Pompeo: Sources for Yahoo News WikiLeaks report ‘should all be prosecuted’ – Yahoo News

Former CIA Director and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday called for the criminal prosecution of sources who spoke to Yahoo News for a story detailing proposals by the intelligence agency in 2017 to abduct WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and discussions within the Trump administration and CIA to possibly even assassinate him.

Pompeo, appearing on Megyn Kellys podcast, was asked to respond to the Yahoo News story, which was based on interviews with 30 former U.S. intelligence and national security officials with knowledge of the U.S. governments efforts against WikiLeaks.

I cant say much about this other than whoever those 30 people who allegedly spoke to one of these [Yahoo News] reporters they should all be prosecuted for speaking about classified activity inside the Central Intelligence Agency, Pompeo said.

At the same time, Pompeo declined to respond to many of the details in the Yahoo News account and confirmed that pieces of it are true, including the existence of an aggressive CIA campaign to target WikiLeaks in the aftermath of the organizations publication of highly sensitive so-called Vault 7 documents revealing some of the CIAs hacking tools and methods.

When bad guys steal those secrets we have a responsibility to go after them, to prevent [that] from happening, Pompeo said. We absolutely have a responsibility to respond. ... We desperately wanted to hold accountable those individuals that had violated U.S. law, that had violated requirements to protect information and had tried to steal it. There is a deep legal framework to do that. And we took actions consistent with U.S. law to try to achieve that.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Pompeos comments came as some human rights activists, civil liberties groups and supporters of Assange said the revelations by Yahoo News should be investigated and were grounds to drop the Justice Departments efforts to extradite Assange from a British prison in order to face criminal charges in the U.S. for publishing classified government secrets in violation of the World War I-era Espionage Act as well for allegedly conspiring to hack into a classified U.S. government network.

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We now know that this unprecedented criminal case was launched in part because of the genuinely dangerous plans that the CIA was considering, said Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Unions Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. This provides all the more reason for the Biden Justice Department to find a quiet way to end this case.

Also weighing in about the Yahoo News story was Nils Melzner, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture.This is not about the law. It is about intimidating journalism; its about suppressing press freedom; its about protecting immunity for state officials, he said in a video he posted on Twitter. Assanges case has become impossible to ignore, he added. And I would encourage journalists from all media outlets to look deeply into this case, assemble all the evidence and expose misconduct, because the public deserves to know the truth.

Although the Justice Department under two attorneys general appointed by President Trump brought indictments against Assange, federal prosecutors under President Bidens attorney general, Merrick Garland, are continuing to pursue the case. They have filed appeals of a British judges ruling earlier this year that Assange should not be turned over to the U.S. government because he would pose a risk of suicide in a U.S. prison.

Assanges lawyers were due on Wednesday to file responses to the Justice Departments arguments and are actively considering ways to raise issues of government misconduct based in part on many of the details in the Yahoo News story. Among them is the revelation that in the aftermath of the Vault 7 leak, viewed at the time as the largest data loss in the CIAs history, Pompeo was enraged and demanded a multi-pronged campaign to dismantle WikiLeaks. Publicly, he described the group as a non-state hostile intelligence service. But privately, he pushed for aggressive action at meetings with top Trump administration officials, including a snatch operation to abduct Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

Sources told Yahoo News that at the White House and CIA there were also discussions regarding a possible assassination, although former officials said the idea of killing Assange was not taken seriously. But when White House lawyers learned about some of the agencys plans targeting Assange, particularly Pompeos rendition proposals, they raised objections, resulting in one of the most contentious intelligence debates of the Trump presidency.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange holding a news conference at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, August 2014. (John Stillwell/Pool via Reuters)

Pompeos comments on Kellys podcast came the day after he appeared on Glenn Becks podcast and asserted, Im all about a big, bold, strong First Amendment. But his call Wednesday for the criminal prosecution of sources who spoke to Yahoo News drew a strong rebuke from a member of Assanges legal team.

I find it highly disturbing that his reaction is to try to prevent information about misconduct from being known by the American people, said Barry Pollack, Assanges U.S. lawyer.

Wizner, the ACLU lawyer, said Pompeos comments effectively just verified the truth of the [Yahoo News] story. Because the only reason to prosecute someone is that they revealed legitimate classified information. ... This was public interest journalism of the first order and the question is whether the public has a right to know that the government is engaged in this kind of conduct.

When first asked about the Yahoo News story by Kelly, Pompeo responded, It makes for pretty good fiction. But when pressed by the host whether that meant he was denying what Yahoo News reported, he acknowledged there are pieces of it that are true.

Were we trying to protect American information from Julian Assange and WikiLeaks? Absolutely, yes. Did our Justice Department believe it had a valid claim that would result in the extradition of Julian Assange to stand trial? Yes. I supported that effort, for sure. Did we ever engage in activity that was inconsistent with U.S. law? We are not permitted by U.S. law to conduct assassinations. We never acted in a way that was inconsistent with that. ... We never conducted planning to violate U.S. law not once in my time.

He did not address any of the details about other actions the CIA was contemplating, such as Assanges possible abduction, or steps U.S. intelligence actually took, including conducting audio and visual surveillance of Assange inside the Ecuadorian Embassy or monitoring the communications and travels of his associates throughout Europe.

But Pompeo did take issue with a statement made by Trump, who had embraced WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign after it published Democratic Party emails embarrassing to Hillary Clinton. Asked for comment in the Yahoo News story, Trump said that Assange was being treated very badly.

Pressed by Kelly if he agreed with that assessment, Pompeo said: No. Assange treated the U.S. and its people very badly.

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Pompeo: Sources for Yahoo News WikiLeaks report 'should all be prosecuted' - Yahoo News

WikiLeaks turns 15 with founder Assange behind bars as threat to powers that be – United News of India

More News05 Oct 2021 | 10:38 PM

Colombo/New Delhi, Oct 5 (UNI) Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, during his meeting with Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Tuesday thanked the president for his guidance and close cooperation in the defence and security spheres.

Washington, Oct 5 (UNI/Sputnik) Dozens of Afghans who made it onto Ukraines evacuation list and traveled long distances with their families to Kabul for flights out of Afghanistan remain in the country amid deteriorating, life-threatening conditions, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday.

Dhaka, Oct 5 (UNI) Bangladeshs Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen has said that firing will be done along the border, if necessary, to halt smuggling of illegal arms, drugs and human trafficking from neighboring Myanmar.

Bucharest, Oct 5 (UNI/Xinhua) The Romanian coalition government led by Prime Minister Florin Citu collapsed on Tuesday, losing a censure motion initiated by main opposition Social Democratic Party (PSD) and supported by all oppositions in the parliament plus the second largest party in the newly-split ruling coalition.

Washington, Oct 5 (UNI/Sputnik) A protracted pandemic could cost the global economy some $5.3 trillion over the next five years if the gap in access to vaccines and health care remains unequal across the globe, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Tuesday.

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WikiLeaks turns 15 with founder Assange behind bars as threat to powers that be - United News of India

Real Men In Black: Wikileaks, silent ‘copters and lost documentary given to Spielberg – Daily Star

The UFO cover-up is quite simply the most incompetent government cover-up of all time.

There are countless reports of sightings both by civilians and military personnel, and leaks of government documents reveal decades of contact between the US government and alien visitors.

But theres a growing body of evidence that the UFO cover-up is in fact not a cover-up at all, but an expert piece of misinformation.

In 1979, an electronics entrepreneur named Paul Bennewitz reported seeing unexplained lights in the sky near his New Mexico home, and picking up eerie coded messages on his ham radio setup.

As time went on, he became convinced that aliens were establishing a base camp nearby and mutilating the local ranchers cattle.

The extraterrestrials were drawn to the area, Bennewitz believed, because of the presence nearby of both Kirtland Air Force Base and the Manzano Nuclear Weapons Storage Facility and Coyote Canyon Test Area.

But, claims former Air Force special investigations officer Richard Doty, Bennewitz had simply stumbled on tests of experimental military aircraft.

While UFO devotees speak of The Men In Black forcing to them to remain silent about their discoveries, Doty says he was a real Man In Black who went around helping people to believe in the phenomenon.

Rather than shutting down Bennewitzs UFO investigation, Doty claims, the USAF encouraged his beliefs and even gave him computer equipment that "translated" the alien transmissions.

In the documentary film Mirage Men, Doty reveals that he had even placed fake UFO debris in the desert for Bennewitz to discover.

He claims he was ordered to fool Bennewitz into believing in an imminent alien invasion in order to prevent the UFO investigator talking about the secret USAF projects.

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In Mirage Men, the pilots of the US militarys experimental stealth helicopters also say they hung flashing lights from their machines to confuse witnesses.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said that that "many weirdos email us about UFOs but he had never found any proof of extraterrestrial contact among the countless secret government documents he had seen.

However, when former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden leaked a series of highly classified documents, one of them was a slideshow called The Art of Deception: Training for a New Generation of Online Covert Operations, which was apparently made inside the UKs intelligence hub GCHQ .

Detailing various techniques for distributing misinformation to confuse enemy operatives, it advised "Swap the real for the false and vice versa.

Three illustrations in the slideshow were faked UFO images.

Hollywood veteran Robert Emenegger claims that in 1971 he was shown film of a real UFO landing by US government insiders, and asked to prepare a feature-length documentary outlining fevering the Pentagon knew about the visitors.

In his final film, entitled UFOs: Past, Present, and Future, the real film is missing and is replaced with a re-enactment.

Narrator Rod Serling described the moment: "Stepping forward, are one, then two, and a third of what appear to be men, dressed in tight-fitting jumpsuits.

Perhaps short, by our standards, with an odd blue-grey complexion. Eyes set far apart, a large pronounced nose, they wear a headpiece that resembles a rope-like design."

The commander and two scientists step forward to greet the visitors," the narrator continues. "Arrangements are made by some sort of communication, and the group quickly retires to an inner office in the 'King 1' area. Left behind stand a stunned group of military personnel.

Who the visitors are, and where they're from, and what they want, is unknown.

Now almost forgotten, Emeneggers film was nominated for Best Documentary Film at the 1976 Golden Globe Awards. He claims he gave the "lost" original footage of the 1964 alien landing to Steven Spielberg, inspiring the climax of the 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The Washington Observer reported in November 1974 that evidence would be drip-fed to the public over a period of years that would establish the truth about alien contact and mentioned Emeneggers film as a key part of the program.

Is the gradual exposure of more and more UFO evidence still preparing us for the shocking truth?

Or, as former Man In Black Richard Doty claims, is the whole UFO phenomenon a deception to conceal various top secret military projects such as the stealth fighter and silent helicopter?

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Real Men In Black: Wikileaks, silent 'copters and lost documentary given to Spielberg - Daily Star

Won’t give right of electoral reforms to govt: Fazl – Dunya News

Published On 04 October,202106:16 pm

Fazl said a strange game is being in the name of WikiLeaks, Panama and Pandora Leaks

PESHAWAR (Dunya News) Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief and Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) chairman Moulana Fazlur Rehman on Monday said that back in 2018 general elections, the government led by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) made false promises with the countrys youth and now promises were being made with the overseas Pakistanis.

Talking to media in Peshawar on Monday, he said that Pakistanis are being trapped but our position is clear we will not give the government the right to electoral reforms.

The PDM chairman said that a strange game of WikiLeaks, Panama and Pandora Leaks was being played in the world adding that so many names came up in the Panama scandal but action was taken only against former Prime Minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif.

Fazlur Rehman went on to say that many names of Prime Minister Imran Khans kitchen cabinet were exposed in Pandora Leaks, adding that Pandora Papers leaks has exposed those who raised slogans of Chor Chor.

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Won't give right of electoral reforms to govt: Fazl - Dunya News

Top 10 Artificial Intelligence Open Source Projects with Python – Analytics Insight

Artificial intelligence has been one of the advanced topics in the tech industry. The implementation of AI applications is growing rapidly, and tech enthusiasts have to keep up with this evolving field to work with AI-driven tools and applications. One of the most popular programming languages that are implemented on AI and ML projects is Python. This article provides a list of open-source AI projects and applications with Python.

TensorFlow: It lists as one of the top open-source AI projects with Python. TensorFlow is a product of Google and helps developers in creating and training ML models. It has helped ML engineers convert prototypes into working materials quickly and efficiently. Currently, it has thousands of users worldwide and is a go-to solution for AI

Chainer: Chainer is a Python-based framework to work on neural networks. It supports multiple network architectures simultaneously, including recurrent nets, recursive nets, and feed-forward nets. Also, it allows CUDA computation so that the users can use GPU with very few lines of code.

PyTorch: PyTorch helps in research prototyping so that the users can deploy the products faster. It permits transmission between graph modes through TorchScript and provides distributed training that the users can scale. This model is available on multiple cloud platforms and has numerous tools in its ecosystem to support NLP, computer vision, and other solutions.

Shogun: It is a machine learning library and assists in creating efficient ML models. Shogun is not based on Python exclusively as it can be used with several other programming languages like C#, Lua, Ruby, and R, to name a few. It allows combining several algorithm classes and data presentations so that users can prototype data pipelines quickly.

Gensim: It is an open-source Python library that can analyze plain text files for a deeper understanding of the semantic structures, and also retrieve semantically similar files, and perform such other tasks. Like any other Python library, it is scalable and platform-independent.

Statsmodels: It is a Python module that provides classes and functions for the estimation of different statistical models, for conducting tests, and for statistical data exploration. It supports specifying models using R-style formulas and data frames.

Theano: Theano allows users to evaluate mathematical operations including multi-dimensional arrays efficiently. It is used in building deep learning projects. Theanos high speeds give tough competition to the C implementations for problems involving large amounts of data. It is programmed to take structures and convert them into efficient codes.

Keras:Keras is an accessible API for neural networks. It is based on Python and can also run on CNTK, TensorFlow, and Theano. It is written using Python and follows the best practices to reduce cognitive pressure. It makes working on deep learning projects more efficient.

NuPIC: It is an open-source project based on the theory of HTM (Hierarchical Temporal Memory). Its deep experience in theoretical neuroscience research has led to tremendous discoveries about how the brain works. Its deep learning systems have demonstrated impressive achievements.

Scikit-learn:It is a Python-based library of tools and applications that can be used for data mining and data analysis. This tool has excellent accessibility and is extremely easy to use. The developers have built it on NumPy and SciPy to facilitate efficiency for beginners and intermediates.

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Top 10 Artificial Intelligence Open Source Projects with Python - Analytics Insight

Appsmith Announces $10.5 Million Series A and Seed Funding Rounds to Develop Low-Code Open Source Software – Business Wire

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Appsmith, the first open source low code software helping developers build internal tools, today announced that it has raised $8 million in Series A funding. Led by Canaan Partners, with participation from additional investors Accel Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, OSS Capital and angel investor Prasanna Sankar, co-founder and chief technical officer, Rippling, the round follows an earlier seed round from Accel of $2.5 million, bringing the total funding to $10.5 million.

The company was founded in mid-2019 and its open source software has been downloaded over 5 million times with users at over 1,000 enterprises in 100-plus countries. It has over 5,000 stars on GitHub and 130 contributors -- 100 of those from outside the company. Appsmith is the first open-source low code software that helps developers build custom (often critical yet tedious) internal and CRUD (create, read, update, and delete) type applications quickly, usually within only hours. For example, a utility company had a complex requirement for a single view of customer data that pulls data from 17 different sources like Zendesk, multiple databases, Salesforce and more. One software engineer created the app in two days that would have taken months of work, and is now used by over 200 users in the company.

Every enterprise needs to create custom applications -- a slow, repetitive, expensive process -- that requires work to build the user interface, write integrations, code the business logic, manage access controls and ultimately deploy the app. By comparison, Appsmith is 10 times faster at enabling software engineers to build the user interface with pre-built components, code the business logic by connecting APIs (application programming interfaces) along with any database, then test and deploy a web application. Companies dedicate anywhere from 10%-40% of their engineering resources to these internal tools. According to Gartner, the low code development technology market is $13.8 billion.

"The low-code market is greatly underestimated and will grow fast as developers adopt new platforms like Appsmith to automate processes required in building custom software," said Joydeep Bhattacharyya, general partner, Canaan Partners. "Appsmith's open-source approach prioritizes the developer experience while also providing flexibility not possible with traditional SaaS. The team is seeing tremendous interest from many sectors and for many different use cases, which only highlights the universality of the problems Appsmith solves."

Appsmith is addressing the crushing shortage of developers and the need for simplifying the development process through automation, said Shekhar Kirani, partner, Accel. The custom internal and CRUD applications are the workhorses of every enterprise which rely on those apps in their operations. Everyone is looking for a solution to turn these around faster and more efficiently. The Appsmith team is well qualified and showing great progress in delivering its open source technology to help enterprises deal with the backlog of internal apps.

Everything we do is with the developer in mind to enable every company to build great software that addresses their most pressing internal needs, said Abhishek Nayak, co-founder and CEO, Appsmith. Were taking the pain out of developing internal apps by delivering a highly-customizable platform that uses a building block approach that is open source software freely available to anyone to make it ultra-easy and fast for software engineers to build apps.

About Appsmith

Appsmith was founded in 2019 with the mission to enable backend engineers to build internal web apps quickly with a low-code approach. Taking an open source software approach provides anyone with access to the software and the opportunity to get involved in the community. The company has offices in San Francisco and Bengaluru, India. For more information visit https://www.appsmith.com.

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Appsmith Announces $10.5 Million Series A and Seed Funding Rounds to Develop Low-Code Open Source Software - Business Wire

Python programming bootcamps guide: Invest in a tech career with the right bootcamp – ZDNet

Have you ever wanted to break into tech, but were not sure where to go? Look into a coding bootcamp. Coding bootcamps are accelerated training programs that can prepare enrollees for entry level programming work. Bootcamps often center on a particular area of web or mobile development, or a particularly valuable coding language, such as Python. A Python bootcamp is an ideal opportunity to learn Python coding skills online quickly to prepare for working (and succeeding) as a coding professional.

As more aspects of our lives become governed by web and mobile technology and software, the demand for coders has gone up. Python programmers are in particularly high demand due to the high popularity and versatility of Python in many areas of tech, including data analysis, web development, and software engineering.

Experience with Python can serve as a gateway to a high-paying job as a developer, scientist, or engineer working in computer and IT services, marketing, or software development. And a coding bootcamp can provide that formative experience you need!

Read on for our guide to Python coding bootcamps: what they teach, how much they cost, and why what they teach should be important to programmers just getting started.

Since its inception in 1992, Python has become one of the world's most commonly-used programming languages. Python's popularity comes in part from the fact that it is a general purpose language that can be used for a variety of purposes, rather than being specialized to one discipline. Python is typically used for software engineering, web development, and data analysis and visualization. However, its applications are almost endless!

In data analysis and manipulation, Python is king. This is partly because it is very easy to use when conducting complex tasks such as creating various kinds of graphs, histograms, or 3D plots based on statistical data. Python is also an integral part of the emerging machine learning field, as it is used to create various complex algorithms.

Web development draws on Python to enable communication with databases and servers. Software engineering usually also uses Python to automate various tasks for testing out new features in software.

Coding bootcamps are short, intensive training programs for different topics in web and mobile development, such as a specific programming language. These programs differ from college or vocational school courses in that they are not accredited; however, they can be a valuable tool for people looking for a condensed introduction to coding that can prepare for entry level work.

The typical coding bootcamp takes between 10-17 weeks to complete. During this time learners may tackle topics such as front end web development, mobile app development, and user experience. The typical bootcamp covers the basics and gives an overview of what kind of work learners can expect.

The difficulty of getting into coding bootcamp varies by provider. Some more exclusive bootcamps may expect applicants to present a digital portfolio. Others may not. You can expect to fill out an application and complete an application essay, followed by an in-person or phone interview to get into most bootcamps.

Python is thought of as an ideal programming language for beginners. Though it takes years to master the different Python applications, one can easily learn the basics of Python within a few weeks. For this reason, it is often taught in coding bootcamps. Some basic skills taught in Python bootcamps include:

Different bootcamps vary by which skills they cover, however.

Coding bootcamps run a wide gamut in terms of pricing. Python bootcamps can cost anywhere between $1,500-$20,000. The price tag attached to your training experience depends on your provider, whether you attend full or part time, and program length. Here's a representative sample of how much some of the most reputable Python bootcamps cost, as of 2021:

Many careers in the tech field rely heavily on Python, including:

However, professionals in many different industries often use Python as a tool for automation or data analysis. Chances are that Python could prove a great help to you too!

One major advantage to learning Python is its applicability to a variety of well-paid job titles. In most careers where Python is a foundational skill, you can expect to make anywhere between $60,000-$120,000 annually. Check out the following list of careers and their median annual salaries, courtesy of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS):

Of course, the upper percentile of earners in these professions can easily earn even more.

There are many advantages to learning Python. As a general purpose language, Python's applications extend across many different fields. There is currently high demand for tech professionals who know Python, giving you many options to switch careers or advance professionally.

Python's simple syntax makes it intuitive for beginners to understand. If you are new to programming, Python can encourage you to try learning other programming languages and expanding your skills.

Because Python is an open source language, it is easy to get feedback on your code from the global coding community. There are also many online courses that give the opportunity to learn Python for free.

Coding bootcamps differ from college courses and programs in that they are typically offered by for-profit companies and lack official accreditation. However, graduating from a coding bootcamp shows initiative and willingness to learn, which makes a generally positive impression on employers. Completing a coding bootcamp will give your resume a boost, along with your odds for getting a tech-related job. Additionally, some employers offer tuition reimbursement for attending coding bootcamp.

Some Python bootcamp providers are affiliated with universities, such as Bottega University. Other providers remain independent. Occasionally, Python bootcamps offer job placement guarantees or promise tuition refunds for qualifying graduates who cannot get a job within a certain time frame.

The following list of Python bootcamp programs represents some of the most highly regarded bootcamps for specifically learning Python in the country. Read on to learn what makes each program unique to see which is a good fit for your plans.

Lambda Schools' data science and full-stack coding bootcamps cover Python in a learning experience where enrollees complete 900 hours of coding. The program is online-only and gives learners a choice between part or full-time learning. Tuition for the program starts at $30,000, however, Lambda School, an independent provider, stands out for its reasonable payment plan options.

Yes. Coding bootcamps give you the opportunity to take in a lot of information in a short time, while showing future employers your willingness to learn new skills.

There is no single "best" Python coding bootcamp. The best Python coding bootcamp should for you be the one that best meets your unique needs as a learner.

Coding bootcamps are a great place to start if you are a coding novice. This is especially applicable to Python, one of the most easily accessible programming languages.

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Polyglot Programming and the Benefits of Mastering Several Languages – Analytics Insight

Did you know that there is a group of African languages where there are no separate words for green and blue?Micha Mela, a fan of natural language grammars,asks me.

In Russian, on the other hand, there are two words for blue: one is dark blue and the other is for the color of clear sky. It has been experimentally proven that these language features translate into the practical ability to recognize colors. Language influences how we perceive the world. The same applies to programming languages.

Micha is not only a fan of neurolinguistics, but also a professional polyglot programmerhe knows Java, Groovy, Kotlin, Scala, JavaScript, some Ruby, Python, and Go, as well as curiosities such as Ceylon and Jolie.

Where did the idea for such a range of competencies come from?In the world of professional programmers, there is a controversial statement that almost every seasoned developer has come across: a good programmer should learn at least one new language a year.

This opinion is over 20 years old and was formulated in the bookPragmatic Programmer,a classic that invariably inspires successive generations of IT specialists.

The idea of learning a new language each year was controversial as early as 1999 when it was articulated, but today the situation is becoming even more confusing. Multiple languages can be used in several ways. Functional and object-oriented programming, even in the same language, can be a more unfamiliar experience than simply learning a new language from the same family.

Whats more, even within the monolingual ecosystem, there are frameworks that differ so far in their philosophy that switching between them is like switching languagesjust compare React, Angular, and Svelte.js.

Despite the controversy, every experienced programmer can code in more than two languages, and some of the code in several or even a dozen languages.

For some of them, its a side effect of functioning in the world of dynamically developing information technology; for others, its a conscious choice. The best engineers Ive worked with often repeat the same mantra: Im not a Java/Python/JavaScript programmer, just a programmer. Languages are my tools.

Have polyglot programmers had the opportunity to use so many languages in their professional life? Mostly yes, although the greatest enthusiasts also learn experimental and historical languages, with no prospects for commercial use. We are talking about languages such as OCaml, LISP, Haskell, and Fortran.

Its worth adding that the above does not include esoteric languages, i.e. those belonging to the just for fun category: Whitespace, LOLCODE, or Shakespeare.

So, what motivates these developers to learn new languages? The first answer is far from surprising. I remember Rubys fall,Marek Bryling, a programmer with over 20 years of experience,tells me. People who have been in software for a long time have to learn many languages over the years. Thats the reality.

The younger generation is also familiar with the memento Ruby argument.The decision to learn a new language is about career planning and risk diversification.Just look at Ruby, Micha says.

Most often, however, the people I spoke to learn new languagesad hoc: by encountering new technological or market challenges. The labor market used to be different than it is today. It was often easier to find a job in something completely new,Kamil Kierzkowski, a senior full-stack developer at STX Next,recalls.

So is learning new languages simply opportunistic adaptation to the labor market? Absolutely not! New languages clearly have the power to shape programmers, redirect their thinking, and broaden their horizonsand thats not the only advantage they bring to the table.

Let me quote a classic, Micha clears his throat as he quotes Edsger Dijkstra, a pioneer of computer science. It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.

As you can see, the battles of the supporters of individual technologies go back to the pre-internet era. It turns out that in the world of polarised opinions, being a polyglot can be very helpful. I know enough languages to know what suits me,Marcin Kurczewski, an expert in over 10 programming languages,tells me. Knowing many schools of programming gives me perspective.

Having this broad horizon allows you to form your own opinions about technology, but it also gives you the advantage of being more exposed to new products.

Its obvious for Python programmers to use Prettier, Black, and other codes autoformat tools, Marcin points out. When I recently started contributing to an open-source C/C++ project, I was surprised to discover that the projects technical leader rejected similar tools that are now becoming popular in the C/C++ world. He used arguments that Python zealots used 10 years ago.

Micha echoes him: Java8 finally introduced Lambdas. A lot of purists complained:What have you done? You have destroyed this language!he laughs. I knew Lambdas from a different language, I had already figured out what their advantages were, and I quickly got the hang of using them in Java.

Interestingly, today, when more and more people begin their adventure with programming from high-level languages, it turns out to be invaluable to gain experience starting from the very basics.

For example, working with C++ helps. Thanks to C++, I understood how my computer and everything I run on it works, Marcin continues. Knowledge of concepts such as stack, heap, registers, memory management is useful in working with a computer, no matter what language you use.

Marek supports this opinion and gives a specific example from his own area of interest: Python has an interesting feature: weak references that dont increment the garbage collectors reference count. This is a very useful mechanism, but most people dont understand how it works because they dont know memory management from other languages.

This trail leads us tothe strongest argument for learning new languages: this practice develops the programming skills we use in the main language we specialize in.One developer convinced of this isMaciej Michalec, author of the polydev.pl blog.

Problem-solving approaches in different paradigms differ significantly, he notes. Python is a nice example of a language where you can write in an object-oriented and functional manner, and its useful to know the different paradigms from other languages so that you can use them in Python.

Thanks to the fact that I know how something is done in one language, I can better implement it in Python, Marek adds. Thats how async.io was created, being mapped from the node. This flow of inspiration is possible when we know several languages and this knowledge goes beyond the syntax itself. Its like travelingthe more countries you visit, the more your mind opens up, he concludes.

In our conversations, we also delve into the topic of the future. What new languages and frameworks will be created and popularised on the market? Who will create them? Is it possible that polyglots will also play their part in this avantgarde programming?

Definitely, and especially those who like history, Marek says. After all, in recent years, we have gone back to the 1960s and we are processing what was invented then: event architecture, microservices, functional programming, he says.

The cloud? Its an extension of mainframes. Even dockers result from processing our previous concepts, such as JAIL or LXC containers. What finally grew out of it was Docker.

So, whats ahead? What other languages will gain popularity? Will there be more or fewer of them? Opinions are divided.

I can see a certain consolidation trend in relation to a few languages like JavaScript and Python, but in my lifetime, we wont get to any programming lingua franca,Marek says. I am concerned, though, that in some time 90% of programmers will only be able to do high-level programming. The same is already happening with DevOpsfew can still work on bare-metal because everyone migrated to the cloud.

Were not threatened by monolingualism, Maciej concludes. PureScript and V are exciting new players. There will be more and more new languages, but at the same time, it will be harder and harder for them to breakthrough. Today, a rich ecosystem and the support of community developers are of key importance for any language. You can see it in Scala, he sighs.

I love this language, but the community is very hermetic and pushes out those who havent been dealing with functional programming before. This affects the popularity of the language more and more.

The issues of community and ecosystem are also raised by Marcin, who is sceptical about Crystal, another contender in the crowded arena of programming languages. Crystal is a compiled Ruby, and its an interesting idea, but even the nicest, cleanest programming language is nothing without a solid ecosystem, which is missing there.

It seems that programming communities will decide the future of programming languages in a very democratic way, voting with their feet (or rather, with their fingers on the keyboard). In this vote, polyglots also have an advantagethey get more than one vote.

Author

Marcin Zabawa Director of Strategic Services, STX Next

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Polyglot Programming and the Benefits of Mastering Several Languages - Analytics Insight

From tech tool to business asset: How banks are using B2B APIs to fuel growth – McKinsey

Each time someone searches for flights on a travel aggregation site or shops online, APIs (or application programming interfaces) work in the background to make this happen. These lines of software let two different systems communicate and exchange data with one another, whether flight information from airlines or updated inventory from suppliers. Compared with traditional point-to-point integrations, APIs are flexible, cost-efficient, and easy to operate.

In the financial services industry, APIs are transforming the way B2B banking is done. As an easy means of money and data transfer between a banks systems and those of third parties, these tools pave the way for banking services to be embedded directly into a corporate customers own platforms. Instead of having to go to a banks own app, portal, or website, for instance, APIs enable customers to link their enterprise, treasury, and accounting systems (such as SAP or Xero) with financial information provided by banks. These companies can then initiate payments, manage liquidity, and download bank statements through their own systems, with the bank, essentially, becoming invisible.

APIs also enable banks to offer trade-financing services on new B2B platforms, such as PrimeRevenue, Taulia, and Tradeshift. These companies, which provide businesses with working capital finance solutions, let corporate clients offer their suppliers early-payment options or automation of invoice processing.

To understand what stage the banking industry is at in this transformation, we surveyed financial institutions of varying sizes (local, multiregional, and global). This research, part of McKinseys latest global survey on the State of APIs in Global Transaction Banking (GTB), found that, on average, just over half of a banks B2B APIs are currently used to connect its internal systems, such as front-end servers to back-office servers. However, in the next three years, this ratio will shift with most new APIs connecting banks to systems outside the organization.

Although APIs represent a significant disruption to the way B2B banking services have traditionally been delivered, they also offer significant opportunities. In the same way that APIs make many online products and services possible for consumers, they open up a wide range of possibilities for banks: with potential to generate income growth from existing and new corporate customer segments, improve customer experience, and energize innovation.

To take advantage of this potential, banks will need to see APIs as not just a tech tool for software developers but an important strategic asset and mainstream business priority. This means building a wide bridge between the business and technology functions, which too often still operate as distinct areas. In our survey, we asked banks to rate the extent of their collaboration along five key dimensions:

Banks told us that, on average, they are more than halfway regarding the work they need to do (Exhibit1). We also asked them about the drivers behind their API efforts and how they are monetizing new products and services. Segmenting across size, geography, and maturity level, we identified a few key differences and findings.

Exhibit 1

Smaller domestic or regional banks are head-to-head with the big global and multiregional institutions. Both types of banks have identified APIs as a strategic priority and made similar overall progress, with some minor differences. Global and multiregional banks have progressed further in technology enablement, such as allowing developers at fintechs and other third parties to access their APIs and related SDKs on a convenient public portal. Domestic and regional banks, meanwhile, have been able to move more quickly to hire a substantial team of API developers, in part because they have the advantage of not needing to fill as many roles.

North American and AsiaPacific banks lead the pack. Banks in these regions have an average maturity of 70 percent, followed by Europe (65percent), and Middle East, Africa, and Latin America (55 percent). The maturity of North American banks is driven largely by the clarity of their business-backed strategies and their ability to secure and prioritize key talent. At AsiaPacific banks, however, the go-to-market approach is significantly more mature.

For instance, DBS RAPID, the API-powered digital solution from Singapores multinational DBS Bank, offers its corporate customers a wide range of real-time banking transactions and services that can be integrated into their systems or platforms. A leading insurance company is using the solution to offer its customers quicker payment of travel insurance claimsfrom a few days to just seconds. Similarly, a ride-hailing company uses DBS RAPID to let its drivers cash out their earnings instantaneously, instead of having to wait up to two working days.

Leaders are pulling well ahead of laggards on several dimensions. Banks that give the highest scores to their API maturity level have attracted and retained the right talent and invested in strong businessIT collaboration, including joint funding for the development of API-based products and services. They have also helped future-proof their technology by providing access to SDKs that enable other developers to build on top of a banks products and services. As a result, the banks in the top third of API maturity have been able to achieve a disproportionate impact regarding the effectiveness, breadth, and revenue-generation potential of new products and services (Exhibit 2).

Exhibit 2

More than 90 percent of financial institutions use or plan to use APIs to generate additional revenue among existing customers.

APIs are seen as drivers of new revenue. More than 90percent of respondents said they use or plan to use APIs to generate additional revenue among existing customers, with three-quarters saying they are looking for revenue streams from new customers. A related objective is the ability to innovate (three-quarters of respondents also said this), followed closely by the ability to integrate with third-party capabilities (72 percent). Finally, just over half of respondents said they want to use APIs to enhance operational efficiency, such as by improving and streamlining integration with a customers enterprise resource planning (ERP) system (Exhibit 3).

Exhibit 3

Customer fees for API calls are the go-to monetization model. When banks leverage APIs to launch new products or services, 80 percent charge customers fees to use them, for example by charging for real-time payment collections and reconciliation. The second most popular model is revenue sharing with an ecosystem partner63percent of respondents said they use this. One leading global bank, for instance, partnered to deliver compliance checksthat is, the flagging of potential money-laundering transactions. Finally, half of all respondents said they generate value through data and analytics-driven insights, such as information on liquidity management and payment flows.

Financial institutions that have moved ahead in their use of APIs have successfully positioned these connectivity tools at the center of their business and innovation agenda. To do this, theyve taken five critical steps:

Establishing a holistic API strategy and road map. A banks plan for APIs has to be both wide and deepcrafted in close alignment with a banks broader channel and product strategywhile also being comprehensive and granular about the specific APIs needed for customer, partner, and public offerings. The go-to-market plan should be differentiated by geography and segment, as well as responsive to customer needs, customer onboarding complexities, shifting regulatory norms, and competitive threats.

Bridging traditional organizational silos. To achieve success, business and IT leaders have to work together to define, develop, and roll out a product-centric road map for new API-enabled products and services. To make sure this integrated operating model functions smoothly, KPIs and incentives should be aligned across functions and have clearly defined teams with an end-to-end ownership of API-enabled products. This is especially important considering that 30 percent of respondents in our survey acknowledged that no one in their organization has this end-to-end decision-making authority and oversight of APIs.

Making APIs central to the customer proposition. Banks need to have a clear view of how their API-enabled products and services are attractive for customers. When client strategies and new propositions are being formulated, product-development teams must consider the ways in which APIs can open up new features, services, or customer-experience enhancements. This includes a deliberate focus on customer onboarding and the overall usage experience.

Leading players are seeking out IT and business talent from fintechs and enterprise resource planning providers, particularly individuals with previous experience working with API-enabled banking services.

Finding different kinds of talent. The types of people banks need to hire is changing. In addition to hiring from other banks or incumbent payment providers, leading players are seeking out IT and business talent from fintechs and ERP providers, particularly those individuals with previous experience creating or working with API-enabled banking services. For IT, an open-source approach to development is a must, including the publishing, continuous monitoring, and improvement of SDKs on public portals. This is especially important considering that most of the growth in APIs at banks is expected to be for external connections.

Innovating and broadening API offerings. Thus far, most banks have used APIs primarily to connect their internal systems or serve existing corporate customers with basic features like payments. In our survey, over 80 percent of respondents said they already offer or plan to offer their clients the ability to access accounts, do currency exchanges, and make domestic and cross-border payments using the clients own ERP or other systems. In other words, instead of having to access a banks portal to do banking, a company can make payments to suppliers or vendors directly from internal systems. Such features are now table stakes.

For the next phase, banks will need to consider using APIs to embed more value-added services into their clients systems, such as the management of market investments, liquidity management, and invoice financing (the ability to borrow money against the amounts due from customers). Using APIs, banks can also let clients offer their customers options such as supply-chain finance (the ability for suppliers and vendors to get paid more quickly than they would otherwise). In our survey, we found that leading players are actively pursuing these untapped areas and expect to triple growth in these more sophisticated services over the next three years. Currently, 6 to 13 percent of banks say they offer factoring, documentary finance, supply-chain finance, and invoice finance services. Over the next three years, 32 to 46 percent say they plan to do so (Exhibit 4).

Exhibit 4

B2B APIs are here to stay. They are likely to become not only the most frequent bankclient interaction, but also primary facilitators of accelerated product innovation and the means by which banks and their clients integrate with fintechs and the platform economy.

Banks of all sizes and in all regions have already started on their B2B API journey, with the gap between leaders and laggards becoming evident. However, the marketplace remains in flux and significant opportunities still exist for banks that successfully expand their API-enabled offerings, particularly in the trade and liquidity area. Over the next three years, organizations that actively pursue a comprehensive API approachencompassing strategy, operations, technology, talent, and implementationcan drive growth and position themselves at the forefront of a transforming financial services industry.

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From tech tool to business asset: How banks are using B2B APIs to fuel growth - McKinsey

Top Programming Languages that Will Become Dominant in 2022 – Analytics Insight

Programming languages are computer languages that are used by programmers (developers) to communicate with computers. It is a set of instructions written in any specific language (C, C++, Java, Python) to perform a specific task. A programming language is mainly used to develop desktop applications, websites, and mobile applications. Here are the top languages that will be most popular in 2022.

Python was built by Guido van Rossum in the late 1980s in the Netherlands. Initially built as a competitor for Java in the industry, Python slowly shot forward in popularity. Currently, Python has built huge popularity among both the researcher as well as the developer community. Python sits at the top of the language ranking for the IEEE Spectrum, having a score of a perfect 100. Moreover, Python also commands respect and has a support percentage of 44.1%.

Python is suitable for pretty much anything. You have Django and Flask which can be utilized for web development, while scientific tools like Jupyter and Spyder are used for analysis and research purposes. If youre into automation, Selenium is out there to help you! The flexibility of the language allows Python to be used pretty much anywhere. These, by far, are the more popular products of Python. Pythons huge support base (second only to that of JavaScript) produces tons of packages, frameworks, and even full-fledged open-source software using the language.

Python probably has the largest support for data science and machine learning in general. While there are other languages like R and MATLAB which do offer competition, Pythons the strict ruler of the data science space. A majority of the frameworks and libraries used in machine learning are made in Python only, making it probably the best language to pick up if one wants to learn about machine learning (or data science in general).

JavaScript is pretty much the industry leader at this point. Built originally as a scripting language for Netscape Navigator (one of the best browsers back in the day) in 1994, JavaScripts ascent to greatness has been swift. It wasnt until 2008 that modern-day JavaScript was devised by Google when they built the V8 engine for Google Chrome. Originally built as a competitor to Java by Netscape, JavaScript now commands a space of its own in the development sphere. JavaScript is widely favored as the language of the internet because of its popularity. JavaScript enjoys the highest support amongst developer communities as high as 67.7%. In general, JavaScript is suitable for any kind of development activities like mobile app development, web development, desktop app development, and so on.

JavaScript has a wide variety of libraries and frameworks which can be utilized during development. Theres Angular, Vue, and React for frontend development, while Node.js is a very flexible language for working on the backend. Jest and Mocha are two flexible tools that help set up unit tests to check if the functionality is working as intended or not. Of course, if youre not very comfortable with either of these, you can just go for vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the frontend its that simple! Because of the enormous support from developers around the world, JavaScript has the largest number of support packages that any language can boast about. Despite that, people continue to build more and more packages to add to the ease of using the language.

Built in 1991 by James Gosling, Mike Sheridan, and Patrick Naughton as the language Oak, Java was the first language to have a big global impact. While the new programming language used the same format as C/C++, it incorporated certain new ideas to make it more appealing to more people. Java runs on the principle of Write Once, Run Anywhere implying that systems with varying hardware and OS configurations can run Java programs with ease.

Java also has a wide variety of libraries and frameworks which utilize Java under the hood. Java is used for app development through Spring and Hibernate. JUnit helps us set up unit tests for our Java projects. Most importantly, Java is being used in the development of native Android applications (the Android SDK is itself powered by the Java Development Kit or the JDK). Java is probably the language that most people were introduced to as part of an introductory computer programming course in college or in school. Java is the language used for teaching object-oriented programming to the masses.

Java is also highly respected in the field of analytics and research. The only problem with Java is that there are very few support packages and projects for the language at present. Theres very little community involvement something that most mainstream languages have. Despite that, Java is a language that is very easy to pick up and learn partly explaining the appeal for the language. However, it does take some time for one to attain some form of mastery over the language.

Perhaps one of the most shocking answers that one can expect in this article is C++. Despite being the language that most people use to learn the concepts of data structures and algorithms, the language itself finds little usage in the practical world. First created by Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language in 1982, C++ went on to make a name for itself in the years to come.

C++ finds use in analytics, research as well as in-game development. The popular game development engine the Unreal Engine uses C++ as the scripting language for all of the functionality one can define while building a game. C++ also finds extensive use in software development. Being mid-way between the object-oriented approach and the method-oriented approach allows C++ to be flexible in the nature of software that can be produced using it. Being located 4th in the TIOBE index signifies that C++ continues to have an appeal to this day. C++ is also extensively used in system software development, being easier to understand than other languages. The main reason for using C++ in a sensitive area like the OS is that C++ programs have a very low compilation time.

C++ probably has the largest learning community among all of the languages. Most students would start their algorithms courses building trees, linked lists, stacks, queues, and numerous other data structures in C++. Naturally, it is quite easy to pick up and learn as well as easy to master if one pays attention to details.

TypeScript is the superset of JavaScript and has almost the same applications as JavaScript. TypeScript can be used in web development, mobile app development, desktop app development, and so on. TypeScript is the second most popular language as mentioned by StackOverflows list of most loved languages, being loved by 67.1% of developers (being second only to Rust).

TypeScript is mainly a language meant for development, so it does not have much appeal to the scientific community. However, because of the new features of TypeScript, one can expect that it might inspire a slightly greater degree of interest for research. The language has a much lower skill ceiling than JavaScript and many difficult-to-understand behaviors of JavaScript have been simplified in TypeScript. In other words, you have a slightly less chance of knocking your head into a wall.

New languages are sharply rising on the horizon, with new contenders coming up to challenge the throne owned by JavaScript and Python. Being made by Google (both have Go in their names!) mainly to advance the cause of functional programming, Golang has built up a mass following within a short time. Golang has already made it the fifth-best language to learn by StackOverflow, being adored by 62.3% of developers.

Golang is used in multiple areas, both for developing robust software as well as the backends used for web and mobile applications. Currently, Golang even supports some rudimentary amount of web development. While its still not in a phase to replace JavaScript as the language of the web, it is fast becoming a language that supports the next phase of the web.

Golang is slightly more difficult to learn than the other languages on this list. Moreover, Golang is an open-source language that frequently changes with every major update, so staying updated is a necessity.

Dart is one of the fastest-growing languages in the industrial sphere. Googles contribution in the sphere of languages has significantly increased to compete with the increase in popularity of Microsofts TypeScript. Dart has been highly adored by programmers around the world for its simplicity.

Dart is used in multi-platform application development. Like JavaScript, Dart is used for building software that can be run by anyone and everyone with an electronic device. The most famous use of Dart currently is in the framework of Flutter, a language used for mobile app development. Recent Google trends have shown that Flutter, despite being a newer framework, is more popular than React Native, a mobile app development framework already established in the industry.

Dart is simpler to learn than JavaScript and manages to simplify even difficult-to-understand cases really well. With TypeScript and Dart both in the market, programmers are spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing a language they really want to pick up.

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Top Programming Languages that Will Become Dominant in 2022 - Analytics Insight