Weekend Reader, New Year's Edition

Microsoft’s modern JavaScript Engine is going Open-Source

Chakra, the JavaScript Engine that powers Microsoft Edge is going open-source!
This is very interesting, since Chakra is currently the fastest JavaScript engine and the engine with the widest ES6 compatibility.
Microsoft already showed that Node.js can run on top of Chakra. I am curious if this will be a scenario picked up by the open-source community …

However right now, the step to open-source has not yet happened. According to the announcement it will happen “after the holidays”.

Visual Studio Code is Open-Source

Open-source, once scolded as “cancer”, is becoming the new black at Microsoft. The sources of Visual Studio Code are available on Github.
Also Visual Studio Code now supports extensions.

Exploring the new .NET “dotnet” Command Line Interface (CLI)

Apart from the fact that .NET Core and ASP.NET 5 will be cross-platform, Microsoft is also working on a simple cross-platform CLI for .NET… It very much looks like Node/NPM!
I am really looking forward when .NET development becomes as accessible as Node development is today. With the possibilities to develop .NET on Mac/Linux and to run .NET application on Linux servers. Combine the elegance of C# and the dynamic compilation of ASP.NET with the simplicity of this CLI and you get a package that looks really productive for all kinds of enterprise applications … hard times for Java :-)

Free eBook: Modern Java EE Design Patterns

Hmm… I did not read the whole book, but I rather skimmed it. In my opinion this book is not about Java EE. It is about microservices, and it claims that microservices are the “modern” way for developing enterprise applications. It shows some interesting patterns for implementing applications with microservices.
But it also shows that Java EE does not offer much for microservices and in appendix A it lists a set of technologies that are (in my opinion) better suited for implementing micorservices.

Free eBook: Professor Frisby’s Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming

A very readable introduction to the concepts of functional programming in JavaScript. Currying, functional composition, functors … learn all those constructs and many more.

Apps: The iPad Pro has an App Store problem

Apps on iOS sell for unsustainably low prices

I really like my iPad Pro. For most scenarios it replaced my iPad Air (execpt reading in bed). However the app landscape of optimized apps for the iPad Pro really is disappointing. This article has an explanation why.

Funny: Bret Victor - The Future of Programming

A really interesting presentation from 1973 … or is it? Funny in a geeky way but also very insightfull.

Tweets of the Week

When you try to make a small change to tightly-coupled software pic.twitter.com/Izs0LNYmOu

— Practical Developer (@ThePracticalDev) December 29, 2015

The psychodynamics of coding interviews in one picture. pic.twitter.com/6XarcYAq2D

— Jonathan Eyler-Werve (@EylerWerve) December 16, 2015

I saw someone with their job title as just “Developer”. Not “engineer”, not “architect”, just…”developer”. What a psycho.

— I Am Devloper (@iamdevloper) November 24, 2015

Love this from @adrianco's #yow15 talk - are you in a job where your leadership doesn't think you're a superstar? pic.twitter.com/IEX97h3UAx

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) December 6, 2015