An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For years, players have complained that ballooning game download sizes are clogging up hard drives and Internet bandwidth. In a recent interview with streamer TeeP, Call of Duty: Warzone Live Operations Lead Josh Bridge admitted that the game's massive file size is also impacting the team's ability to release new maps. Asked about the possibility of adding the original Verdansk map to cycle alongside the game's current Caldera map, Bridge said, "We want that. We all want that," before addressing the "technical problem" that makes it difficult: "The install and re-install sizes are fucking insane, right? If we pulled out Caldera and say we're gonna drop in Verdansk, this could be essentially re-downloading, like, the size of Warzone," he said. "And every time we've done that, we lose players," Bridge continued. "Because you're kind of like, 'I don't want to re-download that,' [so you] uninstall. I think you can't fit anything else but Warzone on a base PS4."

Bridge is exaggerating, but only a little. Activision says you need a whopping 175GB of hard drive space on PC for a Warzone install. On Xbox, the base download is listed at nearly 92GB, similar to the size on PlayStation systems. Adding Modern Warfare onto the Warzone package increases the total size to about 250GB on PC and 150GB on consoles. About a year ago, Activision announced that the "larger than usual" Warzone "Season 2 Reloaded" patch would reduce the game's "overall footprint" on hard drives by 10-15GB (and 30-35GB when combined with Modern Warfare, depending on the platform). The "data optimization and streamlining" in that update would also ensure that "future patch sizes for Modern Warfare and Warzone [would] be smaller" than the 57GB update being offered at that point.

The results over the ensuing year have been mixed. A February Season 2 patch required only about 11GB of file downloads, for instance, while a December 7 update that introduced new maps required a 41-45 GB download on consoles. [...] In any case, Bridge was remarkably frank about Warzone's file size issues and said that "looking to the future, we're putting a lot more effort into how we sort that out on a technical level so that we can have that [map] rotation. We've been really looking at it, so we'll have more to talk about that, but that is ultimately a goal to ensure that there's a freshness and a variety of experiences."

"Pong on a Commodore 64 is one thing... but Pong in a single C64 sprite? That's uncharted territory," writes Slashdot reader segaboy81.

Neowin reports: The Commodore 64 is an iconic machine. For many of us boomers, it was our introduction to programming... Josip Retro Bits is a YouTube channel that specializes in fun challenges on old hardware like the Commodore 64. In an older video, Josip creates a game of Pong using Basic. On the surface, this doesn't sound very interesting, but it's a real challenge because Basic is very limited when compared to writing machine code. Basically, the C64 is perfectly capable of a game like Pong, but not really in Basic. Spoiler alert: he does it. However, a commenter on that video had a novel idea. How about creating an entire game of Pong in a single spite?
That's a 24 x 21 pixels object. ("It can be seen as a bigger programmable character that can be moved on hardware on steps of one pixel," explains one tech blog.) And another spoiler alert: he does it again.

Here's the repository for the "Tiny Pong" code. It's written in C, with functions like drawScreen() and batSound().

And about 18 minutes into the video, he not only plays a game of Pong inside the sprite — he simultaneously makes that sprite move around the screen like the ball in a game of Pong.

Google announced on Wednesday that it would test letting Android developers use their own billing systems in their apps, the first step in what could lead to a dramatic reshaping of the app economy. However, Epic Games, which has been a strong proponent for opening app marketplaces and sued Google after the search giant removed Fortnite from Google Play for including direct payments, still isn't happy. From a report: It plans to continue advocating for an app ecosystem that offers more choices, according to a statement the company shared with The Verge. "Apple and Google continue to abuse their market power with policies that stifle innovation, inflate prices and reduce consumer choice," Corie Wright, Epic's VP of public policy, said in the statement. "One deal does not change the anticompetitive status quo. We will continue to fight for fair and open platforms for all developers and consumers and work with policymakers and regulators to hold these gatekeepers accountable for their anticompetitive conduct."

GitHub has introduced a new feed into the dashboard of users and it doesn't appear to have gone down well with the code shack's regulars. The Register reports: As soon as the new feed arrived, replete with all kinds of exciting suggestions for developers to look at, the complaints began rolling in as users worried the recommendations were turning GitHub into something distressingly like a social media platform. "I do not need to see recommendations, nor activity of people I don't follow," said one user. "Don't fix what's not broken." Others were blunter, stating: "I don't want algorithmic feed" and requesting a feed on stuff that actually mattered â" issues, releases, PRs and so on. GitHub pushed out a new beta version of its Home Feed earlier this week, with the avowed intention of developers reaching a wider audience and building communities. The plan is to make discovery easier and help users "find new repositories or users to follow based on your interests."

As if to demonstrate the levels of discontent around GitHub's new feature, a Chrome extension quickly showed up to disable the social feed by removing the "For You" section on the GitHub dashboard. Not all users were upset by the appearance of the new feed, and GitHub staff popped up to promise that there would be an option to make one's profile private and opt out of pretty much everything via a single setting. It will, however, take until late April before this option is likely to appear, they said. Which prompted the obvious question: "Why is this opt-out instead of opt-in?"

Mozilla today launched MDN Plus, a paid subscription product on top of the existing (and recently re-designed) Mozilla Developer Network (MDN), one of the web's most popular destinations for finding documentation and code samples related to web technologies like CSS, HTML and JavaScript. From a report: The new subscription offering will introduce features like notifications, collections (think lists of articles you want to save) and MDN offline for when you want to access MDN when you're not online. There will be three subscription tiers: MDN core, a free limited version of the paid plans; MDN Plus 5, with access to notifications, collections and MDN offline for $5 per month or $50 per year; and MDN Supporter 10 for those who are willing to pay a bit more to support the platform in addition to getting a direct feedback channel to the MDN team (as well as "pride and joy," Mozila says). As the name implies, that more expensive plan will cost $10 a month or $100 for an annual subscription.

An anonymous reader shares an opinion piece: Protest is an important element of free speech that should be protected. Openness and inclusivity are cornerstones of the culture of open source, and the tools of open source communities are designed for global access and participation. Collectively, the very culture and tooling of open source -- issue tracking, messaging systems, repositories -- offer a unique signaling channel that may route around censorship imposed by tyrants to hold their power.

Instead of malware, a better approach to free expression would be to use messages in commit logs to send anti-propaganda messages and to issue trackers to share accurate news inside Russia of what is really happening in Ukraine at the hands of the Russian military, to cite two obvious possibilities. There are so many outlets for open source communities to be creative without harming everyone who happens to load the update.

We encourage community members to use both the freedoms and tools of open source innovatively and wisely to inform Russian citizens about the reality of the harm imposed on Ukrainian citizens and to support humanitarian and relief efforts in and supportive of Ukraine. Longer term, it's likely these weaponizations are like spitting into the wind: The downsides of vandalizing open source projects far outweigh any possible benefit, and the blowback will ultimately damage the projects and contributors responsible. By extension, all of open source is harmed. Use your power, yes -- but use it wisely.

Amid increasing global regulations over app stores and their commission structures, Google today announced the launch of a pilot program designed to explore what it calls "user billing choice." From a report: The program will allow a small number of participating developers, starting with Spotify, to offer an additional third-party billing option next to Google Play's own billing system in their apps. While Google already offers a similar system in South Korea following the arrival of new legislation requiring it, this will be the first time it will test the system in global markets.

As the debut pilot partner, Spotify will introduce both their own billing system alongside Google Play's own when the pilot goes live. Google did not say which other developers it has lined up for future tests, but noted Spotify was a "natural first partner" on the effort given its reach as one of the "world's largest subscription developers with a global footprint" and its "integrations across a wide range of device form factors." Spotify, of course, has also been one of the larger developers to push for regulatory changes to app stores' existing billing systems, having testified before Congress on the matter, joined lobbying groups, and backed app store legislation, including the Open Markets Act, that would require companies like Apple and Google to permit alternatives to existing app stores.

Quanta magazine describes an "explosion of interest" in what they're calling algorithms with predictions, arguing that machine learning tools "have, in a real way, rejuvenated research into basic algorithms." Machine learning and traditional algorithms are "two substantially different ways of computing, and algorithms with predictions is a way to bridge the two," said Piotr Indyk, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It's a way to combine these two quite different threads...." In the past few years, researchers have shown how to incorporate algorithms with predictions into scheduling algorithms, chip design and DNA-sequence searches.

In addition to performance gains, the field also advances an approach to computer science that's growing in popularity: making algorithms more efficient by designing them for typical uses.... By ignoring the worst-case scenarios, researchers can design algorithms tailored to the situations they'll likely encounter. For example, while databases currently treat all data equally, algorithms with predictions could lead to databases that structure their data storage based on their contents and uses....

[M]ost of these new structures only incorporate a single machine learning element. Tim Kraska, a computer scientist at MIT, imagines an entire system built up from several separate pieces, each of which relies on algorithms with predictions and whose interactions are regulated by prediction-enhanced components.

"Taking advantage of that will impact a lot of different areas," Kraska said.

Slashdot reader mmanciop reminded us that Ubuntu released a new version of its "circle of friends" logo this week (which its designer says gives it "a more contemporary look and feel.")

From the Ubuntu blog: We proudly present to you the transformation of the Circle of Friends logo for Ubuntu. The new logo isn't a revolution; rather, it's an evolution of the Circle of Friends. As you can see at the top of the post, the classic white-on-orange colour scheme hasn't changed. But the new version sports sleek lines which bind the Circle of Friends even more closely together.

While it is important to have a respectful continuity with the previous Circle of Friends, the updated version is leaner, more focused, more sophisticated. It also makes a little more sense that the heads are now inside the circle, facing each other and connecting more directly. The rectangular orange tag is a break from the conventional square or circle, as it allows for the boldness of the orange to express itself and provides a recognisable colourful mark across media. Finally, the logo moves from a tiny superscript to a large, dynamic and leading presence.

Some might wonder why we had to touch the Ubuntu logo at all. As one can imagine, it is a daunting honour to work on something so many of us have such a strong connection to. But in the end, a logo should match what it represents. Similar to how Ubuntu continues to evolve and adapt to new uses in technology, its logo should follow suit to encapsulate and reflect such ongoing change.
For comparison, here's the original logo.

Share your reactions in the comments. (For example, how do you think it compares to other logos?) Do you like it more or less than, say, the logo for Raku?

An anonymous Slashdot reader summarizes some important news from the web page of Jason Donenfeld (creator of the open-source VPN protocol WireGuard): The Linux kernel's random number generator has seen its first set of major improvements in over a decade, improving everything from the cryptography to the interface used. Not only does it finally retire SHA-1 in favor of BLAKE2s [in Linux kernel 5.17], but it also at long last unites '/dev/random' and '/dev/urandom' [in the upcoming Linux kernel 5.18], finally ending years of Slashdot banter and debate:

The most significant outward-facing change is that /dev/random and /dev/urandom are now exactly the same thing, with no differences between them at all, thanks to their unification in random: block in /dev/urandom. This removes a significant age-old crypto footgun, already accomplished by other operating systems eons ago. [...] The upshot is that every Internet message board disagreement on /dev/random versus /dev/urandom has now been resolved by making everybody simultaneously right! Now, for the first time, these are both the right choice to make, in addition to getrandom(0); they all return the same bytes with the same semantics. There are only right choices.
Phoronix adds: One exciting change to also note is the getrandom() system call may be a hell of a lot faster with the new kernel. The getrandom() call for obtaining random bytes is yielding much faster performance with the latest code in development. Intel's kernel test robot is seeing an 8450% improvement with the stress-ng getrandom() benchmark. Yes, an 8450% improvement.

"Supporting generics has been Go's most often requested feature, and we're proud to deliver the generic support that the majority of users need today," the Go blog announced this week. *

It's part of what Go's development team is calling the "biggest change ever to the language".

SiliconANGLE writes that "Right out of the gate, Go 1.18 is getting a CPU speed performance boost of up to 20% for Apple M1, ARM64 and PowerPC64 chips. This is all from an expansion of Go 1.17's calling conventions for the application binary interface on these processor architectures."

And Go 1.18 also introduces native support for fuzz testing — the first major programming language to do so, writes ZDNet: As Google explains, fuzz testing or 'fuzzing' is a means of testing the vulnerability of a piece of software by throwing arbitrary or invalid data at it to expose bugs and unknown errors. This adds an additional layer of security to Go's code that will keep it protected as its functionality evolves — crucial as attacks on software continue to escalate both in frequency and complexity. "At Google we are committed to securing the online infrastructure and applications the world depends upon," said Eric Brewer, VIP infrastructure at Google....

While other languages support fuzzing, Go is the first major programming language to incorporate it into its core toolchain, meaning — unlike other languages — third-party support integrations aren't required.
Google is emphasizing Go's security features — and its widespread adoption. ZDNet writes: Google created Go in 2007 and was designed specifically to help software engineers build secure, open-source enterprise applications for modern, multi-core computing systems. More than three-quarters of Cloud Native Computing Foundation projects, including Kubernetes and Istio, are written in Go, says Google. [Also Docker and Etc.] According to data from Stack Overflow, some 10% of developers are writing in Go worldwide, and there are signs that more recruiters are seeking out Go coders in their search for tech talent..... "Although we have a dedicated Go team at Google, we welcome a significant amount of contributions from our community. It's a shared effort, and with their updates we're helping our community achieve Go's long-term vision.
Or, as the Go blog says: We want to thank every Go user who filed a bug, sent in a change, wrote a tutorial, or helped in any way to make Go 1.18 a reality. We couldn't do it without you. Thank you.

Enjoy Go 1.18!
* Supporting generics "includes major — but fully backward-compatible — changes to the language," explains the release notes. Although it adds a few cautionary notes: These new language changes required a large amount of new code that has not had significant testing in production settings. That will only happen as more people write and use generic code. We believe that this feature is well implemented and high quality. However, unlike most aspects of Go, we can't back up that belief with real world experience. Therefore, while we encourage the use of generics where it makes sense, please use appropriate caution when deploying generic code in production.

While we believe that the new language features are well designed and clearly specified, it is possible that we have made mistakes.... it is possible that there will be code using generics that will work with the 1.18 release but break in later releases. We do not plan or expect to make any such change. However, breaking 1.18 programs in future releases may become necessary for reasons that we cannot today foresee. We will minimize any such breakage as much as possible, but we can't guarantee that the breakage will be zero.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine turns up in Mike Melanson's column "This Week in Programming": While the Open Source Initiative's (OSI) definition of open source software is quite clear on the matter — there must be "no discrimination against persons or groups" and "no discrimination against fields of endeavor" — the issue of who should be allowed to use open source software, according to ethical considerations, has long been debated.

Over the last month, this topic has again become a focus of debate as Russia's invasion of Ukraine has led to developers calling for blanket bans by companies like GitHub and GitLab; and to some developers even taking action. Earlier this month, we wrote about how open source gateway Scarf began limiting access to open source packages for the Russian government and military entities, via its gateway.

As we noted at the time, there was a primary distinction made when Scarf took this action: distribution of open source software is separate from the licensing of it. Those points of the OSI definition pertain to the licensing, not to some entity actively providing the software to others.

Since then, discussions around these ideas have continued, and this week an essay by Bradley M. Kuhn, a policy fellow and hacker-in-residence at the Software Freedom Conservancy, argues that copyleft won't solve all problems, just some of them.

The essay specifically takes to task the idea that open source software can effectively affect change by way of licensing limitations. He spent nearly 3,000 words on the topic, before pointedly addressing the issue of Russia — with a similar conclusion to the one reached by Scarf earlier this month. Kuhn argues that "FOSS licenses are not an effective tool to advance social justice causes other than software freedom" and that, instead, developers have a moral obligation to take stances by way of other methods.

"For example, FOSS developers should refuse to work specifically on bug reports from companies who don't pay their workers a living wage," Kuhn offers in an example.

Regarding Russia specifically, Kuhn again points to distribution as an avenue of protest, while still remaining in line with the principles of free and open source software.

"Every FOSS license in existence permits capricious distribution; software freedom guarantees the right to refuse to distribute new versions of the software. (i.e., Copyleft does not require that you publish all your software on the Internet for everyone, or that you give equal access to everyone — rather, it merely requires that those whom you chose to give legitimate access to the software also receive CCS). FOSS projects should thus avoid providing Putin easy access to updates to their FOSS," writes Kuhn.

Christopher Alexander, a British-American architect and design theorist that affected fields including software and sociology, died on Thursday, March 17, after a long illness. He was 86. Christopher Newport University reports: Christopher Alexander, a towering figure in architecture and urbanism -- one of the biggest influences on the New Urbanism movement -- died on Thursday, March 17, after a long illness, it was reported by Michael Mehaffy, a long-time collaborator and protege. Alexander was the author or principal author of many books, including A Pattern Language, one of the best-selling architectural books of all time. He is considered to be the father of the pattern language movement in software, which is the idea behind Wikipedia. In 2006, he was one of the first two recipients, along with Leon Krier, of CNU's Athena Medal, which honors those who laid the groundwork for The New Urbanism movement.

In 1965, Alexander wrote a much-cited essay, A City Is Not a Tree, one of the earliest and most trenchant critiques of the dendritic, sprawl pattern of city planning and development. Other works include The Timeless Way of Building and A New Theory of Urban Design. Alexander was more than a theorist: In 2006, when he was awarded the Athena, it was reported he had designed and built more than 200 buildings around the world. In 2012, his The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth, tells the story of a school campus in Japan that was designed and built using the principles that he articulated (see photo at top).

The developer behind the popular npm package 'node-ipc' released sabotaged versions of the library in protest of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, BleepingComputer reports. From the article: Newer versions of the 'node-ipc' package began deleting all data and overwriting all files on developer's machines, in addition to creating new text files with "peace" messages. With over a million weekly downloads, 'node-ipc' is a prominent package used by major libraries like Vue.js CLI.

Select versions (10.1.1 and 10.1.2) of the massively popular 'node-ipc' package were caught containing malicious code that would overwrite or delete arbitrary files on a system for users based in Russia and Belarus. These versions are tracked under CVE-2022-23812. On March 8th, developer Brandon Nozaki Miller, aka RIAEvangelist released open source software packages called peacenotwar and oneday-test on both npm and GitHub. The packages appear to have been originally created by the developer as a means of peaceful protest, as they mainly add a "message of peace" on the Desktop of any user installing the packages. "This code serves as a non-destructive example of why controlling your node modules is important," explains RIAEvangelist.

In an interview with The Register, Victor Shepelev, a Ruby developer and software architect who lives in Kharkiv, Ukraine, shares his experience living in a country being invaded by Russia. He hopes that his situation will encourage international political action to help Ukraine prevail. Here's an excerpt from the interview: The Register: Has your technical knowledge proven useful in your current situation and if so in what way?

Shepelev: Not directly, unfortunately. I am mostly experienced in writing expressive code, designing architectures of long-living systems, and mentoring people, not the most required abilities in wartime.

The Register: Does the Ruby/open source community provide community and support in wartime? Should it function any differently than it has in the context of a crisis?

Shepelev: Sad to say, but I don't feel much support. There are some people in my social circles in the Ruby community who do a lot, but as for the community as a whole, I think it stays mostly indifferent. My pleas to spread the information are by and large ignored. Maybe I am being selfish here, but I see that even small steps that could be done (like banners on sites of big projects, tweets from prominent Rubyists, mentions in newsletters) -- those steps aren't done even by a lot of people I know personally. I know some of them are sending money or helping in some other private ways, but I really lack the feeling of public support, people still mostly think it is some "politics they shouldn't mix with their everyday life." There are others, of course, and to them, I am eternally grateful.

The Register: Is there anything else you'd want people outside Ukraine to know?

Shepelev: We are standing, and we will not fall. But we need as much help as the world can give: with spreading information, with supporting the Ukrainian army, refugees, and humanitarian causes, and with pressuring Russia with any measures that are available. The more help we get, the sooner it will end, the less innocent people struggle or die.

juul_advocate shares a report from iTWire: A developer who had more than two decades of service in the Debian GNU/Linux project was stripped of his status in December leading to him deciding to leave the project. Norbert Preining told iTWire in response to a query he decided that having been graded down to Debian maintainer was not something he wanted after all these years. He has now joined the Arch Linux project.

Preining said what basically happened was that the [Debian account manager (DAM) team] thought he was bullying members of the project. "I guess they are referring to my run-in with Martina Ferrari where she called me out in very strange and unfounded ways, which started a long lasting disagreement between her and me, and the blog post about Lars [Wirzenius, a project member] which was nothing more than a selection of quotes from Lars' own blogs," he added.

"Anyway, these were all old things, but DAM still prefers to paint me in the light of 'You have been bullying members of the project for years' (quote from Enrico Zini on the debian-private mailing list) and that I cannot communicate with the Community Team, which back then included Martina, and which has again hit me in the back by allowing other members in Debian (I refrain from naming them here, but will do in my blog post) to bully me, even in unrelated forums and on IRC. The bottom line is that Martina, Lars, and those others are close friends of DAM and CT [community team] and the 'leading circle' in Debian, and thus it seems that they are exempted from adhering to the same community standards." Preining said the situation that led to his demotion was "more or less" about political correctness, adding that he'll explain more about the events in a blog post later on.

This week Silicon Valley's Computer History Museum posted a PDF transcript (and video excerpts) from an interview with 81-year-old Margaret Hamilton, the programmer/systems designer who in the 1960s became director of the Software Engineering Division at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory which developed the on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo program. Prior to that Hamilton had worked on software to detect an airplane's radar signature, but thought, "You know, 'I guess I should delay graduate school again because I'd like to work on this program that puts all these men on the Moon....'"

"There was always one thing that stood out in my mind, being in the onboard flight software, was that it was 'man rated,' meaning if it didn't work a person's life was at stake if not over. That was always uppermost in my mind and probably many others as well."

Interestingly, Hamilton had originally received two job offers from the Apollo Space Program, and had told them to flip a coin to settle it. ("The other job had to do with support systems. It was software, but it wasn't the onboard flight software.") But what's fascinating is the interview's glimpses at some of the earliest days of the programming profession: There was all these engineers, okay? Hardware engineers, aeronautical engineers and all this, a lot of them out of MIT... But the whole idea of software and programming...? Dick Battin, Dr. Battin, when they told him that they were going to be responsible for the software...he went home to his wife and said he was going to be in charge of software and he thought it was some soft clothing...
Hamilton also remembers in college taking a summer job as a student actuary at Travelers Insurance in the mid-1950s, and "all of a sudden one day word was going around Travelers that there were these new things out there called computers that were going to take away all of their jobs... Pretty soon they wouldn't have jobs. And so everybody was talking about it. They were scared they wouldn't have a way to make a living.

"But, of course, it ended up being more jobs were created with the computers than there were...."

Hamilton's story about Apollo 8 is amazing...

Princeton University has a research center studying "digital technologies in public life," which runs a web site with commentary and analysis "from the digital frontier, written by the Center's faculty, students, and friends."

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp summarizes the site's recent warning on the dangers of "philanthrocapitalism," in a piece noting ominously that "The tech industry controls CS conference funding." "Research about the influence of computing technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), on society relies heavily upon the financial support of the very companies that produce those technologies," writes Princeton Research Fellow Klaudia Jazwinska of the dangers of 'philanthrocapitalism'. "Corporations like Google, Microsoft, and IBM spend millions of dollars each year to sponsor labs, professorships, PhD programs, and conferences in fields like computer science (CS) and AI ethics at some of the world's top institutions. Industry is the main consumer of academic CS research, and 84% percent of CS professors receive at least some industry funding."

"Relying on large companies and the resources they control can create significant limitations for the kinds of CS research that are proposed, funded and published. The tech industry plays a large hand in deciding what is and isn't worthy of examination, or how issues are framed. [...] The scope of what is reasonable to study is therefore shaped by what is of value to tech companies. There is little incentive for these corporations to fund academic research about issues that they consider more marginal or which don't relate to their priorities."

Jazwinska concludes, "Given the extent of financial entanglement between Big Tech and academia, it might be unrealistic to expect CS scholars to completely resist accepting any industry funding—instead, it may be more practicable to make a concerted effort to establish higher standards for and greater transparency regarding sponsorship.

An interesting tidbit from Mike Melanson's column, "This Week in Programming."

"If a proposal unveiled this week gets its way, JavaScript developers will soon have something that many of them have long been asking for: a type system, of some sort at least." A blog post by TypeScript senior program manager Daniel Rosenwasser lays out the background and reasoning for the proposal for type syntax in JavaScript. He writes that "if we pull this all off, we have the chance to make one of the most impactful improvements to the world of JavaScript."

The proposal, which shares authors from Microsoft, Bloomberg, Igalia, and a number of other sources, suggests that JavaScript developers should be able to "add type annotations to their JavaScript code, allowing those annotations to be checked by a type checker that is external to JavaScript" and then be ignored at runtime. "Because this new syntax wouldn't change how surrounding code runs, it would effectively act as comments," writes Rosenwasser in his blog post, later adding that "JavaScript could carve out a set of syntax for types that engines would entirely ignore, but which tools like TypeScript, Flow, and others could use...."

One noteworthy part of the proposal lays out exactly what is not being proposed:

"Our team isn't proposing putting TypeScript's type-checking in every browser and JavaScript runtime — nor are we proposing any new type-checker to be put in the browser. We think doing that would cause problems for JavaScript and TypeScript users alike due to a range of issues, such as runtime performance, compatibility issues with existing TypeScript code, and the risk of halting innovation in the type-checking space." Similarly, several features from TypeScript that generate code, such as enums, namespaces, and parameter properties, are being explicitly excluded "because they have runtime semantics, generating JavaScript code rather than simply being stripped out and ignored...."

As the proposal's authors note, the proposal itself is presented as a "strawperson proposal".... Thus far, it would appear that there is debate aplenty, alongside a rather robust enthusiasm for the advent of type functionality coming to a JavaScript near you.

TikTok's national security clash with the U.S. government may be nearing its conclusion, without the sort of shareholder overhaul that was previously proposed. From a report: The social media company is in advanced talks with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to store all of its U.S. user information with Oracle, without Chinese owner ByteDance being able to access it, as first reported by Reuters and confirmed by Axios. Data sovereignty has been the core regulatory concern since this all began in mid-2020, at least for career staff. Certain political appointees of the Trump administration also expressed fears that the Chinese government could use TikTok to influence U.S. political or social sentiment, but content moderation seems outside the scope of current talks.