Racket 6.1 Released

PLT Design has released version 6.1 of Racket, its general purpose, multi-paradigm programming language belonging to the Lisp/Scheme family. Racket 6.1 introduces a new way of handling local recursive variable definitions and several other language features.

Parse Releases Official Open-source PHP SDK

Parse released the Parse PHP SDK, aimed at enabling Parse integration “for a new class of apps and different use cases.” The company also says that this is its “first SDK for a server-side language, and the first to be truly open-source.”

New Android Features for Project ARA to Become Part of Mainline Android

Google is working with Linaro to develop a special edition of Android to support specific features required for the Project Ara customizable smartphone, said Linaro CEO George Grey. This collaboration is aimed to make improvements and additional functionality in the Android ARA version “part of mainline Android,” Grey said.

Facebook Releases Graph API v2.1 and Updates Platform Policies to Forbid Like-gating

New Facebook Graph API v2.1 incorporates several commonly requested features that build on the changes in v2.0, says Facebook. The company has also sparked a certain amount of reactions announcing changes to its platform policies that prohibit well-established like-gating practices.

Guido van Rossum Wants to Bring Type Annotations to Python

Guido van Rossum, best known as designer of the Python programming language, recently sent out a proposal on the python-ideas mailing list for adding type annotations to Python function declarations. The proposal aims at bringing to Python the benefits provided by static typing without changing Python’s dynamic typing nature and interpreter behaviour.