-for-influxdb-handles-your-time-series-workloads.html

  Oracle is getting into the coding assistants game. The aptly named "Oracle Code Assist" is going to be optimized for Java, SQL, and Oracle Cloud-based applications. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/17285-let-oracles-coding-assistant-do-the-grunt-work.html

  Mirascope is a Python library that lets you access a range of Large Language Models, but in a more straightforward and Pythonic way. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/90-tools/17275-mirascope-pythons-alternative-to-langchain.html#google_vignette

  Siren is a new mailing list by the OpenSSF which aims to monitor the threat landscape of open-source project vulnerabilities in order to provide real time alerts to anyone subscribed. This is yet another stepping stone in OpenSSF's ongoing campaign for sane software security.This mailing list is addressed literally to anyone; as we described in " The State Of Secure Software Development - Three OpenSSF Courses " https://www.i-programmer.info/news/149-security/17268-openssfs-siren-to-warn-about-oss-vulnerabilities.html

  Over recent days, Microsoft has announced both the official OpenAI library for .NET and the AI Toolkit for Visual Studio Code. From self-paced courses, as described in " Microsoft's Generative AI for Beginners ", to adding extensions for turning PostgreSQL into a vector store, or integrating it with Azure's OpenAI services, to partnerships with LLM makers like Mistral AI, Microsoft is upping its GenAI game. To continue that trend we now have news of the general availability of the OpenAI library for .NET and of the AI Toolkit for Visual Studio Code. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligence/17272-microsoft-goes-all-out-on-generative-ai.html

  The Microsoft Semantic Kernel (SK) is an open source lightweight foundation that lets you easily mix conventional programming languages with AI "prompts". After a year of work since the initial release, version 1 of the SDK is now generally available. So what's new? https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/17266-semantic-kernel-for-java-now-ga-.html

  There's a self-paced. YouTube-based course by Mycelial on the ins and outs of SQLite. It's short, succinct and free and a must watch for anybody wanting to get started with  SQLite. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/17251-the-mycelial-sqlite-for-beginners-course-.html#google_vignette

  A range of self-paced courses on GenAI, for free, released on AWS SkillBuilder, Amazon's online learning center where you can learn from AWS experts to build cloud skills online. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/150-training-a-education/17259-amazon-releases-free-courses-on-ai.html

  IBM is introducing decoder-only code models for code generative tasks as part of its Granite collection. The models have been trained with code written in 116 programming languages and range in size from 3 to 34 billion parameters. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligence/17226-ibm-launches-the-granite-code-llm-series.html

  New libraries allow you to integrate new and existing apps with Ollama in just a few lines of code. Here we show you how to use ollama-python and ollama-javascript so that you can integrate Ollama's functionality from within your Python or Javascript programs. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligence/17232-get-started-with-ollamas-python-a-javascript-libraries.html

  For the lovers of the command line, Spring Initializer Go is a tool with which you can initialize your Spring Boot projects without using the mouse. Is that essential? https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/17235-initialize-your-spring-boot-projects-from-the-cli-.html

  Integrating Gradle builds with Github's Actions promotes the best security practices among Gradle users. To do this there's a new official and open-source GitHub Action that generates complete and accurate information about dependencies in Gradle projects courtesy of Dependabot.  https://www.i-programmer.info/news/90-tools/17224-github-and-gradle-partner-to-strengthen-supply-chain-security.html

  The Eclipse Foundation, together with the Adoptium Working Group, have announced the latest release of the Temurin Java SE runtime. This landmark release supports 54 version/platform combinations and five major OpenJDK versions. Given the news, we examine why Temurin has been the flagship of the OpenJDK builds. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/136-open-source/17219-new-eclipse-temurin-openjdk-build-released.html

  The Empire strikes back with the most advanced  Oracle version to date. The focus of this new version is surprise, surprise, AI , which is so embedded into the new product that Oracle found prudent to change its name from 23c to 23ai to make the point. Let's find out what's on offer. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/17215-oracle-database-23ai-feel-the-difference.html

  Microsoft has launched several, free, self-paced courses on Data Analysis using its Power BI suite. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/150-training-a-education/17201-free-courses-on-becoming-a-data-analyst.html

  Supabase has launched Index Advisor, a Postgres extension for recommending indexes that improve query performance, easing the burden off the developer's shoulders. Usually when you create your tables you'll also want to create indexes upon them for rapid retrieval. In order to do that you'll need a good understanding of your domain and how the code accesses data. RDBMs's are optimized to work declaratively; that is you tell them what you want without instructing them how to, like you do in the imperative programming model, letting it decide the best way of going about it. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/17197-let-postgresql-pick-an-index-for-you.html

  py2wasm is a compiler that turns your Python code into WebAssembly, "running it at 3x faster speeds". Let's make something clear first. The official announcement from Wasmer states that by turning you program to Webassembly with py2wasm, it runs at "3x faster speeds". What it important to understand is this is in comparison to CPython WASM (CPython interpreter inside of WebAssembly), not native CPython. As such, it is an improvement over the current state of running Python programs in WebAssembly. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/87-web-development/17191-wasmers-py2wasm-compiles-python-to-webassembly.html

  Bedrock, Amazon's fully managed service for building generative AI applications, has been enhanced with support for Anthropic's Claude 3 Opus Foundation Model. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligence/17186-amazon-bedrock-adds-support-for-anthropics-claude3-opus.html

  The news is that the German State is moving 30,000 PCs to LibreOffice. Why is this of significance? That's not the first attempt of the German State to break free of vendors by adopting open source software. We've recently witnessed another attempt in " Is The German State In Love With OSS? " in which the State adopted openDesk, the open source alternative to Microsoft's and Google's office applications. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/136-open-source/17151-one-states-quest-for-digital-sovereignty-.html

  A free, self-paced course about Cybersecurity 101 is on offer by Microsoft's Cloud Security Advocates. It's a 30+ lesson curriculum targeted at complete novices. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/150-training-a-education/17152-microsofts-cybersecurity-for-beginners.html

  Dev Tunnels is a new Visual Studio option that exposes your localhost to the internet the easiest way possible. But first of all, why would you allow access from the public net to your local machine? https://www.i-programmer.info/news/89-net/17165-dev-tunnels-an-alternative-to-ngrok-for-net-users.html

  Spring Academy Pro is now freely available and Spring Builders is a new meeting point to discuss everything Spring related. Last year in " Learn With The Spring Academy " we've laid out some reasons for you to join it: Surely, there are many courses, blogs and tutorials on Spring develepment, but who knows better than the makers themselves, that is VMWare. Spring Academy, created by the stewards of the Spring framework, aims to introduce students to the ins and outs of the framework and provide the things that matter to further their careers like preparing for the official Spring Certified Professional exam. The instructors of the Academy work for VMware Tanzu Labs and that includes renowned Dev advocate Josh Long. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/17142-two-new-resources-tailored-to-spring-developers.html

  Bellsoft has added CRaC support to its ready-to-use Alpaquita container images. This will enable developers to seamlessly integrate CRaC into their projects for performant Java in the Cloud. Is CRaC the magic recipe to Java's warm up problems? https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/17135-liberica-alpaquita-containers-now-come-with-crac.html

  Select AI is a new feature of the Oracle Autonomous Database that transforms your mother language to SQL. This is a big boon for non-developers in extracting value out of their data silos. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/17132-query-your-oracle-autonomous-database-with-natural-language.html

  NVIDIA has jumped on the AI bandwagon in a big way. Hardware aside, this means working on training material too. Several self- paced courses have been released and for free too!. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/17128-nvidia-releases-free-courses-on-ai.html

  ZLUDA is a translation layer that lets you run unmodified CUDA applications with near-native performance on AMD GPUs. But it is walking a fine line with regards to legality. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/98-languages/17124-zluda-ports-cuda-applications-to-amd-gpus-.html

  Syncfusion has provided an in-browser environment where you can write, compile and run code that uses Blazor components and get it previewed live. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/89-net/17118-explore-syncfusions-blazor-playground.html

  WinterJS is a brand new Javascript runtime by Wasmer which comes with the claim that it's the fastest of them all. Let's find out if that holds true. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/167-javascript/17111-the-winterjs-javascript-runtime-is-asking-for-your-attention.html

  Falco is a cloud native runtime security tool for the Linux operating system, designed to detect abnormal behavior and warn of potential security threats in real-time. Now it's about to release its first stable version. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/141-cloud-computing/17087-falco-on-track-to-version-100.html

  Eclipse JKube makes deploying your Java application to a Kubernetes cluster a breeze. Let's find out what's new. Eclipse JKube is a library and a collection of plugins used for building container images using Docker, JIB or S2I build strategies. It can also generate Kubernetes and OpenShift resource manifests which can deploy them into a Kubernetes cluster. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/17099-eclipse-jkube-116-goes-ga.html

  JDK 22 is not a Long Term Support release, but is one of the regular releases that are scheduled to arrive every six months. Still, it has got a lot to show for itself. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/17084-java-version-22-released.html

  Jco 1.0 has been just announced by the Bytecode alliance.It's a native Javascript WebAssembly toolchain and runtime that runs Wasm Components inside the Node.js. Why is that useful? https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/17078-run-webassembly-components-inside-nodejs-with-jco.html

  It's a match made in heaven. The Azure AI extension enables the database to call into various Azure AI services like Azure OpenAI. Combined with pgvector you can go far beyond full text search. Let's get the details. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/17070-azure-ai-and-pgvector-run-generative-ai-directly-on-postgres.html

  An upgrade of AWS Lambda to the .NET version 8 runtime brings major improvements to the platform. The battle of the Lambda runtimes is going strong as AWS is a hotbed for language runtimes. Here at IProgrammer we've been covering upgrades to the Java, Python and Javascript runtimes. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/89-net/17064-aws-lambda-upgraded-to-net8-runtime.html

  The recorded lectures and the written material of a course on Self-Driving Cars at the University of Tübingen have been made available for free. It's a first class opportunity to learn the in and outs of how to develop the software that powers self-driving cars. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/150-training-a-education/17060-the-university-of-tbingens-self-driving-cars-course.html

  Amazon has announced the availability, albeit for experimental purposes, of a new JavaScript based runtime called Low Latency Runtime or LLRT for short, to bring JavaScript up to the performance throughput of low-level languages like Rust or C++. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/81-web-general/17052-aws-introduces-a-new-javascript-runtime-for-lambda.html

  Thanks to WebAssembly we can now enjoy PostgreSQL inside the browser so that we can build reactive, realtime, local-first apps directly on Postgres. PGLite is about to make this even easier. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/17049-running-postgresql-inside-your-browser-with-pglite.html

  As part of its effort to enable its customers to use generative AI for tasks such as content generation and summarization, Amazon has added these state of the art LLMs to SageMaker Canvas. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/90-tools/17034-aws-adds-support-for-llama2-and-mistral-to-sagemaker-canvas-.html

  Capella iQ, the AI coding assistant for developers that makes interacting with Couchbase using natural language possible, has gone from private beta to being generally available. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/17031-couchbases-coding-assistant-capella-goes-ga.html

  The popular PostgreSQL explainer series is celebrating its 100th release and beyond. Let's take a look at what it makes it so special. The '5mins of Postgres' series run by PgAnalyze, the platform that analyzes PostgreSQL instances for bottlenecks to offer troubleshooting advice, is very popular amongst PostgreSQL DBA's and developers. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/17027-100-episodes-of-5mins-of-postgres.html

  The recorded session of the premier conference for technical developers and users interested in exploring the potential of WebAssembly are now online. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/87-web-development/17014-wasmcon-2023-sessions-now-online.html

  Thanks to CheerpJ and WebAssembly you can now run a Java IDE inside your browser and local first.This is SnapCode, and while lightweight and in-browser, is to be not underestimated. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/17004-snapcode-a-java-ide-for-the-web.html

  Oracle has recently introduced some goodies for developers working with VS Code. This is an extension that integrates the venerable SQL Developer within VS Code. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/90-tools/17000-oracle-sql-developer-for-vs-code.html

  The talks presented at the 4th JChampions Conference which took place between Jan 25 to Jan 30, are now available for free on YouTube. Topics ranged from Code and Tech to Career Advice. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/16995-jconference-january-2024-sessions-now-online.html

TornadoInsight is plugin for Jetbrain's popular Intellij IDE for Java developers, that makes working with TornadoVM a much smoother experience. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/16989-tornadoinsight-brings-the-power-of-tornadovm-inside-intellij-.html

  pgxman is a package manager like npm, but instead of Javascript packages, it is for PostgreSQL extensions. It detects and streamlines extension operations and looks after dependency management, installation and uninstallation, based on the local development environment. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/16984-pgxman-postgresql-extension-manager.html

  Stanchion is an open-source extension that adds columnar storage capabilities to SQLite, rendering it efficient for analytical reporting. Postgres is often praised for its extensibility, but we tend to forget that others, such as SQLlite, are extensible too. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/16976-stanchion-turns-sqlite-into-a-column-store.html

  Microsoft has released a short series of video tutorials on using Git and Github from within Visual Studio. Given that Git is nowadays the defacto version control tool with most code hosted on GitHub, learning about them in combination does make sense.  https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/16967-microsofts-visual-studio-with-git-and-github-tutorials.html

  CheerpJ is a Java-to-Javascript runtime and compiler that can convert any Java application to HTML5 for in-browser rendering. Version 3.0 has been fully rewritten from scratch. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/16960-cheerpj-30-run-java-apps-inside-the-browser.html

  Introducing a new JavaScript library that makes running fully blown WebAssembly applications on the browser an easy task. WebAssembly was touted as a runtime that would be embedded into every major web browser in order to write code in any language that could be compiled to its bytecode format. Using it, the popular browsers would be able to execute not just JavaScript but also compiled binaries, hence the second label that was attached to it - the JavaScript killer. . https://www.i-programmer.info/news/87-web-development/16952-wasmer-js-sdk-webassembly-in-the-browser.html

  Vanna is a framework with which you can talk to your database not with SQL, but in plain English. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligence/16944-query-your-database-in-natural-language-with-vanna.html

  A database that you can fork and clone, branch and merge, push and pull just like a git Repository. What is the use case for it? First of all Dolt , written in Go, might not be a fork of Mysql, but it acts a drop-in replacement, adhering to the Mysql protocol, but with versioning on top. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/16934-dolt-a-version-controlled-database.html

  PostgresML is a machine learning extension for PostgreSQL that lets you perform training and inference on text and tabular data using SQL queries. It opens up intriguing possibilities. Let's find out more. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/197-data-mining/16920-postgresml-bring-your-ml-workload-to-the-database-.html

  ROScribe is an open source tool that utilizes prompt engineering to get a LLM to generate ROS compatible software packages for managing your robots. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/169-robotics/16914-roscribe-llms-at-the-service-of-robotics.html

  TinyBase is a Javascript library that enables you to create an in-browser, local-first, reactive data store. Too much terminology in one sentence - let's dissect it. With Tinybase you can store structured tabular data locally on your device. If you want a hyped headline it would  "in-memory reactive tabular data store" . What's the deal with that kind of Store? https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/16907-tinybase-and-the-local-first-movement.html

  v2.0 of the driver has been upgraded to support asynchronous operations from Python code. This is a major boon for Python developers. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/216-python/16901-python-driver-for-oracle-database-goes-asynchronous.html

  Yet another Open Source Software initiative taken by the German state, this time launching openDesk, "the sovereign workplace". This is the next step in the federal government's love affair with open source. Previously we had examined another one in "The German Government's Sovereign Tech Fund For OSS", a case where the government aims to strengthen the important role Open Source Software plays in modern society. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/136-open-source/16890-is-the-german-state-in-love-with-oss.html

The recorded sessions of the Vaadin Create conference, the conference for creators using Vaadin Flow and Hilla, are now available online. But first, what exactly is Vaadin? https://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/16894-vaadin-create-conference-2023-videos-now-online.html

  The recorded sessions and material of Carnegie Mellon's introductory course to FP taught in premises in summer 2023, are now freely available online. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/150-training-a-education/16885-carnegie-mellon-principles-of-functional-programming.html

  PostgreSQL has recently claimed the DB-Engines DBMS of the Year for 2023 award. Another confirmation of PostgreSQL's worth. Despite its age PostgreSQL isn't declining in popularity. On the contrary it always in front, as DB-Engines's official announcement confirms: https://www.i-programmer.info/news/84-database/16882-its-2024-why-does-postgresql-still-dominate.html