The SameSite attribute for cookies in Firefox will soon have a default value of Lax instead of None. Mozilla is introducing the change, designed to improve security, gradually. As the change could cause some sites to break, the company urges developers to test their sites with the new default given many sites unknowingly depend on the old one.

More:

• For instructions on how to test your site in Firefox, click here and scroll down towards the end of the post.
• The move is part of an industry-wide change. Google also starting rolling out similar SameSite attribute for cookies settings with the release of Chrome 80 in Feb. 2020.
• Mozilla is working with Google to track and share reports of website breakage in their bug tracking databases, which you can check out here: Firefox Breakage Tracker / Chrome Breakage Tracker.
• What exactly are SameSite cookies, and why are they so important for security? 

TypeScript released the next iteration version of its website. The new site features improved documentation designed to feel "as expansive as its type system" and a new design. Some other highlights from the new website:

• Improved navigation features, including the addition of search for documentation while adding code samples for the playground with existing documentation. 
• Playground updates: sharable URLs are now compressed so they're shorter, you can write in JS or TS, and see the .js or .d.ts outputs, and more.
• A new documentation handbook wherein the documentation no longer just occupies one section of the site, but comes with more pages and divides the handbook into three main sections: Intros to TypeScript, Handbook "the 'read from a-z' of TypeScript", and Handbook Reference which offers deep dives into certain topics.

Other changes include TSConfig updates and much more, which you can dive into in more detail here.

JULY 2020 GENERAL TOP INDUSTRY NEWS RECAP:

Future Industry Trends To Keep An Eye On: AI and No-Code

• Intel, MIT, and the Georgia Institute of Technology announced The Machine Inferred Code Similarity (MISIM) system, an automated engine that can identify when two pieces of code, data structures, or algorithms perform identical or similar tasks. Such a tool could help developers significantly by reducing the time programmers spend debugging. The tool also reduces development costs, as the total estimated cost of debugging is $312b per year. 
• The news comes as GPT-3, another potentially disruptive AI-powered tool, captured headlines after the tool was able to generate code with just a description. Just last week, yet another web developer used OpenAI's new text-generating neural network model, GPT-3, to create a tool that delivers CSS code with just a description. Zoltán Szőgyényi built a Tailwind CSS code generator that currently only works with buttons, inputs, and lists. Read Inside Dev's deep dive into other GPT-3 examples relevant to web development, and its implications for the future of the industry here.

Policy:

• The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Google vs. Oracle copyright case on Oct. 7. The news comes after the court postponed the original March 24, 2020 date because of the pandemic...For a quick catch up on what the case is about as well as a timeline of Oracle vs. Google updates this year, check out "Oracle vs. Google: a quick catch-up on big updates in 2020 so far," an Inside Dev Premium piece. 
• India will teach coding skills in schools from 6th grade...

Workforce:

• Research suggests whiteboard technical interviews fail to sufficiently measure technical skills but instead assesses how well a candidate handles anxiety, while also favoring men over women. In addition...

Language Trends:

Black Lives Matter:

Events:

Funding:

Other:

To read the general web development industry recap, sign up for a free 14-day Inside Dev Premium trial.

JULY 2020 RECAP: BROWSERS / VERSION CONTROL / OS / LANGUAGE AND TOOL RELEASES:

BROWSERS / VERSION CONTROL / OS:

CHROME:

• Google's Chrome team published a list of some news and updates announced during the web.dev LIVE 2020 conference, which took place from June 30-July 2. Here are some highlights: SameSite cookie labeling is starting to roll out again with the release of Chrome 84; Lighthouse 6.0 added a scoring calculator, new audits focusing on JavaScript analysis and accessibility, support for the Core Web Vitals: LCP, TBT, and CLS; Tooling.report: a site that helps developers decide whether to move...

FIREFOX:

• Firefox 79 is now available. Some highlights include an improved debugger that now...

EDGE:

IDEs:

• JetBrains has released IntelliJ IDEA 2020.2. Some highlights...

OS:

• Apple released

VERSION CONTROL:

• GitHub has launched a  a public repository to keep developers updated about what new features and functionality the platform will release...
• GitHub has launched the GitHub Availability Report, a weekly post-incident review for all incidents...
• GitHub successfully deposited code in the Arctic Code Vault...

LANGUAGES:

JAVASCRIPT / GENERAL FRONT-END:

• TC39 approved of the Numeric Separators, Logical Assignment Operators, Promise.any, WeakRefs, and replaceAll proposals after all reached Stage 4...
• Next.js 9.5 has been released. Highlights include...
• Adobe released React Spectrum...

GENERAL BACK-END:

• Twitter introduced its new API, Twitter API v2. For the first time since 2012...

PHP:

PYTHON:

• Python 3.8.4 is now available, and you...

RUBY / RUBY ON RAILS:

GOLANG:

JULIA:

RUST:

KOTLIN:

.NET:

OTHER TOOLS AND NEWS: 

• Cloudflare launched a new way to easily manage thousands of IPs across all zones. Now developers can group these IPs...
• Microsoft launched a new landing page for developers as well as a.
• Google launched the beta version of its...

GitLab Support will no longer manually get rid of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) resets for its free users starting Aug. 15. Free users should prepare by making sure they have backup methods in place to recover their account. 

More:

• Some backup methods GitLab suggests include using a hardware token whenever you can, generating (or regenerating) recovery code and placing them in a safe location, and adding an SSH key to your account to allow backup codes to generate.
• What is multi-factor authentication?
• GitLab also recently released its latest patch, version 13.2.2, for GitLab Community Edition and Enterprise Edition. 
• Last week, source code for over 50 companies including Microsoft, Adobe, Qualcomm, was available on a public GitLab repository thanks to misconfigured DevOps tools.

PyDev 7.7.0 is now available. Some highlights:

• Improvements in Mypy integration. For example, MYPYPATH can now be set automatically to the source folders set on PyDev and the --follow-imports flag is set to silent by default.
• Pip-installed namespace packages support
• Multiple improvements for dealing with type hints
• Support for parsing with the most recent version of Cython, and support for the latest PyTest

For further details about changes, check out the release notes.

📅  Dev Calendar: August 2020 Virtual Events and Hackathons.

VIRTUAL EVENTS:

AUG.14: React event featuring talks with the likes of engineers from Twitter, Netflix, and more, and workshops. Speakers will discuss topics like React Native, state management...

AUG. 15-16: PyBay, Python virtual conference featuring workshops and talks with some leaders in the Python space, including the former Vice Chair of the Python Software Foundation Board of Directors...

HACKATHONS:

AUG.7-AUG. 9: Auth0 hackathon in partnership with Vercel, Gatsby, DigitialOcean, Ionic, and AWS. Challenge is to create solutions that address problems in the world generally, as well as in connectivity and security, today, including Covid-19.

AUG. 10-16: Hack for Africa Microsoft hackathon challenging developers to "collaborate and create solutions to address Africa’s most pressing needs in literacy, health, and more." In addition to $6,420 in cash prices...

FOR THE FULL LIST OF VIRTUAL EVENTS AND HACKATHONS TAKING PLACE THIS MONTH, AND TO RECEIVE THIS FEATURE EVERY MONTH, START YOUR FREE 14-DAY TRIAL OF INSIDE DEV PREMIUM.

Quick Hits:

• Over a third of all access to Google is now done over IPv6, these statistics show.
• Ex-Google engineer Anthony Levandowski has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for using trade secrets from Google in his own company, Otto, which he ultimately sold to Uber. Read more in Inside Business.
• Men’s skincare is the latest industry to be disrupted. Read why times have changed.*

*This is sponsored content.