September 2015 Summaries

Scheduled for release on September 22nd, 2015, the platform update introduces a variety of software upgrades and new features, including updates to Cassandra, Chromedriver, Git, PHP, Redis, and RethinkDB. Notably, Go 1.5 is now available, with options to select between version 1.4 and 1.5, while Node.js 4.0.0 and io.js 2.5.0 and 3.3.0 have also been added, albeit with a caution to check compatibility with existing packages before switching to Node.js 4.0.0. Users can immediately test the updated platform by selecting Ubuntu 14.04 LTS v1509 in their Project Settings, which will help identify and address any issues ahead of the final release. The full list of changes can be found in the platform changelog, and readers are invited to discuss the updates on Discord.

Semaphore has introduced new enhancements to its chat and email notification system aimed at reducing unnecessary alerts and improving signal quality. Users can now opt to receive notifications only for failed builds and deployments, minimizing disruption when continuous delivery processes operate smoothly. Additionally, notifications can be filtered based on specific branches and servers, allowing team members to customize alerts using regular expressions for branches and selecting specific servers to exclude. These updates are accessible in the chat notifications settings under "Project settings," and are compatible with platforms like Campfire, Flowdock, HipChat, and Slack. The improvements are designed to streamline communication and focus on critical feedback, and users are encouraged to provide feedback or join discussions on Discord.

Semaphore has announced official support for continuous integration and deployment of Python applications, leveraging the language's popularity due to its clean syntax and extensibility through the Python Package Index (PyPI). Users can set up a free Semaphore account to integrate their Python projects hosted on GitHub or BitBucket, with the platform offering configurable build commands and language settings. Semaphore supports multiple Python versions, each in its own virtual environment with pre-installed packages like pip, mock, pytest, and nose, optimizing build times through caching. Additionally, users can follow tutorials for continuous deployment, specifically for Django applications to Heroku, enhancing the ease of developing and deploying Python projects with Semaphore.

The platform update v1508.1 includes several key enhancements, such as the update of Chromedriver to version 2.18, which now supports Chrome versions 43 to 46. Additionally, the tool for switching between Java versions, change-java-version, has been improved to correctly set the JAVA_HOME environment variable. The update also introduces Ruby 2.1.7 to the platform, which addresses a security vulnerability (CVE-2015-3900) along with various bug fixes. Users interested in a comprehensive list of changes can refer to the platform changelog, and those wishing to engage in discussions about the update are invited to join their Discord community.