The team behind Python web framework Django has put the finishing touches to its RedisCache backend and released version 4.0 of the project this week. Besides the Redis support, a more secure scrypt password hasher, template based form rendering, and the option to create functional unique constraints merit a look at the update.

Visual Studio Code team pushes out last feature release of the year

The November release for Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code IDE has dropped and brings users the latest results of the team’s remote development extension endeavours. They should now be able to open a folder in a container when working on an SSH server, and can choose between wsl.exe or a socket connection to talk to a server. 

Apart from that, VS Code learned to work with pre-release versions of extensions and now shows previews for the themes available on the marketplace. New features range from unicode highlighting and multiple hover providers to method signature completions and a markdown preview custom editor.

Eclipse 2021-12 release train leaves station

But not just VS Code got an update, the open source community behind the Eclipse IDE and its adjacent projects also put a release train on the tracks. Eclipse now sports a new launch configuration view for accessing launch configurations, improved support for Java 17, and allows users to select multiple text elements in text editors as well as label objects during Java app debugging. More details on what changed in the various Eclipse projects can be found on the Eclipse website.

Speaking of tools for Java developers, Spring Tools 4.13 is out and can now also be installed on the Apple Silicon platform. There aren’t any new features to play with, however there are a couple of bug fixes that should smoothe the user experience. Java 17 programmers will also be glad to learn that support for the language update is now available, since the tool collection has been updated to Eclipse 2021-12.

GitHub Enterprise Server 3.3 cranks up security

GitHub Enterprise Server users should now be able to access version 3.3 of the repo management platform’s self-hosted offering. Security seems to be the overarching theme of the release, as it introduces a new security manager role to the platform and adds options to set expiration dates for personal access tokens and scan for user-defined patterns. Updates to Dependabot and the underlying operating system, as well as new themes and enhancements for self-hosted runner auto-scaling round off v3.3.