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Let’s go for my web review for the week 2024-19.

Heat Death of the Internet - takahē

Tags: tech, internet, web, satire, criticism

Obviously a satire, some of it feels eerily real though.

https://www.takahe.org.nz/heat-death-of-the-internet/

“AI now beats humans at basic tasks”: Really?

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, research, benchmarking, criticism

Nice article. It’s a good reminder that the benchmarks used to evaluate generative AI systems have many caveats.

https://aiguide.substack.com/p/ai-now-beats-humans-at-basic-tasks

Did GitHub Copilot really increase my productivity?

Tags: tech, ai, copilot, productivity

Interesting data point. This is a very specialized experience but the fact that those systems are kind of random and slow clearly play a good part in limiting the productivity you could get from them.

https://trace.yshui.dev/2024-05-copilot.html

AI Copilots Are Changing How Coding Is Taught - IEEE Spectrum

Tags: tech, ai, copilot, ethics, programming, teaching, learning

Well, maybe our profession will make a leap forward. If instead of drinking the generative AI cool aid, if we really get a whole cohort of programmers better at critical skills (ethical issues, being skeptical of their tools, testing, software design and debugging) it’ll clearly be some progress. Let’s hope we don’t fall in the obvious pitfalls.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-coding

Machine Unlearning in 2024 - Ken Ziyu Liu - Stanford Computer Science

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copyright, gdpr

Interesting questions and state of the art around model “unlearning”. This became important due to the opacity of data sets used to train some models. It’ll also be important in any case for managing models over time.

https://ai.stanford.edu/~kzliu/blog/unlearning

Systemd heads for a big round-number release [LWN.net]

Tags: tech, linux, systemd

Indeed the next systemd release feels feature packed. Definitely to keep an eye on.

https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/971866/f244aee59d4d6a66/

UEFI, BIOS, and other confusing x86 PC (firmware) terms

Tags: tech, bios, uefi, hardware

Confused? Well, not surprising we mostly use those terms with very lax definitions.

https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/tech/UEFIAndBIOSAndOtherPCTerms

It’s always TCP_NODELAY. Every damn time. - Marc’s Blog

Tags: tech, tcp, networking

Getting network protocols right is definitely difficult.

https://brooker.co.za/blog/2024/05/09/nagle.html

Why Full Text Search is Hard

Tags: tech, language, search

If you wonder why information retrieval from natural language texts is a tough domain, here is a short article listing the important things to keep in mind.

https://transactional.blog/blog/2023-why-full-text-search-is-hard

All error messages are necessarily bad to some degree

Tags: tech, failure, ux

Not a reason to make no effort into having as proper error messages as possible. Still there’s some truth there that trying to have a really useful error message is a fool’s errand.

https://www.haskellforall.com/2024/05/all-error-messages-are-necessarily-bad.html?m=1

pyspread

Tags: tech, python, qt, spreadsheets, tools

Looks like a fun spreadsheet tool where you can use Python in any cell.

https://pyspread.gitlab.io/

The UX of UUIDs | Unkey

Tags: tech, uuid, encodings

Interesting set of tricks around UUIDs to make them easier to manipulate.

https://www.unkey.com/blog/uuid-ux

Build your own HTMX

Tags: tech, web, frontend, htmx

Excellent exercise in understanding how HTMX works under the hood.

https://joshi.monster/posts/build-your-own-htmx/

No, I don’t want to fill out your contact form - Adam Jones’s Blog

Tags: tech, web, email

Good exploration of the many ways contact forms fail us regularly. Also shows a few cases where you might still want to us them… in most cases you shouldn’t.

https://adamjones.me/blog/dont-use-contact-forms/

What You Need to Know about Modern CSS (Spring 2024 Edition) – Frontend Masters Boost

Tags: tech, web, frontend, css

Looks like a good reference about everything which can be done with the latest CSS evolutions.

https://frontendmasters.com/blog/what-you-need-to-know-about-modern-css-spring-2024-edition/

Google Testing Blog: Test Failures Should Be Actionable

Tags: tech, tests

Good advice indeed. Having asserts using appropriate matchers can go a long way understanding what went wrong.

https://testing.googleblog.com/2024/05/test-failures-should-be-actionable.html?m=1

Simplicity is An Advantage but Sadly Complexity Sells Better

Tags: tech, complexity

Definitely this. We tend to like complexity too much as a profession and field. It’s also a good reminder that the complexity of the problem and the complexity of the solution shouldn’t be conflated.

https://eugeneyan.com/writing/simplicity/

Programming mantras are proverbs - lukeplant.me.uk

Tags: tech, programming, culture, craftsmanship

Interesting take about the mantras often used in our profession. They shouldn’t be treated as laws, but as proverbs carrying a piece of contextual wisdom. It’s thus unsurprising that they tend to contradict each other. This contradiction should make us pause and think.

https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/programming-mantras-are-proverbs/

Refactor: Inline-Adjust-Extract - XP123

Tags: tech, programming, refactoring

Since there’s a clear tendency in the developers I meet to “extract at all costs”, this is a good reminder that sometimes you need to inline the code first. This very often brings better clarity in the context of use. In turns this leads to a better final extraction.

https://xp123.com/refactor-inline-adjust-extract/

Bye for now!

In October-November 2023, the Django Software Foundation, in partnership with PyCharm, carried out a survey to capture the preferences and contributions of Django developers worldwide. Today, we’re excited to share the results through detailed infographics highlighting how our community influences the future of web development.

View the Django Developers Survey 2023 report

Why should you check out the infographics?

1. Discover the latest trends in Django development.
2. Learn about the tools and technologies preferred by leading developers.
3. Understand the challenges and opportunities within the Django ecosystem.

Visit the landing page to explore the full report and gain insights that can help shape your projects and strategies in the Django landscape.

Bringing supply chain security to PyCon US 2024 About • Blog • Newsletter • Links Bringing supply chain security to PyCon US 2024

Published 2024-05-10 by Seth Larson
Reading time: minutes

This critical role would not be possible without funding from the Alpha-Omega project. Massive thank-you to Alpha-Omega for investing in the security of the Python ecosystem!

Next week is PyCon US 2024, one of my favorite times of year. If you'll also be in Pittsburgh, reach out to me on Signal (sethmlarson.99) and we'll meet up sometime during the conference.

Here's where you'll find me during the week:

Secure snek 🐍🛡️

• Talk on "State of Supply Chain Security" with Michael Winser of Alpha-Omega.
• Open space on Vulnerability Disclosure and Management with Madison Oliver of GitHub Security.
• Blogger for the Python Language Summit.
• Spreading security knowledge along with Mike Fiedler, the PyPI Safety and Security Engineer.
• Working in-person with Python core developers during sprints.

I'll also be bringing along some exclusive "secure snek" stickers, so if you see me at the conference ask about those while supplies last!

If you're interested in security, I recommend considering these other tutorials and talks:

• Tutorial: PyO3 101: Writing Python modules in Rust by Cheuk Ting Ho
• Tutorial: Fundamentals of API security in Python by Jose Haro Peralta
• Talk: Making Python safer than ever by Cheuk Ting Ho
• Talk: Building a Rusty path validation library for PyCA Cryptography by William Woodruff
• Talk: How Python harnesses Rust through PyO3 by David Hewitt

That's all for this week! 👋 If you're interested in more you can read last week's report.

Thanks for reading! ♡ Did you find this article helpful and want more content like it? Get notified of new posts by subscribing to the RSS feed or the email newsletter.

This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Friday, 10 May 2024

KDE today announces the release of KDE Frameworks 6.2.0.

KDE Frameworks are 72 addon libraries to Qt which provide a wide variety of commonly needed functionality in mature, peer reviewed and well tested libraries with friendly licensing terms. For an introduction see the KDE Frameworks release announcement.

This release is part of a series of planned monthly releases making improvements available to developers in a quick and predictable manner.

New in this version Attica

• Modernize: don't else after return. Commit.
• Provider: document default ctor. Commit.
• Providermanager: remove unused function with typo. Commit.
• Postfiledata: simplify private. Commit.
• Modernize: use unique_ptr for privates. Commit.
• Basejob: don't leave dangly pointers. Commit.
• Platformdependent: v3. Commit.

Baloo

• Don't kill the lock file, can lead to random corruption. Commit. Fixes bug #389848

Bluez Qt

• Fixed min_bitpool and max_bitpool from capabilities where ignored. Commit.
• Port QML module to declarative type registration. Commit.

Breeze Icons

• Add support for media-playlist-no-shuffle icon name. Commit.
• Add audio/ogg and audio/x-vorbis+ogg icons. Commit.
• Add audio/vnd.wave MIME type. Commit.
• Remove generic non-symbolic audio and video icons. Commit.
• Add 16 and 22px symbolic versions of some Places icons that were missing. Commit. Fixes bug #486316
• Add zoom-in-map and zoom-out-map icons along with -symbolic versions. Commit.
• Longer description for the ICONS_LIBRARY option. Commit.
• Add symbolic versions for more USB device style icons. Commit.
• Fix some scale errors. Commit. Fixes bug #485479
• Fixed input-combo-on.svg colour issue. Commit.
• Add -symbolic symlinks for notification-* icons. Commit.
• Use new dev.suyu_emu.suyu id, add symlink for old id. Commit.
• Add accessories-screenshot-tool icon/symlink. Commit.
• [webfont] enable ligatures. Commit.
• Gitignore: add VS Code dir. Commit.
• Add input-keyboard-color 22px, 32 px. Commit.

Extra CMake Modules

• API dox: KDEInstallDirs6: refer to qtpaths now as source of Qt paths. Commit.
• API dox: KDEInstallDirs6: drop outdated note about being in ALPHA state. Commit.
• Test: Increase minimum cmake version so that it works with Qt 6.7. Commit.
• ECMQmlModule6: group qml and resource file calls. Commit.
• Modules/ECMAddTests.cmake - handle unset or empty QT_PLUGIN_PATH. Commit.

KArchive

• Gitignore: add VS Code dir. Commit.

KCMUtils

• KQuickConfigModule: Don't crash on null object. Commit.
• SimpleKCM: Remove remnants of footerParent. Commit.
• Use ellipsis character instead of three dots. Commit.
• GridDelegate: Port to ComponentBehavior: Bound. Commit.
• GridDelegate: Consolidate code paths for opening a menu. Commit.
• GridDelegate: Don't use qualified property access as appropriate. Commit.
• GridDelegate: Use concrete type for the popup menu. Commit.
• GridDelegate: Use somewhat more consistent ToolTip bindings, remove timeout. Commit.
• Components: Drop QML import versions, unify import aliases. Commit.
• Components: Guard nullable property access. Commit.
• Components: Explicitly specify signal handler arguments. Commit.
• KCModuleQml: Provide a fallback in case a pushed page is not one of magical KCMUtils types. Commit.
• Add API to make header and footer paddings optional. Commit.
• Round all the things consistently. Commit.
• Pluginselector: cache delegates. Commit.

KCodecs

• Gitignore: add VS Code dir. Commit.

KColorScheme

• Gitignore: add VS Code dir. Commit.

KConfig

• Avoid allocations while parsing int/float lists. Commit.
• Adapt kdesktopfiletest to QTemporaryFile behavior change. Commit.
• Guard header with an ifndef and include moc generates sources in the cpp file. Commit.
• Autotests: Don't use a timeout in testLocalDeletion. Commit.
• Adjust kconfig_compiler autotests to include a version without kcfgc. Commit.
• Add a CMake function to add a kcfg file without kcfgc. Commit.
• Gitignore: add VS Code dir. Commit.

KConfigWidgets

• KRecentFilesAction: Load mimeType and action lazily. Commit.
• Remove forward declaration of KToggleAction. Commit.
• Test that an invalid language gives the empty string. Commit.
• Gitignore: add VS Code dir. Commit.

KContacts

• Restore country detection tests on FreeBSD. Commit.
• Disable FreeBSD tests that recently started to fail in the CI. Commit.

KCoreAddons

• Gitignore: add VS Code dir. Commit.

KCrash

• Gitignore: add VS Code dir. Commit.

KFileMetaData

• API dox: use "MIME type" and "URL" spellings consistently. Commit.
• API dox: add some minimal info to undocumented classes. Commit.
• API dox: add empty line between @brief (ends by first period) and rest. Commit.
• API dox: add some dummy info to namespaces for doxygen to cover them also. Commit.
• API dox: escape space after e.g. to work-around doxygen sentence end magic. Commit.
• UserMetadata: return errors when xattr ops fails. Commit.
• Value is already default timeout value in QT6 framework. Commit.
• [XmlExtractor] Add support for compressed SVGs. Commit.
• [XmlExtractorTest] Move Test class declaration to source file. Commit.
• [Office2007Extractor] Reuse DublinCoreExtractor, fix namespace handling. Commit.
• [DublinCoreExtractor] Add CreationDate (dc::created) support. Commit.
• [DublinCoreExtractor] Skip properties from empty elements, cleanup. Commit.
• Move date parser helper out of ExtractorPlugin, clean it up. Commit.
• [TaglibExtractor] Include vnd.audible.aaxc audio books in supported types. Commit.
• [Test] Include vnd.audible.aax audio books in coverage tests. Commit.
• [TaglibWriterTest] Move test class declaration to source file, cleanup. Commit.
• [TaglibExtractor|Writer] Fix mimetypes. Commit.

KGlobalAccel

• Port q->connect to QObject::connect. Commit.
• Fix connection lifetime issue. Commit. See bug #454854. See bug #485386

KGuiAddons

• Recorder/kkeysequencerecorder: conform to KKeyServer changes. Commit.
• Gitignore: add VS Code dir. Commit.

KHolidays

• Update holiday_bd_en. Commit.

KI18n

• Gitignore: add VS Code dir. Commit.

KIconThemes

• Allow to configure if we register our icon plugin for SVGs. Commit.
• Port QML module to declarative type registration. Commit.
• Fix typo in BreezeIcons::initIcons loading. Commit.
• Gitignore: add VS Code dir. Commit.

KImageformats

• Fix build with Qt 6.7 on 32 bits. Commit.

KIO

• [kfilefilter] Consider mime globs valid. Commit.
• Kfileitemtest: add basic tests for dir. Commit.
• File_unix: don't call QMimeDatabase::mimeTypeForFile for directories. Commit.
• Widgetsaskuseractionhandler prevent crash when job had no parent widget. Commit.
• PreviewJob: Add file extension to thumbnail temp files. Commit. Fixes bug #463989
• KFileItem: handle the case parent url path is empty. Commit.
• KFileItemActions: Add logic to order actions between separators. Commit. Fixes bug #466115
• KFileItem: fix getStatusBarInfo() displaying symlink target as "http:". Commit. Fixes bug #475422
• ScopedProcessRunner: support waitForStarted. Commit.
• ScopedProcessRunner: fix use of undeclared identifier 'close'. Commit.
• [ftp] Always use default timeout values. Commit.
• [http] Set error string for ERR_DOES_NOT_EXIST. Commit.
• Force test language to en. Commit.
• Knewfilemenu: Add @since 6.2 to the new signals and methods. Commit.
• Kfilefilter.h: update API docs. Commit.
• Kencodingfiledialog dox: rewrite API dox that refer to removed functions. Commit.
• Kfilewidget dox: replace references to setFilter() with setFilters(). Commit.
• Fix a few warnings. Commit.
• Add EnableRemoteFolderThumbnail option checking. Commit.
• PreviewJob: Display preview for locally mounted remote directories. Commit.
• Knewfilemenu: add isNewDirNameJobRunning. Commit.
• KFilePlacesItem: Show teardown busy indicator during optical media eject. Commit.
• KDirModelTest.testDeleteFiles: lower debug output. Commit.
• KUrlNavigator: allow adding a badge widget after the breadcrumb. Commit.
• Set ideal case for TwoVectors. Commit.
• Udsentry_api_comparison_benchmark: update. Commit.
• Kurlnavigatorbutton: prevent. Commit.
• Add more explicit moc includes to sources for moc-covered headers. Commit.
• Connection: don't queue tasks until OOM. Commit.
• Http: Fix parsing DAV:getlastmodified. Commit. Fixes bug #484671
• Kfileitem: Linux, use statx to refresh files. Commit. Fixes bug #446858

Kirigami

• Fixed wrong navigation and dialog header button colors. Commit. Fixes bug #486163
• Card: Remove the unnecessary "reality check" binding on footer, add test. Commit.
• Card: Restrict actions type from arbitrary QObject to T.Action. Commit.
• Card: Shuffle things around a bit to make them look nicer. Commit.
• Remove linkActivated/linkHovered from Delegate types. Commit.
• InlineMessage: Improve examples in documentation, clean up QML. Commit.
• OverlayDrawer: Rework separator's code, animate transitions. Commit.
• OverlayDrawer: Hide segmented separator when the drawer is collapsed. Commit.
• OverlayDrawer: Rewrite visibility condition for segmented separator. Commit.
• OverlayDrawer: Rewrite segmented separator positioning expression. Commit.
• OverlayDrawer: Bind segmented separator's width to the real separator's width. Commit.
• GlobalDrawer: Set spacing on the default header. Commit.
• Fix null deref in OverlaySheet. Commit.
• OverlaySheet: Port layout hacks to a simple Padding with its contentItem. Commit.
• Tst_pagepool: Port testing code from verify(==) to compare. Commit.
• Tst_pagepool: Fix test properly. Commit.
• Revert "tst_pagepool: Fix test". Commit.
• CardsGridView and CheckableListItem are not a thing anymore. Commit.
• Actions.main is not a thing anymore. Commit.
• Tst_pagepool: Fix test. Commit.
• Revert "PageRow: Fix parent of Component-based pages". Commit.
• PageRow: Fix parent of Component-based pages. Commit. Fixes bug #482753
• MnemonicAttached: Fix logic when pressing Alt. Commit.
• Dialog: Always use an overlay as visual parent. Commit.
• Link Activation TitleSubtitle. Commit.
• ContextualHelpButton: remove excess space from tooltip. Commit. Fixes bug #481817
• Fix crash on teardown when QML engine is already unset. Commit.
• ListSectionHeader: Deprecate label property. Commit.
• PageRow: Remove superfluous trailing semicolon from a property alias. Commit.
• PromptDialog: Create default contentItem dynamically on demand. Commit.
• Padding: Remove old overridden contentItem from the visual hierarchy. Commit.
• Gitignore: add VS Code dir. Commit.
• Add a explicit page type check in AbstractApplictionHeader. Commit.
• Add radius unit for rounded rectangles. Commit.

KItemModels

• Add dependency to QML module. Commit.
• Port to declarative type registration. Commit.

KItemViews

• Add more explicit moc includes to sources for moc-covered headers. Commit.

KNewStuff

• Show header warning message framelessly. Commit. Fixes bug #485464
• DownloadItemsSheet: use alternating background colors for legibility. Commit. Fixes bug #483724
• Document ContentWarning. Commit.
• Page: conditionalize warning message based on riskiness. Commit.

KNotifications

• Enforce passing tests on Windows. Commit.

KParts

• Enforce passing tests on Windows. Commit.

KRunner

• Action: Make bool operator explicit. Commit.
• Fix matchInternalFinished not being emitted in case of dbus errors. Commit.

KSVG

• Don't call update on missing marginObject. Commit.
• Make property type fully qualified. Commit.

KTextEditor

• Fix caret painting for inline notes at the end of line. Commit.
• KateCompletionWidget: Mark function static. Commit.
• KateCompletionModel: remove useless std::as_const. Commit.
• Run more tests offscreen. Commit.
• Fix performance with many cursors in a large line. Commit.
• Fix test expectations. Commit.
• Fix crashs and OOM on load with encoding failures. Commit. Fixes bug #486195. Fixes bug #486134
• A11y: Improve tab order for "Appeareance" -> "Borders". Commit.
• A11y: Set "Line Height Multiplier" buddy. Commit.
• Fix broken navigation in completion widget with multiple views. Commit.
• Fix clicking in completion. Commit.
• Fix textInsertedRange signal for insertText behind last line. Commit. Fixes bug #483363

KTextTemplate

• Enforce passing tests on all platforms. Commit.

KUserFeedback

• Fix logging category. Commit.

KWallet

• Fix reply type in portal implementation. Commit.
• Kwalletportalsecrets.h: Add missing include. Commit.
• Implement XDG Secrets Portal. Commit. Fixes bug #466197

KWidgetsAddons

• Introduce KContextualHelpButton. Commit.
• KMessageWidget: Fix handling of palette changes. Commit.
• KMessageWidget: Make sure icon label is always vertically centered. Commit.
• Gitignore: add VS Code dir. Commit.

KWindowSystem

• Port to QNativeInterface::Private::QWaylandWindow. Commit.
• Remove an unused explicit moc include. Commit.
• Add more explicit moc includes to sources for moc-covered headers. Commit.
• Introduce KXcbEvent to initialize the memory of sent XCB events. Commit.

KXMLGUI

• Improve dbus disabling. Commit.

Purpose

• Add pre share hooks. Commit.
• Enforce passing tests on Windows. Commit.

QQC2 Desktop Style

• TreeViewDelegate: Fix non-observable modelIndex property getting stuck. Commit.
• [CheckIndicator] Use control as AbstractButton. Commit.
• Add missing dependency to private module. Commit.
• Add QTBUG to comment. Commit.
• Make SwitchIndicator more compiler-friendly. Commit.
• ItemBranchIndicators: Fix uninitialized member variable m_selected. Commit.
• StyleSingleton: Check whether object is qGuiApp. Commit.
• [RadioButton] Use id instead of parent lookup. Commit.
• [TabButton] Fix property type. Commit.
• Apply Kirigami.Units.cornerRadius to default list item background too. Commit.
• Gitignore: add VS Code dir. Commit.
• Use consistent radius value from Kirigami.Units.radius. Commit.

Solid

• Remove too aggressive assert. Commit. Fixes bug #464149
• [StorageAccess] Fix storageAccessFromPath returning unmounted filesystems. Commit.
• [SolidHwTest] Extend FakeHW description with encrypted volume, add tests. Commit.
• [SolidHwTest] Test Device::storageAccessFromPath. Commit.
• [DeviceManager] Remove exists() check from storageAccessFromPath. Commit.
• Udisks: Return empty string for "root" clearTextPath. Commit. Fixes bug #485507
• [SolidHwTest] Remove unnecessary slotPropertyChanged helper, fix bug. Commit.
• [SolidHwTest] Remove setenv wrapper, unnecessary qt_windows.h include. Commit.
• [SolidHwTest] Move test class declaration to source file. Commit.
• Udisks2: Add support CanCheck/Check/CanRepair/Repair. Commit.

Sonnet

• Add dependency to QML module. Commit.
• Gitignore: add VS Code dir. Commit.

Syntax Highlighting

• Support single-quoted strings in MapCSS. Commit.
• Add Syntax Highlighting for Vue Template Files. Commit.
• Add syntax highlighting support for CashScript. Commit.

The diffoscope maintainers are pleased to announce the release of diffoscope version 266. This version includes the following changes:

[ Chris Lamb ] * Use "xz --list" to supplement the output when comparing .xz archives; essential when some underlying metadata differs. (Closes: #1069329) * Actually append the xz --list after the container differences, as it simplifies tests and the output. * Add 7zip to <!nocheck> Build-Depends in debian/control. * Update copyright years. [ James Addison ] * Maintain an in-header boolean state to determine whether to drop from-file/to-file lines. This fixes an issue where HTML differences were being inadvertendly neglected. (Closes: reproducible-builds/diffoscope#372)

You find out more by visiting the project homepage.

I like the sentiment of Helen Hunt Jackson in that quote and it generally applies double for computer system names. However I like to think when I named the first NetSurf VM host server phoenix fourteen years ago I captured the nature of its continuous cycle of replacement.

We have been very fortunate to receive a donated server to replace the previous every few years and the very generous folks at Collabora continue to provide hosting for it.

Recently I replaced the server for the third time. We once again were given a replacement by Huw Jones in the form of a SuperServer 6017R-TDAF system with dual Intel Xeon Ivy Bridge E5-2680v2 processors. There were even rack rails!
The project bought some NVMe drives and an adaptor cards and I attempted to arrange to swap out the server in January.
Here we come to the slight disadvantage of an informal arrangement where access to the system depends upon a busy third party. Unfortunately it took until May to arrange access (I must thank Vivek again for coming in on a Saturday to do this)
In the intervening time, once I realised access was going to become increasingly difficult, I decided to obtain as good a system as I could manage to reduce requirements for future access. 
I turned to eBay and acquired a slightly more modern SuperServer with dual Intel Xeon Haswell E5-2680v3 processors which required purchase of 64G of new memory (Haswell is a DDR4 platform). 
I had wanted to use Broadwell processors but this exceeded my budget and would only be a 10% performance uplift (The chassis, motherboard and memory cost £180 and another £50 for processors was just too much, maybe next time)
While making the decision on the processor selection I made a quick chart of previous processing capabilities (based on a passmark comparison) of phoenix servers and was startled to discover I needed a logarithmic vertical axis. Multi core performance of processors has improved at a startling rate in the last decade.
When the original replacement was donated I checked where the performance was limited and noticed it was mainly in disc access which is what prompted the upgrade to NVMe (2 gigabytes a second peek read throughput) which moved the bottleneck to the processors where, even with the upgrades, it remains.
I do not really know if there is a conclusion here beyond noting NetSurf is very fortunate as a project to have some generous benefactors both for donating hardware and hosting for which I know all the developers are grateful.
Now I just need to go and migrate a huge bunch of virtual machines and associated sysadmin to make use of these generous donations.

Kirigami Addons 1.2 is out with some accessibility fixes and one new component: FloatingToolBar.

Accessibility

During the accessibility sprint, there was an effort to ensure the date and time pickers were actually accessible. Aside from improving the screen reader support, this also allow to write Selenium integration tests which uses these components in Itinerary. Thanks Volker, David Redundo and others for working on this!

FloatingToolBar

Mathis and I worked on a new addition to Kirigami Addons adding to the existing FloatingButton and DoubleFloatingButton components. This component is perfect to add tool to editing and drawing areas and can either contain a simple RowLayout/ColumnLayout containing ToolButtons or a Kirigami.ActionToolBar.

import org.kde.kirigamiaddons.components import org.kde.kirigami as Kirigami FloatingToolBar { contentItem: Kirigami.ActionToolBar { actions: [ Kirigami.Action { ... } ] } }

Dialogs

With the style used by FormCardDialog and MessageDialog merged in Kirigami and soon in qqc2-desktop-style too, I did some changes to the FormCardDialog and MessageDialog to use the same padding as Kirigami.Dialog.

MessageDialog now works better on mobile with the layout adapting itself to the dialog size.

messagedialog with a mobile layout

Aditionally similar to KMessageBox, MessageDialog has an optional “don’t show again” option which can be enabled by setting the dontShowAgainName property similar to the KMessageBox api.

I also prepared these two components to work as standalone windows which is likely to come with this Qt 6.8 change request.

Dialog in Qt 6.8

CategorizedSettings

Jonah fixed a bug where it would be impossible to escape the settings on mobile.

Documentation

I added more screenshot to the API documentation and updated the TableView example app to use a ‘frameless’ style.

Qt 6.7 support

This release also brings support for Qt 6.7 on Android as this release introduced an API and ABI change to the Android code. Thanks Joshua for tackling this issue.

This is a really fun talk with Shauna.  

We talk about: 

• Going from academia to tech
• Django
• Open source project governance and Governing Open
• Womens Soccer and the NWSL

Shauna's technical consulting business is Galaxy Rise Consulting

The Complete pytest Course

• Level up your testing skills and save time during coding and maintenance.
• Check out courses.pythontest.com

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ <p>This is a really fun talk with Shauna.  </p><p>We talk about: </p><ul><li>Going from academia to tech</li><li>Django</li><li>Open source project governance and <a href="https://governingopen.com">Governing Open</a></li><li><a href="https://www.nwslsoccer.com/">Womens Soccer</a> and the NWSL</li></ul><p>Shauna's technical consulting business is <a href="http://www.galaxyriseconsulting.com/">Galaxy Rise Consulting</a></p><p><br></p> <br><p><strong>The Complete pytest Course</strong></p><ul><li>Level up your testing skills and save time during coding and maintenance.</li><li>Check out <a href="https://courses.pythontest.com/p/complete-pytest-course">courses.pythontest.com</a></li></ul> <strong> <a href="https://www.patreon.com/PythonPeople" rel="payment" title="★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★">★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★</a> </strong>

In this episode, we discuss working on several different open-source Python packages. Antonio Cuni is our guest, and he chats about his work on PyScript, pdb++, pypy, HPy, and SPy.

Listen in as we chat about Python, packages, open source, and so much more!

Show Links

Here are some of the projects we talked about in the show:

• The Invent Framework
• PyScript
• pdb++ – A drop-in replacement for pdb
• pypy – The fast, compliant, alternative Python implementation
• HPy – A better C API for Python
• SPy – Static Python

The post Episode 40 – Open Source Development with Antonio Cuni appeared first on Mouse Vs Python.

The new Ubuntu LTS was released in April, congratulations to all involved with that. I know Scarlett worked hard to get Kubuntu back into shape so do if that a try if you want a stable Plasma 5 desktop.

In the KDE neon project we don’t like to sit still for long so we are now building all our KDE packages on Ubuntu Noble, versioned 24.04. This always takes longer than it feels like it should, mostly because it’s a moving target to keep everything compiled as more KDE software gets released, so no promises on when it’ll be ready but we’ll try to be fast because the old Ubuntu base of jammy (22.04) is showing its age with projects like Krita no longer able to compile there.

So far the main issues are all the changes needed for 64-bit time_t to fix the y2k38 problem, we know you wouldn’t want your clocks to zero out in 2038.

FTP master

This month I accepted 386 and rejected 39 packages. The overall number of packages that got accepted was 386.

I also added lots of +moreinfo tags to some RM bugs. Is it that hard to check the reverse dependencies on your own?

Debian LTS

This was my hundred-eighteenth month that I did some work for the Debian LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian.

During my allocated time I uploaded:

• [DLA 3781-1] libgd2 security update for three CVEs to fix out-of-bounds reads or NULL pointer derefence
• [DLA 3784-1] libcaca security update for two CVEs to fix heap buffer overflows
• [DLA 3805-1] qtbase-opensource-src security update for seven CVEs to fix buffer overflows, infinite loops or application crashs due to processing of crafted input files. When trying to compile the fixed version, I got an error that there is no .compare() for QByteArray available. Yes, indeed, QByteArray::compare, which was used in a patch, was introduced only in Qt 6.0. So I had to backport that to Buster as well. It is astonishing that such a basic function was not needed before.
• [#1070153] bookworm-pu: qtbase-opensource-src/5.15.8+dfsg-11+deb12u2 to fix two CVEs
• [#1070154] bullseye-pu: qtbase-opensource-src/5.15.2+dfsg-9+deb11u1 to fix ten CVEs
• [#1064550] uploaded libjwt
• [#1067544] uploaded libmicrohttpd

I also continued to work on tiff and last but not least did a week of FD and attended the monthly LTS/ELTS meeting.

Debian ELTS

This month was the sixty-ninth ELTS month. During my allocated time I uploaded:

• [ELA-1069-1]libgd2 security update for three CVEs to fix out-of-bounds reads or NULL pointer derefence in Jessie and Stretch
• [ELA-1070-1]libcaca security update for two CVEs to fix heap buffer overflows in Jessie and Stretch
• [ELA-1083-1]qtbase-opensource-src security update for five CVEs to fix buffer overflows, infinite loops or application crashs due to processing of crafted input files in Stretch

I also continued to work on an update for tiff in Jessie and Stretch, did a week of FD and attended the LTS/ELTS meeting.

Debian Printing

This month I uploaded new upstream or bugfix versions of:

• … cups-filters
• … cpd-backend-cups
• … hplip
• … gutenprint
• … foo2zjs

In preparation for cups3 I introduced a new package:

• … libcupsfilters

This work is generously funded by Freexian!

Debian Astro

This month I uploaded a new upstream or bugfix version of:

• … indi-apogee
Debian IoT

This month I uploaded new upstream or bugfix versions of:

• … libmatthew-java
• … libjwt
Debian Mobcom

This month I uploaded new upstream or bugfix versions of:

• … osmo-hlr
• … osmo-iuh
• … osmo-pcu
• … osmo-bts
• … libosmo-netif
• … libosmo-sccp

I have done these uploads in preparation for my GSoC student, who will be officially announced in May.

misc

I am sorry for people still using 32bit computers, but from my point of view these are dying architectures. So if there are any problems with builds on those architectures, I no longer try to fix them but file RM bugs. Patches are welcome, but I am no longer willing to spend any time for this.

This month I uploaded new upstream or bugfix versions of:

• … gnupg-pcs11-scd
• … golang-github-dchest-uniuri
• … mpb
• … uucp

This month I even found some time to introduce new packages:

• … mailio a cross platform C++ library for email support
• … pksc11-proxy a proxy for the PKCS11-library

Just a quick post here to say that I’ve added a new Projects page to my freelance website. I realised I didn’t have anywhere online that I could point people to that had links to all of the ‘non-work’ (maybe that should be ‘non-paid’) projects I’ve made.

These projects include my Free GIS Data site, the British Placename Mapper, Py6S and more. I’ve also put together a separate page (linked from the projects page) with all my university theses (PhD, MSc and undergraduate) and other university work – which still get a remarkably high number of downloads.

Have a look here, or see a screenshot of the first few entries below:

Do you use Python in an academic setting? Maybe you run a research lab or teach courses using Python. Maybe you're even a student using Python. Whichever it is, you'll find a ton of great advice in this episode. I talk with Keiland Cooper about how he is using Python at his neuroscience lab at the University of California, Irvine.<br/> <br/> <strong>Episode sponsors</strong><br/> <br/> <a href='https://talkpython.fm/neo4j-notes'>Neo4j</a><br> <a href='https://talkpython.fm/posit'>Posit</a><br> <a href='https://talkpython.fm/training'>Talk Python Courses</a><br/> <br/> <strong>Links from the show</strong><br/> <br/> <div><b>Keiland's website</b>: <a href="https://www.kwcooper.xyz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">kwcooper.xyz</a><br/> <b>Keiland on Twitter</b>: <a href="https://twitter.com/kw_cooper" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@kw_cooper</a><br/> <b>Keiland on Mastodon</b>: <a href="https://fediscience.org/@kwcooper" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@kwcooper@fediscience.org</a><br/> <br/> <b>Journal of Open Source Software</b>: <a href="https://joss.readthedocs.io/en/latest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">joss.readthedocs.io</a><br/> <b>Avalanche project</b>: <a href="https://avalanche.continualai.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">avalanche.continualai.org</a><br/> <b>ContinualAI</b>: <a href="https://continualai.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">continualai.org</a><br/> <b>Executable Books Project</b>: <a href="https://executablebooks.org/en/latest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executablebooks.org</a><br/> <b>eLife Journal</b>: <a href="https://elifesciences.org/about/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">elifesciences.org</a><br/> <b>Watch this episode on YouTube</b>: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rad6Kd6J0ns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">youtube.com</a><br/> <b>Episode transcripts</b>: <a href="https://talkpython.fm/episodes/transcript/461/python-in-neuroscience-and-academic-labs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">talkpython.fm</a><br/> <br/> <b>--- Stay in touch with us ---</b><br/> <b>Subscribe to us on YouTube</b>: <a href="https://talkpython.fm/youtube" target="_blank" rel="noopener">youtube.com</a><br/> <b>Follow Talk Python on Mastodon</b>: <a href="https://fosstodon.org/web/@talkpython" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i class="fa-brands fa-mastodon"></i>talkpython</a><br/> <b>Follow Michael on Mastodon</b>: <a href="https://fosstodon.org/web/@mkennedy" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i class="fa-brands fa-mastodon"></i>mkennedy</a><br/></div>

This post is a review for Computing Reviews for Constructed truths — truth and knowledge in a post-truth world , a book published in No Starch Press

Imagine you’ve come across a trove of files documenting a serious deed and you feel the need to “blow the whistle.” Or maybe you are an investigative journalist and this whistleblower trusts you and wants to give you said data. Or maybe you are a technical person, trusted by said journalist to help them do things right–not only to help them avoid being exposed while leaking the information, but also to assist them in analyzing the contents of the dataset. This book will be a great aid for all of the above tasks.

The author, Micah Lee, is both a journalist and a computer security engineer. The book is written entirely from his experience handling important datasets, and is organized in a very logical and sound way. Lee organized the 14 chapters in five parts. The first part–the most vital to transmitting the book’s message, in my opinion–begins by talking about the care that must be taken when handling a sensitive dataset: how to store it, how to communicate it to others, sometimes even what to redact (exclude) so the information retains its strength but does not endanger others (or yourself). The first two chapters introduce several tools for encrypting information and keeping communication anonymous, not getting too deep into details and keeping it aimed at a mostly nontechnical audience.

Something that really sets this book apart from others like it is that Lee’s aim is not only to tell stories about the “hacks and leaks” he has worked with, or to present the technical details on how he analyzed them, but to teach readers how to do the work. From Part 2 onward the book adopts a tutorial style, teaching the reader numerous tools for obtaining and digging information out of huge and very timely datasets. Lee guides the reader through various data breaches, all of them leaked within the last five years: BlueLeaks, Oath Keepers email dumps, Heritage Foundation, Parler, Epik, and Cadence Health. He guides us through a tutorial on using the command line (mostly targeted at Linux, but considering MacOS and Windows as well), running Docker containers, learning the basics of Python, parsing and filtering structured data, writing small web applications for getting at the right bits of data, and working with structured query language (SQL) databases.

The book does an excellent job of fulfilling its very ambitious aims, and this is even more impressive given the wide range of professional profiles it is written for; that being said, I do have a couple critiques. First, the book is ideologically loaded: the datasets all exhibit the alt-right movement that has gained strength in the last decade. Lee takes the reader through many instances of COVID deniers, rioters for Donald Trump during the January 2021 attempted coup, attacks against Black Lives Matter activists, and other extremism research; thus this book could alienate right-wing researchers, who might also be involved in handling important whistleblowing cases.

Second, given the breadth of the topic and my 30-plus years of programming experience, I was very interested in the first part of each chapter but less so in the tutorial part. I suppose a journalist reading through the same text might find the sections about the importance of data handling and source protection to be similarly introductory. This is unavoidable, of course, given the nature of this work. However, while Micah Lee is an excellent example of a journalist with the appropriate technical know-how to process the types of material he presents as examples, expecting any one person to become a professional in both fields is asking too much.

All in all, this book is excellent. The writing style is informal and easy to read, the examples are engaging, and the analysis is very good. It will certainly teach you something, no matter your background, and it might very well complement your professional skills.

Armadillo is a powerful and expressive C++ template library for linear algebra and scientific computing. It aims towards a good balance between speed and ease of use, has a syntax deliberately close to Matlab, and is useful for algorithm development directly in C++, or quick conversion of research code into production environments. RcppArmadillo integrates this library with the R environment and language–and is widely used by (currently) 1144 other packages on CRAN, downloaded 34.2 million times (per the partial logs from the cloud mirrors of CRAN), and the CSDA paper (preprint / vignette) by Conrad and myself has been cited 583 times according to Google Scholar.

Conrad released a new upstream bugfix yesterday (for a corner case with fftw3). We uploaded it yesterday too but it took a day for the hard-working CRAN maintainers to concur that the one (!) NOTE from reverse-dependency checking over 1100 packages was in a fact a false positve. And so it appeared on CRAN (very) early this morning. We also made a change removing a long-redundant setter for C++11 mode via the plugin. No other changes were made.

The set of changes since the last CRAN release follows.

Changes in RcppArmadillo version 0.12.8.3.0 (2024-05-07)

• Upgraded to Armadillo release 12.8.3 (Cortisol Injector)

  • Fix issue in fft() and fft2() in multi-threaded contexts with FFTW3 enabled

• No longer set C++11 for the Rcpp plugin as this standard has been the default by R for very long time now.

Courtesy of my CRANberries, there is a diffstat report relative to previous release. More detailed information is on the RcppArmadillo page. Questions, comments etc should go to the rcpp-devel mailing list off the Rcpp R-Forge page.

If you like this or other open-source work I do, you can sponsor me at GitHub.

This post by Dirk Eddelbuettel originated on his Thinking inside the box blog. Please report excessive re-aggregation in third-party for-profit settings.

Introduction

Another year, another successful Season Of KDE for 12 contributors!

This article has been co-written with the input from all contributors.

Translation Projects

KDE counts on a very active translation community and translates software into over 50 different languages. In SOK 2024, we had 2 projects that focused on translating multiple apps into Hindi. Asish Kumar and Akash Kumar joined the KDE Hindi community to translate multiple apps into Hindi. They both worked together on translating Merkuro, then Akash focused on Tellico while Asish worked on KDE Connect and Cantor.

Kdenlive

Kdenlive brings you all you need to edit and put together your own movies. We had 2 projects for KDE's full-featured video editor:

• Ajay Chauhan implemented multi-format rendering for Kdenlive by adding a filter to adjust the aspect ratio of video clips in the main track, allowing users to select the desired aspect ratio during export, and integrating it into the final rendering profile. Ajay also added code to apply filters to clips, calculate crop parameters, and handle video cropping to the desired ratio; and implemented the GUI component ComboBox that selects the aspect ratio and ensures that the selected ratio is passed to the RenderRequest object. Additionally, various issues were fixed during development, such as temporary file handling issue, preventing crashes, and refactoring code.

• aisuneko icecat created a prototype keyframe curve editor GUI for Kdenlive. Based on recent progress in introducing advanced keyframe types and capabilities into the editor, the widget allows the user to intuitively view and control the current animation curve of keyframable effect parameters. As of now, the widget supports basic interactions such as dragging and double clicking, and integrates well with other existing Kdenlive components. This is still a work-in-progress feature, as more work needs to be done beyond SoK to have it further enhanced before it can be released to end users.

KDE Eco / Accessibility

There are 5 new projects that made measuring the energy consumption of software easier and more integrated in the development pipeline. This helps make KDE software more efficient and environmentally friendly, as well as more accessible at the same time:

• Sarthak Negi focused on testing, bug-fixing and integrating measurement workflows on KEcoLab. After setting up the testing environments, Sarthak worked on creating a CI test and refactoring code for efficiency and the code has been merged in the main repository.

• Pradyot Ranjan worked on improving and updating the setup guide for selenium, a tool to automatize testing. The result can be found on this wiki page.

• Amartya Chakraborty added support for KdeEcoTest on the Windows platforms. To do this, Amartya replicated test-scripts for Okular test using KdeEcoTest which previously used xdotool. Now this test-script can be executed on any platform. The conditional installation of packages based on the platform using pipenv has been implemented.

• Athul Raj Kollareth worked on bringing support for KdeEcoTest on Wayland systems. The initial work consisted of [adding an abstraction layer](https://invent.kde.org/echarruau/feep-win-32-kdotool-integration/-/ merge_requests/1) so that KdeEcoTest could be run on different platforms including Windows. To build support for Wayland, we had to first restrict our scope and finally decided to move with only supporting the KWin compositor as it had built in functionalities for automating window related manipulations on the GUI. To automate input devices, the Linux kernel's evdev module was used which allowed us to monitor input devices and also emulate them using uinput. With these changes integrated into KdeEcoTest, we were able to run tests on Wayland, X11 and Windows thanks to Amartya's implementation. 

• Aakarsh MJ worked on integrating KEcolab into Okular's pipeline. This will allow the Okular team to measure energy consumption for each release. This paves the way for the creation of a template which will be further helpful for other projects as well. A merge request is in progress to integrate it into Okular.

Cantor / LabPlot

Cantor is an application that lets you use your favorite mathematical programming language from within a friendly worksheet interface, while Labplot is KDE's user-friendly data visualization and analysis software. Both applications are closely intertwined, and have had three projects completed during SOK:

• Dhairya Majmudar worked on extending the embedded documentation for supported Computer Algebra Systems Project. Dhairya created the common styles for several mathematical system documents, enhancing the users' experience allowing them to use them simultaneously; and Python scripts have been written to link the stylesheets to the HTML files. These Python scripts are further extended to convert HTML files in Qt Help files that can be uploaded to the KDE Store. The in-progress merge request can be found at: https://invent.kde.org/education/cantor/-/merge_requests/74.

• Israel Galadima contributed to the "LabPlot: Download/Import of datasets from kaggle.com" project. Since kaggle.com seems to be the central place nowadays for finding datasets in the data science community, we wanted LabPlot's users to be able to access the datasets on kaggle.com directly from within LabPlot. Thus, Israel worked on a new dialog in LabPlot that allows users to search for and import datasets directly from kaggle.com into LabPlot spreadsheets, using the official kaggle cli tool to facilitate the communication between LabPlot and kaggle.com. Multiple merge requests have been merged, the last one is still in review.

• Raphael Wirth introduced the support for data stored in the MCAP format to LabPlot. Throughout the project, Raphael extended the backend of LabPlot to allow the loading of JSON-encoded MCAP files into its internal data structure as well as the export back to the MCAP file format. Additionally, the user interface has been adapted to accommodate these advancements. This required the extension of the existing import dialog and the introduction of a new export dialog tailored specifically for saving MCAP files.

We would like to congratulate all participants and look forward to their future journey with KDE!

KDE has a symbiotic relationship with many linux distros, since while we develop our software we also use particular versions of linux, I personally use archlinux as my distro of choice for many years being the only distro that I manage to bare for more than six months ( and I believe I am using it for more than 15 years already so that counts).

The "recipe" for packaging KDE software for arch is big, because we are big, and packaging large amounts of software is no easy feat, so me and Antonio Rojas started to update the build scripts to be less manual and less error prone. All the versions of Plasma 6 that have been packaged for arch are using this scripts in one way or another (or manually when we broke everything :)

This work is being done in a separate branch to not break the current workflow, but things are looking good and we hope to merge this in master soon, so that deploying newer versions of KDE software for arch will be a single command, meaning more time for the developers and less time creating packages.

Python 3.13 just hit feature freeze with the first beta release today.

Just before the feature freeze, a shiny new feature was added: a brand new Python REPL. ✨

This new Python REPL is will likely be my favorite thing about 3.13. It’s definitely the feature I’m most looking forward to using while teaching after 3.13.0 final is released later this year.

I’d like to share what’s so great about this new REPL and what additional improvements I’m hoping we might see in future Python releases.

Little niceties

The first thing you’ll notice when you launch the new REPL is the colored prompt.

You may also notice that as you type a block of code, after the first indented line, the next line will be auto-indented! Additionally, hitting the Tab key inserts 4 spaces now, which means there’s no more need to ever hit Space Space Space Space to indent ever again.

At this point you might be thinking, “wait did I accidentally launch ptpython or some other alternate REPL?” But it gets even better!

You can “exit” now

Have you ever typed exit at the Python REPL? If so, you’ve seen a message like this:

1 2 >>> exit Use exit() or Ctrl-D (i.e. EOF) to exit

That feels a bit silly, doesn’t it? Well, typing exit will exit immediately.

Typing help also enters help mode now (previously you needed to call help() as a function).

Block-level history

The feature that will make the biggest different in my own usage of the Python REPL is block-level history.

I make typos all the time while teaching. I also often want to re-run a specific block of code with a couple small changes.

The old-style Python REPL stores history line-by-line. So editing a block of code in the old REPL required hitting the up arrow many times, hitting Enter, hitting the up arrow many more times, hitting Enter, etc. until each line in a block was chosen. At the same time you also needed to make sure to edit your changes along the way… or you’ll end up re-running the same block with the same typo as before!

The ability to edit a previously typed block of code is huge for me. For certain sections of my Python curriculum, I hop into ptpython or IPython specifically for this feature. Now I’ll be able to use the default Python REPL instead.

Pasting code just works

The next big feature for me is the ability to paste code.

Check this out:

Not impressed? Well, watch what happens when we paste that same block of code into the old Python REPL:

The old REPL treated pasted text the same as manually typed text. When two consecutive newlines were encountered in the old REPL, it would end the current block of code because it assumed the Enter key had been pressed twice.

The new REPL supports bracketed paste, which is was invented in 2002 and has since been adopted by all modern terminal emulators.

No Windows support? Curses!

Unfortunately, this new REPL doesn’t currently work on Windows. This new REPL relies on the curses and readline modules, neither of which are available on Windows. I’m hoping that this new REPL might encourage the addition of curses support on Windows (there are multiple issues discussing this).

The in-browser Python REPL on Python Morsels also won’t be able to use the new REPL because readline and curses aren’t available in the WebAssembly Python build.

Beta test Python 3.13 to try out the new REPL 💖

Huge thanks to Pablo Galindo Salgado, Łukasz Langa, and Lysandros Nikolaou for implementing this new feature! And thanks to Michael Hudson-Doyle and Armin Rigo for implementing the original version of this REPL, which was heavily borrowed from PyPy’s pyrepl project.

The new Python REPL coming in 3.13 is a major improvement over the old REPL. While the lack of Windows support is disappointing, but I’m hopeful that a motivated Windows user will help add support eventually!

Want to try out this new REPL? Download and install Python 3.13.0 beta 1!

Beta testing new Python releases helps the Python core team ensure the final release of 3.13.0 is as stable and functional as possible. If you notice a bug, check the issue tracker to see if it’s been reported yet and if not report it!

In this post, we explore building a cards section with Layout Builder.

 

by lee.rowlands / 9 May 2024

The component will look something like the 'Services' section on our homepage*. If you've built websites over the last decade, you've probably built a component like this many times.

The key aspects of the component are

• A title
• Some intro text
• A series of cards. Each card has a URL, title, image and teaser text

If you've previously used paragraphs for modelling landing pages, you may immediately be thinking that your content model will be made up of paragraph type 'cards' with three fields as follows:

• A title
• A teaser field for the intro text
• A multi-value cards field, which is itself another paragraph type 'card'.

Or rather, because this is Layout Builder, you might be thinking of a block-content type called cards with those fields on it — leaning on paragraphs for the multi-value cards field.

Whilst that approach works well for paragraphs, it isn't the best approach for Layout Builder:

• There are some gnarly bugs with Layout Builder + Block Content + Paragraphs + Content moderation
• It requires content-editors to fumble in the off-canvas editor to rearrange each card using drag-and-drop. We want a nice re-order experience like this:

Making the most of layout plugins

Let's instead pivot to a layout plugin for the cards component and think of it in terms of regions.

We have:

• A layout title
• An introduction region
• A cards region

We probably already have a block-content type that consists of a WYSIWYG field — e.g., something like the Basic block content type in core. We can use that for the intro text.

So we need a card block content-type. But we probably want two. A lot of our cards will just point to other pages on the site — and it makes sense for the card to be built from fields on that page. If we put a teaser image and teaser text field on all our node-types, we can make use of them when creating a card for that page. We can also use these for meta-tags like the OpenGraph image. And all our node-types already have a title and URL. The second block-type is if we need to link to pages outside the site. So, the content models for those two block types are as follows:

• For the internal card block-type, we need an entity-reference field to allow the content-editor to select the content to generate the card for
• For the external card block-type, we need all the fields — title, image, teaser, URL

Defining layout plugins

Next, we need to define our layout plugin. We start with a layouts.yml file in our theme or module.

cards:   label: Card grid   category: Layouts   template: layouts/cards   icon_map:     - [intro, intro, intro]     - [c1, c2, c3]     - [c4, c5, c6]     - [c7, c8, c9]     - [c10, c11, c12]   regions:     content:       label: Cards     intro:       label: Introduction   library: 'your_theme/card'

Note: the icon_map isn't needed here, but it gives us a nice icon in the 'Add section' form.

With those pieces in place, we can use Layout builder restrictions to ensure only the right block-types can be placed in each region. The introduction region can be limited to the basic WYSIWYG block-type. The cards region can be limited to the internal and external card block-type.

This layout will use the default layout plugin, but we want a custom layout plugin with a title field in the configuration form. You can read more about creating a custom layout plugin from our previous post about creating a dynamic layout with flexible regions. This one will be much simpler. We just need a title field in the configuration form and a preprocess hook to expose that to our template. 

The first step of this is to add a 'class' entry to our layout definition.

cards: // ...   class: \Drupal\your_theme\Layouts\Cards   // ...

Then, we need to create that class. 

<?php namespace Drupal\your_theme\Layouts; use Drupal\Core\Form\FormStateInterface; use Drupal\Core\Layout\LayoutDefault; /** * Defines a class for a layout that has a title option. */ class LayoutWithTitle extends LayoutDefault { /** * {@inheritdoc} */ public function defaultConfiguration() { return parent::defaultConfiguration() + ['title' => '']; } /** * {@inheritdoc} */ public function buildConfigurationForm(array $form, FormStateInterface $form_state): array { $build = parent::buildConfigurationForm($form, $form_state); $build['title'] = [ '#weight' => -10, '#type' => 'textfield', '#default_value' => $this->configuration['title'], '#title' => $this->t('Title'), '#description' => $this->t('Provide an optional title for this section'), ]; return $build; } /** * {@inheritdoc} */ public function submitConfigurationForm(array &$form, FormStateInterface $form_state): void { parent::submitConfigurationForm($form, $form_state); $this->configuration['title'] = $form_state->getValue('title'); } }

Then, in your theme you can preprocess to make this variable available to the template.

/** * Implements hook_preprocess_HOOK(). */ function your_theme_preprocess_layout(array &$variables): void { // Add the title from LayoutWithTitle. $variables['title'] = $variables['content']['#settings']['title'] ?? NULL; }

For optimum UX, we'd probably want to make Layout Builder Browser blocks, too. You can read more in our previous post about our approach to Layout Builder UX.

All that remains then is to theme the block-content types to match the design. For more on that, see our previous post on theming block-content types with Layout Builder.

As an extra enhancement, you could add integration with Layout Section Classes module to give content editors additional options like the number of cards shown across the page in the card grid.

Note: this component on our website is automated and built with Views, but there is often a need to build out curated equivalents.

Tagged Layout Builder

I'm pleased to announce the release of Python 3.13 beta 1 (and feature freeze for Python 3.13).

https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-3130b1/

 

This is a beta preview of Python 3.13

Python 3.13 is still in development. This release, 3.13.0b1, is the first of four beta release previews of 3.13.

Beta release previews are intended to give the wider community the opportunity to test new features and bug fixes and to prepare their projects to support the new feature release.

We strongly encourage maintainers of third-party Python projects to test with 3.13 during the beta phase and report issues found to the Python bug tracker as soon as possible. While the release is planned to be feature complete entering the beta phase, it is possible that features may be modified or, in rare cases, deleted up until the start of the release candidate phase (Tuesday 2024-07-30). Our goal is to have no ABI changes after beta 4 and as few code changes as possible after 3.13.0rc1, the first release candidate. To achieve that, it will be extremely important to get as much exposure for 3.13 as possible during the beta phase.

Please keep in mind that this is a preview release and its use is not recommended for production environments.

Major new features of the 3.13 series, compared to 3.12

Some of the new major new features and changes in Python 3.13 are:

New features

• A new and improved interactive interpreter, based on PyPy’s, featuring multi-line editing and color support, as well as colorized exception tracebacks.
• An experimental free-threaded build mode, which disables the Global Interpreter Lock, allowing threads to run more concurrently.
• A preliminary, experimental JIT, providing the ground work for significant performance improvements.
• The (cyclic) garbage collector is now incremental, which should mean shorter pauses for collection in programs with a lot of objects.
• A modified version of mimalloc is now included, optional but enabled by default if supported by the platform, and required for the free-threaded build mode.
• Docstrings now have their leading indentation stripped, reducing memory use and the size of .pyc files. (Most tools handling docstrings already strip leading indentation.)
• The dbm module has a new dbm.sqlite3 backend that is used by default when creating new files.

Typing

• Support for type defaults in type parameters.
• A new type narrowing annotation, typing.TypeIs.
• A new annotation for read-only items in TypeDicts.

Removals and new deprecations

• PEP 594 (Removing dead batteries from the standard library) scheduled removals of many deprecated modules: aifc, audioop, chunk, cgi, cgitb, crypt, imghdr, mailcap, msilib, nis, nntplib, ossaudiodev, pipes, sndhdr, spwd, sunau, telnetlib, uu, xdrlib, lib2to3.
• Many other removals of deprecated classes, functions and methods in various standard library modules.
• C API removals and deprecations. (Some removals present in alpha 1 were reverted in alpha 2, as the removals were deemed too disruptive at this time.)
• New deprecations, most of which are scheduled for removal from Python 3.15 or 3.16.

(Hey, fellow core developer, if a feature you find important is missing from this list, let Thomas know.)

For more details on the changes to Python 3.13, see What’s new in Python 3.13. The next pre-release of Python 3.13 will be 3.13.0b2, currently scheduled for 2024-05-28.

 More resources

• Online Documentation
• PEP 719, 3.13 Release Schedule
• Report bugs at Issues · python/cpython · GitHub.
• Help fund Python directly (or via GitHub Sponsors), and support the Python community.
  

 Enjoy the new releases

Thanks to all of the many volunteers who help make Python Development and these releases possible! Please consider supporting our efforts by volunteering yourself or through organization contributions to the Python Software Foundation.

Your release team,
Thomas Wouters
Łukasz Langa
Ned Deily
Steve Dower