--- title: "How Python became a popular language of choice" publication: "StatusCode Weekly" issue: 255 published_at: "2020-02-26" canonical_url: "https://weekly.statuscode.com/issues/255" --- Plus coding with your voice, MIDI 2.0, and designing large scale APIs. #255 — February 26, 2020 [Read on the Web](https://weekly.statuscode.com/issues/255) StatusCode Weekly Covering the week's news in software development, ops, platforms, and tooling. [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/v1582732992/n1jmbmicwz7veehcq1xd.png)](https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/btc-python-popular) [How Python Became the Popular Choice](https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/btc-python-popular) — By all sorts of measures and in all sorts of surveys, Python has only continued to get more popular where similar languages have plateaued. Where is Python at and what’s to come? Jun Wu (Behind the Code) [Safari to Snub New Security Certs Valid for More Than 13 Months](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/20/apple_shorter_cert_lifetime/) — From September 1, any new certificate valid for more than 398 days will be rejected by Apple’s _Safari_ browser. While this is a Safari only move for _now_, if this catches on it might affect how you manage your TLS certificates (GitHub.com, for example, uses a 25 month certificate right now). The Register [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/a03766bc.png)](https://www.ardanlabs.com/training/?utm_source=Cooperpress%20Primary) [Do You Need Go, Docker or Kubernetes Training?](https://www.ardanlabs.com/training/?utm_source=Cooperpress%20Primary) — We offer on-site corporate training for engineers that want to learn Go, Docker and/or Kubernetes. Having trained over 5,000 engineers, we have carefully crafted these classes for students to get as much value as possible. Ardan Labs sponsor [On Voice Coding](https://dusty.phillips.codes/2020/02/15/on-voice-coding/) — A developer with carpal tunnel syndrome was told to avoid typing.. so how can he code? This article explains some of the hoops he’s had to jump through and what tools and technologies have helped. Dusty Phillips [Firefox Continues Push to Run DNS Over HTTPS by Default](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/02/25/firefox-continues-push-to-bring-dns-over-https-by-default-for-us-users/) — This week, Firefox _began_ the rollout of encrypted DNS over HTTPS (DoH) by default for US-based users. Non-US users can enable it manually for now as explained in the post. The Mozilla Blog **Quick bytes:** - GitHub is trialling a new [discussions feature](https://github.com/zeit/next.js/discussions) on selected repos. Imagine a forum, but within GitHub on a per-repo basis. - When the _Brave_ browser encounters a 4xx HTTP error page, it'll now [offer the option to view an old version of the page](http://blog.archive.org/2020/02/25/brave-browser-and-the-wayback-machine-working-together-to-help-make-the-web-more-useful-and-reliable/) if one is available on the _Wayback Archive._ - Larry Tesler, the [inventor of copy and paste](https://gizmodo.com/larry-tessler-modeless-computing-advocate-has-passed-1841787408), has passed away. - DigitalOcean has [secured $100m](https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/20/digitalocean-raises-100m-in-debt-as-it-scales-towards-revenue-of-300m-profitability/) in debt and expects to reach a $300m run rate soon. - Did you know there's now a [MIDI 2.0](https://ask.audio/articles/midi-20-specifications-available-for-download) spec? Normal MIDI has lasted us almost 40 years so far. 💻 Jobs [Find a Dev Job Through Vettery](https://www.vettery.com/tech?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=cooper-webopsweekly&utm_term=tech&utm_content=grouped&utm_campaign=ad-77581) — Vettery is completely free for job seekers. Make a profile, name your salary, and connect with hiring managers from top employers. Vettery [DevOps Engineer at X-Team (Remote)](https://x-team.com/remote-devops-engineer-jobs/?utm_source=cooperpress&utm_medium=email-ad&utm_campaign=webops) — Work with the world's leading brands, from anywhere. Travel the world while being part of the most energizing community of developers. X-Team 💡 Stories and Opinions ▶[Designing APIs for 150 Million Orders](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB0Pb-nd0g8) — Two engineers from a German takeout food ordering service talk about their approach to future proofing and scaling their API over the years. Michele Angioni and Matt Fewer [Cloudflare’s Gen X: Servers for an Accelerated Future](https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflares-gen-x-servers-for-an-accelerated-future/) — A look behind the scenes at Cloudflare’s “tenth generation” of servers (that they’re dubbing “Gen X”) that they deploy across their various datacenters. For the first time, _“Intel is not inside.”_ Nitin Rao and John Graham-Cumming [Your Data Is Your Business](https://pgexperts.com/) — PGX is a full-service database consultancy focused on PostgreSQL data systems, on any platform or hosting environment. PostgreSQL Experts, Inc. sponsor [Amazon and Commercial Open Source in the Cloud: It's Complicated](https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-and-commercial-open-source-in-the-cloud-its-complicated/) — Some worthwhile analysis of Amazon’s slightly up and down relationship with open source projects and vendors (such as with the launch of their Mongo-DB compatible DocumentDB service). George Anadiotis [Programmers, Math Is Your Insurance Policy](https://bartoszmilewski.com/2020/02/24/math-is-your-insurance-policy/) — An interesting opinion piece about how being well versed in certain areas of mathematics could be your insurance policy against becoming obsolete in the future. Of course, [many disagree!](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22406667) Bartosz Milewski ['How I Built a DIY License Plate Reader with a Raspberry Pi and Machine Learning'](https://t.co/sdngE7Ubdq?amp=1) Robert Lucian Chiriac [How We Use Kubernetes and Spot Instances to Reduce EC2 Bills up to 80%](https://tuananh.net/2020/02/20/the-story-behind-my-talk-cloud-cost-optimization-at-scale/) Tuan Anh 📕 Tutorials [A Guide to Running Elasticsearch in Production](https://facinating.tech/2020/02/22/in-depth-guide-to-running-elasticsearch-in-production/) — Elasticsearch is a popular, flexible, and high performance document database that provides search engine functionality. This post covers a lot of what’s worth knowing about keeping it running in production. Mattis Haase [Service Mesh Ultimate Guide: Managing Service-to-Service Communications in the Era of Microservices](https://www.infoq.com/articles/service-mesh-ultimate-guide/) — If the term ‘service mesh’ has ever gone over your head, this is a reasonable primer to what they are, why you might use one, and the terminology around them. Daniel Bryant [5 Arguments to Make Managers Care About Technical Debt](https://understandlegacycode.com/blog/5-arguments-to-make-managers-care-about-technical-debt/) Nicolas Carlo [Coding Lab: Build a JavaScript Serverless App with IBM's Upkar Lidder](https://www.crowdcast.io/e/serverless-workshop-with) IBM Developer sponsor [Famicom Party: Making NES Games in Assembly](https://book.famicom.party/) — Making retro Nintendo games is surely a niche hobby, but if you’ve ever been curious.. Kevin Zurawel [Socratic vs. Euclidean Forms of API Documentation](http://highscalability.com/blog/2020/2/24/socratic-vs-euclidean-forms-of-api-documentation.html) — API doc tends to be Euclidean but documentation at its best is Socratic. Todd Hoff 🛠 Code and Tools [Scala.js 1.0: A Scala to JavaScript Transpiler](https://www.scala-js.org/news/2020/02/25/announcing-scalajs-1.0.0/) — An alternative way to build robust front-end web applications in Scala. Scala.js [Go 1.14 Released](https://blog.golang.org/go1.14) Go Core Team [Netflix Open Sources 'Dispatch', Their Crisis Management Orchestration Framework](https://medium.com/@NetflixTechBlog/introducing-dispatch-da4b8a2a8072) — _Dispatch_ is a tool Netflix uses to manage the processes around security incidents. Netflix Technology Blog [Kasaya: A Scripting Language and Runtime for Browser Automation](https://github.com/syscolabs/kasaya) — An interesting Node.js-based runtime for browser automation that lets you type in English language commands via a CLI to remote control a browser. SyscoLABS [usql: A Universal CLI for Databases](https://github.com/xo/usql) — A CLI tool (written in Go) for working with Postgres, SQL Server, MySQL, SQLite3, RedShift, CockroachDB, Cassandra, and [many more.](https://github.com/xo/usql#database-support) This feels a bit like a database Swiss Army knife. Kenneth Shaw [Ballerina: A 'Cloud Native' Programming Language](https://ballerina.io/) — Ballerina makes it easy to create resilient services that integrate and orchestrate transactions across distributed endpoints. WSO2 [Helium: Lighter Browser Automation (for Python) based on Selenium](https://github.com/mherrmann/helium) — I’m not a Pythonista myself but this is a tight and tidy API. Michael Herrmann [Shox: A Customizable, Terminal Status Bar](https://github.com/liamg/shox) — Rather experimental but works in an interesting way (it proxies output from your shell and adjusts ANSI drawing commands so it can remain on top). Liam Galvin Curated by [Cooperpress](https://cooperpress.com/). [Change your email address](https://webopsweekly.com/edit_subscription/*|UID|*) or[Stop getting this newsletter](https://webopsweekly.com/leave/*|UID|*). © Cooper Press Ltd · Fairfield Enterprise Centre, Louth, LN11 0LS, United Kingdom