Not all AI content is spam, but I think right now all spam is AI content.

Jon Gillham

Java -> Kotlin equivalents

If your starting Kotlin with prior java knowledge, here's a quick lookup table for some common equivalents:

 

Java	Kotlin
Accessibility modifiers: private protected //default package private public	private protected Internal // accessible in module //default public
String [] anArray;	var anArray:Array<String>
(castType)	smart casting after is as
public class Area { private int length; private int width;   //constructor public Area(int length, int width){ this.length = length; this.width =  width; System.out.printf("Surface: %d",length*width); }   //accessor public int getCircumference(){ return 2*(length+width); } }	class Area(var length: Int , var width: Int) {             //to add onstructor code init { println("Surface: ${length * width}") }         //accessor val circumference get() = 2*(length + width)   }
anEnum.values()	anEnum.entries
class Shape{} class Rectangle extends Shape{}	open class Shape {} class Rectangle : Shape {}
final String aConstant="a";	val aConstant="a"
instanceOf	is
Primitives: int, double...	Int,Double...
lambda (shorter forms exist in both languages) BiFunction<Integer, Integer, Integer> mutiply= (a, b) -> { System.out.println("java lambda"); return a * b; };	val multiply: (Int, Int)->Int = { a, b -> println("kotlin lambda") a * b }
new Random();	Random();
Object	Any?
public static void main(String[] args){} // Note: Java 22 has a preview of a main() function	fun main(args:Array<String>){}
static	companion top level function const
switch expression	when
int ternaryVar=test?1:2;	var ternaryVar = if(test) 1 else 2;
throw UnsupportedOperationException	TODO()
void	Unit

intelliJ 2024.1 released

 

The yearly large IntelliJ release (2024.1) is out with a host of new features. Here's a list of highlights

• the IDE comes wiith local language models trained to provide based line completion. It is included in the Ultimate Edition, you do not need an additional  AI Assistant license for this. Also, the AI assistant plugin has been unbundled: it was pretty useless if you did not have a dedicated license.
  You cannot run it in combinamtion with other external AI plugins like github copilot.
  
• Refactoring suggested when you rename something in your source code. Having to rename something by explictly through a refactoring has always been an unexpected action for new developers. Now you can just change the name of  something in your source, you get an inlay proposing to change that name anywhere.
  
• Basic IDE features like code highlighting and completion are available during indexing, speeding up the IDE experience when switching projects.
• There is a beta of a new, modern terminal. You get better assistance as you're used to have in the editor and can handle command reply interactions as blocks.
  
• Freeze top lines: just like in a spreadsheet you can now freeze important top lines (start of cklass, method...) when scrolling
• Better logging support: you can now navigate from logs to the statment that generated them. The IDE will also suggest inserting logging statements in your code.
• The entire code review workflow is now implemented in your IDE. You can create merge requests from the IDE and reviewers and developers can interact on them from the IDE, without going to the github or gitlab websites.
• You can now merge unrelated git histories
  
• You can now download source code from the quick documentation popup.
• Builtin CSS functions are now suggested by code completions
  
• When debugging multiple statements in one line you get assistance on where exactly in that line you want to break. Useful, Given the ubiquitous use of lamda's.
• Also in the debugger, when watching the call stack, subsequent calls to external libraries are folded, allowing you to pick calls to the code you wrote more easily
• when running an npm script, you can now automatically launch a browser client.
  
• When testing you get better feedback on which conditionals were not covered
• The already great HTTP client now gets support for authentications like PKCE
• Intellij now integrates with OpenRewrite refactorings to enhance you in version (and other) migarations.

More...

Google to destroy data colleced in incongnito mode after lawsuit

After settling a lawsuit, Google will destroy tracking information it collected on websites containing google tracking (analytics) or advertising info for users browsing in incognito mode.

It only collected information if

• users had a google account, even if the were not logged into it
• users were not using firefox, which has better privacy

Data will be deleted on about 136 million users.

Separte from the lawsuit, Google is also phasing out usage of third party cookies in Chrome. Currently you can configure chrome to block third pary cookies, it just is not the default as it is in Firefox and Safari.

More...

AI is tasting your beer for you

In a study in Nature  the taste of a potential recipe for a Belgian beer is being predicted by Machine Learning based on its chemical components at KUL (Catholic University Leuven).

One of the primary goals of the study is brewing better tasting alcohol free beers.

The techniques used are also interesting for being tested on other types of food.

Replacing Jest for TypeScript testing

 In an earlier post we explained how we moved from ts-node to tsx.

For testing we were using Jest. Unfortunatly Jest relies on ts-node for reading typescript configuration files. We used ts-jest for the configuration and even then we needed quite some configuration in jest.config.ts to work with ESM:

import type { JestConfigWithTsJest } from 'ts-jest'

const jestConfig: JestConfigWithTsJest = {
    // [...]
    preset: 'ts-jest/presets/js-with-ts-esm', // or other ESM presets
    moduleNameMapper: {
        '^(\\.{1,2}/.*)\\.js$': '$1',
    },
    transform: {
        // '^.+\\.[tj]sx?$' to process js/ts with `ts-jest`
        // '^.+\\.m?[tj]sx?$' to process js/ts/mjs/mts with `ts-jest`
        '^.+\\.tsx?$': [
            'ts-jest',
            {
                useESM: true,
            },
        ],
    },
}

export default jestConfig

With the compatibility problem with Node.js 20 we looked for some alternatives:

• vitest
• node builtin testing 

vitest 

Vitest is built by the Vue community, who also made the vite build tool. As the name suggest, vitest's natural habitat is vite (which we are not currently using), but it runs without vite.

Like tsx it is a modern tool, built with support for typescript and ES modules builtin, and setup was a breeze. 

Just like tsx, it has a builtin watch mode. This mode is even the default: you run your test, then you correct our code and the test automatically reruns.

We adapted the test scripts to our package.json:

"scripts": {
  "start": "tsx watch server.ts",
  "debug": "tsx watch --inspect-brk server.ts",
  "build": "tsc",
  "test": "vitest",
  "coverage" : "vitest run --coverage "
}

Vitest's testing API is heavily inspired on, and compatible with Jest, easing migration. The only things we had to change, were some imports.

Node.js builtin Test Runner

The new Node builtin TestRrunner (node:test module), that is present in the Node.js 20 LTS, does not require you to add testing packages to your project. 

It does not have the same level of testing support as a specialised testing package like vitest, but it's feature set is surprisingly complete, but test coverage is still under an experimental flag. Here's a comparison.

Unfortunatly the test runner does not find *.ts files when looking for tests. You can work around this and they are also working on easier support for this in Node.js 21.

Conclusion: replace Jest with vitest

We'll certainly gives this another look when the next Node LTS is released, but as for now vitest is the way to go and we are happy with our tsx/vitest setup.

Firefox (124) adds in-browser PDF editing