Developer Break: RaptorXML, Xcode, Angular.js, Plyvel, Apache, Go

Catch up on the smaller but important notes for developers, from libraries to APIs and from people to posts. In this edition: Altova's Raptor escapes, Xcode is 5, Go 1.1.1 stops off, Angular.js gets a Dart port, driving LevelDB from Python, Apache Commons Net, Syncope and Qpid updated, and TIOBE wonders why JavaScript isn't a resident of its top ten.

Development tools and libraries

• Altova has updated its XML and XBRL processing engine and released RaptorXML. The new product replaces AltovaXML which is being discontinued.

• In the wake of WWDC, Apple is now previewing Xcode 5 with an emphasis on testing and deployment. It offers automatic configuration for Apple services, a new Test Navigator, continuous integration bots, auto-layout for UIs, asset management, debug gauges, a new visual debugger and redesigned source control.

Open source languages

• Google's Go team have updated Go to version 1.1.1, with several fixes to the compiler and runtime. Details of the changes are available along with new downloads of binaries and source for Windows, Mac OS X, FreeBSD and Linux.

Open source libraries and frameworks

• Angular.js: The developers of the popular JavaScript framework Angular.js have announced that they are porting the framework to Dart. A number of components have already been ported and development is ongoing.

• Python users who want to use Google's key/value data store, LevelDB, should take a look at Plyvel, which wraps LevelDB's C++ API in a Pythonic API and works with Python 2 and 3. It's published under a new BSD licence.

• Apache Commons 3.3 fixes a number of bugs in the library that handles Echo, Finger, FTP, NNTP, NTP, POP3(S), SMTP(S), Telnet and Whois protocols.

• Digital identity platform Apache Syncope also got a bug fix update to 1.1.2.

• And Apache Qpid for open source cross-platform messaging with AMQP got a bug fix and feature update to version 0.22. Full details in the release notes – there's also a CVE numbered security fix in there.

Resources

• The TIOBE Programming Community Index this month sees JavaScript re-enter the top ten and leave the table's collators wondering why the language isn't doing better in the chart with its browser ubiquity and platforms like Node.js bringing it to the server-side.

(djwm)