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Tag: Python

  • Rust, Kotlin, Java, and Python See Huge Growth

    Rust, Kotlin, Java, and Python See Huge Growth

    SlashData has released its 23rd State of the Developer Nation report, and it’s good news for Rust, Kotlin, Java, and Python.

    SlashData researchers looked at the state of the software development industry and found that several languages are experiencing near-meteoric rises in adoption. The survey included some 26,000 developers in 163 countries.

    The report found that some old stalwarts continue to rise in popularity. For example, Java’s community of developers has nearly doubled in the last two years, from 8.3 million to 16.5 million. This was nearly double the overall growth of the global developer community.

    Similarly, Python now has nearly 17 million developers in its community, 8 million of them being added in the last two years. Python has benefited from the growing importance of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), with 63% of ML developers and data scientists relying on the language.

    Despite Java and Python’s impressive growth, Rust and Kotlin are the real winners, with both languages seeing a major uptick.

    Rust’s developer community has more than tripled in two years, going from 0.8 million to 2.8 million. The language’s popularity is largely due to the performance, memory safety, and security that it offers, even being one of the languages the NSA recommends, along with Java.

    Kotlin is likewise experiencing major growth, thanks to being an official language for Android development, one that Google now prefers. As a result, Kotlin’s developer base has more than doubled in the last two years, from 2.3 million to 6.1 million.

    SlashData’s report shows just how much the software development community is changing as a result of various trends, such as AI, ML, the need for memory safe computing, and more.

  • IBM Brings Anaconda to Linux on IBM Z & LinuxONE

    IBM Brings Anaconda to Linux on IBM Z & LinuxONE

    IBM has announced it is bringing Python data science platform Anaconda to Linux on IBM Z & LinuxONE.

    Anaconda is the leading Python data science platform, with some 25 million users relying on the platform for machine learning, data science, predictive analytics and more.

    IBM is bringing Anaconda to IBM Z and LinuxONE, making it easy for programmers and data scientist to build and run their AI and analytics apps where their data already resides. According to research commissioned by IBM, 90% of respondents cited this as an important factor.

    Barry Baker, VP of Product Management for IBM Z & LinuxONE, made the announcement in a blog post.

    Data scientists who already know and love Anaconda can now expand their open-source data science experience to include IBM Z & LinuxONE, while continuing to work with their favorite tools and frameworks like conda, XGBoost and SciKit-Learn. This expands and enables choice in AI frameworks and tooling for end-to-end data science directly on the platform, including development, training, testing and production. Data scientists can benefit from the security capabilities, high availability and scalability of the IBM Z & LinuxONE platforms when implementing AI deployments targeting time-sensitive workloads or transactions when they are taking place. Anaconda runs natively on Linux on IBM Z, and through z/OS Container Extensions (zCX) on z/OS, the solution brings open-source data science tools close to key workloads, leveraging the data gravity of the Z and LinuxONE platforms.

  • Microsoft Deepening its Commitment to Python

    Microsoft Deepening its Commitment to Python

    Microsoft is deepening its support for the Python programming language and its ecosystem, making a significant investment.

    Python is one of the most popular programming languages in the world. Its extensible nature makes it a powerful language that is widely used across industry and academia. The language is also thepreferred language for machine learning applications, increasing its popularity even more.

    Microsoft has invested $150,000 in the Python Software Foundation, boosting support that goes back to 2006. The company’s increased commitment make it a Visionary Sponsor. In addition, Python’s creator has joined Microsoft as a Distinguished Engineer.

    Microsoft has been a long-time supporter of the Python Software Foundation, starting in 2006. Today, Microsoft employs several core developers working part-time on CPython and the Python Steering Council, making significant contributions as PEP authors. We are also excited that Guido van Rossum has recently joined Microsoft as a Distinguished Engineer and is exploring performance improvements to CPython.

    Aside from helping advance the Python tooling and ecosystem, Microsoft has shown strong involvement with the Python community and has been a long-time sponsor of PyCon US, including four years at the top tier Keystone level. Microsoft’s support for the community extends to sponsorships of regional and international Python events including in emerging regions.

  • Visual Studio Code Updated With M1 Support

    Visual Studio Code Updated With M1 Support

    Microsoft has updated Visual Studio Code, adding support for Apple’s new Macs running on its M1 custom silicon.

    Visual Studio Code is a free, open source programming text editor available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It’s based on Electron and supports a variety of programming languages, including Java, Python, C++, C#, Ruby, Go, Dart, JavaScript and more. In fact, Microsoft says Visual Studio Code supports virtually every major programming language.

    The latest release, version 1.54 adds support for Apple’s new custom silicon.

    We are happy to announce our first release of stable Apple Silicon builds this iteration. Users on Macs with M1 chips can now use VS Code without emulation with Rosetta, and will notice better performance and longer battery life when running VS Code. Thanks to the community for self-hosting with the Insiders build and reporting issues early in the iteration.

    The default download of VS Code for macOS is now a Universal build that runs natively on all Macs. On the Downloads page, you can find more links to architecture-specific builds for Intel or Apple Silicon, which are smaller downloads compared to the Universal package.

    Visual Studio Code is already a popular option for developers. This latest update will will be a welcome improvement for developers running Apple’s newest machines.

  • Python Found In Florida Measures 18 Feet

    While snakes are not a rare sight in Florida, an eighteen-foot Burmese python is.

    On February 4, a massive 150-pound Burmese python was killed in the Florida Everglades by workers with the South Florida Water Management District.

    The agency’s spokesperson Randy Smith says that it is not uncommon for the workers to come across snakes, and that it actually happens quite frequently. However, the workers were shocked to find one of this magnitude.

    “Needless to say, when you get one this big, it raises eyebrows,” Smith said. “It’s just such a large animal. They have no predators. They’ll eat anything, even alligators. They are ferocious creatures.”

    The men were working in a wooded area when the snake was discovered. They immediately called their python coordinator, who killed the snake with a shot to the head.

    While pythons are not poisonous, they are capable of squeezing their prey to death, and have been wreaking havoc on Florida’s wildlife. So much so that Florida had a contest last year to see who could capture the most pythons. A total of 68 were turned in, some measuring as large as 14 feet.

    Although the 18-foot python was mind-blowingly big, it is not the biggest that Florida has ever seen. In May 2013, a man noticed a python that measured 18-foot, 8-inches peeking its head out of the bushes in Miami-Dade County.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • 18-Foot Python: Burmese Behemoth Found In Florida Almost Ties Record

    An 18-foot python found in the Florida Everglades almost tied in size with the state’s record setting snake.

    The Miami Herald reported that the massive Burmese beast was captured on Tuesday by python control on the L-28 levee, roughly 5 miles north of Tamiami Trail. Engineers came across the creature while inspecting levees in the Everglades. South Florida Water Management District spokesman, Randy Smith, said, “It looks to be about 18 feet,” adding, “It could very well be a state record.”

    That was almost the case. Burmese pythons typically reach about 20 feet in their natural habitat of Southeast Asia. The current state record for a snake found in Florida reportedly was measured to be 18 feet, 8 inches and weighed in at 128 pounds when snake collector Jason Leon killed it. The python captured by Hill this past Tuesday met the same fate before its corpse was sent to the University of Florida to also be measured and weighed.

    At 18 feet 2 inches, the female serpent fell short of the existing record by merely half a foot, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

    The cold-blooded creatures spend their days atop the leaves, doing what Floridians do: sunning themselves for hours on end. However, this species is currently being battled due to a rising concern that they could alter the ecosystem in a detrimental way. The southern state’s reptile residents have reportedly grown to a population comprising upwards of 150,000 in the Everglades and have been consistently consuming the indigenous species as their main source of food.

    But who is truly to blame for the python proliferation? This colossal species of snake – the largest in the world – is reported to have found a home in the Everglades following the use of the wetlands as a convenient dumping ground by pet owners.


    Image via Youtube

  • Python Bali – Kills Security Guard

    Python Bali – Kills Security Guard

    A security guard working near the Hyatt Hotel in Bali, Indonesia was strangled to death by a wayward Python.

    The victim, Ambar Arianto Mulyo, was a 59-year-old security guard at a nearby restaurant.

    The 15-foot long python snake slithered across the road around 3 a.m. close to the luxury hotel, Agung Bawa, an assistant security manager at the hotel said.

    The hotel in the resort town of Bali is presently closed for renovations until 2015, but the security guards were on duty closeby.

    The python had been seen around the hotel and surrounding areas several times, and Mulyo decided to catch it, securing its head and body successfully.

    He then put the snake over his shoulders to remove the snake from the area, when it tightened and gripped his body.

    Local witnesses either couldn’t help or didn’t, but the man was strangled to death in front of them. They did manage to call the police, who got there too late to save him.

    “It happened so fast,” Bawa said. “We were sad because we could not do anything to help him.”

    The python the escaped into nearby bushes, and police were still searching for it. Denpasar police Capt. Gusti Ngurah Yudistira said Mulyo died of suffocation.

    According to National Geographic It’s very rare that pythons kill humans, but not unheard of. It occasionally happens if the circumstances are just right. Oftentimes, it’s just kind of a perfect storm where you get a big hungry snake in close proximity to humans.

    But humans are not a python’s natural prey. The circumstances of a python killing and consuming a human are seldom.

    The World Animal Foundation reports – “Despite their intimidating size and muscular power, they are generally not dangerous to humans. While a large adult python could kill a human being (most likely by strangling rather than actual crushing), humans are outside the normal size range for prey. Reports of python attacks on humans are extremely rare.”

    Image via YouTube

  • Man Found with 850 Snakes in His Home

    Man Found with 850 Snakes in His Home

    A Long Island animal control officer was found keeping about 850 snakes in his home on Thursday, two of which were 6-foot Burmese pythons – all part of an illegal reptile sales operation. The snakes were all housed in the two garages of Richard Parinello, 44, of Shirley, New York.

    The Burmese pythons, which can grow to 30 feet long, are illegal in New York state. Suffolk County SPCA Chief Roy Gross called the snakes “an accident waiting to happen,” and stated that “there is a reason why Burmese pythons are illegal”, while relating the deaths of two young boys in Canada, who were recently suffocated by an African rock python, as they’d slept.

    Shirley spokesman Jack Krieger stated that Parinello has worked unsteadily as an animal control officer since 1988, and that authorities found the snakes while checking to see if Parinello was working while on disability leave. The snakes were kept in a very orderly fashion, under the right conditions, and no signs of animal cruelty were evident. The pythons were transferred to a sanctuary in Massachusetts.

    Parinello’s snake business had a website at snakemanexotics.com, which has since been taken down, and he faces several charges, including harboring the pythons, and running a business out of his home without a permit.

    In related news, 40 pythons were recently found in a Canadian hotel room, and a record-setting python was captured in Miami.

    The Burmese python has been classified as an invasive species in the Florida Everglades, as a breeding colony had been established there in the late 1970’s. the pythons are popular pets, and would get loose – they’ve since thrived in the Floridian environment. The snakes now number anywhere between 5,000 and 180,000 in the Everglades, and the National Park Service created a policy to remove and euthanize them immediately.

    Image courtesy of Thinkstock.

  • New Brunswick Snake Put Down After Boys’ Deaths

    An African python that escaped it’s enclosure and killed two young boys has been put down, authorities in Canada say.

    4-year old Noah Barthe and his brother, 7-year old Connor, were reportedly on a sleepover at a friend’s apartment over the weekend when they were killed by the giant snake.

    Jean-Claude Savoie owns a small pet store–Reptile Ocean–over which he resides in the apartment. He said that the snake must have escaped its enclosure and gotten up into the ceiling ducts somehow, eventually falling down into the living room where the boys were sleeping.

    “They were sleeping and they never opened their eyes or nothing. At first, I didn’t even realize. I thought they were sleeping until I seen the hole in the ceiling, everything had fallen and I turned the lights on and I seen this horrific scene,” he said.

    The snake, which is believed to be illegal in the area, has been the subject of some mystery. Authorities aren’t sure why it was able to suffocate the boys without biting first, as they usually do.

    “It could be that kind of an accident where the snake got in where the kids were and they were just something to hold onto. And then when the kids tried to get away, [it] squeezed tighter,” Professor Neil Ford said. “Even a single adult would have a tough time uncoiling a large snake if it wanted to hold on.”

    A spokesman for the Department of Natural Resources, Steven Benteau, says that the species of snake that killed the boys is illegal under the Exotic Wildlife Regulation.

    “It is illegal for anyone to keep any exotic species that is not listed in the regulation unless they have a permit from the Department of Natural Resources,” says a statement from the department. “If such an animal is found, it will be confiscated and the person who possesses the animal can be charged under the Fish and Wildlife Act.”

    The case is now being investigated as a criminal matter.

  • 19-Foot Python Found, Killed in Miami

    19-Foot Python Found, Killed in Miami

    Though the classic Jennifer Lopez/Ice Cube movie Anaconda may have exaggerated it just a bit, it is true that snakes can grow to a terrifying size. Now, one man in Miami has found a record-setting snake that’s longer than three human adults are tall.

    According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), a man named Jason Leon has found the longest Burmese python ever recorded in the state of Florida. The female snake is 18 feet, 8 inches long- more than one foot longer than the previous Florida record-holder. It also weighs 128 pounds.

    Leon reportedly saw three feet of the snake poking out of the bushes on the side of a rural road and stopped to capture the snake. Leon, who has experience with Burmese pythons as pets, began dragging it out of the brush by grabbing it behind its head. The snake was killed with a knife after it attempted to wrap itself around Leon’s leg.

    “Jason Leon’s nighttime sighting and capture of a Burmese python of more than 18 feet in length is a notable accomplishment that set a Florida record. The FWC is grateful to him both for safely removing such a large Burmese python and for reporting its capture,” said Kristen Sommers, Exotic Species Coordination section leader for the FWC.

    The FWC considers the Burmese python an invasive species that disrupts the ecosystem of the Florida Everglades. The record-setting snake is now being studied by researchers at the University of Florida’s Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center.

    (Image courtesy the FWC)

  • AWS Elastic Beanstalk Now Runs Python Apps

    AWS Elastic Beanstalk Now Runs Python Apps

    Amazon announced that AWS Elastic Beanstalk will now support Python applications, in addition to PHP, Java and .NET.

    Specifically, Elastic Beanstalk will now support Python apps and frameworks that run on Apache HTTP Server and the WSGI interface.

    Amazon also introduced new features, which it says will make it easier to build Python web apps on Elastic Beanstalk.

    “First, you can now easily leverage Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) database instances with your Elastic Beanstalk applications,” the company says on the AWS site. “Amazon RDS makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud, making it a great fit for scalable web applications running on Elastic Beanstalk. To learn more about how to setup and use an Amazon RDS database instance with your application, visit “Using Amazon RDS with Python” in the Developer Guide.”

    “Second, you can customize the Python runtime for Elastic Beanstalk using a set of declarative text files within your application,” Amazon adds. “If your application contains a requirements.txt in its top level directory, Elastic Beanstalk automatically installs the dependencies using pip. Elastic Beanstalk is also introducing a new configuration mechanism that allows you to install packages from yum, run setup scripts, and set environment variables. To learn more about customizing your Python environment, visit “Customizing and Configuring a Python Container” in the Developer Guide.”

    To start running Python apps on Elastic Beanstalk, check out Amazon’s developer guide, which includes walkthroughs for Django and Flask apps.

    [Hat tip to CIO.]

  • Project Glass Engineer Teaches You How To Program Driverless Cars

    Project Glass Engineer Teaches You How To Program Driverless Cars

    Sebastian Thrun is a Google Fellow and VP, a Stanford Professor, and the co-founder fo Udacity.com. He’s also on the Project Glass team, which last week, unveiled the much talked about Google glasses. He was one of the names that signed the initial announcement post for Project Glass on Google+.

    It just so happens that he is also involved with Google’s driverless cars, and actually teaches a class about how to program them.

    “This class, taught by one of the foremost experts in AI, will teach you basic methods in Artificial Intelligence, including: probabilistic inference, computer vision, machine learning, and planning, all with a focus on robotics,” the description says. “Extensive programming examples and assignments will apply these methods in the context of building self-driving cars. You will get a chance to visit, via video, the leading research labs in the field, and meet the scientists and engineers who are building self-driving cars at Stanford and Google.”

    “The instructor will assume solid knowledge of programming, all programming will be in Python. Knowledge of probability and linear algebra will be helpful,” the syllabus says.

    It’s a seven-week course, which includes: basics of probability, gaussians and continuous probability, image processing and machine learning, planning and search, controls, putting it all together and a final exam. This is enough time, according to Thrun’s Udacity site, to learn the basics of all the primary systems involved in programming a robotic car.

    “First of all, this is a fascinating subject,” it says in a FAQ section. “The technologies involved are cutting edge, but the theories behind them are simpler than you might think. In addition to learning the math and science behind these technologies, you will also improve your coding probabilities as you solve the same problems that scientists at places like Google, Stanford, and MIT have been working on for years.”

    With Thrun on the Project Glass team, perhaps there will be a programming for glass class at some point. Hopefully, some tips will be shared at Google I/O at least.

    Oh, and by the way, the class is free.

    Other free classes ad udacity.com include: building a search engine, design of computer programs, web application engineering, programming languages, and applied cryptography.

  • Reddit Hosting Sprint To Fix Their API At PyCon 2012

    Reddit Hosting Sprint To Fix Their API At PyCon 2012

    Reddit wants you to join them at PyCon 2012. What is PyCon? Read on to find out.

    Reddit, as defined by them in a blog post, is “a bit unique.” I would use other adjectives to describe the Web site, but I can’t argue that unique is a good term for them as well. My definition, however, relates to the content of the site, whereas they mean their site is built on open source software.

    When you look at it as a whole, Reddit claims that about 6.6 percent of their code comes from open source developers. That’s a significant percentage for a site as large and far reaching as Reddit.

    Anyway, this is all to lead up to Reddit hosting a sprint at PyCon 2012, which is being held in Santa Clara, California this year. PyCon is an annual convention for the community of developers that use the open source Python development language. It’s also unique in that its organized by the community with corporate sponsors so the events are always accessible to the largest amount of developers possible.

    As said, Reddit will be hosting a sprint during the convention. A sprint is like a hack-a-thon with a singular purpose. Since Reddit is hosting this sprint, you can bet it’s going to be about the Reddit API. The description on the sprint page says:

    What’s the next big thing for reddit? Why don’t we have an official Android app? How can I script and simplify my common moderation tasks?

    The answer to all these questions involves the reddit API! The best reddit-related projects are the ones that take advantage of our terrible API, and we want more of them – this sprint is about making that API better, and building new things on the existing API.

    The sprints will be running from Monday, March 12 through Thursday March 15. There’s no real schedule to the event, but the Reddit team says that they will be available from around 10 a.m. to whenever dinner-time is for them.

    If you want to participate in the Reddit sprint, you can sign up over at the PyCon sprints page.

    The Reddit team will also be holding a pre-sprint intro session on Sunday evening. So be sure to attend that if you plan on joining the sprint to fix their API.