Articles about Developer

Microsoft has started the roll out of changes to Windows Update that give Windows 10 users more control over the process of updating. There has been a spate of problematic updates from Microsoft recently, and the change that is rolling out now introduces a new "Optional updates" section to Windows Update.

An important aspect of the new Windows Update user experience is that driver updating has been dramatically improved. Microsoft says that the changes will help users to get hold of the "highest quality, and most reliable drivers faster and with less friction".

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Turning it all the way up to 11, Google today launched the Developer Preview of Android 11 -- or Android R, if you prefer. For now, the preview build is only compatible with Pixel devices (no surprises there), but what can you expect to see?

Google has chosen to put privacy and security front and center in Android 11, giving users more control and transparency. The company also says that it has added things such as enhancements for foldables and 5G, call-screening APIs, new media and camera capabilities, and machine learning.

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Microsoft has released Windows Terminal Preview v0.9 with a glut of new features and options. The company says that this update is the last release that will include new features before v1 launches.

In terms of what's new, there's a lot to explore. The latest version of Windows Terminal will now detect any version of PowerShell and automatically create a profile for you, and the wt execution alias now supports command line arguments.

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You're very likely still waiting for Android 10 to make its way to your handset, but Google is already working away on Android 11.

The company accidentally (probably) published the Android 11 Developer Preview page online, leading to speculation that a developer build might be in the offing. But it seems that there is no cause to get excited just yet...

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Windows 10X is the upcoming operating system from Microsoft, designed for dual-screen devices such as the Surface Duo and Neo. If you thought you would have to wait ages, or spend a fortune on a new device to try it out... think again.

Today, Microsoft releases a Windows 10X emulator, giving anyone who wants a glimpse of the future the chance to take the OS for a test drive. In reality, the Windows 10X emulator is designed with developers in mind, but there's nothing to stop anyone who is curious from trying it out.

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If the recent Chrome Dev Summit was evidence of what Google thinks is hot in web development, then frameworks were one of the clear winners. More specifically, client-side frameworks and libraries like Angular, Vue and React, and larger web frameworks like Next.js.

We spoke to Tim Neutkens, lead developer of Next.js -- which Google mentioned in its talk on Advancing the Web Framework Ecosystem -- to learn more about the rise of front-end frameworks and their general promise to get web developers out of the infrastructure weeds and focus more on building websites and apps.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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".

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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.

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