Programming: PHP, Scheme, Perl, Python and JavaScript

• PHP version 7.2.28, 7.3.15 and 7.4.3

  RPMs of PHP version 7.4.3 are available in remi repository for Fedora 32 and remi-php74 repository for Fedora ≥ 30 and Enterprise Linux ≥ 7 (RHEL, CentOS). RPMs of PHP version 7.3.15 are available in remi repository for Fedora 30-31 and remi-php73 repository for Enterprise Linux ≥ 6 (RHEL, CentOS). RPMs of PHP version 7.2.28 are available in remi-php72 repository for Enterprise Linux ≥ 6 (RHEL, CentOS).

• Excellent Free Tutorials to Learn Scheme

  Scheme is a general-purpose, functional, programming language descended from Lisp and Algol. It is a statically scoped and properly tail-recursive dialect of Lisp. Scheme is a very simple language with a very simple syntax based on s-expressions. Its simplicity is fundamental in making it a popular introductory language. It follows a minimalist design philosophy specifying a small standard core with powerful tools for language extension. This philosophy helps make Scheme a programming language that can be learned over a weekend. Nevertheless, Scheme is a very versatile language being used to write a diverse range of applications such as financial analysis tools, compilers, virtual reality systems, as well as more mundane software. Scheme is used in computing education and research as well as a wide range of industrial applications.

• Don't like IDEs? Try grepgitvi

  Like most developers, I search and read source code all day long. Personally, I've never gotten used to integrated development environments (IDEs), and for years, I mainly used grep and copy/pasted file names to open Vi(m). Eventually, I came up with this script, slowly refining it as needed.

• Perl Weekly Challenge 48: Survivor and Palindrome Dates

  These are some answers to the Week 48 of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized by Mohammad S. Anwar.

• Deprecating or Transferring Mojo::ACME

  While Mojo::ACME was a fun experiment, it has several shortcomings at this point and I’ve officially stopped using it. If someone is interested in maintaining it, and if I’m sufficiently convinced of your credibility since this is a security module after all, I can hand it over. Otherwise I will be marking it as deprecated soon. Some background Mojo::ACME was mostly an experiment for me in learning the ACME (v1) protocol. It was a port of the acme-tiny script to mojo with one significant difference. When used as a plugin in your application it actually could listen for a local connection over websocket from the certificate issuance command to prepare for the authentication challenges. This allowed for zero-downtime intervention-free certificate issuance for your application. It was pretty neat and I’m still proud that it worked. Meanwhile the letsencrypt client, later to be renamed certbot, was in a very painful infancy.

• KBOS types

  After introducing KBOS I should write about the most fundamental concept in this Perl syntax extension. In fact it's so basic, you could use it even without objects. Of course this is not a full fledged type system. Use Raku to get that. Variables with KBOS will stay your perly whatever data container. But like in Moose or Zydeco, you want to verify data - if its consistent with your expectation. And you don't want to write the checking code lines over and over, plus they pollute method logic anyway. One of the advantages to have objects in the first place is to be sure, that the attributes obey requirements and you do not have to check them at every function all.

• Let’s Build A Simple Interpreter. Part 18: Executing Procedure Calls

• PyCharm 2020.1 EAP 4

  We have a new Early Access Program (EAP) version of PyCharm that can be now downloaded from our website. We’ve been hard at work making PyCharm easier to use and adding and improving features to get PyCharm 2020.1 ready for release. We have some good ones for you to try in this build. This EAP also includes loads of fixes from the IntelliJ Platform teams.

• No Python 2 On Upcoming Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Version!

  Python 2 will no longer be available on upcoming Ubuntu 20.04 LTS version”, said by Matthias Klose. The team canonical had a very long discussion and came to a decision to remove Python 2 from Focal Fossa. The exact words are, Sorry for delaying that email. Based on some discussions, we are going forward with the Python2 removal.Matthias Klose

• Android home screen widgets in HTML and JS

  I like having the news headlines on my phone’s home screen. (Well, on the screen to the right.) It helps me keep up with what’s going on in the world. But it’s hard to find a simple headline home screen widget which isn’t full of ads or extra frippery or images or tracking; I just want headlines, plain text, not unpleasantly formatted, and high-density. I don’t want to see three headlines; I’d rather see ten. I tried a whole bunch of news headline home screen widgets and they’re all terrible; not information-dense enough, or they are but they’re ugly, or they insist on putting pictures in, or they display a ton of other information I don’t want.

SharkLinux – Virtualization and cloud compatible Linux distro

Today, we are going to take a look at a specialized Linux distro, SharkLinux. It is a cloud compatible and virtualization Linux distro that you can use in the cloud. SharkLinux is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the MATE desktop and is best aimed for sysadmin testing, developers, and virtualization hobbyists. It follows a rolling release model for updates.

Events: WordPress Livestream, SUSECon, JupyterCon, LibrePlanet

• Pop-Up Livestream on February 22

  This should be a great way to get to hear from some speakers who have yet to share their knowledge on a global stage. WordPress is enriched by a multitude of experiences and perspectives, and I hope you are as excited as I am to hear new voices from a part of the world that is frequently underrepresented in the WordPress open source project.

• Get Expert Guided Hands-On Experience at the SUSECON 2020 Pre-Conference Workshops

• Get Certified During SUSECON 2020

• JupyterCon 2020 is a go!

  Just over a year ago, Project Jupyter announced it was reevaluating its annual community conference. An advisory committee of volunteers recommended a JupyterCon 2020 emphasizing a focus on access and leadership. We are now thrilled to announce a global Jupyter conference...

• Announcing JupyterCon 2020

  NumFOCUS is excited to be a part of JupyterCon 2020. JupyterCon will be held August 10 – 14 in Berlin, Germany at the Berlin Conference Center.

• Hot off the presses: a sneak peek at the LibrePlanet 2020 schedule

  LibrePlanet 2020 is organized by the FSF. Hundreds of people from across the globe will converge to explore this year's theme, "Free the Future." We'll be delving into the threats to user freedom that we've all been reading about every day in the media, as well as the unique role the free software movement plays in solving these problems. In addition to the first keynote we announced last month, Brewster Kahle, LibrePlanet 2020 will feature a panoply of presentations. Our lineup includes some talks we absolutely can't wait to see, and we think you'll feel the same way! You can now dive in to the speakers already confirmed and start planning your itinerary. [...] LibrePlanet 2020 offers lots of opportunities for socializing, too! The annual FSF open house will take place on the evening of Friday, March 13th, at the FSF office. And the LibrePlanet Saturday night party will feature a sparkling new location. As we have in the past, we'll organize a dinner specifically for women, genderqueer, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming attendees, please mail campaigns@fsf.org if you're interested in joining. If you are looking to organize your own dinner or meetup, you can do so using the LibrePlanet wiki 2020 conference social and dinner pages as a central place for communication about this.

Graphics: RADV Vulkan Driver, Intel Codecs and Defects, NVIDIA Firmware

• RADV Vulkan Driver Adds Option For Zeroing Out Video Memory

  New to Mesa 20.1-devel is a new option for the Radeon Vulkan "RADV" driver to enable zeroing out video memory allocations. This isn't a new concept with other graphics drivers offering similar functionality for zeroing out the vRAM either for security reasons or working around pesky game/app issues. For example, RadeonSI OpenGL zeros out the vRAM for Rocket League to workaround buggy behavior with that game. But zeroing out the video memory normally isn't done by default for all allocations due to performance reasons. With the new flag to zero vRAM allocations for the RADV Vulkan driver it was done by Valve's Samuel Pitoiset. In this case he mentions it's in part for "future work."

• Intel Gen12/Xe Graphics To Support 12-Bit HEVC/VP9 Decode

  We are learning more about the media engine capabilities with the forthcoming Intel "Gen12" (Xe) Tiger Lake graphics. The documentation for Intel's open-source media-driver that exposes VA-API capabilities on the Linux desktop was recently updated. That updated Intel VA-API Media Driver points to Intel Gen12 dropping VP8 video capabilities but expanding when it comes to 12-bit codec support.

• Intel Sends Out Latest Patches For Mitigating Graphics Flaw On Ivybridge/Haswell

  It has been one month and a few days since Intel first made public the need for graphics driver patching of Gen 7/7.5 graphics for older Ivybridge / Haswell hardware to fix a graphics hardware flaw. That vulnerability also affected the common Intel Gen9 graphics but there the mitigation was uneventful and quickly merged without causing any performance hit. But for Ivybridge/Haswell one month later the graphics driver mitigation for CVE-2019-14615 is still being addressed. This vulnerability is also known as iGPU Leak by the researchers that discovered it but for the Gen7/Gen7.5 protection the mitigation has been particularly problematic. With the initial Gen7/Gen7.5 patches posted in mid-January there was a huge hit to the graphics performance while Intel worked towards no performance loss.

• NVIDIA Posts Firmware Needed For Open-Source GeForce 16 Series Acceleration

  As written about last week, in the works for the Linux 5.7 kernel this spring is open-source NVIDIA "Nouveau" acceleration for the GeForce 16 series. That code is currently sitting in the Nouveau development tree until landing in DRM-Next for Linux 5.7, but NVIDIA has now posted the necessary firmware binaries needed for enabling the hardware acceleration on these Turing GPUs.