Credits : Zdnet

 

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has opened up its serverless language support, allowing “builders” to bring their own language to AWS Lambda.

Making the announcement at AWS re:Invent on Wednesday, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels said the offering comes in response to customers having their own favourite language and making sure that AWS isn’t restricting them.

The announcement comes in two parts, with the introduction of two new features aimed at making serverless development easier.

Lambda Layers is a way to centrally manage code and data that is shared across multiple functions; while Lambda Runtime API, is a simple interface to use any programming language, or a specific language version, for developing functions.

According to Vogels, the two features can be used together, as runtimes can be shared as layers so that developers can pick them up and use their desired programming language when authoring Lambda functions.

AWS is making C++ and Rust runtimes available soon, and is also working with partners to provide more open source runtimes including: Erlang (Alert Logic), Elixir (Alert Logic), Cobol (Blu Age), N|Solid (NodeSource), and PHP (Stackery).

Just as developers have their own favourite language, Vogels said they have their own preferred tools, too.

“Everyone wants to just build business logic,” he said. “Serverless is the ideal environment to stitch things together … it’s about what are the right tools for us to use to develop what you want.”

As a result, Vogels also launched Custom Runtimes, which allows developers to bring their own execution environment to serverless.

AWS announced the general availability of the AWS Toolkit for PyCharm, as well as the developer preview of the AWS Toolkits for IntelliJ and Visual Studio Code, which are under active development in GitHub.

“These open source toolkits will enable you to easily develop serverless applications, including a full create, step-through debug, and deploy experience in the IDE and language of your choice, be it Python, Java, Node.js, or .NET,” AWS explained in a statement.

AWS also rolled out WebSocket support for API Gateway, giving customers access to multiple compute environments. You can start, for example, moving things from EC2 to serverless without having to change APIs. This helps customers transition from a traditional compute environment into the serverless world, Vogels said.

AWS WELL-ARCHITECTED TOOL

Building on the five pillars that Vogels said encapsulate a set of “core strategies and best practices for architecting systems in the cloud” — operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, and cost optimisation — AWS also announced the AWS Well-Architected Tool.

Effectivel, it’s a package of resources to help customers measure and improve their architecture using AWS best practices. It includes videos on several topics such as “security events,” as well as best-practice guidelines and improvement plans.

The AWS Well-Architected Tool is a self-service tool designed to help architects review AWS workloads at any time, without the need for an AWS Solutions Architect.

PREVIOUS AND RELATED COVERAGE:

What a hybrid cloud is in the ‘multi-cloud era,’ and why you may already have one

Now that the services used by an enterprise and provided to its customers may be hosted on servers in the public cloud or on-premises, maybe “hybrid cloud” isn’t an architecture any more. While that may the case, that’s not stopping some in the digital transformation business from proclaiming it a way of work unto itself.

 

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Credits : Adtmag

 

Software development toolmaker JetBrains has released the latest version of its code-centric Java IDE, IntelliJ IDEA 2018.3. The much-anticipated update of the popular development environment comes with a range of new features, bug fixes, and early support for features in the upcoming Java 12. This is the third major update of the IDE released this year.

Among those early Java 12 features is support for JEP 326, “Raw String Literals,” which provides a new way to declare strings without escape characters or Unicode escapes. (A raw string literal is a string literal that does not recognize escape sequences, such as \n.)

This release also comes with Java Stream API improvements, a new data-flow-based inspection that detects situations in which a first condition is unnecessary because its covered by a second condition, and the ability to see when a suppressed inspection no longer addresses warnings in an associated method body, class, or statement.

There are some significant improvements the editor in this release. The IDE now highlights the first and all subsequent TODO comment lines in the editor and displays them in the TODO tool window; a new indentation status bar displays the size of the indent in the current file; users of the IDE can create a scope to disable code formatting from being done on specific files and folders; and syntax highlighting and code completion are now available for EditorConfig files.

Version control has also been enhanced with a long list of improvements in this release. That list includes, among other enhancements: the ability to view GitHub pull requests in the IDE; support for Git submodules; the ability to navigate within VCS Log to the previous/next selected commit; and the ability of the History Up to Here action to show the full history. IntelliJ IDEA also has a new option to copy a file from one Git branch to another, the branch files are committed to is now displayed in the Commit dialog, the IDE updates Git multi-repository projects faster, and, by default, the IDE now uses the Native Git SSH Executable.

The complete list of enhancements in this release is available on the JetBrains Web site on the “what’s new” page.

Two editions of the new version of IntelliJ IDEA are available for download now from the company Web site: a community edition for JVM and Android development, which is free and open source, and an “Ultimate” edition for Web and enterprise development, which includes a free trial.

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Credits : Deadlinenews

 

Web design trends change all the time. Several trends became a big deal in the past

but are already obsolete now. They could even hurt your chances of popularity if you use those strategies, instead of giving your site a boost. Modern trends are among the strategies used by experts in website design in Oxford, and if you decide to partner with them, they will make sure you get the website you deserve.

Large typography

Creating a brand is necessary for companies to stand out against their competitors. You need to have a brand that people will remember. When they think of a particular product, they will eliminate other options, and think about what you offer. Having large fonts on your website helps remind people about your company. It is like what logos do. When people see a logo, even from afar, they instantly think of a brand. Typography can also have the same impact on your target audience.

Large but responsive images

People don’t respond well to text these days. Regardless of their reason, the goal is for you to send the message across in the fastest possible time. Therefore, having large images helps. When you have large pictures on the website plus a few words for the description, they will immediately get the point. They might even decide to buy after seeing the information they need or recommend it to others. Besides, you also don’t know what device they will use when opening your website. You want to make it easy for them to see the images without having to expand their screen.

 

Background videos

There was a time when websites had videos all over the page. They started to become meaningless because people didn’t know which one to open, and why those videos were present. Today, the strategy is to choose one video and automatically play it in the background. You embed the video in the page so that it does not consume too much space, and it is not so heavy that it can cause a delay in loading the page. The good thing about videos is that people process such information faster compared to text. As long as they have fast internet access, opening these videos won’t be a problem.

 

Flat design

A few years ago, web design stepped up and included unique aesthetics, hoping to appeal to a wide audience. Unfortunately, it did not have the desired results. Flat design is still the preferred design by a lot of people as it is easy for them to comprehend. The use of shadows, added dimensions, and other unnecessary elements, does not help in making the page popular at all. If your goal is to appeal to all people- regardless of age or educational background, keeping the page simple is necessary.

 

Trying out these trends in web design will help improve your site. You can observe the changes and determine if they help develop your popularity. With the help of web design experts, it won’t be a problem.

 

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Credits : Rubbernews

Cooper Standard Automotive Inc. found an opportunity most research and development departments dream about.

Little investment, quick turnaround and massive time savings.

That’s what the firm accomplished with its proprietary artificial intelligence-based polymer compound development software. According to Chris Couch, Cooper’s vice president of innovation and product groups, the technology has led to an 80 percent reduction in the time it takes for the firm to develop new materials.

The technology was recently named a 2019 Automotive News PACE Award finalist. Automotive News is a sister publication of Rubber & Plastics News, but RPN is not involved with the judging process of the award.

“This is another example of us investing in material science to develop superior products,” Couch said. “This time it’s in the process we use to develop those, not the materials themselves, but it’s equally relevant.”

It is the second straight year Cooper Standard has been honored by the PACE Awards, winning one in 2018 for its Fortrex compound.

“It’s evident that our innovation culture is real,” Couch said. “It’s evidence that our innovation culture is delivering results for the business and results for our customers. The company strategy is focused on innovation. We’ve been investing in that and we will continue to invest in it. Last year was a story about a specific material and this year is a story about the process we use to develop materials. They’re both relevant and both meaningful to our business and customers.”

The firm entered this project with a clear objective: To reduce the time it took to bring new materials to the market. The old way involved trial and error, testing and repeating a process until the material desired was good enough for the customer. Couch said the number of repeats range from 40 to 120, which can easily span months and in some cases more than a year.

Cooper Standard sought to take the desired inputs—their recipes—and match them with desired outputs, or properties. The AI system would then learn the relationship between the recipes and the properties and guide its chemists to the new material.

Couch said using AI for polymer development is not a new concept—his research went back to the 1990s—but those experiments didn’t yield any breakthroughs.

“It fell out of favor because nobody really got value out of it,” Couch said. “But it’s now 2018, not 1990. The computers are faster, the data is better and the algorithms are better. So we decided to give it a try and see if we could make it work. It was very effective.”

The firm brought in outside AI experts, and Couch said from there things moved at lightning speed. It took about 12 weeks to launch its first project, then about another 12 weeks to get though that. He added that the cost for this project was “very low.”

The results, on the other hand, were very high. Cooper Standard ran a one-to-one test, giving a complex compound development problem to a team of chemists to approach the traditional way, and then used the AI in parallel. The firm found an 80 percent reduction of trial and error loops with the software.

Not only was the AI faster, but Couch said the end result was also superior. He stressed that the tool is not designed to replace its innovation team, but rather be used to enhance their abilities by freeing up more time.

So far the software has been applied to seven projects, and Couch said the AI is consistently bringing the same kind of improvement of up to an 80 percent reduction compared to the past trials.

“We’re really excited about these first projects,” Couch said. “It’s no longer just a one-off project. Our chemists are embracing this way of using the tool and are really starting to use it as a core part of our material development process and philosophy.”

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Credits : Itnonline

 

Novarad Corp. announced new mammography software NovaMG-Pro, specifically for multimodality radiologists that read mammography as well as non-mammography studies. By using the same workstation, a compatible picture archiving and communication system (PACS) user interface and optimizing human performance engineering, radiologists become more efficient, according to Novarad.

With mammography, time is a critical commodity. Reader fatigue, reduced efficiency, and delays in diagnosing breast disease and other abnormalities visible on medical images can slow workflow between breast and non-breast studies, minimize radiologist productivity and delay patient notifications. The result can be less efficient radiologists and imaging centers, and a weaker bottom line at hospitals, imaging centers, women’s health clinics and other health facilities

“When we’re reading, sometimes we want to see previous reports, and if you want to do that in a different software you have to go over to the PACS and pull up the case, and open it there and go back and forth, which slows me down,” said Lisa Watanabe, M.D., chief medical officer of CureMetrix and associate professor in clinical radiology at the University of Southern California (USC) School of Medicine. “Being able to have everything integrated with NovaMG-Pro is really advantageous. It definitely makes me more efficient.”

NovaMG-Pro offers one-click workflow and is fully integrated with dictation/voice recognition, eliminating the need for transcription. It tracks and reports all breast-related procedures, including mammography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound. Ultimately, NovaMG-Pro streamlines workflow to significantly reduce process time, accelerate productivity and increase efficiency. The result is reduced costs, higher throughput and maximized revenue.

Those interested in learning more about the NovaMG-Pro solution may visit the company at the 2018 Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) annual meeting, Nov. 25-30 in Chicago.

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Credits : Systemtek

 

A vulnerability in PHP could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on a targeted system.The vulnerability is due to a NULL pointer dereference condition that exists in the ext/standard/var.cfile of the affected software. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a request that submits malicious input to the affected software. A successful exploit could trigger a NULL pointer dereference condition, which the attacker could use to cause the software to crash, resulting in a DoS condition.Proof-of-concept (PoC) code that demonstrates an exploit of this vulnerability is publicly available.PHP has confirmed the vulnerability and released software updates.

Analysis

  • To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must send a malicious request to the targeted system, making exploitation more difficult in environments that restrict network access from untrusted sources.

Safeguards

  • Administrators are advised to allow only trusted users to have network access.Administrators are advised to run both firewall and antivirus applications to minimize the potential of inbound and outbound threats.Administrators may consider using IP-based access control lists (ACLs) to allow only trusted systems to access the affected systems.Administrators can help protect affected systems from external attacks by using a solid firewall strategy.Administrators are advised to monitor affected systems.

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Credits : Infoq

 

At Devoxx BE, held in Antwerp, Belgium, Amazon announced a preview release of Amazon Corretto, a “no-cost, multiplatform, production-ready distribution” build of OpenJDK, the reference implementation of Java. During the opening keynote James Gosling, the founder of the Java language, announced Corretto as a drop-in replacement for all Java SE distributions, with the exception of use cases involving features that are not available in OpenJDK (e.g., Java Flight Recorder) or workloads currently being run on non-HotSpot JVMs. Amazon plans for Corretto to become the default OpenJDK on Amazon Linux 2 in 2019.

The preview release version of Corretto 8 corresponds to Java 8, and installation binaries are currently available for Amazon Linux, macOS, and Windows. The GA release is planned for the first quarter of 2019, and will also add support for Ubuntu and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Amazon will provide free security updates for Corretto 8 until at least June 2023. Corretto 11, corresponding to OpenJDK 11, will be available during the first half of 2019. Amazon will support Corretto 11 with quarterly updates until at least August 2024.

The announcement post on the AWS Open Source blog by Arun Gupta, Principal Open Source Technologist at Amazon Web Services, stated that Java is one of the most popular languages in use by AWS customers, and that Amazon are committed to supporting Java and keeping it free.

We’re making [this] available to customers with no-cost, long-term support, with quarterly updates including bug fixes and security patches. AWS will also provide urgent fixes to customers outside of the quarterly schedule

After the recent announcements of changes to Oracle’s Java support offering — principally removing free long term support (LTS) for Java — many Amazon customers have become concerned that they would have to pay for an LTS version of Java in order to run their workloads. Initially Amazon re-affirmed LTS for Java in Amazon Linux, and this has now been followed up with the preview release of Amazon Corretto.

At an additional breakout session at Devoxx BE, Gupta was joined by Yishai Galatzer, Manager for the JDK team at AWS. The pair discussed that Corretto 8 includes targeted backports from newer OpenJDK releases, as well as newly-developed enhancements from the associated community and Amazon itself. The release process includes testing on thousands of Amazon production services, which makes it possible for fixes to be released within days of finding issues. Amazon also run the Java Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK) on each Corretto release to ensure compatibility with the Java SE platform.

The additional patches and improvements that are included within the Corretto build which are outside of the current OpenJDK upstream code base enable Amazon to “address high-scale, real-world service concerns, meeting heavy performance and scalability demands”. Example of these patches include: [C8-1] Prevent premature OutOfMemoryException when G1 GC invocation is suspended by a long-running native call; [C8-2] Back port from OpenJDK 10, fixing JDK-8177809: “File.lastModified() is losing milliseconds (always ends in 000)”; and [C8-17] Improve portability of JVM source code when using gcc7.

Amazon has already made several recent contributions to OpenJDK, and Gupta’s blog post states that “we look forward to working closely with the OpenJDK community on future enhancements to OpenJDK 8 and 11”. He continues, “we downstream fixes made in OpenJDK, add enhancements based on our own experience and needs, and then produce Corretto builds.” This does, however, raise the possibility for potential subtle differences within the upstream OpenJDK repo and Corretto.

In the case that any upstreaming efforts for such patches is not successful, delayed, or not appropriate for OpenJDK project, we will provide them to our customers for as long as they add value. If an issue is solved a different way in OpenJDK, we will move to that solution as soon as it is safe to do so.

Once Corretto binaries are installed on a host and correctly invoked to run Java applications, the “existing command-line options, tuning parameters, monitoring, and anything else in place will continue to work as before”. However, this does assume execution of an application via the HotSpot JVM, and if an alternative JVM is being currently being used, for example Eclipse OpenJ9, then the command line options that are available via this JVM may be incompatible or require modification. Audience members at Devoxx asked about the possibility of support for other JVMs in future versions of the platform, but Galatzer stated that at this time only HotSpot will be bundled with Corretto.

The source code for Corretto is available via GitHub, and InfoQ reached out to Gupta to ask if the project would be open to pull requests and patches from the wider community.

Any OpenJDK related issue would need to be filed in the corresponding OpenJDK repository under the OpenJDK contributor agreement, so the whole community can benefit from the fix. After such a contribution has been submitted to OpenJDK, we recommend discussing with the Corretto team over an issue, and deciding if a PR on Corretto will help accelerate the inclusion of a fix.

He was also keen to point out the public process for filing bugs on Corretto and OpenJDK:

OpenJDK related bugs should be filed in the OpenJDK repositories, a link to that bug could be filed on Corretto as well. This is to make any code or idea filed on the bug available for the whole community.

Discussions of the announcement on HackerNews and via Twitter, for example, Stephen Colebourne, Java Champion and creator of Joda-Time, have frequently focused on what the release cadence of Corretto versions will be. Gupta confirmed that currently only versions of Corretto that correspond to LTS releases of OpenJDK will be supported:

At this time, we plan to follow Oracle’s LTS release cycle. So, in addition to Corretto 8 and Corretto 11, the next LTS release will be Corretto 17.

Other builds of OpenJDK are also available, including Oracle’s Java, Red Hat’s OpenJDK build, and a community effort by the AdoptOpenJDK organisation. AdoptOpenJDK is a grassroots effort to promote adoption of OpenJDK, and consists of a collection of commercial organisations, Java User Groups, and individual Java developers. InfoQ reached out to Martijn Verburg, Java Champion and leader of the LJC and community OpenJDK build farm project for his thoughts on the recent announcement

Having Amazon announce Corretto is great extra recognition for OpenJDK as a viable runtime to use in Production! I think a lot of conservative organizations will see this and say “If Amazon is using OpenJDK as well as IBM, Red Hat et al, then my last doubts are now gone!”

InfoQ also asked if Amazon had worked with AdoptOpenJDK, and Verburg replied:

“Amazon worked with AdoptOpenJDK, using some of our scripts and expertise to solve kinks in their Windows and Mac installers and improve their story around testing. AdoptOpenJDK’s ethos has been about Open Infrastructure As Code and Amazon was more than welcome to that resource and we look forward to continuing to work with them and have their contributions come back.”

Having noted that the Tier One sponsors of the AdoptOpenJDK project include Azul Systems, IBM, the LJC, Microsoft Azure, Ocado and Packet, InfoQ also asked about Amazon’s involvement with the community and the potential for fragmentation of the Java ecosystem:

AdoptOpenJDK is also discussing further initiatives with Amazon and other OpenJDK providers to assuage fears about fragmentation. For example, AdoptOpenJDK has an open test suite and test pipeline (40-60,000 tests) that any binary can be put through. This could form the basis of a shared quality bar that all OpenJDK providers could meet, and there are several other ideas like that in the works.

[…]

In order to reduce some of the potential fears about fragmentation, AdoptOpenJDK will be strongly encouraging Amazon and any other OpenJDK provider to upstream their patches to OpenJDK.

Verburg was also keen to point out that the Java ecosystem reaches far and wide, both commercially and with hobbyists, and there is a need to provide a transparent build process.

A final [comment] on AdoptOpenJDK that I think is important. AdoptOpenJDK continues to be the vendor-neutral / multi-vendor community that produces extremely well tested OpenJDK builds, where end users can see exactly how binaries are built right from the O/S patch level all the way through to each library used.

He continued by cautioning that many more hardware architectures, operating systems, and Java versions also exist outside of the platforms Amazon are currently targeting with Corretto:

AdoptOpenJDK will continue to support the whole ecosystem with a wide range of platform support (ARM32/64, Win 32, AIX, Linux s390, PPC as well as Win, Mac OS X, and Linux x86) and version/variant support (Eclipse OpenJ9 VM, OpenJDK 8, 9, 10 11, Project Amber etc).

Concluding, Verburg encouraged the community to get involved in the future of Java by contributing to open source projects like those promoted by AdoptOpenJDK.

We’ve already had a few million downloads and an incredibly wide range of community members such as IBM, Red Hat, Azul, Ocado, SAP, the LJC (and yes Amazon as well) participating daily. This is a project that people believe is an important public resource for the software industry for a long, long time.

Moving focus back to the introduction of Corretto by Gosling at Devoxx, and with a nod to Java’s coffee-themed history — Caffè corretto is an Italian beverage, consisting of a shot of espresso with a small amount of liquor — he shared with the Devoxx audience that he is pleased to see the open source release of Corretto:

Amazon has a long and deep history with Java. I’m thrilled to see the work of our internal mission-critical Java team being made available to the rest of the world

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Credits : Irishtechnews

 

For developing mobile application, JAVA is accepted as one of the best programming languages. It is an object- oriented language developed by Sun Microsystem in 1995, and became the most prominent language for programming within 20 years.

How does the JAVA language work?

In other coding or programming languages, the code is first translated by a compiler into instructions, while in JAVA instead turns code into Bytecode, which is then interpreted by software JRE (Java Runtime Environment).

Why is Java the best programming language?

Java is easy to learn, the language has fluent English-like syntax and less mysterious characters. Java has rich API, xml parsing, database connection, networking, utilities and provides almost everything that a developer can expect. It is also open source and available free. Eclipse and Netbeans are the powerful tools that brings life to JAVA script

Interaction of JAVA and Android Phones 
Android have succeeded in keeping JAVA on the forefront in last couple of years. JAVA gives the best option for development of mobile applications that are based on Android, as Android consist of its own APIs and JAVA libraries. So, for Android applications, you use android APIs as well as JAVA to write code for Android apps.

These apps are called as native apps, as it is developed by using native tools and libraries. You can also code in other language as well but you need a framework to convert into native app for that API. To execute the programming files, Android does not use JVM (JAVA Virtual Machine) but instead uses DVM (Dalvik Virtual Machine), which is not a true JVM. So, to execute the files it has to convert into DEX format and then bundled into Android Package (APK).

For mobile application, JAVA has specially designed J2ME (JAVA to micro edition). All J2ME application must have main class that is derived from a special class called MIDlet. The standard JAVA runtime environment for these devices is provided using (MIDP) Mobile Information Device Profile and Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC). To write J2ME applications, you need the JAVA platform micro edition SDK (software development kit) and IDE, which can be Eclipse or Netbeans. But to develop Android application, JAVAmidlet has to convert into Android apps and for that, tools like J2Android is used. This tool can convert any JAVA midletinto Android apps.

There is a question raised on the JAVA performance and future application, butJAVA gives the platform to promising language based on JVM such as Scala and Clojure. And with the introduction of new version, JAVA 7 will become more efficient.

In conclusion, JAVA is the best choice for mobile developers working on Android applications because it is convenient and relatively easy to use.

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Credits : Moodlenews

 

We must thank again one of our loyal readers for helping us realize the importance of this follow-up. The truth is, key changes in such a critical technology deserve continuous coverage. Furthermore, the “update of the update” —i.e., PHP 7.2— sets new challenges and opportunities, in and beyond Moodle.

PHP 7.2 is not the significant departure from PHP 7.1 that PHP 7 was from PHP 5. But there are incompatibilities from 7.1 to 7.2, as well as deprecated features.

But if there is one point to get across, is that PHP 5 and 7.0 are a thing of the past. The only actively supported version of the last branch is PHP 5.6, which is no longer actively developed and will stop receiving any kind of update, including security, by New Year’s Eve. PHP 7.0 will receive security support until December 3rd, and PHP 7.1 will stop active support until December 1st.

In the case of Moodle, the situation is not as dire as in other PHP-based systems, but there is some cause for concern. PHP 7.2 is compatible with Moodle 3.4 and 3.5 only, which according to the official stats cover some three fifths of registered active Moodle sites.

Hinkelman’s list

Please list the major changes in PHP 7.2 that might affect Moodle.
The bottom line is that not doing the migration will make the sites more vulnerable. But the mandatory switch should have some visible benefits including speed, smoothness in 64-bit machines (the increasing majority of them), and a decrease in the fatality of running into code errors. PHP 7.2 is designed to make the code more flexible and errors more manageable and less consequential.

Regarding the new features coming in PHP 7.2 compared from PHP 5, the list is long and highly technical. But final uses should count on a more secure and reliable system, and depending on the developer and functionality, better plugin performance.

What changes are likely to affect custom plugins, such as activity modules, themes, question types and blocks?
Other than ensuring compatibility, plugins and core features do not need to make radical changes to their code. But developers are welcome to study some of the key new features and decide whether it enhances the quality and performance of their programs:

  • Convert numeric keys in object/array casts: It expands the uses and access of data in arrays.
  • Counting of non-countable objects: When a piece of data that is not “countable,” a warning will appear next to the result of using the count() function (1).
  • Object typehint: Functions can now request that variables are objects of any kind, as long as they are objects.
  • Migration Hash Context from Resource to Object: A “Hash Resource” is a type of data for certain extensions, designed for cryptography. Before PHP 7.2 it could not be used as an object, but now it can.
  • Argon2 Password Hash: Developers can now safely store passwords using this “superior” algorithm, winner of the latest Password Hashing Competition.
  • Deprecate (then Remove) Mcrypt: The decade-old Mcrypt extension to encrypt data (not just passwords, like Argon2) is out the door. It is unlikely developers today use it.
  • Make Libsodium a Core Extension: Mcrypt’s demise gives way for Libsodium, which is more robust and is actively developed.
  • Improved SSL / TLS constants: It makes it easer to add a security layer to process involving information transfer between two systems.

Another, even more delicate issue developers (and hardly anyone else) involves the compatibility of frameworks they use to streamline PHP programming. Zend, one of the most popular, became compatible with PHP 7.2 only a few months. Developers who use Zend must upgrade both PHP and Zend to ensure compatibility.

What problems did HQ have to solve to get MoodleCloud working on PHP 7? Maybe you should interview an HQ developer about this, and get their advice for institutional upgraders.
We do not have an announcement on interviews at this time. Stay tuned!

Should schools wait to upgrade to Moodle 3.5 for a year or so, because PHP 7 is such a major change?
In short, no. PHP 7 has been around for almost 2 years. In tech time, it is plenty for both plugin and Moodle HQ developers to get acquainted and make the switch. However, the ideal and actual scenario might vary. It is estimated that 57% of the internet still uses PHP 5.6 and 7.0. You can thank WordPress most of all for this.

PHP 7 might come with new things to learn, but it is designed to make PHP programming more manageable.

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Credits : Eurekalert

 

Representing a group of successful biocontrol agents for various pest fruit flies, a parasitic wasp genus remains largely overlooked. While its most recent identification key dates back to 1969, many new species have been added since then. As if to make matters worse, this group of visually identical species most likely contains many species yet to be described as new to science.

Having recently studied a species group of these wasps in Central Europe, scientists Fabian Klimmek and Hannes Baur of the Natural History Museum Bern, Switzerland, not only demonstrate the need for a knowledge update, but also showcase the advantages of modern taxonomic software able to analyse large amounts of descriptive and quantitative data.

Published in the open access Biodiversity Data Journal, the team’s taxonomic paper describes a new species – Pteromalus capito – and presents a discussion on the free-to-use Xper3, developed by the Laboratory of Informatics and Systematics of Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University. The software was used to create an openly available updated key for the species group Pteromalus albipennis.

The fully illustrated interactive database covers 27 species in the group and 18 related species, in addition to a complete diagnosis, a large set of body measurements and a total of 585 images, displaying most of the characteristic features for each species.

“Nowadays, advanced computer technology, measurement procedures and equipment allow more sophisticated ways to include quantitative characters, which greatly enhance the delimitation of cryptic species,” explain the scientists.

“Recently developed software for the creation of biological identification keys like Xper3, Lucidor Delta could have the potential to replace traditional paper-based keys.”

To put the statement into context, the authors give an example with one of the studied wasp species, whose identification would take 16 steps if the previously available identification key were used, whereas only 6 steps were needed with the interactive alternative.

One of the reasons tools like Xper3 are so fast and efficient is that the key’s author can list all descriptive characters in a specific order and give them different weight in species delimitation. Thus, whenever an entomologist tries to identify a wasp specimen, the software will first run a check against the descriptors at the top, so that it can exclude non-matching taxons and provide a list of the remaining names. Whenever multiple names remain, a check further down the list is performed, until there is a single one left, which ought to be the one corresponding to the specimen. At any point, the researcher can access the chronology, in order to check for any potential mismatches without interrupting the process.

Being the product of digitally available software, interactive identification keys are not only easy, quick and inexpensive to publish, but they are also simple to edit and build on in a collaborative manner. Experts from all around the world could update the key, as long as the author grants them specific user rights. However, regardless of how many times the database is updated, a permanent URL link will continue to provide access to the latest version at all times.

To future-proof their key and its underlying data, the scientists have deposited all raw data files, R-scripts, photographs, files listing and prepared specimens at the research data Zenodo, created by OpenAIRE and CERN.

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