The advantages and risks of outsourcing application development [Q&A]
As the IT skills shortage continues -- and organizations consider strategies to meet the shortfall -- outsourcing application development to experts is becoming a reality. But why are those skills outsourced, and what are the potential risks of outsourcing?
We spoke to Sreedhar Veeramachaneni, CEO and founder of System Soft Technologies, a Florida-based IT products, services, and solutions company focused on helping organizations optimize their IT processes and infrastructure.
Kodi facing a Windows development crisis
Earlier in the week, Team Kodi rolled out an update for Kodi 18 Leia, and also a major new version of the upcoming Kodi 19 Matrix, which included a switch to Python3.
At the time, the developers warned that the addition of Python3 was a "breaking change" for the popular home theater software, and would stop lots of add-ons from working.
How, what, where, when, and why of experimentation
Every new feature starts as an idea. Not all ideas are good ideas. Therefore, not every new feature is a good idea. So how do you know which feature is a good idea and which one isn’t? You experiment.
The idea of experimenting on users or in production may sound scary and complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. The questions below shed some light on common questions surrounding experimentation and can help you determine if experimentation is right for you.
Mozilla, Intel, Red Hat and Fastly join forces, forming Bytecode Alliance to create new software foundations
Four of the biggest names in technology -- Mozilla, Intel, Red Hat and Fastly -- have come together to create the Bytecode Alliance. The joining of forces sees the birth of an, "open source community dedicated to creating new software foundations, building on standards such as WebAssembly and WebAssembly System Interface (WASI)".
One of the aims is to take WebAssembly outside of browsers, taking whatever steps are necessary to ensure a secure ecosystem. More companies are expected to join the four founding member in the coming years.
Google may soon let third parties add options to Chrome's tab context menu
Google has been tinkering around with Chrome quite a lot recently. For the most part this has meant adding new features and options, but there have also been removals.
One element of the browser that has fallen victim to some slashings is the context menu that appears when right-clicking a tab. Several options have disappeared from this menu -- much to the chagrin of some users -- but Google now appears to be considering opening it up to entries from third parties, potentially making it more useful than ever.
Microsoft wants developers to start coding in the cloud
As software developers, we tend to get pretty attached to the IDE we use. And it's not hard to see why -- it's the tool we rely on the most, which enables us to create fantastic products and be productive while doing so.
And this can create a problem when we're faced with a change in our flow. We do not like change. Don't get me wrong. Change is great -- as long as it's not happening on our machines. Microsoft, however, doesn't mind a challenge, as it just unveiled Visual Studio Online. Like its name suggests, it's an IDE in the browser. Unlike its name suggests, that's only a small part of it.
Organizations build 'security debt' by focusing on new flaws
A focus on fixing new issues while neglecting ageing flaws leads to increasing security debt according to a new report.
The study -- the 10th such report from security testing specialist Veracode -- analyzed more than 85,000 applications across more than 2,300 companies worldwide and finds that fixing vulnerabilities has become just as much a part of the development process as improving functionality.
Microsoft launches two new open source projects for developers -- OAM and Dapr
Continuing its embracing of open source, Microsoft has today announced two new open source projects. The first is Open Application Model (OAM), a new standard for developing and operating applications on Kubernetes and other platforms
The second project is Dapr (Distributed Application Runtime), designed to make it easier to build microservice applications. Microsoft says that both OAM and Dapr "help developers remove barriers when building applications for cloud and edge".
.NET Core 3.0 is a huge leap forward
Microsoft has made lots of changes to .NET Core over the years, bringing tons of features over from its more mature and feature-rich sibling, .NET Framework. Still, the feature gap remained quite large for certain scenarios, leaving many developers waiting and wanting for more to be swayed away.
With .NET Core 3.0, which officially arrived this week, Microsoft may just win their hearts and minds once and for all.
IBM helps developers use open source and machine learning
As artificial intelligence and machine learning become more widespread, it's essential that developers have access to the latest models and data sets.
Today at the OSCON 2019 open source developer conference, IBM is announcing the launch of two new projects for developers.
Ubuntu is dropping i386 support and WINE developers are irked
As of version 19.10, Ubuntu will no longer support i386. With the arrival of Eoan Ermine, Ubuntu is severing 32-bit ties, and some developers are concerned.
The move is not entirely unexpected. The Ubuntu developers had previously said it would make an i386 decision in the middle of 2019. That time having rolled around, the Ubuntu engineering team says that it "has reviewed the facts before us and concluded that we should not continue to carry i386 forward as an architecture". WINE developers are among those unhappy with the decision.
iOS app developers take shortcuts on security
Despite Apple mandating developers to build end-to-end encryption into their apps, a high number of apps don't comply, according to a new report.
The study from mobile security company Wandera analyzed more than 30,000 of the iOS apps most commonly used by employees and found that more than two-thirds of apps don't enable App Transport Security (ATS).
BlueStacks Inside SDK brings mobile games to Windows
BlueStacks, the company whose software makes it possible to run Android games on Windows and macOS, has great news for gamers. It has announced a new BlueStacks Inside SDK which will make it easy for developers to bring their mobile games to Windows and deliver them through Steam.
Just as with the main BlueStacks software, this is not about emulating mobile devices. It's also not about porting games -- mobile games effectively become native PC games.
Application development industry faces major challenges
Demand for application development is soaring, but the industry faces some major challenges according to a new report.
The study from OutSystems shows the number of applications slated for delivery in 2019 has increased by 60 percent, and 38 percent of respondents plan to deliver 25 or more apps this year.
GitHub Package Registry launches in beta
GitHub has launched the GitHub Package Registry, its new package management service.
Starting out as a limited beta, teh GitHub Package Registry gives developers, coders and organizations an easy way to publish public or private packages next to source code. For now, there is support for the likes of JavaScript (npm), Java (Maven), Ruby (RubyGems), .NET (NuGet), and Docker images, with the promise of more to come.
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