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July 4, 2023:

JetBrains Academy’s New Projects and Topics: July Update

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If you’re learning Python, JavaScript, Kotlin, or Go and you’re interested in adding unconventional projects to your developer portfolio, such as a traffic light, browser game, or account service, we’ve got you covered!

But that’s not all. We’re also introducing 66 new topics across programming languages, algorithms and data structures, system administration and DevOps, and computer science fundamentals. This will allow you to further expand your programming knowledge.

Now, let’s take a closer look at what’s new.

Python (data science, machine learning)

🆕 Python project: Traffic Light (Beta). Hard

In this project, not only will you create your own traffic light app, but you will also gain valuable skills in multi-threading, exception handling, class inheritance, and implementing the circular queue data structure.

🆕 Data science project: Random Forest from Scratch (Beta). Hard

Dive into the implementation of one of the most popular ensemble algorithms, Random Forest. You’ll have the opportunity to build the entire algorithm from scratch using numpy and test it on the titanic dataset from sklearn.

🆕 NLP project: HyperSearch Engine (Beta). Challenging

Build your very own search engine using the TF-IDF algorithm. Your program will be able to highlight the target word and provide context around it.

🆕 Django project: Regex Tester (Beta). Challenging

Harness the power of regular expressions by creating a tool for testing regexes. In this project, you’ll develop a simple regex tester that can store the history of tests, allowing you to tame the complexity of regular expressions.

🆕 Topics: 

• Python: Garbage Collector and Memory Leaks

• Django: Model data types

• Flask: Flask Test client, Versioning API

• Data science instruments: Crosstab in pandas, KNeighborsClassifier in scikit-learn

• Machine learning: Preprocessing categorical features, Adaboost, Adaboost: an illustrated walk-through, Gradient boosting, Gradient boosting: the illustrated regression 

• NLP: Introduction to Hugging Face, Implementation of transformers in Hugging Face, Hugging Face Datasets, Transformers in NLP, Introduction to dialogue systems, Rule-based dialogue systems, BLEU, ROUGE, N-gram and collocation measures

 

Last month 5 Python projects got high scores for their usefulness, clarity, and fun from our users. These projects have now been released from Beta and are ready for you to explore:

• Library Management System (Easy)

• Algorithms with IMDB (Challenging)

• HyperSchool (Challenging)

• Opinion Detector (Challenging)

• Spam Filter (Challenging)

 

Frontend (HTML, CSS, JavaScript)

🆕 Project: Site for Marathon (Beta). Easy

Discover the power of iframes in web development as you learn to seamlessly embed external content within your web pages. Explore the techniques of absolute positioning and z-index to precisely position elements on your page. Gain proficiency in working with images and adding subtle animations to enhance the dynamism of your web page.

🆕 Project: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (Beta). Medium

Create a browser game while acquiring essential skills in web development. Dive into the world of browser events and learn to effectively handle them, enabling seamless interactivity within your game. Work with JSON objects, allowing you to efficiently store and manipulate game data, and develop your game logic using JavaScript.

🆕 Topics: 

• HTML:  Tag embed

• CSS: Filters, Media queries, Responsive images and videos, Responsive tables, Viewport

• JavaScript: Self-invoking functions and closures, Server-sent events, Objects prototyping

 

We’ve also released the Postprocessor project from Beta, with improved content and functionality.

Kotlin

🆕 Project: Bulls and Cows (Beta). Medium

Challenge yourself by creating an advanced version of the classic code-breaking game “Bulls and Cows”. Begin by recreating the original version of the game and then elevate it to new heights with your innovative additions and enhancements.

🆕 Spring Boot project: Account Service (Beta). Challenging

Master the Spring Security module. Gain a solid understanding of user authentication and authorization, allowing you to ensure the utmost security for your applications. Learn how to register security events and familiarize yourself with the latest information security standards for web applications, ensuring your projects meet modern requirements.

🆕 Topics:

• Kotlin: Retrofit, Advanced lambda expressions, Type-safe builders, StringBuffer

• Android: System apps and common intents, Crashlytics, Menus: Options, Popup

• Ktor: DefaultHeaders, Request Validation

• Koin: Koin Annotations

 

The Blockchain and Cinema Room Manager have also been released from Beta.

Go

🆕 Project: File Type Analyzer (Beta). Challenging

Files come in a variety of formats, often indicated by their names. Even if the file type has been manually changed or removed, information about the type is still embedded within the file. In this project, you’ll build a tool that extracts information from files to determine their type. Experiment with various algorithms and observe how different algorithms impact the tool’s speed.

🆕 Topics: Synchronization with channels, Context cancellation and timeouts

Java

🆕 Topics: Hashing java.security.MessageDigest, Understand the problem, External resources

Algorithms and structures

🆕 Topics: Dynamic programming: another approach, Cryptographic hash functions, Edit distance, Caesar cipher, Vigenère cipher

System administration and DevOps

🆕 Topics: 

• Command line: How to parse JSON with jq, Sorting and transforming JSON with jq

• Docker: Docker-compose.yml syntax 

• Git: Cherry-picking and checkout options, Git undo/reset

• Kubernetes: Tools for Local Kubernetes Deployment, What is a pod?

 

Scala

🆕 Topic: Unified types

Fundamentals

🆕 Topics:

• Essentials: Best practices for writing code, 12-factor application: configuration, process and execution

• SQL and databases: Explain, Explain Analyze, Leveraging Built-in SQL Functions and Features, Writing efficient SQL queries

 

That wraps up this month’s offerings! We hope you’ll enjoy exploring these exciting projects and topics to enhance your programming skills.

Note that projects marked as Beta are still in the early stages of testing. If you’re interested in checking out Beta projects on the platform, make sure the Beta-tester feature is enabled in your profile settings.

If you have any questions or if you would like to share your feedback, feel free to leave a comment below, contact us at academy@jetbrains.com, or share your thoughts with us on Twitter or Facebook.

Enjoy learning!

 

 

July 6, 2023:

Space On-Premises 2023.2 Is Out!

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Do you strive for complete control over your data while developing software?

You’ll be glad to know we’ve just released Space On-Premises 2023.2, a more accessible version with new simplified installation options and other useful features.

With the new AWS one-click installation option, you can now quickly and easily run Space on the AWS cloud. You can also use Docker Compose as a stable installation with the expanded Docker Compose configuration steps that we’ve added in this version.

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To help improve your productivity, Space On-Premises 2023.2 adds a number of new features, such as powerful IDE-inspired navigation, issue time tracking, the ability to store build artifacts and cache project dependencies, support for Rust packages, the quick option to create issues directly from code snippets, and more.

 

Read this article to learn what’s new in the 2023.2 version, and see an overview of the available installation options to find one that suits your team best.

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Full Article

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July 12, 2023:

 

IntelliJ IDEA 2023.1.4 is Here!

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We’ve just released IntelliJ IDEA 2023.1.4 with several valuable fixes.

You can update to this version from inside the IDE, using the Toolbox App, or using snaps if you are a Ubuntu user. You can also download it from our website.

Here are the most notable fixes included in v2023.1.4:

• We fixed the issue with missing custom code style settings and they are now correctly preserved by the IDE. [IDEA-318457]

• The Copy Reference action for files in non-java modules works as expected and copies the path from the content root. [IDEA-316752]

• The @jakarta.validation.constraints.NotNull annotation is now interpreted correctly during nullability inspections. [IDEA-323547]

• Starting up the IDE no longer fails with the “CannotActivateException: Address already in use: bind” error. [IDEA-323836]

• The IDE now has full Wildfly 28 support. [IDEA-320285]

 

To find out more information about the issues resolved, please refer to the release notes.

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August 16, 2023:

Increase Your Productivity With TeamCity Documentation Examples for the Kotlin DSL

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TeamCity offers the ability to define project settings and configure CI/CD pipelines programmatically with the help of the Kotlin DSL. 

To help you take advantage of the Kotlin DSL’s capabilities and simplify the build configuration process, we’ve created extensive Kotlin DSL documentation. It comes with examples that you can simply copy-paste directly into your code base.

How the Kotlin DSL documentation works

Every TeamCity server has its own Kotlin DSL documentation, which is automatically curated to match the TeamCity version and any plugins installed on the server. If you install a new plugin, the documentation compiles again, providing you with relevant examples.
You can also refer to the general Kotlin DSL documentation, which is available in the TeamCity docs.

Accessing the Kotlin DSL documentation from IntelliJ IDEA

The Kotlin DSL documentation is available right from IntelliJ IDEA (both Ultimate and Community editions). You can access it by going to Maven Tool Window | Download Sources and Documentation.

Another way to access the Kotlin DSL documentation directly from your IDE is to run the mvn -U dependency:sources command.

The documentation’s context and examples change when you click on an entity (for example, a build step or a trigger). The information is displayed either in a popup window or in the panel on the left, depending on the settings you’ve selected.

There are a few different ways to open the Kotlin DSL examples from your IDE:

1. Pressing F1 on Mac or Ctrl + Q on Windows. Refer to this section of the IntelliJ IDEA documentation for more details.

2. Clicking on the name of an entity (such as a build step or a command). The examples will open in the menu on the right-hand side of the window.

3. Simply hovering over an entity to access the in-line information window.

How this feature is helpful

Using Kotlin DSL examples can save you time when configuring your pipelines as code. The examples also make it easier to discover all of the things you can do when configuring builds, in addition to helping you identify the scenarios that TeamCity can support.

Working with the Kotlin DSL examples can be a particularly great option when you are just getting started, as they provide a solid foundation on which to build your understanding of the Kotlin DSL.

TeamCity also provides you with an option to view your settings as code with the help of the View as code button, which is available on the build level. This displays your settings as code that you can copy and paste to your codebase.

If your project can’t be configured via the UI and you’d still like to experiment with the View as code feature, consider setting up a sandbox project on your TeamCity server. It will give you a chance to play around with different TeamCity features and see how they look in the Kotlin DSL.

Further resources

If you’d like to learn more about using the Kotlin DSL for TeamCity, here are some additional resources that you might find useful:

• Video series “Kotlin DSL: From Zero to Hero”

• Blog post “Kotlin DSL for Beginners: Recommended Refactorings”

• Blog post “Creating TeamCity Project Templates with Kotlin DSL Context Parameters”

• Blog post series “Configuration as Code”

Over to you

Do you have any questions or comments about how we can improve the Kotlin DSL examples and documentation? We’d love to get your feedback! Feel free to share it in the comment section below. 

Happy building!

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August 24, 2023:

How To Choose a CI/CD Tool: A Framework

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There are plenty of options available when it comes to selecting a CI/CD tool for your organization. A direct feature comparison on third-party websites like G2 can help you get a solid understanding of a tool’s core functionality. 

However, you might still find it challenging to understand whether a tool is capable of meeting your specific requirements, how easy it is to use, or how compliant it is with your industry regulations.

In this blog post, we offer general guidelines for selecting an appropriate CI/CD solution and delve into how TeamCity fits into this framework. We hope it will help you make an informed decision when choosing the best tool for your organization.

Choosing the right CI/CD tool for your needs and goals

The needs for a CI/CD solution can vary greatly between teams, and a tool that serves one team perfectly might not be as suitable for another.

Here, we suggest seven main factors to consider when choosing a CI/CD solution for your team.

1. Development workflow. The solution should integrate smoothly into your development workflows without requiring you to write too many custom scripts or plugins.

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3. Pipeline configuration. The tool should offer a flexible setup for environments, security checks, approvals, and more to allow the proper flow of artifacts and dependencies between build steps.

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5. Feedback and analysis. The CI/CD solution should provide comprehensive feedback on multiple levels, from error messages to infrastructure performance, to ensure fast problem resolution and an uninterrupted delivery process.

6.  

7. Scalability and maintenance. Moving from one tool to another can take months of work, which makes it very important to use a solution that will cover all of your future needs from the outset.

8.  

9. Security. It’s critical to prevent malicious actors from stealing your source code, hacking into your infrastructure, or compromising the end product.

10.  

11. Cost efficiency. When evaluating a CI/CD solution, it’s not only crucial to look at the price of a license or a subscription but also the operational and maintenance expenses.

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13. Usability and support. Every developer, even without prior experience in continuous delivery, should be able to understand how their project is built and deployed, and how to effectively use the tool to deliver changes faster.

14.  

15. Hosting model. Depending on your company’s needs, you might consider using a cloud or self-hosted solution. Both options have their advantages, so the final choice entirely depends on your specific needs.

All modern solutions offer essential features, such as Docker support, configuration as code, or automatic building of pull requests. For smaller projects, the differences between these solutions may not be as significant.

However, as your team grows and your workflows become more complex, it becomes increasingly difficult to set up the pipelines correctly and ensure they function as intended. In such cases, your experience with different CI/CD tools may vary greatly.

💡See also: Best Continuous Integration Tools for 2023 ‒ Survey Results

Source: Developer Ecosystem Report 2022

Development workflow

When evaluating a continuous integration tool, it is important to understand to what extent the tool can be customized to your workflow, and to what extent your team will need to adjust its processes to the tool. Consider the following aspects:

Diversity of your change workflows

Your team may require the ability to build every pull request, run the pipeline when someone commits to a specific branch, or trigger a build when a particular user changes files within a particular directory.

Sometimes, you may need to run the build pipeline without committing changes to the repository to ensure that you never commit broken code and avoid negatively affecting your team members’ efforts.

💡See also: Pre-Tested Commit: No broken code in your version control

Your code may be distributed across multiple version control systems (VCSs) of different types or live in a monorepo. You may need to rebuild and redeploy the application whenever an external dependency, such as a Maven package or a Docker container, is updated.

By carefully evaluating a CI/CD tool’s support for your specific change workflows, you can ensure that the tool is a good fit for your team and minimize the need for changes in your own processes.

Docker and non-Docker workflows

While Docker can provide a convenient and efficient approach to building many types of applications, there are situations where running on an actual OS is necessary. For instance, if your application relies on integration with a hardware component that cannot be accessed from a Docker container, you may require an OS-based workflow.

Similarly, a Docker-based workflow may be insufficient for your team’s needs if your software requires interaction with an OS, such as when developing a system driver or a Windows service.

When choosing the best CI tool for your team, evaluate your specific project requirements and consider the advantages and limitations of both approaches.

Team maturity

Teams just beginning their journey with continuous integration may be more flexible in adapting their workflow to fit a particular solution. Thus, tools with fewer configurable options may provide a simpler and more streamlined user experience.

In contrast, highly skilled teams that precisely understand their needs may find all-inclusive DevOps platforms limiting, as these solutions might not offer the required level of flexibility and customization.

Ease of migration

When selecting a new CI/CD tool, ease of migration should be one of the key considerations. In many cases, it may be simpler to migrate to a standalone solution rather than to a complete DevOps platform. This way, users can migrate in batches, you’ll have to write fewer manual integrations, and it will minimize disruption to your development workflows.

Organizational aspects

It’s vital to consider the culture and policies of your organization, particularly if teams are encouraged to select their own development tools.

Keep in mind that some team members may resist changes to their workflow, especially if they are comfortable and familiar with their current tools.

Development workflow support in TeamCity

TeamCity is an excellent fit for the following workflows:

• Support for multiple VCSs.

• Ability to run CI/CD processes without committing.

• Granular control of changes (filtering by branches, usernames, file masks, etc.).

• Trigger-defined parameters.

• Comprehensive API to integrate with other tools.

While it may be tricky to choose between the streamlined experience of a platform and the flexibility of a standalone tool, the good news is that one doesn’t necessarily prevent you from using the other.

Since it’s common for teams to use multiple CI/CD tools concurrently, you might as well use a combination of a standalone solution and an all-inclusive DevOps platform as long as there’s proper integration between the two.

Pipeline configuration

Every team has its own unique workflow and requirements, which makes using a customizable solution that fully meets your needs vital. Here are the different types of pipeline configuration that you might consider when choosing a CI/CD tool.

UI and code-based configuration

Some tools offer a UI-based configuration approach that provides an easy way to get started and maintain the setup, as the pipelines can be configured without any special knowledge.

All modern tools support configuration as code, which gives you a versioned configuration history.

Many tools use YAML configurations, which provide a very straightforward way to automate the building and testing of simple apps. However, managing YAML files can become increasingly difficult as the team and infrastructure become more complex.

For large-scale projects, it might be more effective to configure CI/CD using a fully-fledged  programming language, which allows using loops, conditional statements, and other language constructs. In addition, it makes it easy to write the configuration code in an IDE and take advantage of its refactoring and debugging features.

Workflow customization

Customization is a critical aspect of selecting continuous integration and continuous delivery software, as it allows teams to create pipelines that match their specific build and deployment workflows.

Depending on the trigger event, such as a code commit, a dependency update, or a scheduled trigger, teams may want to customize the build environment, scope of testing, Docker image tag, and other pipeline components.

If you need to execute specific steps sequentially on the same build agent (for example, you might want to start a Windows service and then run a build on the same system), the chosen tool should provide the ability to set this up exactly as needed.

Environment configuration

When selecting a CI/CD tool, it is essential to consider the level of customization it provides in terms of environment configuration. Specifically, teams should be able to choose the build environment that best fits their requirements, whether using Docker containers, cloud build agents, bare metal servers, or hybrid options.

💡See also: TeamCity’s Build Infrastructure Features

Pipeline optimization

As discussed in the Scalability section above, there are various optimization techniques that can help teams to complete builds faster and shorten the feedback loop.

One key optimization technique is the ability to cache dependencies, which can help minimize build times by avoiding having to download and install dependencies every time a build is run. Additionally, the ability to reuse build artifacts can further reduce build times, as previously-built components can be reused in subsequent builds.

Parallelizing tests across multiple build agents is another effective way to optimize pipelines in large projects. By spreading tests across multiple build agents, teams can reduce the time required to run all tests, helping to shorten the feedback loop and ensure that issues are identified and addressed more quickly.

💡Parallel tests revolutionized how we develop and test TeamCity. Our own integration tests have become over 10x faster, dropping from four hours to about 20 minutes.

Artifact management

Producing and propagating artifacts is essential to any CI/CD pipeline. Artifacts allow your builds to “communicate” and pass the data from one build to another.

By choosing a tool that can store artifacts, you can store the data produced by your builds for further analysis and debugging.

Feedback and analysis

The primary purpose of CI/CD is to shorten the time it takes to receive feedback on the changes you make to your software. The most actionable feedback is the one that is directly tied to specific code changes and provides information about the status of builds and deployments, as well as changes in performance and quality metrics.

When evaluating a CI/CD solution, the following aspects must be considered:

Analysis of build results

CI/CD solutions should provide a detailed analysis of build results, including information on failed tests, build times, error logs, and other key metrics. This information should be easily accessible and presented in a way that allows developers to identify and address issues quickly.

Trends

It is important for tools to provide trend analysis capabilities, allowing teams to track changes in build and deployment performance over time. This can help teams to identify patterns and trends and proactively address potential issues before they become more serious.

Performance monitoring

To identify bottlenecks and resolve issues that affect the efficiency of the CI/CD process, it is critical to be able to profile the performance of build agents and identify the need to provision more resources to the build infrastructure.

Performance monitoring in TeamCity

VCS and issue tracker integration

By integrating with the version control system and the issue tracker, a CI/CD tool opens more ways to provide feedback.

Flaky test detection

It’s important for a continuous integration tool to be able to analyze and detect flaky tests. To shorten the feedback loop and speed up your development process, look for a tool that can identify flaky tests for you and highlight them in the test results.

Scalability and maintenance

Software projects tend to grow in size and complexity. A reliable CI/CD system must be able to handle this growth and keep pace with the growing number of pipelines, builds, users, roles, and workflows.

To ensure that your team is never held back, the system should be able to efficiently manage resources and be equipped with monitoring and maintenance tools to resolve any issues that arise quickly.

The following factors will help you understand the level of scalability required for your team.

User management

In small-scale projects, it’s usually sufficient to have basic role-based access rules that define who can trigger builds, view build results, or modify the pipeline configuration. Large teams require more advanced features, such as LDAP integration or single sign-on (SSO) support, two-factor authentication, project hierarchy, granular permission management, approval workflows, and audits.

💡See also: TeamCity’s User Management Features

Pipeline optimizations

As the frequency of commits and the complexity of workflows increases, it becomes important to utilize the resources of the CI/CD efficiently. This can be done by reusing build artifacts and minimizing the number of unnecessary rebuilds, reordering build queues, parallelizing tests, and via other similar features.

Project templates

The larger your organization is, the more you will benefit from using project templates. By standardizing typical workflows, you can significantly reduce the effort required to create and maintain pipelines, improve collaboration between teams, prevent misconfigurations, and increase the security of your CI/CD pipelines.

In this case study, Gearbox, an award-winning game development company, shares how they were able to streamline their CI/CD processes and standardize their CI/CD practices with the help of TeamCity’s reusable project templates.

Read the complete case study

Performance and fault tolerance

As the number of projects grows and the demand for computing resources increases, it becomes more challenging to scale the build infrastructure and mitigate the risks of potential downtimes.

Typical requirements of large companies include automated provisioning of build agents (such as by integrating with cloud platforms) and the ability to organize build agents in pools for easier management.

Enterprise-level solutions pay a lot of attention to high-availability features, such as the ability to run multiple application servers in a clustered environment and smart load balancing.

Maintenance and upgrade

To identify and resolve issues in the CI/CD setup, administrators should have the monitoring and logging tools and be able to increase resources, implement caching mechanisms, or update artifact retention policies when needed.

Special attention should be given to upgrading the solution. Some tools rely on external plugins so heavily that upgrading them without breaking existing functionality may be difficult or even impossible.

A scalable CI/CD solution may not be crucial for small teams and projects with limited complexity. However, as the size of the team and the complexity of the project increase, it becomes one of the most critical aspects of the software development process.

How TeamCity supports scalability

TeamCity can support projects of any size, including projects with a vast amount of dependencies. It can scale automatically during periods of high load. One instance of TeamCity Server can stably work with 1,000+ build agents.

💡Read more: Solving Build Server Scalability Issues

Security features

Security is a major consideration for any software development process, and it is especially critical for CI/CD, as CI/CD tools are given trusted access to sensitive data and systems.

When evaluating a solution, look at the security features from two main perspectives:

1. Security of the service. With new threats and vulnerabilities emerging every day, the solution must ensure that potential attackers can’t get access to your source code, secret keys, build infrastructure, or build results.

2. Security of the end product. Many CI/CD tools allow integrating security checks into the build pipelines to ensure that the resulting software doesn’t have vulnerabilities that can be exploited.

Some teams tend to prioritize speed and efficiency over security, which can lead to shortcuts and neglect of security best practices. Integrated platforms generally provide an easier way to secure CI/CD at the cost of “vendor-locking” you into their ecosystem and workflows.

💡Check out our whitepaper “9 Ways To Prevent a Supply Chain Attack on Your CI/CD Server” for additional security tips.

Cost efficiency

As pipelines become more complex and team sizes grow, the price of a license or subscription can become less important compared to other factors that can affect the effectiveness of the CI/CD system:

• Statistically, by reordering the build queue and minimizing redundant builds, teams can save at least 30% of the build time and associated costs.

• The more tools and services your CI/CD supports out of the box, the less the chance you’ll have to write and maintain custom scripts and external integrations. This can drastically affect maintenance costs.

• Additionally, most teams have peak periods (usually during release times) when any failures of the continuous integration tool can significantly impact the company’s business. This is one of the challenges that can hardly be evaluated without having actual experience with a particular CI/CD solution. Still, it is possible to understand how it handles such issues by reading reviews and feedback from other teams regarding work on similar tasks.

 

Ultimately, the total cost of ownership of a CI/CD solution depends on your team’s specific needs and requirements. As a general rule, it is prudent to consider the following factors:

Integration costs

Integrating CI/CD with version control systems, issue trackers, build and test frameworks, deployment automation systems, and other tools can be very time-consuming and expensive.

Maintenance costs

Every CI/CD solution requires allocating resources for running regular security audits and keeping the underlying infrastructure up to date, diagnosing and eliminating bottlenecks. In many companies, supporting these processes requires an entire team.

CI/CD efficiency

If your builds are constantly sitting in the queue and you are not getting rapid feedback, this defeats the whole purpose of a CI/CD solution. Such features as dynamic scaling in the cloud, re-using of builds, and test parallelization significantly impact developer efficiency in large companies.

Feedback

To achieve efficient and productive software development, it is essential to have a feedback loop that is not only timely but also actionable. When a build fails, developers should quickly identify the root cause of the issue and see a clear path to a resolution. Often, there is an observable time between being notified of a build failure and fully understanding what needs to be fixed – and this is where a reliable tool can provide immense value.

By analyzing build logs and providing precise information about the issue, the best CI/CD tools can help developers fix any issues quickly and confidently, leading to faster feedback loops and increased overall productivity.

Factors that reduce TeamCity’s cost of ownership:

• Licensing costs

• Infrastructure costs

• Integration costs

• Maintenance costs

Usability and support

Finding the optimal balance between functionality and user experience is a constant challenge for vendors of CI/CD solutions. When evaluating software usability for your team, you should consider the following factors:

UI consistency

As the size of projects increases, it becomes increasingly essential that your CI/CD provides the required functionality without adding unnecessary complexity. When evaluating a solution, ensure that the most critical features are provided by the vendor, not developed by the community.

An intuitive user interface is vital in a CI/CD solution because it helps developers easily and quickly understand and use the solution, even when working with complex processes.

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Example of TeamCity’s UI

External plugins can often introduce navigation issues, feature an unresponsive interface, have conflicting terms and icons, exhibit difficulty adapting to different screen sizes and devices, and lack proper documentation. Regardless of how experienced your team is, an inconsistent user interface will always result in reduced productivity.

“One of the competitors had a very unfriendly UI. The feeling that people should have when they come into a CI/CD system is that it is very sturdy; it won’t break when I try to do anything in it. I think TeamCity has a very well-polished UI. You have confidence that it is a well-working system when you navigate it.”
– Steve Fortier, Lead Release Engineer, Gearbox

Read the complete case study

 

Accessibility

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If a CI/CD system supports accessibility features such as screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation, and high contrast mode, it’s usually a good indicator that it provides a good experience in general.

 

Documentation and support

 

Comprehensive documentation, tutorials, videos, and a supportive community can be essential for effectively using a CI/CD tool. As a rule of thumb, the longer the solution has been available on the market, the higher the chance that you will be able to resolve problems and obtain answers to your questions.

 

API

 

Depending on the specific requirements of your team and the workflow you want to implement, you may need to integrate your CI/CD with external tools. This experience can vary widely depending on the maturity of the API, the availability and quality of its documentation, and how rapidly it changes between versions of the software.

 

Hosting model

 

 

CI/CD solutions can be roughly divided into two categories – cloud and on-premises options.

The cloud option takes the burden of maintaining and scaling the CI/CD processes off your team’s shoulders and allows you to build the pipeline in the cloud.

 

 

Meanwhile,  on-premises solution will enable you to host your CI/CD behind the security of your firewall, complying with the strictest security regulations and requirements.

 

 

Final thoughts

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Choosing a CI/CD tool for your organization depends on many factors. In this blog post, we’ve provided you with the key factors you might want to consider when researching the best fit for your team or organization.

 

 

Feel free to share your questions or comments in the section below. We’ll be happy to answer them.

 

 

Happy building!

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September 6, 2023:

JetBrains Academy’s New Projects and Topics: September Update

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September is a month of change and excitement, and we’re here to make it even more inviting with our latest updates. Our team has prepared four new Python projects and more than 90 new educational topics.

Let’s look at these updates in more detail.

Python

🆕 Project: Rhythm Store (Beta). Medium.

In this project, you will learn the basics of SQL, testing your skills with complex queries using an e-commerce database: tracking orders, products, employees, and other vital data. If you love to deal with complex databases, this project is for you.

🆕 Project: Text-Based Adventure Game (Beta). Hard.

Explore the history of gaming!
Back in the day, video games – like Colossal Cave Adventure –  were mostly text-based adventures with no fancy graphics. In this project, you’ll get to make a text-based game with your own story, learning how to utilize “if” statements, array lists, dictionaries, and loops. You will also learn the basics of file handling.

🆕 Project: House Classification (Beta). Hard.

Welcome to our Amsterdam real estate challenge, in which you’ll predict house prices using machine learning with loads of categorical data. Learn how to use different data encoders and dive into master data manipulation and decision tree algorithms, the key to unlocking the secrets of Amsterdam’s housing market!

🆕 Project: Bike Shop. Challenging.

You’ll create a web application for a bike shop that allows customers to customize their bikes and checks whether the necessary parts are in stock. In this project, you will learn about general Django concepts and master Django ORM (object-relational mapping). As a result, you’ll create an application with separate pages for each object in a database – bikes, in this case.  Ready for a ride? Let’s go!

🆕 Topics: 

• Python: Key concepts of asyncio

• Data science instruments: Introduction to Airflow, Preprocessing categorical features with pandas, Data types in pandas, Introduction to PyTorch, Naive Bayes with scikit-learn, Agglomerative clustering in scikit-learn

• Machine learning: Agglomerative clustering

• NLP: BERT Transformer, Introduction to machine translation, Text classification, Contextualized embeddings

 

Furthermore, we’ve released the Random Forest from Scratch, Databases for Sales, and Nobel Laureates projects from Beta with improved features and functionality for learners.

Kotlin

🆕 Topics: 

• Additional instruments: Introduction to kotlinx-cli, Libraries overview, Cloud Firestore, Firebase authentication, Firebase Realtime Database, Firebase storage, SQLDelight, SQLDelight: advanced use, Working with JDBC

• Advanced features: Contracts, Require, check, and assert

• Android: Spans, Themes and styles

• Ktor: Intercepting routes, Ktor Client: first view, Custom plugins

• Object-oriented programming: Building your own delegate

 

Additionally, the JSON Database project was released from Beta.

C++

🆕 Topics: For loop statement, If/else conditional statement, Jump statements, Switch conditional statement, While loop statement, Functions, Overloaded functions, Parameters and arguments in functions, Return in functions, Arithmetic operators, Comparison operators, Increment and decrement operators, Logical operators, Operator precedence and associativity rules

Java

🆕 Topics: Greedy algorithms, Convert text input, Introduction to HashSet

Go

🆕 Topic: CRUD operations – update

Frontend

🆕 Topics: 

• Vue.js: Installation, What is Vue 3?, v-for, v-model, Data and methods

• TypeScript: Boolean, number, string, null, undefined and literal types, Compiling TypeScript, Variables and type annotations

• JavaScript: IndexedDB, Canvas: pixel manipulation, Canvas: working with images

 

Additionally, the URL Shortener project was released from Beta.

System administration and DevOps

🆕 Topics: Expressions, Multiple stage building, Running a pod with a simple application, Utilization of resources in a pod

Math

🆕 Topic: Probabilities as frequencies

Projects marked as Beta are still in the early stages of testing. If you’re interested in checking out Beta projects on the platform, make sure the Beta-tester feature is enabled in your profile settings.

That’s it for this month! 

We hope that you find these updates valuable and that they will enhance your learning experience. As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at academy@jetbrains.com, or share your thoughts with us on Twitter or Facebook.

Happy learning!

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September 18, 2023:

Introducing the Space integration for Jira Cloud

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We believe that well-organized processes are crucial for building software efficiently. With this in mind, we're taking an issue-centric approach to software development that seamlessly integrates coding into the pipeline, boosting developer productivity and reducing friction.

As an extensible platform, Space aims to provide a similar issue tracking experience for both external issue trackers and Space issues. Today, we're happy to take the first step and introduce the Space integration for Jira Cloud, which allows you to:

• Preview Jira issues in Space

• Create Jira issues from Space

• Automatically link Jira issues to commits and merge requests

For more information and to install the integration, head over to this page

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October 13, 2023:

updates and improvements to YouTrack

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Knowledge Base Updates

This release includes a handful of features designed to make your knowledge base experience even better.

Feature

Description

Inline Comments

With inline comments, you can now annotate specific parts of text from articles in the knowledge base. This lets you express your thoughts and ask questions related to the highlighted content. You can also use this feature to start and resolve threaded discussions directly in an article.

PDF Export

A new option lets you export articles as PDF files, which means you can share content from your knowledge base anywhere you like, online or off.

Article Statistics

Starting from the 2023.2 release, you can track how many people are viewing and linking to your content.

Helpdesk Improvements

Following the initial release of helpdesk projects in YouTrack 2023.1, we listened to your feedback and added some valuable new features to enhance your support experience.

Feature

Description

CCs

Tickets in helpdesk projects now include the option to add reporters and other users as CCs. This means you can keep all concerned parties up to date on every response and interaction.

Creating Tickets for Other Users

Helpdesk agents can now create tickets on behalf of any other user in the system. New search queries have been added to help agents and reporters find these tickets.

Other Enhancements

Feature

Description

Zero Inbox for the Notification Center

You now have the ability to mark reactions and mentions as read, which means you can see an empty feed when you have read all your notifications.

Updated Workspace Settings for Lite UI

The workspace preferences that let you customize the positions of the panels for custom fields and links in YouTrack Classic are now available in YouTrack Lite as well.

Smart Suggestions for Search Queries

We've improved the logic behind the auto-completion for search queries to de-prioritize suggestions that are not likely to return matches. This means you should always see suggestions that are relevant to your current context as you refine your search criteria.

Invitations for New Users from Project Settings

YouTrack now sends invitations to new users who are added to a project team using their email address. This helps you create accounts for new teammates directly in the project settings.

Okta Synchronization

We've updated the built-in authentication module for Okta to let you sync group memberships and custom attributes on a set schedule.

New Options for Opening the Command Dialog

A new option in the Apply Command dialog in YouTrack Lite lets you choose whether to open the dialog using a standard keyboard shortcut or by pressing any key. This means you can limit this action so you don't trigger it accidentally.

Turkish Language Support

Thanks to contributions from our community translation project, you can now start using YouTrack in Turkish.

This new language option is available at the global level or as a per-user preference.

Discontinued Features

Feature

Description

Custom Shortcut Schemes

We have removed support for custom keyboard shortcut schemes. This means that administrators can only select the default shortcut scheme or the alternative scheme for Slavic-language keyboards.

Jabber Notifications

Given the ongoing decline in popularity compared to other messaging platforms, we have decided to discontinue support for notifications over Jabber (XMPP).

MSI Distribution

Starting from YouTrack 2023.2, we no longer distribute the application as a Windows Installer package. System administrators will need to use another distribution to upgrade an existing MSI installation. We recommend that you upgrade your installation using our Docker Container.

Integration with Upsource

As JetBrains has discontinued technical support for Upsource, we have also dropped support for integrations between Upsource and YouTrack.

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October 25, 2023:

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What’s New in Datalore Enterprise 2023.5

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Datalore Enterprise 2023.5 is out! The new version enables you to conveniently open recent notebooks from the editor, features database connections using custom JDBC drivers, Snowflake, and BigQuery OAuth authentication methods, and brings a number of other improvements and bug fixes.

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New Open notebook dialog in the editor

You can now conveniently open recent notebooks right from the editor. Head to the Main menu, click on File, and choose Open. From here, you can either search for a particular notebook or pick one from your Recent activity list.

New Open notebook dialog in the editor

Custom JDBC driver support

The latest update allows you to connect to databases not natively supported in Datalore Enterprise with custom JDBC drivers. Get in touch with your Datalore administrator and direct them to the Admin panel | Miscellaneous. From there, they can use the New custom database driver dialog to select and upload the necessary driver files from the local system.

Custom JDBC driver support in Datalore

Snowflake and BigQuery OAuth authentication methods

Securely connect to Snowflake and BigQuery with OAuth directly from Datalore Enterprise. Select this option within the authentication methods available in the New Snowflake / BigQuery connection dialog. You can choose whether this authentication works for just one session (without tokens) or for multiple sessions and users (with tokens).

Snowflake and BigQuery OAuth authentication methods in Datalore

Other improvements and bug fixes

• Datalore now offers table name parametrization to keep your data secure from SQL injection via an unsafe parameter filter in the query syntax.

• Sessions for each data source are started proactively (as soon as the machine starts up) to make sure all SQL cells used in a report are executed in a timely manner.

• We introduced an Empty trash button to clear all deleted items.

• We fixed the issue with multiple Git repos having different authentication keys.

• We added a Note field to the Ban user confirmation dialog to provide reasons for the action.

• Dynamic height is now enabled for more than one cell in a row in the Report builder.

• Users are now notified of interactive report recalculations without delays.

Not yet leveraging Datalore inside your team? Talk to our experts to discuss how Datalore can benefit your data workflows.

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November 10, 2023:

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Power Up Your Pipelines with New Agent Types Available in TeamCity Cloud

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We’re introducing new types of JetBrains build agents to TeamCity Cloud. These new, more powerful agents can handle more intense builds, helping your team to build projects of any complexity.

The new agent types include new ARM Linux machines and the latest versions of the Ubuntu and Windows operating systems.

What are build agents in TeamCity?

In TeamCity, build agents are distributed agents responsible for executing the actual build and deployment processes defined in your build configurations. These agents perform tasks such as compiling code, running tests, packaging applications, and deploying artifacts.

Build agents in TeamCity enable parallel and distributed builds, which are essential for large and complex projects.

In TeamCity Cloud, you can use self-hosted build agents or take advantage of JetBrains-hosted agents. The latter are maintained and configured by JetBrains. They are started on-demand as soon as each new build needs to run.

Thanks to JetBrains-hosted agents, you can start building quickly, as you don’t need to spend time on initial agent setup and maintenance. We are now extending this fleet of agents to ensure more user scenarios are covered.

New operating systems

Previously, TeamCity Cloud offered JetBrains-hosted agents on Ubuntu 20.04 and Windows 2019. In the next two years, these OS versions will come to the end of their standard support timeline (January 2024 for Windows Server 2019 and April 2025 for Ubuntu 20.04).

In order to prepare for the end of this support and meet the growing demand for the latest long-term support versions, we’re now introducing agents on: Ubuntu 22.04 and Windows 2022. The complete list is as follows:

• Windows: Windows-Server-2022-Small (2 vCPU), Windows-Server-2022-Medium (4 vCPU), Windows-Server-2022-Large (8 vCPU), Windows-Server-2022-XLarge (16 vCPU).

• Linux: Ubuntu-22.04-Small (2 vCPU), Ubuntu-22.04-Medium (4 vCPU), Ubuntu-22.04-Large (8 vCPU), Ubuntu-22.04-XLarge (16 vCPU).

The set of preinstalled software and hardware specifications remain the same as for previous versions. See the documentation for further details.

Price

There are two pricing options available for JetBrains agents:

1. You can pay for the exact number of build minutes that an agent is occupied.

2. You can reserve an agent for a month and pay in advance.

Both per-minute and per-month prices haven’t changed and are the same as for the older versions of agents of the same size.

For instance, the price for Windows-Server-2022-Small is the same as for Windows-Small – 20 credits per minute or 150,000 TeamCity Cloud build credits monthly.

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Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions.