31Aug 2017 by richard@baronsoftware.com

Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.3 Released

Microsoft Development, Software Events
Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.3 Released For Visual Studio 2017 version 15.3, Microsoft focused on improving accessibility, particularly using Visual Studio with the most popular screen readers. Microsoft made over 1,700 improvements but if you are using Visual Studio 2017 in a low-vision or no-vision mode, a lot has improved. Couple of the more major things Microsoft improved. Debugging is much more accessible. Debugger windows like the Call Stack, Locals, Autos, and Watch windows were inaccessible to screen readers. That’s now fixed. The VS editor’s text adornments let developers know about features available at particular points on a line of code, such as breakpoints, lightbulbs, and error and warning “squiggles.” Customers can now discover and navigate between these adornments via the new “Show Line Annotations” command set, which you can…
Read More
31Aug 2017 by richard@baronsoftware.com

Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana are going to work together

Microsoft Development, Software Events
Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana are going to work together Amazon and Microsoft announced on Wednesday that they’ve been working on a partnership to allow their respective voice assistants, Alexa and Cortana, to speak to one another. Starting later this year, owners of Amazon Echos and other Alexa-powered devices will be able to say: “Alexa, open Cortana” to start querying Microsoft’s voice assistant. Owners of devices running Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system will be able to summon Alexa via Cortana in a similar manner. Why would customers want that — especially with the relatively clunky nature of the necessary voice command? The companies say that each voice assistant has its strengths — features like Microsoft Outlook and Exchange email integration for Cortana and smart-home controls or shopping for Alexa — and that…
Read More
29Aug 2017 by richard@baronsoftware.com

IDERA, Inc. Acquires Sencha to Strengthen Developer Tools Business

Rad Studio Delphi Development, Software development Concepts
IDERA, Inc. Acquires Sencha to Strengthen Developer Tools Business IDERA, Inc., the leading provider of database, development, and test management tools, today announced an agreement to acquire Sencha, a leading web application development platform. Sencha will be integrated with Embarcadero, IDERA, Inc.’s developer tools division. The press release can be view at BusinessWire about this purchase in detail.  Now the question is what will happen with moving this product into the Embarcadero Developer product line ?   How does this affect the Rad Studio products that deal with the enterprise ? Sencha provides software tools to build web applications across desktops, tablets and smartphones.  How will this work with FireMonkey is the real question.  The pricing structure for Sencha is extremely high for up to 5 developers. Atanas Popov has been…
Read More
24Aug 2017 by richard@baronsoftware.com

C# 8.0 Previewed

Software development Concepts, Software Events
C# 8.0 Previewed Originally written in www.infoq.com, some amazing stuff coming down the pipe for C#. Nullable Reference Types We’ve covered nullable reference types in the past, but briefly the idea is that reference types would no longer be nullable by default. Instead, you have to explicitly mark them as nullable using the same “Type?” syntax that you use for nullable value types. Assigning a null to a non-nullable reference type will be a compiler warning. Likewise, reading from a nullable type would be a compiler warning unless the variable in question was explicitly checked for null ahead of time. So theoretically the only change developers need to make is to sprinkle question marks where appropriate. Since our report, a new syntax was added to this feature. Consider a scenario where you know…
Read More
17Mar 2017 by richard@baronsoftware.com

How to handle Open Source Software and Security.

Computer PC Tips - bits and bytes
How to handle Open Source Software and Security. Open source has always left so many questions unanswered on whether your comfort level for software security is high or you have sleepless nights. The keys for open source have the following open questions, can someone else view the source and modify it  or do you rely on internal software developers fix the security flaws.   Open source is mostly freely written software by developers who love to write software code and do not mind submitting their projects for all to use. When using open source, the internal developers need to test the piece out and whether it can be used in the production systems.  It is up to the developer to test the code on a machine that can be safely…
Read More