What’s New in GitLab 14.9, React 18, and a DIY GitHub Issue Printer?

DJI denies assisting Russia in Ukraine

Chinese drone maker DJI refuted U.S. accusations that its products were being used by Russian forces in Ukraine. The company said it is working with customers to resolve AeroScope issues, which it suspects are caused by power or internet interruptions. DJI is on the U.S. Entity List and prohibited for U.S. military use.

GitLab 14.9 released

GitLab announced version 14.9, adding features such as epic‑to‑epic linking with “related”, “blocks”, or “blocked” relationships, integrated security training, a new environment page design, and rule‑based scan result policies that no longer require direct YAML editing. Deployment approvals can now be handled from the UI, and the environment page shows the latest deployment status. The release also introduces an API for Time‑to‑Restore‑Service metrics and contextual security training for developers.

For more details see https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2022/03/22/gitlab-14-9-released/.

React 18 officially launched

React 18 brings out‑of‑the‑box improvements such as automatic batching, a new startTransition API, and server‑side rendering with Suspense support. Developers can now use Suspense for data fetching in frameworks like Relay, Next.js, Hydrogen, or Remix. The release emphasizes that Suspense is intended to handle any asynchronous operation, not just code loading.

Key new features include:

Automatic batching of state updates across promises, timeouts, and native events.

Transitions to differentiate urgent from non‑urgent updates.

Enhanced Suspense for declarative loading states and better integration with the transition API.

More information is available on the React blog at https://reactjs.org/blog/2022/03/29/react-v18.html.

DIY GitHub issue ticket printer

Developer Andrew Schmelyun created a system that prints each GitHub issue as a receipt‑style ticket. He connected a Raspberry Pi Zero to an old Epson TM‑T88IV printer using PHP and the Escpos library, triggered by GitHub webhooks. The setup prints issue details, supports QR codes, and can be extended to print PRs or merge notifications.

<?php
require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';
use Mike42\Escpos\PrintConnectors\FilePrintConnector;
use Mike42\Escpos\Printer;

$connector = new FilePrintConnector('/dev/usb/lp0');
$printer = new Printer($connector);

$printer->text('Hello, world!');
$printer->feed(2);
$printer->cut();

The project demonstrates a practical use of webhooks, PHP, and low‑cost hardware for developer workflows.