Developer Break: PHP, TypeScript, C++, testing, logging and updates

Developer Break – catch up on the smaller but important notes for developers, from libraries to APIs and from people to postings. In this edition: CakePHP bugfixes, TypeScript enhancements, AESOP parallelising C++, qTest test service, tinylog logging, Java tutorials for Lambda, and Apache updates.

• A bugfix release for the CakePHP web application framework is designed to fix bugs such as those found in connection with plugin modules and with PostgreSQL. From the current version 2.3.1, the API documentation will be handled via a new system that uses apigen.

• A preview of TypeScript 0.8.3 offers a range of improvements in the compiler and the Visual Studio plugin, along with other enhanced components.

• The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland has released AESOP, a C/C++ compiler that has been implemented as an LLVM plugin. It is designed to automatically transform sequential code into parallel code.

• QASymphony has released its qTest test management tool. The tool is offered as an SaaS (Software as a Service) product; qTest hosts the application and handles the data backups and technical support.

• A penultimate beta of the tinylog open source logger for Java programs has arrived. Version 0.8 is the first to make the logger available as an OSGi bundle that allows it to be used, for example, as a plugin for Eclipse RCP applications.

• Oracle's Java tutorials now include instructions how to use lambda expressions. The associated Project Lambda aims to introduce concepts such as closures in Java.

• Jelastic's Java/PHP PaaS has been updated. In Jelastic 1.9, developers can access MariaDB 10.0 and the newly released MariaDB Galera Cluster, use servers with built-in TomEE, and get at their application files more easily with FTP/FTPS.

• Over at the Apache Software Foundation, the UIMA team (Unstructured Information Management) have made their first release of UIMA TextMarker, an analysis engine and tools for TextMarker.
  

• Also at Apache: updates for Apache Syncope identity management (1.0.6), the Apache Camel integration framework (2.10.4), and Apache Commons Email (1.3.1).
  

(djwm)