#lts

#lts

Kernel 6.18 has already been designated the new LTS release - just as we predicted - and Alpine Linux 3.23 has arrived carrying it ahead of a flurry of other year-end distro updates. It seems to be new version season in distro-land. In the last week, lots of Linux distributions have shiny new releases out: we have noted Ultramarine 43, Solus 4.8, Endeavour OS "Ganymede," 4MLinux 50, and a new CachyOS snapshot.

C# 14, included in the .NET 10 SDK, introduces file-based apps, meaning applications contained in a single file with a .cs extension. These look a lot like scripts, and support #! directives on Unix-like platforms, enabling invocation via the ./ prefix when marked as executable. This could be useful for utilities, but the thinking behind this is more about attracting newcomers to the language by simplifying the first steps. Single file applications can be converted to full projects using the new command, dotnet project convert.

One of the biggest annoyances of Java has always been the amount of code needed to write even "Hello World." This is a barrier for new users. Oracle wants to do something about this. "Paving the on-ramp" is therefore receiving a lot of attention, including in the pre-briefing we attended on Java 25. A good example of this is JEP 512 (Compact Source Files and Instance Main Methods). New users can write their first programs without needing extensive knowledge of the language.