NPM Reaches 2.0, Adds Private Node.js Module Management and More

Node.js standard package manager, npm, has reached version 2.0. Among npm’s new features, scoped packages promise to make it easier to manage private Node.js modules, just as if they were part of the public repository. The new version also marks the introduction of a new release process and offers improved reliability.

Building iOS 8 Share Extensions: A GitHub Repo with Issues, Sample Code, and Workarounds

Share extensions, introduced by Apple in iOS 8, “provide an exciting opportunity for developers of all types of apps to integrate with their customers’ devices like never before,” says Bryan Irace, iOS developer at Tumblr. Though, as it is often the case with new technologies, the road to building iOS share extensions is paved not only with fun but also with frustration.

Amazon Releases Official AWS Mobile SDK 2

After a few months spent in Developer Preview, the Amazon Web Services Mobile SDK version 2 is ready for general development. According to Amazon, the final release takes into account feedback received from developers during the preview in order to improve the SDK with some new features.

Emerging Languages: A Look at The Last Five Years

In a recent article, Alex Payne, organizer of the Emerging Languages Camp, provides insight on how the language landscape has changed in the last five years and how it might change in future. InfoQ has talked with him.

Batch Updates Solve Long-standing Issue with Core Data

Core Data batch updates, introduced in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, aim at fixing a long-standing limitation of the Core Data stack, as developers had been asking for many years. Let’s review the problem that batch updates solve, how they work, and an alternative to them involving a rethinking of data normalization strategy.