47 of Python's core developers participated in this year's Core Development Sprint, according to this report — "but what's more important is the very real and necessary community building that seemed to have taken place..." It's an especially critical time for Python, which switched to a steering council model in February of 2019, after Guido van Rossum had stepped down as the language's "benevolent dictator for life...." [During the Python Steering Council and Core Developer Q&A] core developer Ned Deily asked a question which had probably been on everyone's minds: how is the steering council experience working, now that van Rossum is no longer serving as the language's benevolent overseer? And core developer/councilmember Carol Willing was the first to respond.

"I've been involved in a lot of governance organizations, and I would say the Steering Council has been towards the top in terms of sticking to the agenda and being thoughtful and collaborative in how things are working." They meet every week for an hour — with a pre-set agenda — and "in general, I think it's working quite well. If there's anything I take away from it, it's I'm amazed that Guido was able to do this function as a single person for as long as he had been. Because it's a lot of work, even amongst five people...."

Core developer/councilmember Barry Warsaw agreed. "A couple of us have been on the Steering Council since its inception. And there was a lot of things that the governance PEPs didn't really cover. So we really had to figure out the process for a number of things. I couldn't be more happy to work with both the first year of Steering Council members, and this year of Steering Council members. I think everybody is doing this for the right reasons — because we love Python, and we love the Python community..."

Deily agreed with their assessments. "My impression is things are going really well, better than might be expected. I was very proud how we as a community met the challenge of coming up with a governance, kind of from scratch. And I think — I don't know for sure all of Guido's motivation for doing it, but I think in a lot of ways he did it the right way, just kind of forced the community to come up with things. And I think all in all that worked out really well...."

About 48 minutes in, there was a question from van Rossum himself about the issue tracker at Bugs.python.org (affectionately known as "BPO"). "So I'm desperately curious about the status of the BPO to GitHub migration." He paused, then asked delicately, "Uh, how much is the Steering Council willing to share of what they know, and how much do you actually know?"

Cannon responded, talking about the group hired to run it, and thanking the groups whose donations had funded it. And then Deily suggested van Rossum volunteer for the working group, "because it's going to affect all of us." van Rossum asked if it would be appropriate if he volunteered, everyone agreed, and he responded, "Okay, I'm game."

GitHub has reinstated today the youtube-dl open-source project, a Python library that lets users download the source audio and video files behind YouTube videos. From a report: GitHub, a code-hosting repository, had previously removed the library from its portal after it received a controversial DMCA takedown request from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on October 23. In a DMCA takedown letter, RIAA argued that the library was being used to "circumvent the technological protection measures used by authorized streaming services such as YouTube" and to allow users to "reproduce and distribute music videos and sound recordings [...] without authorization." RIAA also noted that the project's source code "expressly suggests its use to copy and/or distribute the following copyrighted works." More specifically, RIAA used Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to claim that the youtube-dl library was breaking copyright by providing a tool to circumvent copyrighted material -- even if the youtube-dl library didn't contain copyright-infringing code itself.

But in a blog post today, GitHub said the library did not actually break Section 1201 of the DMCA, citing a letter it received from Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyers, who to take up the youtube-dl project's case. In the letter, the EFF team explained that Google does not have any technical measures in place to prevent the download of its videos -- all of which need to be made freely available to all kinds of apps, browsers, smart TVs, and more. Hence, EFF lawyers argued that the library could never be taken down under Section 1201 of the DMCA since the library doesn't actually circumvent any sort of copyright protection system in the first place.

Programming columnist Mike Melanson assesses the news that Guido Van Rossum, the creator of the Python programming language, has come out of retirement to join Microsoft's developer division: The news brought a flurry of congratulations and feature requests, though a few of the suggested features indeed, already exist. Others still were met with informative responses that make the resulting threads worth a perusal, especially if you're looking for a quick "who's who" on Twitter for the world of programming languages. Microsoft's Miguel de Icaza pointed out that this addition adds to the company's now growing list of language designers and contributors:

"The developer division at Microsoft now employs the language designers and contributors to Python, Java, JavaScript, Typescript, F# C#, C++. We just need some PHP, Rust and Swift magic to complete the picture."

[Microsoft senior software engineer Kat Marchán added "We actually have some early ex-moz Rust people too!"]

So, what can we expect from all of this? Is it a corporate takeover of open source, as some further down in the long list of replies always seem to suggest? Or is Microsoft planning the Frankenstein of all languages, with a little bit of this, a little bit of that? In all likelihood, you Python developers using Microsoft products probably have some good features to look forward to in the near future, and that's that, but there's always lingering fears...especially when it comes to Microsoft. As van Rossum suggests, stay tuned.
After Slashdot's earlier story, long-time reader alexgieg posted his own theory: "Several months ago the Excel folk within Microsoft asked users whether they'd like to have Python as an alternative scripting language in Office. Support for that was overwhelming, but nothing more was said on the matter since then. I guess this is Microsoft's answer."

theodp writes: What if we could build a better world through code?", begins the just-released teaser video for Microsoft's 2020 Hour of Code: A Minecraft Tale of Two Villages . "Help us bring two villages together through the power of code! [...] You will experience empathy and compassion for your neighbor while embracing the diversity that makes us all uniquely special." Intended for ages 7-and-up, the accompanying Educator Guide suggests opening the 45-minute coding lesson (using Blocks or Python) with a 10-minute discussion of unconscious and conscious bias, including "prejudice based on race, ethnicity, age, gender, gender identity, physical ability, religion, and body weight." The Guide also suggests how teachers might explain to students the harm biases can cause: "Both conscious and unconscious biases can cause us to behave negatively or discriminate against people. When we stereotype people based on their gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or some other characteristic, it can be detrimental to us and our community. On a larger and extreme scale, bias can lead to oppression, genocide, and even slavery." The Guide notes that this year's Hour of Code lesson adheres to five Social Justice Standards. The use of Minecraft, Microsoft Education suggests, will help keep students developing and applying social and emotional skills during the pandemic.

Guido van Rossum, the creator of the Python programming language, today announced that he has unretired and joined Microsoft's Developer Division. From a report: Van Rossum, who was last employed by Dropbox, retired last October after six and a half years at the company. Clearly, that retirement wasn't meant to last. At Microsoft, van Rossum says, he'll work to "make using Python better for sure (and not just on Windows)." A Microsoft spokesperson told us that the company also doesn't have any additional details to share but confirmed that van Rossum has indeed joined Microsoft. "We're excited to have him as part of the Developer Division. Microsoft is committed to contributing to and growing with the Python community, and Guido's on-boarding is a reflection of that commitment," the spokesperson said.

theodp writes: The upcoming "Hack the Classroom: STEM Edition," Microsoft explains, "is a [3-day] free virtual event series designed for K-12 educators, parents, and guardians. The sessions will feature resources and tutorials to help educators support students in learning future-ready skills. These lessons can be easily incorporated into classroom curriculum while preparing for this year's Hour of Code event -- a global effort to teach and demystify coding, during Computer Science Education Week, December 7-13."

Microsoft has boasted that the Hour of Code enabled it to reach tens of millions of schoolchildren each year with its drag-and-drop Minecraft-themed tutorials. New for middle and high schoolers this year is the Minecraft Python Hour of Code, which presumably taps into the just-released Python Content for Minecraft: Education Edition (sample Python 101 Lesson). The Hour of Code is run by Microsoft-funded Code.org, whose Board of Directors include Microsoft President Brad Smith.

For the first time in the history of TIOBE's index, Java has slipped out of the top two, leaving Python to occupy the spot behind reigning champion, C. TechRepublic reports: October's TIOBE index had C at No. 1 and Java at No. 2, and historically those two languages have simply traded spaces while the rest of the competition battled it out for the privilege to fall in behind the two perennial leaders. With Python finally overtaking Java in popularity, the future could be one in which everything comes up Python. "In the past, most programming activities were performed by software engineers. But programming skills are needed everywhere nowadays and there is a lack of good software developers," TIOBE CEO Paul Jansen said. "As a consequence, we need something simple that can be handled by non-software engineers, something easy to learn with fast edit cycles and smooth deployment. Python meets all these needs."

Jansen said that he believes this is the case despite claims from others that Python's popularity is due to booms in data mining, AI, numerical computing, and other initiatives that commonly use Python's extensive data processing capabilities. As TechRepublic's R. Dallon Adams wrote in his piece on the October index, Python has been giving Java a run for its money for some time. October saw Python at No. 3 with the largest year-over-year growth percentage in the top 50 languages. Java, still at second place in October, had the largest negative year-over-year growth rate in the top 50 during the same period. R, Perl, and Go are also all boasting positive growth. "R is in 9th place, the same it occupied last month," reports TechRepublic. "R has experienced explosive growth in 2020, which has led TIOBE to consider it a contender for programming language of the year."

"Development of Pyston, a variant of the Python runtime that uses just-in-time compilation to speed up the execution of Python programs, is back on again," reports InfoWorld — after a hiatus that began in 2017: Picking up where Dropbox left off, a new development team has released Pyston 2.0. Pyston provides what is ultimately intended to be a drop-in replacement for the standard Python runtime, CPython. It's compatible with Python 3.8, so programs that runs with that version of Python should run as-is on Pyston...

One of the goals of the project was to remain as close as possible to the original implementation of CPython, since many third-party projects make assumptions about CPython behavior. Thus Pyston 2.0 began with the existing CPython codebase and added features from Pyston 1.0 that worked well, such as caching attributes and JITting. Pyston's JIT no longer uses LLVM, but DynASM to emit assembly directly...

[U]nlike the original Pyston incarnation, the new version is closed-source for the time being, as its new stewards determine their business model.

The Python programming language "is a big hit for machine learning," read a headline this week at ZDNet, adding "But now it needs to change."

Python is the top language according to IEEE Spectrum's electrical engineering audience, yet you can't run Python in a browser and you can't easily run it on a smartphone. Plus no one builds games in Python these days. To build browser applications, developers tend to go for JavaScript, Microsoft's type-safety take on it, TypeScript, Google-made Go, or even old but trusty PHP. On mobile, why would application developers use Python when there's Java, Java-compatible Kotlin, Apple's Swift, or Google's Dart? Python doesn't even support compilation to the WebAssembly runtime, a web application standard supported by Mozilla, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Intel, Fastly, RedHat and others.

These are just some of the limitations raised by Armin Ronacher, a developer with a long history in Python who 10 years ago created the popular Flask Python microframework to solve problems he had when writing web applications in Python. Austria-based Ronacher is the director of engineering at US startup Sentry — an open-source project and tech company used by engineering and product teams at GitHub, Atlassian, Reddit and others to monitor user app crashes due to glitches on the frontend, backend or in the mobile app itself... Despite Python's success as a language, Ronacher reckons it's at risk of losing its appeal as a general-purpose programming language and being relegated to a specific domain, such as Wolfram's Mathematica, which has also found a niche in data science and machine learning...

Peter Wang, co-founder and CEO of Anaconda, maker of the popular Anaconda Python distribution for data science, cringes at Python's limitations for building desktop and mobile applications. "It's an embarrassing admission, but it's incredibly awkward to use Python to build and distribute any applications that have actual graphical user interfaces," he tells ZDNet. "On desktops, Python is never the first-class language of the operating system, and it must resort to third-party frameworks like Qt or wxPython." Packaging and redistribution of Python desktop applications are also really difficult, he says.

An anonymous reader writes: Kite, which suggests code snippets for developers in real time, today added support for 11 more programming languages, bringing its total to 13. In addition to Python and JavaScript, Kite's AI-powered code completions now support TypeScript, Java, HTML, CSS, Go, C, C#, C++, Objective C, Kotlin, and Scala. (The team chose the 11 languages by triangulating the StackOverflow developer survey, Redmonk's language rankings, and its own developer submissions.) AI that helps developers is growing in popularity, with startups like DeepCode offering AI-powered code reviews and tech giants like Microsoft trying to apply AI to the entire application developer cycle. Kite stands out from the pack with 350,000 monthly developers using its AI developer tool. Kite debuted privately in April 2016 before publicly launching a cloud-powered developer sidekick in March 2017. The company raised $17 million in January 2019 and ditched the cloud to run its free offering locally. In May, Kite added JavaScript support, launched a Pro plan with advanced line-of-code completions for Python, and updated its engine to use deep learning, a type of machine learning.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Decades before Twitter threads, Reddit forums, or Facebook groups, there was Usenet: an early-internet, pre-Web discussion system where one could start and join conversations much like today's message boards. Launched in 1980, Usenet is the creation of two Duke University students who wanted to communicate between decentralized, local servers -- and it's still active today. On Usenet, people talk about everything, from nanotech science to soap operas, wine, and UFOs. Jozef Jarosciak, a systems architect based in Ontario, had his first encounter with Usenet in 2000, when he found a full-time job in Canada thanks to a job posting there.

This week, Jarosciak uploaded some of the oldest Usenet posts available to the internet. Around 2.1 million posts from between February 1981 and June 1991 from Henry Spencer's UTZOO NetNews Archive are archived at the Usenet Archive for anyone to browse. This latest archive-dump is part of an even larger project by Jarosciak. He launched the Usenet Archive site last month, as a way to host groups in a way that'd be independent of Google Groups, which also holds archives of newsgroups like Usenet. It's currently archiving 317 million posts in 10,000 unique Usenet newsgroups, according to the site -- and Jarosciak estimates it'll eventually hold close to 1 billion posts.

Python has reached "a new all-time high" on TIOBE's index of programming language popularity. TechRadar reports: Java's days as the world's second most popular programming language could be numbered according to Tiobe's latest programming language rankings which show Python is becoming increasingly popular among developers. The firm's Index for October 2020 shows that Java has been overtaken by C as the world's most popular programming language when compared to the same period last year. Python remains in third place but it's quickly closing the gap between it and Java. According to Tiobe CEO Paul Jensen, C and Java have held the top two spots consistently for the past two decades. However, the 25-year-old programming language Java is approaching its "all time low" in popularity as it has fallen by 4.32 percentage points when compared to where it stood in October of last year. Tiobe ranks programming languages in its popularity index based on the number of hits each language gets across 25 search engines.
RedMonk's rankings already show Python as more popular than Java — the first time since 2012 that Java isn't one of their top two most popular languages. And TIOBE's CEO says "Let's see what will happen the next few months."

Here's their October rankings for the top 10 most popular programming languages.

• C
• Java
• Python
• C++
• C#
• Visual Basic
• JavaScript
• PHP
• R
• SQL

And coming in at #11 is Perl.

This week's release of Python 3.9 "brings forward significant changes to both the features of the language and to how the language is developed," writes InfoWorld — starting with a new yearly release schedule and performance-boosting parser improvements: - Python makes it easy to manipulate common data types, and Python 3.9 extends this ease with new features for strings and dictionaries. For strings, there are new methods to remove prefixes and suffixes, operations that have long required a lot of manual work to pull off. [The methods are named .removeprefix() and .removesuffix() and their return value is the modified string]

- For dictionaries, there are now union operators, one to merge two dictionaries into a new dictionary and one to update the contents of one dictionary with another dictionary.

- Decorators let you wrap Python functions to alter their behaviors programmatically. Previously, decorators could only consist of the @ symbol, a name (e.g. func) or a dotted name (func.method) and optionally a single call (func.method(arg1, arg2)). With Python 3.9, decorators can now consist of any valid expression...provided it yields something that can function as a decorator...

- Two new features for type hinting and type annotations made their way into Python 3.9. In one, type hints for the contents of collections — e.g., lists and dictionaries — are now available in Python natively. This means you can for instance describe a list as list[int] — a list of integers — without needing the typing library to do it. The second addition to Python's typing mechanisms is flexible function and variable annotations. This allows the use of the Annotated type to describe a type using metadata that can be examined ahead of time (with linting tools) or at runtime...

- Python extension modules, written in C, may now use a new loading mechanism that makes them behave more like regular Python modules when imported.

"To teach the next generation of computer scientists the basics of Python programming, Microsoft recently announced a partnership with NASA to create a series of lessons based on space exploration efforts," reports TechRepublic: Overall, the project includes three different NASA-inspired lessons... The Introduction to Python for Space Exploration lesson will provide students with "an introduction to the types of space exploration problems that Python and data science can influence." Made up of eight units in total, this module also details the upcoming Artemis lunar exploration mission.

In another learning path, students will learn to design an AI model capable of classifying different types of space rocks depicted in random photos, according to Microsoft. However, the company recommends a "basic understanding of Python for Data Science" as a prerequisite for this particular lesson. The last of the three learning paths serves as an introduction to machine learning and demonstrates ways these technologies can help assist with space exploration operations.

Students are presented real-world NASA challenges, particularly rocket launch delays, and learn how the agency can leverage machine learning to resolve the issues... Microsoft also announced partnerships with Wonder Woman 1984 and Smithsonian Learning Labs to curate five additional programming lessons for students.

"To celebrate Java's 25th anniversary this year and the latest release of Java 15, JetBrains has compiled data from multiple sources to look at what the current state of the language," reports SD Times: The largest concentration of Java developers is in Asia, where 2.5 million developers use it as their primary language. JetBrains believes this may be due to the fact that it is common to hire offshore developers in countries like China and India to build Android apps. "We might have expected the USA to have a high percentage of Java users, but it also makes a lot of sense that they don't. There is a big technology stack to choose from and often a lot of the tech companies are at the forefront of that stack, so it could be that developers there don't need the power or stability of Java and are using languages that allow them to build and test quickly," JetBrains wrote in a post.
The post on JetBrains notes that the six countries with the highest percentage of developers using Java as their primary language are: China, South Korea, India, Germany, Spain, and Brazil: The reasons Java is most likely so popular in the first 6 countries include the free use of Java, governmental support, and open-source... Germany is also very high which could be attributed to Java being the most popular language in Germany for software engineers as it is used to build highly scalable applications for a multitude of industries. Most enterprise services rely on Java to power the applications that enable the day-to-day running of businesses, such as payroll, inventory management, reporting, and so on. Germany also has a big financial sector that uses Java heavily for their homegrown tech, such as trading bots, retail banking systems, and other applications that the finance industry requires in order to remain competitive...

According to the State of the Developer Ecosystem Survey 2020, more than a third of professional developers use Java as a primary language and Java remains the second primary language among professional developers after JavaScript. Expert analysis: It is not surprising to see JavaScript and Java taking the leading positions as they are kind of paired together; developers who work with Java often write their frontend and any quick scripts in JavaScript. Python is probably third place due to the spread of machine learning. In general, we expect the web to be a big part of the developer ecosystem and so JavaScript, HTML and CSS, and PHP will always have solid standing. SQL is also always going to be around as there isn't much that doesn't require databases in some capacity. C++ is also kind of a solid language in that it is used for a lot of embedded applications, so it won't be disappearing off the charts any time soon. C# though seems to be losing ground, and I guess if Java is high then C# will be low, as they are both very similar in terms of capabilities.

As to why I think Java is so high in the sphere of professional development — it's similar to what was mentioned about Germany. Most enterprise business services rely on Java to make them tick along. It's not just the IT sector either — almost every company, be it in distribution, manufacturing, or banking, has IT services as part of their infrastructure, and these services, such as payroll or inventory management, are generally built with Java in the backend. So Java is used a lot by professional developers who work for these companies.

"A Raspberry Pi, a USB SDR dongle, an LCD a buzzer and a little bit of coding in Python and C has created a very useful alarm for drone and RC model aircraft operators," explains long-time Slashdot reader NewtonsLaw . The device allows users to set an "alarm" perimeter around their operating area and automatically alert them whenever a manned aircraft with ADSB fitted intrudes into that area. While there are apps like FlightRadar24 that allow you to monitor ADSB-equipped air traffic, this is the first stand-alone hand-held unit that isn't reliant on cellular or Wifi data and which not just monitors aircraft movments but also sounds an alarm according to user-defined parameters.
sUAS News reports: "As an avid proponent of safety within the drone and RC communities, I decided to put my background in electronics engineering and computer software to good use by developing a device that has the potential to ensure the skies remain safe," said Kiwi drone and RC model enthusiast Bruce Simpson.

"The alarm I've developed is not a silver bullet but it is an extremely valuable tool for improving safety... I will be publishing some DIY videos showing people how they can build their own from readily available parts. This will ensure it remains cheap enough to be used by everyone..."

Drone users now call on the manned aviation community to ensure that they play their part by equipping their aircraft with the ADSB technology that has become such an important part of safety in the 21 st century.

ZDNet reports: Oracle has released version 15 of Java, the language created 25 years ago by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems, which Oracle snapped up in 2009 for about $7.4bn to gain what it said was the "most important software Oracle has ever acquired". Java 15, or Oracle Java Development Kit (JDK) 15, brings the Edwards-Curve digital signature algorithm, hidden classes, and former preview features that have been finalized, including text blocks, and the Z Garbage Collector, while the sealed-classes feature arrives and pattern matching and records emerge as a second preview...

In July, Java fell out of RedMonk's top two positions for the first time since 2012 and now resides behind JavaScript and Python in terms of popularity. Tiobe in September ranked Java in second position, behind C and ahead of Python.... But Java is still hugely popular and widely used in the enterprise, according to Oracle, which notes it is used by over 69% of full-time developers worldwide... It counts Arm, Amazon, IBM, Intel, NTT Data, Red Hat, SAP and Tencent among its list of notable contributors to JDK 15. Oracle also gave a special mention to Microsoft and cloud system monitoring service DataDog for fixes...

As part of Java's 25th anniversary, Oracle commissioned analyst firm Omdia to assess its six-month release strategy for Java and whether it would be enough to keep millions of Java developers away from memory-safe alternatives such as Kotlin, the language Google has endorsed for Android development, and Rust, a system programming language that was created at Mozilla. "In Omdia's opinion, the work Oracle began a few years ago in moving to a six-month update cycle and introducing a new level of modularity, puts the vendor in good stead with its constituency of approximately 12 million developers," Oracle said in its report on Omdia's analysis.

"However, Oracle and the Java programming language need an ongoing series of innovative, must-have, and 'delightful' features that make the language even more user friendly and cloud capable. These will keep existing Java developers happy while steering potential Java developers away from newer languages like Rust and Kotlin."

This week brings a special event honoring the IBM Z line of mainframes, writes long-time Slashdot reader theodp: As part of this week's IBM Z Day event, looking-for-young-blood IBM is teaming up with tech-backed K-12 CS nonprofits Code.org and CSforALL and calling on students 14-and-up to Master The Mainframe during the 24-hour code-a-thon to open doors to new opportunities with Fortune 500 companies.

"The rewards for participants are substantial," explains Big Blue. "For every student who finishes Level 1, IBM will donate to the UN World Food Programme #ShareTheMeal... In celebration of IBM Z day, we will double the donation for all students that complete Master the Mainframe Level 1 between Sept 15 — 30 2020. Just 1 hour of your time will feed 4 children for a day." "Through three interactive Levels, you will access a mainframe and get skilled up on the foundations of Mainframe," according to IBM's announcement at MasterTheMainframe.com, "including JCL, Ansible, Python, Unix, COBOL, REXX, all through VS Code. Round it all out with a grand challenge where you craft your own fully-equipped Mainframe creation."

"One mainframe is equivalent to 1,500 x86 servers," the site notes. It also points out that mainframes handle 30 billion transactions every day, "more than the number of Google searches every day" — including 87% of all credit card transactions, nearly $8 trillion payments a year.

Earlier today, quantum computing startup Xanadu launched its quantum cloud platform, where developers can access the company's gate-based photonic quantum processors with 8-qubit or 12-qubit chips, with 24-qubit chips coming "in the next month of so." "The startup expects to 'roughly double' the number of qubits available in its cloud every six months," reports VentureBeat. "The hope is Xanadu Quantum Cloud will let businesses, developers, and researchers build novel solutions to problems in finance, quantum chemistry, machine learning, and graph analytics." From the report: Quantum computing leverages qubits (unlike bits that can only be in a state of 0 or 1, qubits can also be in a superposition of the two) to perform computations that would be much more difficult for a classical computer. Based in Toronto, Canada, Xanadu has been developing quantum computers based on photonics since its founding in September 2016. The choice of technology means Xanadu's quantum processors operate at room temperature (most other examples of quantum computing tech have to be cooled to very low temperatures) and can be integrated into existing fiber optic-based telecommunication infrastructure.

Xanadu is best known for the development of PennyLane, an open source software library for quantum machine learning, quantum computing, and quantum chemistry. The company also develops Strawberry Fields, its cross-platform Python library for simulating and executing programs on quantum photonic hardware. Both open source tools are available on GitHub, and they have a growing community fostering tutorials and educational materials for anyone interested in developing and experimenting with quantum applications.

Friday night CNET reported: With a device surgically implanted into the skull of a pig named Gertrude, Elon Musk demonstrated his startup Neuralink's technology to build a digital link between brains and computers. A wireless link from the Neuralink computing device showed the pig's brain activity as it snuffled around a pen on stage Friday night.
Some reactions from Twitter:

- "The potential of #Neuralink is mind-boggling, but fuckkkk why would they use Bluetooth???"

- "they're using C/C++ too lmao"

But then videogame programming legend John Carmack responded: "Quality, reliable software can be delivered in any language, but language choice has an impact. For me, C would be a middle-of-the-road choice; better than a dynamic language like javascript or python, but not as good as a more modern strongly static typed languages.

However, the existence of far more analysis tools for C is not an insignificant advantage. If you really care about robustness, you are going to architect everything more like old Fortran, with no dynamic allocations at all, and the code is going to look very simple and straightforward.

So an interesting question: What are the aspects of C++ that are real wins for that style over C? Range checked arrays would be good. What else?
When asked "What's a better modern choice?" Carmack replied "Rust would be the obvious things, and I don't have any reason to doubt it would be good, but I haven't implemented even a medium sized application in it."

But then somewhere in the discussion, Elon Musk made a joke about C's lack of "class" data structures. Elon Musk responded: I like C, because it avoids class warfare
But then Musk also gave interesting responses to two more questions on Twitter: Which is your fav programming language? Python?

Elon Musk: Actually C, although the syntax could be improved esthetically

Could Neuralink simulate an alternate reality that could be entered at will, like Ready Player One? Implications for VR seem to be massive. Essentially, a simulation within a simulation if we're already in one ...

Elon Musk: Later versions of a larger device would have that potential