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How do you build a sustainable open-source project and community? What lessons can be learned from Python's history and the current mess that the WordPress community is going through? This week on the show, we speak with Paul Everitt from JetBrains about navigating open-source funding and the start of the Python Software Foundation.

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In this article, I’ll demonstrate how to integrate Drupal with a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server, using JumpCloud as an example. With this guide, you’ll be able to quickly and securely manage users on your website. I encourage you to read the blog post or watch the video in the “Nowoczesny Drupal” series.

Drupal Automatic Updates Editor Fri, 11/15/2024 - 11:27

This article is about the Automatic Updates module in 2024. Golems web experts will discuss its importance, core functions, recent improvements, and how it benefits the Drupal community. Whether you are experienced in Drupal or just starting to use it as your website's platform, knowing what this module can do is useful for keeping your Drupal site working well and safe in today's digital world.

What do developers need to know about AppSec and building secure software? We have Tonya Janca (AKA SheHacksPurple) on the show to tell us all about it. We talk about what developers should expect from threat modeling events as well as concrete tips for security your apps and services.<br/> <br/> <strong>Episode sponsors</strong><br/> <br/> <a href='https://talkpython.fm/posit'>Posit</a><br> <a href='https://talkpython.fm/bluehost'>Bluehost</a><br> <a href='https://talkpython.fm/training'>Talk Python Courses</a><br/> <br/> <strong>Links from the show</strong><br/> <br/> <div><b>Tanya on X</b>: <a href="https://x.com/shehackspurple?featured_on=talkpython" target="_blank" >@shehackspurple</a><br/> <b>She Hacks Purple website</b>: <a href="https://shehackspurple.ca/?featured_on=talkpython" target="_blank" >shehackspurple.ca</a><br/> <b>White House recommends memory safe languages</b>: <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/oncd/briefing-room/2024/02/26/press-release-technical-report/?featured_on=talkpython" target="_blank" >whitehouse.gov</a><br/> <b>Python Developer Survey Results</b>: <a href="https://lp.jetbrains.com/python-developers-survey-2023/?featured_on=talkpython" target="_blank" >jetbrains.com</a><br/> <b>Bandit</b>: <a href="https://github.com/PyCQA/bandit?featured_on=talkpython" target="_blank" >github.com</a><br/> <b>Semgrep Academy</b>: <a href="https://academy.semgrep.dev/?featured_on=talkpython" target="_blank" >academy.semgrep.dev</a><br/> <b>Watch this episode on YouTube</b>: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocnFl_Nt-ic" target="_blank" >youtube.com</a><br/> <b>Episode transcripts</b>: <a href="https://talkpython.fm/episodes/transcript/485/secure-coding-for-python-with-shehackspurple" target="_blank" >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" >youtube.com</a><br/> <b>Follow Talk Python on Mastodon</b>: <a href="https://fosstodon.org/web/@talkpython" target="_blank" ><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" ><i class="fa-brands fa-mastodon"></i>mkennedy</a><br/></div>

With the current Drupal CMS work tracks well on the way to delivering for v1, we're planning ahead to define what's next on the roadmap. We also have a few tracks that were already in progress for v1, but never formally announced.

As we move beyond the basics of a CMS, things get complicated quickly! So several of these tracks are somewhat open-ended, and likely require multiple approaches or solutions.

Tracks already in progress Project Browser

Project Browser is an ongoing initiative, to make it easy for site builders to find modules from within their Drupal sites, led by Leslie Glynn and Chris Wells Redfin. After several years of foundational work, the functionality is now working with a live API endpoint from drupal.org providing the module information. 

Since Project Browser is a critical part of the builder experience for Drupal CMS, we're formally adding it as a work track to recognize that and ensure it is aligned with the product strategy and other work tracks. If you're looking for a way to contribute to Drupal CMS, join the #project-browser channel on Slack for the latest.

Workspaces as content moderation

Drupal core has long provided tools for configurable content workflows, via the Workflows and Content moderation modules. In the meantime, the Workspaces module has become stable, and provides a more scalable method for staging content changes. Experience Builder will require workspaces to provide true content staging, because within XB a user can make changes to a number of different components at once, and content moderation does not allow for this. But right now, the complexity of workspaces makes it challenging for the most basic content moderation use cases.

The team from Tag1 already had a plan to completely replace content moderation with workspaces, and have now committed to delivering this functionality for inclusion in Drupal CMS. The goal of this track is to provide an experience similar to content moderation, where you can edit a single entity and create a draft, using workspaces but without exposing this to the user. So under the hood, workspaces is providing the draft/forward revision, but the user has no direct interaction with the workspace.

Telemetry

Telemetry is a crucial part of modern software development to provide information about how real-world users interact with a software application. Drupal has not integrated a formal telemetry system in the past, but Drupal CMS is a great opportunity both to try a telemetry system, and to take advantage of the insight it provides to rapidly improve the product.

We formed a working group to look into options for telemetry for Drupal CMS and have an early proposal for this now. Ideally, we will include some basic capability in the initial release, but would like to recruit a track lead to oversee this work ongoing, after the initial release.

If you are interested in taking the lead on this track, please apply here.

New tracks we're recruiting for Content import / migration

Enabling users of other platforms to easily migrate their sites to Drupal is critical to delivering on the Starshot strategy. Drupal's migration tools provide a robust foundation, but this is a huge task to undertake, and may require more than one approach. 

So this track may split off into several different efforts. For example, there may be a simple import solution for basic sites that have a structured data source. Another might offer a migration via site scraping. And another might provide a jumping off point for more complex migrations. Rather than prescribing the approach, we are open to all proposals.

If you are interested in proposing a solution for this, please apply here.

Tours

Drupal has long had the capability to add tours, which are guided overviews of the site interface, via the Tour module. These guided tours are practically universal in our competitor products, and will be key to onboarding new Drupal users.

Several Drupal CMS recipes have provided or plan to provide a tour of the functionality they provide. In order to ensure that the tours provided by Drupal CMS are consistently applied and executed, we are seeking a lead to oversee this aspect of the product. This role is non-technical in nature, and requires skills in user experience, training, content writing and product design. The aim with tours will be to use them only where necessary, and not as a workaround for other fundamental UX improvements.

If you are interested in taking the lead on this track, please apply here.

Identity management / SSO

In user interviews with a number of people in our target person, they highlighted identity management and single-sign as a pain point with other platforms. Given Drupal's robust integration options, we feel this is an area where we can differentiate from our competitors, whose offerings may be more limited. But with flexibility comes complexity, and anyone who has tried to set up SSO in Drupal probably knows that it's not usually plug-and-play.

Part of the complexity is the wide range of providers, each with potentially different requirements. The Drupal CMS leadership team is currently undertaking an analysis of key integrations of all kinds, with a focus on user management, to formulate an approach to this that likely will open up one or more work tracks to build or refine the necessary functionality.

If you are interested in proposing a solution for this, please apply here.

Content translation tools

Drupal’s multilingual capabilities are robust, but there is an opportunity to make these tools even more accessible and efficient for content creators managing global audiences. This track focuses on enhancing Drupal’s translation and localization features to streamline content creation and support internationalization needs.

To achieve this, we could explore areas such as UX improvements to simplify translation workflows, AI-driven translation suggestions, integration with translation memories, notifications when content changes require re-translation, and more. Additionally, we can explore refining approval workflows and optimize the interface for managing multilingual content, making Drupal a more powerful, user-friendly platform for international sites.

If you are interested in proposing a solution for this, please apply here.

Front end design system

We are seeking strategic partners interested in designing and implementing a comprehensive design system to integrate with Experience Builder for Drupal CMS. The goal for this initiative is to create a modern and versatile design system that provides designers and front-end developers tools to accelerate their adoption of Drupal as their digital platform, by enabling them to easily adapt it to their own brand. This design system will enable content marketers to efficiently build landing pages and campaigns, allowing them to execute cohesive marketing strategies while maintaining the brand integrity.

More information on this track, including timelines and how to apply, is available in the full brief.

Conclusion

Each of these work tracks is aligned with the goals of the Starshot strategy, which aims to make Drupal CMS the go-to platform for marketers and content creators. 

The tracks we are recruiting for are not expected to be included in the initial 1.0 release of Drupal CMS. That said, development on these tracks could start soon, with target completion in the first half of 2025.

For those looking to apply or contribute, join us on Slack to connect with existing track leads or reach out to the Drupal CMS leadership team with questions. You can also follow developments in the Drupal.org issue queue.

LocalGov Drupal week + code contributions + getting elected on to the board of Open Digital Cooperative. It's been a busy week.

In this episode, I began a migration of my JourneyInbox app from Heroku to DigitalOcean. The first step to this move, since I’m going to use Kamal, is to put the app into a Docker image. We got the whole app into the Docker image, then cleaned up local development and the CI system after making changes that broke those configurations.

All of KDE's Google Summer of Code (GSoC) projects are complete.

GSoC is a program where students or people who are new to Free and Open Source software make programming contributions to an open source project.

This post summarizes the outcomes of KDE project participating in GSoC 2024.

Projects Arianna

• Port Arianna to Foliate-js:

Ajay Chauhan worked on porting Arianna from epub.js to use Foliate-js. The work will hopefully be merged soon.

A screenshot of Arianna using Foliate-js to render a table of contents
(Courtesy of Ajay Chauhan, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Frameworks

Python bindings for KDE Frameworks:

Manuel Alcaraz Zambrano, implemented Python bindings for KWidgetAddons, KUnitConversion, KCoreAddons, KGuiAddons, KI18n, KNotifications, and KXmlGUI. This was done using Shiboken. In addition, Manuel wrote a tutorial on how to generate Python bindings using Shiboken. The complicated set of merge requests are still being reviewed, and Manuel continues to interact with the KDE community.

Unit conversion example created using Python and KUnitConversion
(Courtesy of Manuel Alcaraz Zambrano, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) KDE Connect

Update SSHD library in KDE Connect Android app

The main aim of ShellWen Chen's project was to update Apache Mina SSHD from 0.14.0 to 2.12.1. The older version has a few listed vulnerabilities. The newer library required additional code to enable it to work on older Android phones, up to Android API 21.

KDE Games

Implementing a computerized opponent for the Mancala variant Bohnenspiel:

João Gouveia created Mankala engine, a library to enable easy creation of Mancala games. The engine contains implementations for two Mancala games, Bohnenspiel and Oware. Both games contain computerized opponents, João also started on a QtQuick graphical user interface. The games are functional, but additional investigation on computerized opponents may help improve their effectiveness.

Image of text user interface for Bohnenspiel
(Courtesy of João Gouveia, CC BY-SA 4.0) Kdenlive

Improved subtitling support for Kdenlive:

Subtitling support has been improved for Kdenlive. Chengkun Chen added support for using the Advanced SubStation (ASS) file format and for converting SubRip files to ASS files. To support this format, Chengkun Chen also made subtitling editor improvements. The work has been merged in the main repository. Documentation has been written, and will hopefully be merged soon.

The new Style Editor Widget
(Courtesy of Chengkun Chen, CC BY-SA 4.0) Krita

Creating Pixel Perfect Tool for Krita:

Ken Lo worked on implementing Pixel Perfect lines in Krita. As explained by Ricky Han, such algorithms remove corner pixels from L shaped blocks and ensure the thinnest possible line is 1 pixel wide. Implementing such algorithms well is of use not only in Krita, but also in rendering web graphics where user screen resolutions can vary significantly. The algorithm was implemented to work in close to real time while lines are drawn, rather than as a post processing step. Ken Lo's work has been merged into Krita.

An image showing that pixel perfect lines are obtained most of the time
(Courtesy of Ken Lo, CC BY 4.0) Labplot

Improve Python Interoperability with LabPlot

Israel Galadima worked on improving Python support in LabPlot. Shiboken was used for this and it is now possible to call some of LabPlot functions from Python and integrate these into other applications.

An image of a plot produced using Python bindings to Labplot
(Courtesy of Israel Galadima, CC BY-SA 4.0)

3D Visualization for LabPlot:

Kuntal Bar added 3D graphing capabilities to LabPlot. This was done using QtGraphs. The work has yet to be merged, but there are many nice examples of 3D plots for bar charts, scatter and surface plots.

A 3D bar chart
(Courtesy of Kuntal Bar, MIT license) Okular

Forms/Javascript support improvement for Okular:

Pratham Gandhi worked on improving the forms/Javascript support in Okular. Around 25 requests have been merged to improve various features, some in the backend and some directly visible, such as fixing the size of the radio buttons or check boxes, or the one pictured below to improve the handling of floating numbers in different locales.

An image of showing an incorrect total sum calculation fixed during GSoC
(Courtesy of Pratham Gandhi, CC BY-SA 4.0) Snaps

Improving Snap Ecosystem in KDE:

Snaps are self contained linux application packging formats. Soumyadeep Ghosh worked on improving the tooling necessary to make KDE applications easily available in the Snap Store. In addition, Soumyadeep improved packaging of a number of KDE Snap packages, and packaged MarkNote. Finally, Soumyadeep created Snap KCM, a graphical user interface to manage permissions that Snaps have when running.

Snap KCM
(Courtesy of Soumyadeep Ghosh, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Next Steps

The 2024 GSoC period is finally over for KDE. A big thank you to all the mentors and contributors who have participated in GSoC! We look forward to your continuing participation in free and open source software communities and in contributing to KDE.

I rely on 4 functions for inspecting Python objects: type, help, dir, and vars.

Table of contents

1. Inspecting an object's structure and data
2. How to see an object's class
3. Looking up documentation with help
4. Getting the methods and attributes for an object
5. Inspecting direct attributes of an object
6. Base classes, module paths, and more
7. Inspect Python objects with type, help, dir, and vars

Inspecting an object's structure and data

The scenario is, we're either in the Python REPL or we've used the built-in breakpoint function to drop into the Python debugger within our code. So we're within some sort of interactive Python environment.

For example, we might be running this file, which we've put a breakpoint call in to drop into a Python debugger:

from argparse import ArgumentParser from collections import Counter from pathlib import Path import re def count_letters(text): return Counter( char for char in text.casefold() if char.isalpha() ) def main(): parser = ArgumentParser() parser.add_argument("file", type=Path) args = parser.parse_args() letter_counts = count_letters(args.file.read_text()) breakpoint() for letter, count in letter_counts.most_common(): print(count, letter.upper()) if __name__ == "__main__": main()

And we've used the PDB interact command to start a Python REPL:

~ $ python3 letter_counter.py frankenstein.txt > /home/trey/letter_counter.py(18)main() -> breakpoint() (Pdb) interact *pdb interact start* >>>

We have a letter_counts variable that refers to some sort of object. We want to know what this object is all about.

What questions could we ask of this object?

Well, to start with, we could simply refer to the object, and then hit Enter:

>>> letter_counts Counter({'e': 46043, 't': 30365, 'a': 26743, 'o': 25225, 'i': 24613, 'n': 24367, 's': 21155, 'r': 20818, 'h': 19725, 'd': 16863, 'l': 12739, 'm': 10604, 'u': 10407, 'c': 9243, 'f': 8731, 'y': 7914, 'w': 7638, 'p': 6121, 'g': 5974, 'b': 5026, 'v': 3833, 'k': 1755, 'x': 677, 'j': 504, 'q': 324, 'z': 243})

We've typed the name of a variable that points to an object, and now we see the programmer-readable representation for that object.

How to see an object's class

Often, the string representation tells …

Read the full article: https://www.pythonmorsels.com/inspecting-python-objects/

Writing tests can improve both your coding skills and product reliability, helping you become a better developer by encouraging structured, concise, well-organized, and well documented code.

As of October 29th, two of four members of the Django Software Foundation Steering Council have resigned from their role, with their intentions being to trigger an election of the Steering Council earlier than otherwise scheduled, per our established governance processes.

To our departing members, Simon and Adam, thank you for your contributions to Django and its governance ❤️. The framework and our community owes a lot to your dedication, and we’re confident our community will join us in celebrating your past contributions – and look forward to learning about your future endeavors in the Django ecosystem. And thanks to the remaining members, James and Andrew, for their service over the years.

Our governance challenges

Governance in open source is hard, and community-driven open source even more so. We’re proud that Django’s original two Benevolent Dictators For Life (BDFLs) both retired from the role and turned things over to community governance ten years ago now. The BDFL model can provide  excellent technical governance, but also has its flaws. So the  mantle of technical governance then went on to the Core Developers and the Technical Board (renamed to Steering Council) was introduced.

However, time has revealed flaws in the Steering Council’s governance model and operations. The Steering Council was able to provide decision-making – tiebreaking when the developer community couldn’t lead to consensus – but didn’t provide more forward-looking leadership or vision. Disagreements over how – or if – the Steering Council should approach this part of leadership led us to the current situation, with no functioning technical governance as of a few weeks ago. Even before those recent events, those flaws were also a common source of frustration for our contributors, and a source of concern for Django users who (rightly or not) might have expectations of Django’s direction – such as the publication of a “roadmap” for Django development.

The Django Software Foundation Board of Directors is and was aware of those issues, and recently made attempts to have the Steering Council rectify them, in coordination with other established community members. The DSF Board has tried to be hands-off when it comes to technical leadership, but in retrospect we should have been getting involved sooner, or more decisively. The lack of technical leadership is an existential threat to Django – a slow moving one, but a threat nonetheless. It’s our responsibility to address this threat.

Where we’re heading

We now need new Steering Council members. But we also need governance reform. There’s a lot about the Steering Council that is good and might only need minimal changes. However, the overall question of the Steering Council’s remit, and how it approaches technical leadership for the Django community, needs to be resolved.

We’re going to hold early elections of the Steering Council, as soon as we’ve completed the ongoing 2025 DSF Board elections. Those elections will follow existing processes, and we will want a Steering Council who strives  to meet the group’s intended goals:

1. To safeguard big decisions that affect Django projects at a fundamental level.
2. To help shepherd the project’s future direction.

We expect the new Steering Council will take on those known challenges, resolve those questions of technical leadership, and update Django’s technical governance. They will have the full support of the Board of Directors to address this threat to Django’s future. And the Board will also be more decisive in intervening, should similar issues keep arising.

How you can help

We need contributors willing to take on those challenges and help our community come out ahead. It’s a big role, impactful but demanding. And there are strict, often annoying eligibility rules for the Steering Council.

To help you help us, we’ve set up a form: Django 6.x Steering Council elections - Expression of interest.

If you’re interested in stepping up to shepherd Django’s technical direction, fill in our expression of interest form. We’ll let you know whether or not you meet those eligibility rules, take the guesswork out of the way. You get to focus on your motivation for taking on this kind of high-purpose, high-reward governance role.

Django 6.x Steering Council elections - Expression of interest

How everyone can help

Those elections will be crucial for the future of Django, and will be decided thanks to the vote of our Django Software Foundation Individual Members. If you know people who contribute to ​​the DSF’s mission but aren’t Individual Members already -- use our form to nominate them as Individual Members, so they’re eligible to vote. If you’re that person, do nominate yourself. We consider all contributions towards our mission: advancing and promoting Django, protecting the framework’s long-term viability, and advancing the state of the art in web development.

Any questions? Reach out via email to foundation@djangoproject.com.

Authored by Nadiia Nykolaichuk.

Drupal modules often come with creative, inspiring names, and some even sound downright delicious. Join us on a culinary adventure through modules inspired by foods, and discover the rich features they can bring to your site! Each tool in this collection is powerful enough to supercharge your website’s capabilities, adding its own unique blend of flavors, nutrients, and zest.

Qt Creator 14 has removed support for its Python 2 pretty printers.

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of visiting the KDE Akademy 2024 in Würzburg. It had been a few years since my last visit to Akademy and it was great to see old friends and meet new ones. Besides socializing, my main task was to talk to as many KDE people as possible about the privact project and its integration into KDE. Knowing the KDE community, not surprisingly this resulted in lots of interesting discussions.

Most importantly, I gave a talk about the current state of privact’s integration with KUserFeedback. If you missed it, here is the recording:

As a follow-up, we had 2 BoFs on Monday to discuss the next steps. Felix was kind enough to join me to provide more technical developer insights than I can give.

As a first teaser for you: In the short term, the private approach will allow KDE to do proper user research, thereby enabling us to do data-driven UX without compromising user privacy. In the longer term, privact aims to restore digital privacy for everyone, even outside of KDE, even outside of FLOSS. You can learn more in upcoming posts or on the privact homepage.

The individual feedback on the privact approach during Akademy was very good, which is why we now want to start communicating with the larger KDE community. So this post is not only to report about my attendance at the Akademy, but also to start blogging again on Planet KDE and to check if the aggregation works.

Hello World Planet!

The Reproducible Builds community sadly announces it has lost its founding member.

Jérémy Bobbio aka ‘Lunar’ passed away on Friday November 8th in palliative care in Rennes, France.

Lunar was instrumental in starting the Reproducible Builds project in 2013 as a loose initiative within the Debian project. Many of our earliest status reports were written by him and many of our key tools in use today are based on his design.

Lunar was a resolute opponent of surveillance and censorship, and he possessed an unwavering energy that fueled his work on Reproducible Builds and Tor. Without Lunar’s far-sightedness, drive and commitment to enabling teams around him, Reproducible Builds and free software security would not be in the position it is in today. His contributions will not be forgotten, and his high standards and drive will continue to serve as an inspiration to us as well as for the other high-impact projects he was involved in.

Lunar’s creativity, insight and kindness were often noted. He will be greatly missed.

More information and tributes to Lunar are available [FR], as is a broader history of the Reproducible Builds project.

The Drupal Association has published this guest blog on behalf of HeroDevs.

At HeroDevs, we’re no strangers to the importance of security—especially when it comes to open-source software. As the pioneers of securing deprecated open source software across various communities like AngularJS, Vue, and Spring, we’re excited to bring our expertise to the Drupal 7 ecosystem. We understand the challenges and vulnerabilities that come with maintaining legacy software, and our goal is to ensure your Drupal 7 websites remain secure, compliant, and fully functional for the long term.

Guaranteed SLA for Security and Compliance

When it comes to security vulnerabilities, having a guaranteed response is crucial for your business. HeroDevs offers a dedicated SLA that ensures your systems receive timely attention and resolution. Our service helps you stay compliant with important regulations such as FedRAMP, PCI, HIPAA, and SOC II. With HeroDevs, your business is backed by proactive security measures, so you never have to worry about delayed responses to critical security needs.

Reliable Terms & Conditions Throughout Your Subscription

We know how important stability and reliability are for businesses managing content management systems such as Drupal 7. That’s why our terms and conditions are mutually agreed upon and remain unchanged throughout your Subscription Term. With HeroDevs, you can rely on consistent, dependable support without the worry of unexpected changes to your agreement.

Guaranteed Subscription Term: No Termination for Convenience

Another aspect that sets HeroDevs apart is our Guaranteed Subscription Term. Unlike other providers, HeroDevs cannot terminate your subscription for convenience. This ensures that you receive full, uninterrupted service for the entire duration of your agreement, so you can have peace of mind knowing your Drupal systems are in safe hands for as long as you need them to be.

Warranties and Indemnification: Protecting Your Business

At HeroDevs, we stand behind the services we provide. Our subscription includes warranties and indemnification to ensure that the security services you receive are up to standard. Should anything go wrong, you’re covered—not just with fixes, but with assurances that keep your business protected.

Why Partner with HeroDevs for Drupal Support?

By choosing HeroDevs, you’re partnering with a team of security professionals with a proven track record across various open-source communities. We’re committed to helping your business meet compliance standards, avoid costly security incidents, and maintain seamless functionality—all with the added benefit of faster support and more secure systems.

Contact us to learn more about Drupal 7 NES.

In memory of Lunar

I've had the incredible fortune to share the geek path of Lunar through life on multiple occasions. First, in Debian, beginning some 15+ years ago, where we were fellow developers and participated in many DebConf editions together.

Then, on the deontology committee of Nos Oignons, a non-profit organization initiated by Lunar to operate Tor relays in France. This was with the goal of diversifying relay operators and increasing access to censorship-resistance technology for everyone in the world. It was something truly innovative and unheard of at the time in France.

Later, as a member of the steering committee of Reproducible Builds, a project that Lunar brought to widespread geek popularity with a seminal "Birds of a Feather" session at DebConf13 (and then many other talks with fellow members of the project in the years to come). A decade later, Reproducible Builds is having a major impact throughout the software industry, primarily due to growing fears about the security of the software supply chain.

Finally, we had the opportunity to recruit Lunar a couple of years ago at Software Heritage, where he insisted on working until he was able to, as part of a team he loved, and that loved him back. In addition to his numerous technical contributions to the initiative, he also facilitated our first ever multi-day team seminar. The event was so successful that it has been confirmed as a long-awaited yearly recurrence by all team members.

I fondly remember one of the last conversations I had with Lunar, a few months ago, when he told me how proud he was not only of having started Nos Oignons and contributed to the ignition of Reproducible Builds, but specifically about the fact that both initiatives were now thriving without being dependent on him. He was likely thinking about a future world without him, but also realizing how impactful his activism had been on the past and present world.

Lunar changed the world for the better and left behind a trail of love and fond memories.

Che la terra ti sia lieve, compagno.

--- Zack

Code smarter, optimize performance, and stay focused on what matters most with the latest updates in PyCharm 2024.3. From enhanced support for AI Assistant and Jupyter notebooks to new features like no-code data filtering, there’s so much to explore. 

Learn about all the updates on our What’s New page, download the latest version from our website, or update your current version through our free Toolbox App.

Download PyCharm 2024.3 Key features of PyCharm 2024.3 AI Assistant Inline AI prompting

Get help with code, generate documentation, or write tests by prompting AI directly in PyCharm’s editor. Just type your request on a new line and hit Enter.

Edits made by AI are marked in purple in the gutter, so changes are easy to spot. Need a fresh suggestion? Press Tab, Ctrl+/ ( ⌘/ on macOS), or manually edit the purple input text yourself. This feature is available for Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, JSON, YAML, and Jupyter notebooks.

For a personalized AI chat experience, you can now also choose from Google Gemini, OpenAI, or your own local models. Moreover, enhanced context management now lets you control what AI Assistant takes into consideration. The brand-new UI auto-includes open files and selected code and comes with options to add or remove files and attach project-wide instructions to guide responses across your codebase.

Ability to convert for loops into list comprehensions

Refactor your code faster with AI Assistant, which can now help you change massive for loops into list comprehensions. This feature works for all for loops, including nested and while loops.

Local multiline AI code completion PyCharm Professional

PyCharm Professional now provides local multiline AI code completion suggestions based on the proprietary JetBrains ML model used for Full Line Code Completion. Note that we don’t use your data to train the model.

Local multiline code completion typically generates 2–4 lines of code in scenarios where it can predict the next sequence of logical steps, such as within loops, when handling conditions, or when completing common code patterns and boilerplate sections.

Coding assistance for the dataclass_transform decorator (PEP 681)

PyCharm now supports intelligent coding assistance for custom data classes created with libraries using the dataclass_transform decorator. Enjoy the same support as for standard data classes, including attribute code completion and type inference for constructor signatures.

Download PyCharm 2024.3 Jupyter Notebook PyCharm Professional Auto-installation for multiple packages 

PyCharm 2024.3 makes it easier to install packages that are imported in your code. A new quick-fix is available for bulk auto-installations, allowing you to download and install several packages in one click.

Ability to open Jupyter table outputs in the Data View window

View Jupyter table outputs in the Data View tool window to access powerful features like heatmaps, formatting, slicing, and AI functions for enhanced dataframe analysis. Just click on the Open in Data View icon to get started. 

No-code data filtering 

Effortlessly filter data in the Data View tool window or within dataframes without writing any code. Just click the Filter icon in the upper-right corner, choose your filter options and see results in the same window. This functionality works with all supported Python frameworks, including pandas, Polars, NumPy, PyTorch, TensorFlow, and Hugging Face Datasets.

Debug port specification PyCharm Professional

PyCharm now allows you to specify a single debugger port for all communications, simplifying debugging in restricted environments like Docker or WSL. After you set the port in the debugger settings, the debugger runs as a server and all communication between it and the IDE flows through the specified port.

Download PyCharm 2024.3

Visit our What’s New page or check out the full release notes for more features and additional details about the features mentioned here. Please report any bugs on our issue tracker so we can address them promptly.

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We are happy to announce the release of Qt Creator 15 RC!

At the International TeX Users Group Conference 2023 (TUG23) in Bonn, Germany, I presented a talk about using Metafont (and its extension Metapost) to develop traditional orthography Malayalam fonts, on behalf of C.V. Radhakrishnan and K.H. Hussain, who were the co-developers and authors. And I forgot to post about it afterwards — as always, life gets in between.

In early 2022, CVR started toying with Metafont to create a few complicated letters of Malayalam script and he showed us a wonderful demonstration that piqued many of our interest. With the same code base, by adjusting the parameters, different variations of the glyphs can be generated, as seen in a screenshot of that demonstration: 16 variations of the same character ഴ generated from same Metafont source.

Hussain, quickly realizing that the characters could be programmatically assembled from a set of base/repeating components, collated an excellent list of basic shapes for Malayalam script.

Excerpts from the Malayalam character basic shape components documented by K.H. Hussain.

I bought a copy of ‘The Metafontbook’ and started learning and experimenting. We found soon that Metafont, developed by Prof. Knuth in the late 1970’s, generates bitmap/raster output; but its extension MetaPost, developed by his Ph.D. student John Hobby, generates vector output (postscript) which is required for opentype fonts. We also found that ‘Metatype1’ developed by Bogusław Jackowski et al. has very useful macros and ideas.

We had a lot of fun programmatically generating the character components and assembling them, splicing them, sometimes cutting them short, and transforming them in all useful manner. I have developed a new set of tools to generate the font from the vector output (SVG files) generated by MetaPost, which is also used in later projects like Chingam font.

At the annual TUG conference 2023 in Bonn, Germany, I have presented our work, and we received good feedback. There were three presentations about Metafont itself at the conference. Among others, I also had the pleasure to meet Linus Romer who shared some ideas about designing variable width reph-shapes for Malayalam characters.

The video of the presentation is available in YouTube.

The article was published in the TUGboat conference proceedings (volume 44): https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb44-2/tb137radhakrishnan-malayalam.pdf

Postscript (no pun intended): after the conference, I visited some of my good friends in Belgium and Netherlands. En route, my backpack with passport, identity cards, laptop, a phone and money etc. was stolen at Liège. I can’t thank enough my friends at Belgium and back at home for all their care and help, in the face of a terrible experience. On the day before my return, the stolen backpack with everything except the money was found by the railway authorities and I was able to claim it just in time.

I made yet another visit to the magnificent Plantin–Moretus Museum (it holds the original Garamond types!), where I myself could ink and print a metal typeset block of sonnet by Christoffel Plantijn in 1575, which now hangs at the office of a good friend.